Barely four hours since I went to sleep, I was abruptly awake. I remembered that I had been in the bar, and that I had seen the woman again. Apart from the red digital display—6:13—the room was dark. And the preceding day was clear: I had seen her again, and I had spoken to her. Over the years I had come to believe that my memory was steadily enhancing this woman. Our first encounter was so out of the ordinary that it took on a completely unreal complexion in retrospect, and I suspected that I might be elaborating on it, on her, to make the whole bizarre incident more exotic. But there she was again, matching perfectly what I had assumed was an idealized vision. Her Amazonian height, and her pale skin and red hair—even in the flesh, there was something about her that didn’t quite match up to reality, as if she was too high-definition. Just hours later our reunion had already taken on the qualities of a dream. One that had been interrupted before it was complete. Maurice. Maurice had ruined it.
