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so much?
    â€œWill you excuse me for a minute?”
    She glided over to the pianist. Her smile, once more, was that of a woman automatically bent on seduction, who would be outraged if the beggar she gave a few cents to on the street refused her a look of admiration.
    She returned to the table, beaming, eyes sparkling with irony, and she was right, in a sense, since it was on his behalf— at least on their behalf—that she had tried to be charming.
    The fingers running over the keyboard shifted cadences, and now it was the melody from the little bar that thrummed in the rose-tinted dimness. She listened to it, lips half parted, the smoke from her cigarette drifting up in front of her face like incense.
    As soon as the melody ended, she made a small nervous gesture. Then she stood up, gathered her cigarettes, lighter, and gloves, and told him, “Pay the check. Let’s go.”
    She turned to him as he fumbled in his pocket and said, “You always tip too much. Forty cents is plenty here.”
    More than anything else, it was taking possession, taking it quietly, and without any argument. He said nothing. At the cloakroom, she said, “Leave a quarter.” And outside, “Let’s not bother taking a taxi.”
    To where? Was she so sure they were going to stay together? She didn’t even know he’d kept their room at the Lotus, but he knew she was sure he had.
    â€œShall we take the subway?”
    At least she’d asked for his opinion, and he replied, “Not right away. I’d rather walk for a bit.”
    Like the night before, they were at the bottom of Fifth Avenue, and already he wanted to do everything the same again. He wanted to walk with her, to turn the same corners, maybe even to stop at that strange cellar where they had drunk whiskey together that first night.
    She was tired, he knew. It was difficult for her to walk in her high heels. But the idea of revenge, of making her suffer a little, wasn’t displeasing. He wondered if she’d complain. It was a kind of test.
    â€œWhatever you like.”
    Were they going to talk things over now? He wanted to, and he was afraid to. He wasn’t in any more of a hurry to learn about Kay’s life than he was to talk about his own, above all to tell her who he was, since at heart it pained him to be taken for just anyone, even more to be loved as just anyone.
    The night before, she hadn’t blinked when he told her his name. Perhaps she hadn’t heard it right. Perhaps she hadn’t connected the name of the man she had met in Manhattan at three in the morning with the name she had seen in big letters plastered on the walls of Paris.
    They passed a Hungarian restaurant and she asked, “Have you ever been to Budapest?”
    She wasn’t waiting for an answer. He answered that he had been to Budapest, but obviously it didn’t matter. He felt a confused hope that at last this was a chance to talk about himself; instead she talked about herself.
    â€œWhat a lovely city! I think I was happier there than anywhere else. I was sixteen.”
    He frowned because she was talking about being sixteen, and he was afraid another Enrico was about come up.
    â€œI was living with my mother. I’ll show you a photo of her. She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
    He wondered if she was chattering like this just to shut him up. What kind of idea did she have about him? The wrong one, no doubt. And yet she still clung to his arm eagerly.
    â€œMy mother was a famous pianist. You must have heard her name—she played in all the large cities: Miller … Edna Miller. Miller’s my maiden name, since she never married. Do you find that shocking?”
    â€œMe? No.”
    He wanted to tell her that he was a great artist himself. He did, however, get married, which was why …
    For a moment he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw himself as someone else might have,