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desk con-tinued, and he realized it was New Year's Eve. In a room on 91st Street in New York City, in the darkness of a little bed, while the bells rang and the sirens called, he held her. The waxing machine appeared, its long whiskers whirring around and around over the tiled floor.
    A snowstorm had begun in the city. The night was cold, and he was filled with tired thoughts. Twenty-five miles away, out in the woods, the house was waiting, empty and cold. A hotel would be warm and bright—a single room, table and a lamp on it, a bed. I could get some sleep and hang around town tomorrow until visiting time.
    The traffic light turned green through the veil of falling snow, and he drove down the main street of town to the street of the hotel, where he parked the truck. The snow was coming harder. He walked along toward the hotel. It's not the best and that's all I need, just a flop for the night.
    His body ached and his eyes were tired. The shops on the street were all closed, the merchandize on display beneath dim nightlights, and he passed by it all on weary legs. The hotel had a single door leading to a cramped little lobby, into which he stepped, looking toward the night clerk's desk. The clerk, reading a newspaper, did not look up. A television set was going, and two men sat before it, smiling at some flickering image Laski could not see, but he sensed the loneliness of the men, and their desperate fight against it, huddled together before the television.
    As if turned by a magnet, he went back out through the door into the street. The snow fell on him as he walked back to the truck and climbed into it, driving out of town and over the white highway toward the woods.
    He entered the cabin reluctantly, as if it were a wave of ghosts. The stove was low and he stirred it up. When the surface was hot, he slid on a frying pan and cooked himself supper. He ate slowly, staring out the window at the whirling snow. When his meal was finished, he washed the dishes, not hurrying, but working slowly, with concentration, leaving no room for morbid thoughts, ghosts, fears. There was only the hot water, the dish, his hands, the soapy rag.
    The stairs to the second floor looked dark and foreboding, and what's up there, amidst the baby clothes and crib? There's nothing up there, he said, and he walked up the stairs and undressed in the small bedroom. He kept the light on for a few minutes and then, resigning himself to darkness and sleep, switched it off.
    Alone in a dark house far out in the woods, with a storm blowing on the outside and the shadow of death on the inside, he crawled beneath the covers. Spectres rose up behind his closed eyes, weird and menacing. He watched his mind play out its age-old fears, and trembling, he fell into dreams, finding himself outside the cabin walking through the dream-forest. Beside a tree he saw a cloaked and hooded figure. The figure turned and the face beneath the hood was a smiling skull of stone. Death held out his walking stick, and Laski took it in his hand.
    Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the hospital window and he sat down beside her again. She looked stronger, and the storm was over.
    'We have to bury the baby,' she said. 'They don't want him in the morgue anymore.'
    'We can bury him in the woods.'
    'That's what I told the nurse. She said it was highly unusual, but that it would probably be all right. She had a lot of forms. We'll have to have a witness.'
    'How about the autopsy? Won't the baby be...?'
    'She said they put him back together again.'
    Doctor Barker came into the room. They both looked at him in silence. He stood, tall and uncomfortable at the foot of the bed. 'The autopsy showed your baby was perfectly normal. There's no reason why what happened should ever happen again.'
    'Do you think she can go home tomorrow?'
    'How do your stitches feel?'
    'They burn a little, that's all.'
    I suppose you can leave, if you'll feel better at home.' He turned to go, then turned back to