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association (whether of a criminal or law-enforcement nature was unclear: from the way she was looking at me I doubted that there was any difference between the two for her) between me and Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo.
    After blundering along for a bit, I blurted out a generalized “Aw, fuck it” under my breath, and even took a backhanded swing at the air between me and the old woman; then I made a point of putting her damn-it-to-hell cranberry beans back on the top shelf (now you can climb up there yourself if you want them so much, you mistrustful old biddy).
    She threw her head back in reverse, visibly horrified, and finally cut out the ocular inquisition she’d been conducting.
    Having resolved our personal problems, we went back to our consideration of the hostage situation in progress.
    Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, with surreal nonchalance, had gone back to fiddling around with the remote control, once again aiming it at the two overhead monitors across from the dairy case.
    Matrix, meanwhile, still down on his knees, finally managed to swivel his head in the direction of his handcuffer in search of some indication of what his fate would be; when he saw him madly engaged in what appeared to be a generic operation of product testing, an expression of genuine confusion came over his face.
    I too had begun to wonder if Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo might not be slightly cracked.
    I think I read somewhere (or else I’m completely making it up, who knows; regardless it strikes me as logical and even vaguely scientific) that when you really and truly screw up, whether involuntarily or intentionally, it sometimes happens that your brain is unable to come to grips with the immanence of your actions; in other words, your brain refuses to tell itself the story of what you’ve just done. The result is a temporary
vacatio mentis
, or perhaps we should say fugue state, after which for a short while we behave incongruously, just as, sure enough, once happened to me when it was handbags, so to speak, between me and a sort of girlfriend, and I ended up ordering her out of my car in a part of town that was clearly unsafe for a young woman on foot. I took off, tires screeching (I still remember the sight of her disbelieving face in the rearview mirror), but as soon as I had swerved around the corner I completely forgot where I lived and after driving around at random for a while (which was a real nightmare, now that I think back) I went back to where I’d left her, not so much to make up for what I’d done but rather because I hoped she’d give me directions, or at least to get her to say to me, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going? That way, you idiot!” (I don’t know how germane this example actually is; but anyway.)
    â€œNice work,” Matrix said. Referring to Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo.
    The engineer didn’t bother to reply; instead he set down the remote control on one of the shelves where the fruit was displayed across the aisle, and appeared genuinely curious to see what was coming next. Matrix must have interpreted his silence as a sign of weakness, because he immediately launched into a crescendo of threats intended to win his release, like in a cop movie where coolheaded veteran detectives detect a hint of hesitation in the bad guy, so they walk toward him, unarmed, urging him to shoot as he backs away, trembling, until he collapses, breaks into tears, and hands over the gun.
    â€œAs long as you just handcuffed me, okay . . . but this, here,” and he clarified by shaking his hands and rattling the handcuffs against the metal rail of the dairy case, “this is taking it too far.”
    What struck me was the way he managed, even from his helpless, hunched over position, to be so brazen, and clearly very confident that before long their roles would be reversed.
    Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo must have thought the same thing because he immediately turned