'It's a street-facing room, sir: said the hotel guy, because Howard had pretended he was staying overnight. 'And it may be a bit noisy today. A march is going through town -if you find it unbearable, please call down to us and we'll see if we can fix you up with something on the other side of the building. Have a nice day.'

They took the elevator up alone and she pressed her hand against his crotch. Room 614. At the door, she pushed him up against the wall and started to kiss him.

'You're not going to run away again, are you?' she whispered.

'No ... wait, let's get inside first: he said, and slid the credit-card key into its sheath. The green light came on, the door clicked. They found themselves in a musty, afternoon room with the curtains closed. There was a cutting little breeze, and Howard could hear muffled chanting. He went over to find the open window.

'Leave the curtains closed -I don't want everybody to see the floor show.'

She dropped her yellow coat to the floor. She stood there in all her youthful glory in the dust -flecked light. Corset, stockings, G-string, garters -not one dreary detail had been neglected.

'Oh! Pardon! Excuse me, please!'

A woman in her fifties, a black woman, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, had emerged from the bathroom with a bucket in her hand. Victoria screamed and sank to the floor to retrieve her coat.

'Sorry, please,' said the woman. 'r clean -later, I come -'

'Didn't you hear us come in?' asked Victoria heatedly, rising swiftly. The woman looked to Howard for mercy. 'I'm asking you a question,' said Victoria, coat draped like a cape over her now. She stepped in front ofher quarry.

'My English -sorry, can you -repeat, please?'

Outside a flurry of whistle-blowing started up.

'For fuckssake -we were clearly in here -you should have made yourself known.' 'Sorry, sorry, pardon,' said the woman, and began to back herself out of the room. 'No,' said Victoria. 'Don't leave -I'm asking you a question. Hello? Speak English?'

'Victoria, please,' said Howard.

'Excuse me, sorry,' continued the maid; she opened the door and, bowing and nodding, made good her escape. The door eased itself slowly to its click. They were left together in the room.

'God, that makes me angry,' said Victoria. 'Anyway. Bollocks. Sorry.' She laughed softly and took a step towards Howard. Howard took a step back.

'[ think that's rather spoilt the...' he said, as Victoria approached, saying shhhh and removing one shoulder of her coat. She pressed her body against his and pushed her thigh gently into his balls. Howard now produced a well-worn phrase that went perfectly with the coat and the corset and the garters and the fluffy-toed mules Victoria had brought along in her schoolbag.

'I'm sorry -rcan't do this!'

'It's very simple. Ah've saved all the images to your hard drive and awl you gotta do is put them in the order that you're gonna need for the lecmre, and you put any quotes or diagrams down, in order -just like a normal word-processing file. And then we've put it all in the right format. See this?' Smith J. Miller leaned over Howard's shoulder and touched his fingers to Howard's keyboard. He had baby breath: warm and odourless and fresh like steam. 'Click and drag. Click and drag. And you can take sruff off the web too. Saved a good Rembrandt site for you, see? Now, that has high-definition images of all the paintings you'll need. 'Kay?'

Howard nodded mutely.

'Now, ah'm going to lunch, but ah'll be back in the afrernoon to pick this up off you and turn it into pah-point. 'Kay? This is the future .'

Howard looked dejectedly at the hardware before him.

'Howard: said Smith, putting a hand to his shoulder, 'this is gonna be a real good lecture. It's a nice atmosphere, it's a nice little gallery, and everybody's on your side. A little wine, a little cheese, a little lecture, everybody goes home. It's gonna be slick, it's gonna be professional. Nothing to worry about. You've done this a million times. 'Cept this time you got a little help from Mr Bill Gates. Now, ah'll be back at about three to pick this up.'

Smith delivered one last squeeze to Howard's left shoulder and picked up his slim briefcase.

'Wait -' said Howard. 'Have we sent all the invitations?'

'Did that in November.'

