All the Time in the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

whereabouts, wouldn’t I by now have heard from someone—from Sondervan himself, or from Diana, or from the police, or from all of them, my little world crashing down on my head? I understood that for whatever reason, perhaps a dissident impulse that they might not even understand, the retarded children, if they were children, had decided to make me their secret.
    IT WAS ODD —on the occasions when they could visit me safely, I enjoyed their company. I found my own mind comfortable with the reduced wattage that conversation with them required. Theydid see things, notice things. Their predominant emotion was wonder. Everything in the attic was examined, as if they were visiting a museum. Herbert opened and shut the brass snaps of my litigation bag over and over. Emily, digging in Diana’s hope chest, came up with an antique silver hand mirror in which to study herself. Perhaps, not having spoken with another human being for some months, I was overly responsive, but I was happy to explain how a life jacket worked, and why the game of golf required many clubs, or how spiderwebs were made, or why I, yet another exhibit, lived here in this attic. I gave them the expurgated version of that: I told them that I was a wanderer, a hermit by choice, and that this attic was one stop on my life’s journey. Then I had to assure them that I had no intention of moving on for quite some time.
    I worried that they would be found missing back at their place, but somehow they knew when they could get away safely. And they brought me things, little gifts of food and bottled water, knowing without my having to explain that I was a person in need. They would bring me a piece of cake and solemnly watch me eat it. Herbert, with his dark almond eyes in that globular head, had the most intense stare. He would hold himself at the shoulders and watch how my jaw moved. And Emily, of course, chattered on, as if she had to speak for both of them. Isn’t that good, Howard? Do you like cake? What is your favorite? I like chocolate cake the best, though strawberry is good, too.
    They may have been heartbreaking—and they were, casting me into the realm of remorseless normality—but in fact Herbert and Emily were there when I needed them. Sharply honed as my survival skills had become, some residual upper-middle-class indifference to the weather had left me unprepared for winter. What was thrown into the neighborhood garbage pails after Thanksgiving had fed me nicely for several days, but I was chilled as I foraged, and within a week the wind was whistling through the sidingof my attic hideout. I had no heat up here. Winter, with its assortment of effects, was a threat to my lifestyle.
    I cursed the homeowner I had been for neglecting the upkeep of this place. I rummaged about in all the junk I lived with and, finding some antique curtains in Diana’s inherited hope chest, I laid them atop the old coat that I used for a blanket and, pulling down over my ears the watch cap that I had found on the street, I snaked down under these pathetic coverings on my salvaged futon and tried to keep my teeth from chattering.
    How could I stay abreast of what was going on in my house if, when the snow came, my every footstep in the yard would leave a trail of incrimination and such clear proof of a prowler on the grounds as to get Diana on the phone to the town police?
    I was tempted during one dry cold spell to let myself in the back door of my house and keep warm beside my basement furnace, safely spending a few hours down there between midnight and dawn. But I would not surrender to my former self. Whatever I did I would do as I had done. Which meant also that going into a shelter for the homeless—there had to be one somewhere in town, probably at the south end, where lived immigrants, undocumented aliens, and the working poor—that, too, was out of the question. And never mind principles: even the homeless have names, histories, and inquisitive social workers.