"It used to be my laboratory. I am in the process of selling it. We are in Whitechapel," he answered. "And I do — have a wardrobe. Upstairs," he added. It had been his wish to keep Dempsey out of his personal life, but looking at what they were doing, that seemed an ill-conceived attempt from the get-go. He got to his feet. His body felt unlike itself — not that it had changed, but his way of perceiving through it was altered.
They walked into the dark, Samuel ahead, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure that he did not lose sight of the other man. He knew the way blind. On the cursed stairs he knew when to pull Don Juan over the trapped steps and where to veer off the course and turn. It all seemed rather dreamlike. They ended up on the second floor in front of a dresser, in the room where Samuel had once slept. "Take what you want," he said without interfering further, very untypically for him, and sat on the bed; he was light-headed, but pleasantly so. Don Juan would find something. Samuel had always kept an immaculate wardrobe and they were nearly the same height.
He looked around the room and down the narrow corridor that led to the bath and to his study. It was a place half here and half gone, to him. His most valuable things were already taken away but the remainder of the decade he spent here hung in the air. A decade of work and responsibility and unsatisfying success; it had been thankless. He took out a cigarette and lit it — inconceivable to him, when he had still lived here. With a familiar movement, he checked his watch and deliberated how much time he had left, before he would slow and inevitably want to remedy that.
They walked into the dark, Samuel ahead, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure that he did not lose sight of the other man. He knew the way blind. On the cursed stairs he knew when to pull Don Juan over the trapped steps and where to veer off the course and turn. It all seemed rather dreamlike. They ended up on the second floor in front of a dresser, in the room where Samuel had once slept. "Take what you want," he said without interfering further, very untypically for him, and sat on the bed; he was light-headed, but pleasantly so. Don Juan would find something. Samuel had always kept an immaculate wardrobe and they were nearly the same height.
He looked around the room and down the narrow corridor that led to the bath and to his study. It was a place half here and half gone, to him. His most valuable things were already taken away but the remainder of the decade he spent here hung in the air. A decade of work and responsibility and unsatisfying success; it had been thankless. He took out a cigarette and lit it — inconceivable to him, when he had still lived here. With a familiar movement, he checked his watch and deliberated how much time he had left, before he would slow and inevitably want to remedy that.