'Burchfield, Fontaine, French -'

'Howard, everybody who can make a difference for you here has been invited. It's all done. Nothing to worry about. Just need that palt-point finished and we're ready to roll.' 'Did you invite my wife?'

Smith swapped his case to his other hand and looked perturbedly at his employer. 'Kiki? Sorry, Howard ... I mean, I just sent out professional invitations as usual-but if there's a list of friends and family y'all want me to -'

Howard waved the idea away. 'OK, then.' Smith saluted Howard. 'My work here is done. Three 0'clock.'

Smith left. Howard clicked around the website left open for him. He found the list of paintings Smith had mentioned and opened The Sampling OffiCials ofthe Drapers' Guild; more popularly known as The Staalmeesters. In this painting, six Dutclunen, all about Howard's age, sit around a table, dressed in black. It was the Staalmeesters' job to monitor cloth production in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. They were appointed annually and chosen for their ability to judge whether cloth put before them was consistent in colour and quality. A Turkey rug covers the table at which they sit. Where the light falls upon this rug, Rembrandt reveals to us its rich, burgundy colour, the intricacy of its gold stitching. The men look out from the painting, each adopting a different pose. Four hundred years of speculation have spun an elaborate stoty around the image. It is supposedly a meeting of shareholders; the men are seated on a raised dais, as they might be in a modern panel discussion; an unseen audience sits below them, one member of which has just asked the Staalmeesters a difficult question. Rembrandt sits near, but not next to, this questioner; he catches the scene. In his rendering ofeach face the painter offers us a slightly different consideration ofthe problem at hand. This is the moment of cogitation as shown on six different human faces. This is what judgement looks like: considered, rational, benign judgement. Thus the traditional art history.

Iconoclastic Howard rejects all these fatuous assumptions. How can we know what goes on beyond the frame of the painting itself? What audience? Which questioner? What moment ofjudgement? Nonsense and sentimental tradition! To imagine that this painting depicts anyone temporal moment is, Howard argues, an anachronistic, photographic fallacy. It is all so much pseudohistorical storytelling, disturbingly religiOUS in tone. We want to believe these StaaImeesters are sages, wisely judging this imaginary audience, implicitly judging us. But none of this is truly in the picture. All we really see there are six rich men sitting for their portrait, expecting -demanding -to be collectively portrayed as wealthy, successful and morally sound. Rembrandt -paid well for his services -has merely obliged them. The Staalmeesters are not looking at anyone; there is no one to look at. The painting is an exercise in the depiction of economic power -in Howard's opinion a particularly malign and oppressive depiction. So goes Howard's spiel. He's repeated it and written about it so many times over the years that he has now forgotten from which research he drew his original evidence. He will have to unearth some of this for the lecture. The thought makes him very tired. He slumps in his chair.

The portable heater in Howard's office is turned up so high he feels himself to be held. in place by hot, thick air. Howard clicks his mouse, enlarging the image of the painting until it is as big as his computer screen. He looks at the men. Behind Howard, the iades that have decorated his office window for two months melt and drip. In the quad the snow is retreating, and small oases of grass can be seen, although it is important not to derive hope from this: more snow is surely on its way. Howard regards the men. Outside there are bells ringing to mark the hour. There is the clunking sound of the tram linking with its overhead cables, there is the inane chatter of students. Howard looks at the men. History has retained a few of their names. Howard looks at Volckert Jansz, a Mennonite and collector of curiosities. He looks atJacob van Loon, a Catholic cloth-maker, who lived on the comer of the Dam and the Kalverstraat. He looks at the face ofJochem van Neve: it is a sympathetic, spaniel face with kind eyes for which Howard feels some affection. How many times has Howard looked at these men? The first time he was fourteen, being shown a print of the painting in an art class. He had been alarmed and amazed by the way the Staalmeesters seemed to look directly at him, their eyes

Howard pressed the 'zoom' option on his screen. Zoom, zoom, zoom until he was involved only with the burgundy pixels of the Turkey rug.

