He was on his fifth cigarette, and his mind was skittering.Faces, names, memories. Cut peat weighing down his hand. Swedish water birds flickering above his head. Fields of sunflowers. The smell of carnation oil. The warm, sweet smell of Nita coming off the tennis court. Sweat oozing from a widow’s peak. Faces, names.The faces and names of the dead, too.He could have brought a chair from the apartment. But his nerves would in any case have kept him upright. And it would look decidedly eccentric, sitting down to wait for the lift.His situation had come out of the blue, and yet it was perfectly logical. Like the rest of life. Like sexual desire, for instance. That came out of the blue, and yet it was perfectly logical.He tried to keep his mind on Nita, but his mind disobeyed. It was like a bluebottle, noisy and promiscuous. It landed on Tanya, of course. But then off it buzzed to that girl, that Rozaliya. Did he blush to remember her, or was he secretly proud of that perverse incident?The Marshal’s patronage – that had also come out of the blue, and yet it was perfectly logical.
