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transportation from place to place?
    Her feet seemed now to be at some enormous distance from her body. Her knees, in the unfamiliar crisp pants, were weighted with irons. She was sinking to the ground like a stricken horse who will never get up.
    Already the bus had loaded on the few passengers and the parcels that had been waiting in this town. A woman and a baby in its stroller were waving somebody good-bye. The building behind them, the cafe that served as a bus stop, was also in motion. A liquefying wave passed through the bricks and windows as if they were about to dissolve. In peril of her life, Carla pulled her huge body, her iron limbs, forward. She stumbled, she cried out, “Let me off.”
    The driver braked, he called out irritably, “I thought you were going to Toronto?” People gave her casually curious looks, nobody seemed to understand that she was in anguish.
    “I have to get off here.”
    “There’s a washroom in the back.”
    “No. No. I have to get off.”
    “I’m not waiting. You understand that? You got luggage underneath?”
    “No. Yes. No.”
    “No luggage?”
    A voice in the bus said, “Claustrophobia. That’s what’s the matter with her.”
    “You sick?” said the driver.
    “No. No. I just want off.”
    “Okay. Okay. Fine by me.”
    “Come and get me. Please. Come and get me.”
    “I will.”
    Sylvia had forgotten to lock her door. She realized that she should be locking it now, not opening it, but it was too late, she had it open.
    And nobody there.
    Yet she was sure, sure, the knocking had been real.
    She closed the door and this time she locked it.
    There was a playful sound, a tinkling tapping sound, coming from the wall of windows. She switched the light on, but saw nothing there, and switched it off again. Some animal—maybe a squirrel? The French doors that opened between windows, leading to the patio, had not been locked either. Not even really closed, having been left open an inch or so from her airing of the house. She started to close them and somebody laughed, nearby, near enough to be in the room with her.
    “It’s me,” a man said. “Did I scare you?”
    He was pressed against the glass, he was right beside her.
    “It’s Clark,” he said. “Clark from down the road.”
    She was not going to ask him in, but she was afraid to shut the door in his face. He could grab it before she could manage that. She didn’t want to turn on the light, either. She slept in a long T-shirt. She should have pulled the quilt from the sofa and wrapped it around herself, but it was too late now.
    “Did you want to get dressed?” he said. “What I got in here, it could be the very things you need.”
    He had a shopping bag in his hand. He thrust it at her, but did not try to come with it.
    “What?” she said in a choppy voice.
    “Look and see. It’s not a bomb. There, take it.”
    She felt inside the bag, not looking. Something soft. And then she recognized the buttons of the jacket, the silk of the shirt, the belt on the pants.
    “Just thought you’d better have them back,” he said. “They’re yours, aren’t they?”
    She tightened her jaws so that her teeth wouldn’t chatter. A fearful dryness had attacked her mouth and throat.
    “I understood they were yours,” he said softly.
    Her tongue moved like a wad of wool. She forced herself to say, “Where’s Carla?”
    “You mean my wife Carla?”
    Now she could see his face more clearly. She could see how he was enjoying himself.
    “My wife Carla is home in bed. Asleep in bed. Where she belongs.”
    He was both a handsome man and a silly-looking man. Tall, lean, well built, but with a slouch that seemed artificial. A contrived, self-conscious air of menace. A lock of dark hair falling over his forehead, a vain little moustache, eyes that appeared both hopeful and mocking, a boyish smile perpetually on the verge of a sulk.
    She had always disliked the sight of him—she had mentioned her dislike to Leon, who said