'Hey, Dad -what's up? Daydreaming"

'Christ! Don't you knock?'

Levi pulled the door to behind himself. 'Not for family, no ... can't say I do.' He perched on the end ofHoward's desk and reached out a hand for his father's face. 'You OK? You sweating, man. Your forehead's all wet. You feel 0 K?'

Howard batted Levi's hand away. 'What do you want?' he asked.

Levi shook his head disapprovingly but laughed. 'Oh, man... that's real cold. Just because I come to see you, you think I want something!, 'Social call, is it?'

'Well, yeah. I like to see you at work, see what's going on with you, you know how it is, being all intellectual in college land. You're like my role model and all that.'

'Right. How much is it, then?' Levi shrieked with laughter. 'Oh, man... you're cold! I can't believe you!' Howard looked at the little clock in the comer of his screen. 'School? Shouldn't you be in school?' 'Well...' said Levi, stroking his chin. 'Technically, yeah. But see they got this rule -the city has a rule that you can't be in class if the temperature in the room is below a certain, like, temperature -I don't know what it is, but that kid Eric Klear knows what it is he brings this thermometer in? And if it drops below that specific temperature, then -well, basically, we all just go home. Not a thing they can do about it.'

'Very enterprising,' said Howard. Then he laughed and looked at his son with fond wonder. What a period this was to live through! His children were old enough to make him laugh. They were real people who entertained and argued and existed entirely independently from him, although he had set the thing in motion. They had different thoughts and beliefs. They weren't even the same colour as him. They were a kind ofmiracle.

'This isn't traditional filial behaviour, you know,' said Howard jovially, already reaching for his back pocket. 'This is being mugged in your own office.'

Levi slipped off the desk and went to look out of the window. 'Snow's melting. Won't last, though. Man,' he said, turning around. 'As soon as I have my own greens and my own life, I'm moving somewhere so hot. I'm moving to, like, Africa. 1 don't even care if it's poor. Long as I'm warm, that's cool with me.'

Twenty ... six, seven, eight -that's all 1 have,' said Howard holding up the contents ofhis wallet.

'I really appreciate that, man. I'm dry and dusty right now.'

'What about that job, for God's sake?'

Levi squirmed a little before confeSSing. Howard listened with his head on the table. 'Levi, that was a good job.' 'I got another one! But it's more ... irregular. And I'm not doing it right now, 'cos 1 got other things cooking, but imma go back to it soon, > cos it's like -' 'Don't tell me,' insisted Howard, closing his eyes. Just don't tell me. 1 don't want to know.'

Levi put the dollars in his back pocket. 'Anyway, so in the meantime 1 got a bit of a cash flow situation. I pay you back, though.'

'With other money I'll have given you.'

'] got a job, ] told you! Chill. a K? Will you chill? You gO!llla give yo'self a heart attack, man. Chill.' Sighing, he kissed his father on his sweaty forehead and closed the door softly on his way out.

Levi did his funky limp through the department and out into the main lobby of the Humanities Faculty building. He stopped here to select a tune that would fit the experience ofstepping out ofthis building and facing the freeze outside. Somebody called his name. He couldn't see at first who it was.

'Yo -Levi. Over here! Hey, man! ] ain't seen your ass in the longest time, man. Put it there.' 'Carl?'

'Yeah, Carl. Don't you even know me now?'

They touched fists, but with Levi frowning all the time.

'What you doing here, man?'

'Damn -didn't you know?' said Carl, smiling cheesily and popping his collar. '] be a college man now!' Levi laughed. 'No, seriously, bro -what you doing here?' Carl stopped smiling. He tapped the knapsack on his back. 'Didn't your sister tell you? I'm a college man now. I'm working here.'

'Here?'

'Black Studies Department. ] just started -I'm an archivist.'

