"Hello, Dana," she said. "I'm glad you could come. Our daughter just fell asleep, too bad you missed her. She doesn't usually go to bed so early, but she had a birthday party in the afternoon and she was tired."

I couldn't answer. "Excuse me, I don't feel well," I said, and escaped to the bathroom. There I sat on the edge of the bath and tried to find a way to resurface. I wanted everything Graciela had, except maybe for the flat, because I loved our place, and when we moved it would be into a house Daniel designed. It would be as elegant, as sophisticated, as this apartment. But the rest hurt me. Once, a long time ago, I too wore beautiful clothes. And their daughter, their daughter! I was thirty-seven.

Rafi knocked on the door. "Dana? Everything okay?"

"Yes."

He'd lied to me. He said he would protect me and he did the opposite. He flaunted it all.

"Can I come in?"

"If you want."

Rafi came into the washroom, leaned against the sink.

"It's not what you think," he said.

"I don't think anything."

Graciela joined him in the washroom. She was holding an open box of chocolates. She ignored Rafi and sat down next to me, offered me a chocolate. "These are very special," she said. "Handmade, from France. My parents bring me a box every time they go to Europe. I'm sure you'll like them. What's your favorite flavor? Do you like coconut?"

"Yes, thank you."

"We mix up all our courses here. Chocolates first, then dessert, then the main course ..."

I couldn't tell whether she was joking because her voice was so controlled and careful. Her movements were controlled too. She was as unhappy as I was.

The meal was in fact a little chaotic-not because the courses were served in reverse order, but because Rafi and Graciela were both so frantically solicitous toward me. They fussed and fretted as though I were an honored but fragile guest. Volvo was stunned into silence for the first time since I had known him; he was wondering whether he'd missed something, because wasn't he the one without legs, wasn't he the one who deserved attention and pity and love? And so he sat there quietly, puzzling it out. And he ate voraciously. He loved food.

They were both solicitous, but each one separately, as though they were not connected in any way and had not been introduced. They never spoke to one another, only to me. There was a routine: Graciela in charge of serving, Rafi in charge of salad and washing up; they didn't negotiate anything.

"Where do you live?" Graciela asked me.

"Opposite the City Beach Hotel."

"I know that hotel. Friends of my parents often stay there. It must be nice to be so close to the sea."

"Yes, and we're all friends in the building."

"Really! That's very nice. How many are you?"

"Me and Volvo on the first floor. Tanya and her mother and Jacky on the second. Benny's on the top floor. Tanya used to be a prostitute but now she's a fortune-teller. Benny drives a taxi."

"And Jacky?"

"You know him, Jacky Davidson. The rock singer."

"Really! I heard he went crazy."

"Yes, he's pretty crazy. But he manages. We all help him out."

"Who looks after his money? He could get ripped off."

"No, his sister looks after all that, though there isn't much, you know. Rock stars don't get rich in this country."

"That's true. Still, there would be royalties ... What about Tanya, is she good?"

"She has lots of clients."

"I would like to have my fortune told. But I'm always afraid. I'm afraid they'll see something bad."

"They don't tell you the bad things."

"I'd be able to tell, all the same, by the look on their faces."

"Do you perform?" I asked.

She smiled for the first time since I'd arrived. "Yes. I guess you don't follow classical music very much."

"No, I don't like going to hear music alone. Sorry, are you famous?"

"Well, not internationally. I only perform here, and we're such a small country that it's not hard to become well known."

"Do you think you'll have an international career one day?"

"Who knows? I'm getting better all the time, but I never go to competitions, that's the problem."

"Why not?"

"I hate them."

"When's your next concert?"

"I have a recital coming up in February that I'm working on now."

"What pieces will you be playing?"

"Mendelssohn, Songs Without Words. Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat, Ballades One and Four. Beethoven's Appassionata."

"A romantic program," I said.

"Yes. I'm doing a Bach concerto in the spring, though. The D Minor."

She ate very little. "I'm on a special diet," she explained. "For my joints. There are all these foods I can't eat. But please don't pay attention to me."

"My husband is very musical," I said. "He can play jazz on the piano, even though he never had lessons and he can't read music. He just likes improvising. But music is only a hobby for him. I wish I were musical."

"I don't understand why you can't find him," she said. "Surely the police know where every citizen lives."

