The Window

In March, on one of their Sundays, Vane and Sandoval found themselves on Fenwick Street again, and stopped, without discussing it, in front of the door.

“Well,” said Sandoval, “that's over, at least. We won't be seeing Mr. Voss again.”

“I hope not,” said Vane. And then: “Did I ever tell you that I met him? Once. I shared your feeling about him exactly.”

“It would have been hard not to,” said Sandoval. Then he laughed. “And to think I walked past this building for eleven years without knowing it was a back way into your friend's house.”

“Since you do know,” said Vane, “let's go into the alley and look at the windows. I'm uneasy about him, Ray. Even from outside, I think the sight of a friend might do him good.”

The alley was cold and damp and already dark, though the sky above was still bright. Three windows looked down onto it. The middle one was open a few inches.

Sitting beside it, in the last of the daylight, with a blanket over his knees, taking the air with an expression of such bottomless sadness that he looked like a man in a cell, was Adrian Kessler.

“Adrian,” Vane called up. “Adrian, it's Howard. I hope you're better.”

“I am very low, Howard,” said Kessler. “Very low. It won't last long, thank God.”

“You stay inside too much. You should be out here getting the blood moving with the two of us.” He raised his voice. “This is my cousin Ray — Ray, this is Adrian Kessler. Come down and take a turn around the block with us.”

Kessler leaned on the sill and looked at him with something that might have been gratitude. “You are good,” he said. “I would like nothing better. But no. No, it's not possible. I don't dare. It is a genuine pleasure to see you, though — you have no idea.”

“Then we'll stay down here and talk to you from where we are,” said Vane.

“That is exactly what I was going to ask,” said Kessler, and smiled.

The smile had not finished when it was struck off his face.

What replaced it was terror — abject, total, unarguable terror, of the kind that Vane had previously seen only in the faces of people about to be struck by cars. The two men in the alley saw it for perhaps one second before the window came down so hard that the glass rang.

They turned and left the alley without a word. They crossed Fenwick Street in silence and walked two blocks up Massachusetts Avenue before Vane stopped and looked at his cousin. Both of them were gray. There was the same horror in both their faces.

“God forgive us,” said Vane.

Sandoval only nodded, very seriously, and walked on, and did not say another word for a mile.