'A what?' Levi transferred his weight to the opposite foot. 'Man, you screwing with me?' 'Nope.' 'You work here. I don't get it -you cleaning?' Levi didn't mean this the way it came out. ]t was just that he had met a lot of Wellington cleaners on the march yesterday, and it was the first thing that came to his mind. Carl was offended.

'No, man, ] manage the archives -] don't clean shit. It's a music library -I'm in control ofthe hip-hop and some R & B and modem urban black music. It's an amazing resource -you should come check it out.'

Levi shook his head, disbeheving. 'Carl, bro, I'm tripping ... you gotta run this past me again. You're working here?'

Carl looked up over Levi's head at the clock on the wall. He had an appointment to get to -he was meeting someone in the Modem Languages Department who was going to translate some French rap lyrics for him.

'Yeah, man -it's not that complicated a concept. I'm working here.'

'But ... You like it here?'

'Sure. Well ... it's a httle tight-assed sometimes, but the Black Studies Department is cool. You can get a lot done in a place like this -hey, I see your dad all the time. He works just down there.' Levi, concentrating on the many strange facts being put before him, ignored this last. 'So, wait: you ain't making music no more)'

Carl shifted the knapsack on his back. 'Aw ... I'm doing a little but ... I don't know, man, the rap game ... it's all gangstas and playas now ... that's not my scene. Rap should be all about proportion, for me, as I see it. And it's hke, you go to the Bus Stop these days, it's all these really angry brothers kinda ... ranting... and I'm not really feeling that, so, well ... you know how it is...'

Levi unwrapped a gum and put it in his mouth without offering Carl one. 'Maybe they got shit they angry about,' said Levi frostily.

'Yeah ... well -look, man -I actually got to run, I got this ... thing -hey, you should come by the library sometime -we're gonna start this open-listening afternoon, where you can pick any record and play it through -we got some really rare shit, so, you should come by. Come by tomorrow afternoon. Why don't you do that?'

'It's the second march tomorrow. We marching all week.'

'March)'

Just then the front doors opened and they were joined, for a moment, by one of the most incredible-looking women either boy had ever seen. She was walking at high speed, past them and on towards the Humanities departments. She was dressed in tight jeans and pink polo neck and high tan boots. A long siiky weave fell down her back. Levi did not connect her with the weeping, shorthaired girl dressed in black that he had seen a month ago, walking, in more sedate and pious mode, behind a coffin.

'Sister -damn!' murmured Carl, loud enough to be heard, but Victoria, practised in ignoring such comments, simply continued along her way. Levi stared after the incendiary rear view.

'Oh, my God...' said Carl, and held his hand to his breast. 'Did you see that booty? Oh, man, I'm in pain: Levi had indeed seen that booty, but suddenly Carl was not the person with whom he wanted to discuss it. He had never known Carl well, but, in the way of a teenage crush, he had thought a great deal ofhim. Just shows what happens when you mature. Levi had obviously matured a hell of a lot since last summer -he'd sensed that about himself and now saw it was true. Feckless brothers like Carl just didn't impress him any more. Levi Belsey had moved on to the next level. It was strange to think ofhis previous self. And it was so strange to stand next to this ex-Carl, this played-out fool, this shell of a brother in whom all that was beautiful and thrilling and true had utterly evaporated.

Howard was preparing to nip out for a bagel from the cafeteria. He rose from his desk -but he had a visitor. She smashed the door open and smashed it closed. She didn't come far into the room. She stood with her back pressed against the door.

'Could you sit down, please?' she said, looking not at him but to the ceiling, as if addressing a prayer upwards. 'Can you sit down and listen and not say anything? I want to say something and then I want to go and that's it: Howard folded his coat in half and sat down with it on his lap.

'You don't treat people like that, right?' she said, still talking to the ceiling. 'You don't do that to me twice. First you make me look like a fool at that dinner and then -you don't leave someone in a hotel by themselves -you don't act like a fucking child -and make someone feel that they're not worth anything. You don't do that: She brought her gaze down at last. Her head was wobbling wildly on her neck. Howard looked to his feet.