"He was clever, he rented a tiny room in the city. And the police said, Well, this is his address, what more do you want? But it was just a cover-he wasn't living there, he was living somewhere else. Someone was collecting his mail at this place, and someone also left notes on the door: Back soon, gone to the supermarket, things like that. Someone was in on it, I don't know who. I never found out. Someone in this country knows where he is."

"Did you try writing to him at that address?"

"Yes, of course, but my letters were never picked up. His other mail was picked up, but not my letters. That really hurt me. I stopped trying."

"Is the room still rented?"

"Someone else lives there now. I stopped going after a few months-I saw it was hopeless. A year later I looked in again, and an old couple was living in the flat. I've been back a few times, but it's always the same story: the old couple, wondering what I want."

"Did you try the police again?"

"I tried everything: the government, the army, the police. I didn't get anywhere. They all had that address, the fake one, and that's the one they kept giving me. That's where his disability checks go. But the old couple doesn't know anything about it. They're immigrants, they barely seem to know where they are."

"Have you tried someone higher up in the army?"

"Yes. I mean, I meet all sorts of army people, and once this woman really tried to help me. She looked Daniel up on her computer and I could tell she wasn't really supposed to, that she was doing it because she thought I should know and that he shouldn't be hiding from me. Maybe she just liked me. She looked and looked and typed in all sorts of things, but she couldn't find anything apart from his fake address."

"Maybe you just need someone higher up than that woman."

"She was very high up. Or rather she was the secretary of someone high up. She could have got into trouble probably, but she went ahead. And she couldn't find anything."

"Please have more to eat," Graciela said, handing Volvo a bowl of breaded zucchini. "Rafi made all this especially for you."

"Thank you," I said. "Everything's delicious, really exceptional."

"His mother's recipes."

"Not bad," Volvo admitted.

Rafi didn't say anything. He looked at me and Volvo and his wife, and he seemed slightly worried, as if the three of us were floating in space and he was wondering whether we would eventually land and whether the landing would go smoothly.

We didn't stay long because Volvo began complaining that his hemorrhoids were bothering him. I didn't realize until I was in Rafi's van how tense I'd been all evening. It was a strain, talking to Graciela; it was like talking to someone through a screen, or through water. It made me think of dreams in which I tried to phone someone but the phone wasn't working properly and I kept getting wrong numbers or operator interference.

Rafi drove through the quiet streets. He parked in front of our building, carried Volvo into his flat, and lowered him gently onto the bed. I organized Volvo's tray for the night: sunflower seeds, the newspaper, vitamins, his emergency beeper, an ice pack. He watched me with a look of disdain, but in fact he liked it when people did things for him.

"Have fun," Volvo said bitterly as we were leaving. "As for me, I may as well have had my cock blown off as well."

"Did you? Did you lose your cock?" Rafi asked.

"His cock is perfectly fine," I said. "Trust me."

"In theory," Volvo said.

"Good night, Volvo."

"Who's coming tomorrow?" he asked.

"Joshua."

"God help me. Joshua-one foot in the grave, totally senile, drool constantly hanging from the left side of his mouth. This is what I'm stuck with. Well, have fun. She has lots of lovers, by the way," he told Rafi. "Including a woman."

"Thanks for letting me know," Rafi said.

"Well, two or three anyhow."

"Glad you're keeping count."

"I'm not keeping count. If I were, I'd know whether it was two or three. Or maybe more."

We left Volvo and entered my flat.

"Dana! What happened here?"

"What do you mean?"

"It looks as if someone was here looking for your heroin stash."

"I'm just messy. Sorry."

"No you're not. You're not sorry at all."

"I am. I wish I were neater. I try, but somehow I can never manage it."

"Dana, do you want me to ask our cleaning woman to pay you a visit? Mercedes, she's really good."

"Okay. We had someone when Daniel was here, but I let her go after he vanished because I was broke for a while. Then I started making money, but I never rehired her. It isn't dusty, at least."

"How can you possibly tell?" Rafi laughed.

He began inspecting the flat, like a cat sniffing a new place.

He started with the living room, then moved to the kitchen, stared at the wall painting of the two train windows.

"Who did this?"

"Someone from Daniel's firm-I never met her, she did it while I was at work."

He kept staring at the painting. "The letters of his name are hidden everywhere," he said.

"Whose name?"

"Daniel's."

"Really?"

"Yes, look. The legs of the cows, and here, on the barn door, and all over the window curtains. And the grass."

"I never noticed! And neither did Daniel ...maybe she had a crush on him."