'I know you think.' she said, each word tear-inflected, making her hard to understand, 'that you ... know me. You don't know me. This,' she said and touched her face, her breasts, her hips, 'that's what you know. But you don't know me. And you were the one who wanted this -that's all anybody ever ...' She touched the same three places. 'And so that's what 1...'

She wiped her eyes with the hem of her polo neck. Howard looked up. 'Anyway,' she said, 'I want the e-mails 1 sent you destroyed. And I'm dropping out of your class, so you don't have to worry about that.'

'You don't need -' 'You don't have any idea what 1 need. You don't even know what you need. Anyway. Pointless.'

She put her hand to the door handle. It was selfish, he knew, but before she left Howard was desperate to secure from her the promise that this disaster should stay between them only. He stood up and put his hands on the desk but said nothing.

'Oh, and I know,' she said, scrunching her eyes closed, 'that you're not interested in anything 1 have to say, because I'm just a fucking idiot girl or whatever ... but as someone who's relatively objective ... basically, you just need to deal with the fact that you're not the only person in this world. In my opinion. 1 have my own shit to deal with. But you need to deal with that.'

She opened her eyes, turned and left, another noiSY exit. Howard stayed where he was, gripping his coat by its collar. At no point during the past month's debacle had he harboured any genuinely romantic feelings for Victoria, nor did he feel any now, but he did realize, at this late stage, that he actually liked her. There was something courageous there, flinty and proud. It seemed to Howard to be the first time she had spoken to him truthfully, or at least in a manner that he experienced as true. Now Howard put his coat on, shaking as he did so. He came to the door, but then waited a minute, not wanting to risk bumping into her outside. He felt 'Have a nice time?'

Kiki stepped into the room. 'Howard, what's the problem here?'

'I think,' said Howard, releasing Murdoch, who had grown tired of being partially strangled, 'I would have been marginally marginally -less surprised to see you at a meeting of ...'

They began to speak at the same time.

'Howard, what is this? Oh, God -'

' ... of the Ku Klux fucking Klan -no, actually, that would have made a bit more -' 'Kipps's lecture ... Oh, Jesus Christ, that place is like Chinese whispers... Look, I don't need -'

'I don't know what other neo-con events you've got planned no, darling, not Chinese whispers, actually; I saw you, taking notes -I had no idea you were so taken with the great man's work, I wish I'd realized, I could have got you his collected speeches, or -'

'Oh, fuck you -leave me alone.'

Kiki turned to leave. Howard flung himself to the other end of the couch, knelt up and caught her by the arm. 'Where are you going?'

'Away from here.'

'We're talking -you wanted to talk -we're talking.'

'This isn't talking -this is you ranting. Stop it -let go of me. jesus!'

Howard had successfully twisted her arm, and therefore her body; moving her round the couch. Reluctantly she sat down.

'Look, 1 don't need to explain myself to you,' said Kiki, but then immediately went on to do so. 'You know what it is? Sometimes I feel it's always the same viewpoint in this house. And I'mjust trying to get all points of view. I don't see how that's a crime, just trying to expand your -'

'In the interest of balance,' said Howard in the nasal voice of an American TV commentator.

'You know, Howard, all you ever do is rip into everybody else. You don't have any beliefs -that's why you're scared of people with beliefs, people who have dedicated themselves to something, to an idea.'

'You're right -I am scared of fascistic loons -I'm -my mind is boggling -Kiki, this man wants to destroy Roe v. Wade. That's just for starters. This man -'

Kiki stood up and started shouting. 'That is not what this is about -I don't give a rat's ass about Monry Kipps. I'm talking about you -you're terrified ofanyone who believes anything -look how you treatJerome -you can't even look at him, because you know he's a Christian now -we both know it -we never talk about it. Why! You just make jokes about it, but it's not funny -it's not funny to him -and it just seems like you used to have some idea of what you ... I don't know ... what you believed and what you loved and now you're just this -'