She arrives a few minutes late for the appointment, hoping to appear fashionable, as if delayed by a function, but having used the extra time to subdue her anxiety. Surely, others have perpetrated this lie, pretended the affluence that could afford such a home just to get a look. She can’t help wondering how spectacular is the view that’s worth so many millions, how luxurious the décor. She wears a conservative dress and her best winter coat, the camel hair polo, but it’s a few years old and looks it, and it feeds her fear that the associate will suspect she doesn’t have the means. But then someone in that position wouldn’t risk accusing a potential buyer of deception. The associate’s job is to conduct tours and persuade, to gather information and let others judge.
The associate offers coffee and petit fours. Her office has a ten-foot ceiling and the sterility of a bank lobby.
“You were interested in fifty-seven A, is that correct?”
“The one for nine million?”
“Listed at nine million, two hundred thousand, yes.”
Three million, nine million, fifteen, thirty, sixty million dollars—they all obsess her, these impossibly priced condos, this promise of deserved luxury, the exclusivity of this address. Something toward the lower end seemed the most reasonable request, but not the bottom. She’ll act as though it’s in her budget, and wonders if people of such means concern themselves with budgets. If they develop a rapport perhaps she’ll ask for a peek at the penthouse. Out of curiosity, of course, nothing more. Something to aspire to, she’ll say, as if she could someday move higher. Not much chance of that for a professor of antiquities.
She shouldn’t have mentioned the price. Someone who can afford such a dwelling never brings up the price so quickly.
“And what do you do? For a living, I mean. Or is it your husband—”
She stumbles with her words, even though she’s practiced the ruse, created a former life far from Manhattan that shouldn’t inspire much probing, tinged with a newcomer’s excitement at having scored the new job, the one that brought her to the Apple, at the obscure but prestigious firm. In finance. Munis and bond funds. The quiet side of Wall Street. The intimation of money. She hurries to mention she’s already fallen in love with the city.
“Have you looked at other places? There really isn’t anything that can compare, of course.”
“Well, this was my first choice. Perhaps I should continue renting for a while, but the web site made it look so stunning—”
She handles the associate’s questions about her preferences—morning sun versus afternoon; a river or a city view. People of this stratum know what they want, and feel no shame for wanting. They cultivate desire like an art form. Still, she wishes it would end before she slips again, before the foundation of her lie reveals its cracks. About her job she relates that her new firm recruited her. Regarding family she can relax and divulge a portion of the truth: a divorce, no kids, a desire to try again someday. The marriage was a failure, but isn’t that what life is, one bad decision after another in the hope that a good one, someday, might bring success? Until something changes, though, she has only her disappointment to keep her company.
The interview takes forever, and she is exhausted from maintaining the pretense, but understands how important it is for the associate to determine that she’s the right kind of buyer. By the time the reports come back from the credit agencies, she’ll be gone.
Coffee finished at last they walk back out to the lobby, to the white lacquer walls, the fireplace, the labyrinth-patterned stone floor in black and white that looks vaguely medieval. Its painted passageways seem endless, and she’s unable to find an entrance or an exit to the maze. The ceiling here is a rotunda in silver leaf that reflects the floor, and the lilies in the vase, and as she sees when she looks up, the associate’s smart crimson jacket. As they pass, the concierge offers a nod of recognition to the associate, the same gesture, she is sure, she would receive as a resident of the tower. Her comings and goings would be acknowledged in this special place. And all so reserved, as befits the sublime home life of urban wealth.
The associate leads her to the elevator. A man joins them there; a white man in a black cashmere coat, with white hair and black gloves, and she thinks of him as a labyrinth-patterned man. He nods at her as though she is a neighbor he has not yet met. She begins to regret her masquerade.
How is it that the man knows this woman does not live here and cannot afford to do so? The associate slips her key card into the slot and presses the touch pad for his floor, which surprises him. No one has visited there for a long time. She describes to her client the amenities available to tenants, thus relieving the man of an uncomfortable silence on the way up. A swimming pool, a spa, a private dining room for larger functions, gymnasium, a play area and childcare included in the terms. He has never used them. A conservatory with a grand piano. Every unit, of course, features a breathtaking view of the city, or the river. Or both. His overlooks the borough to Queens, and he has never tired of the panorama.
But for some time, the man has considered taking an extended vacation away from the city. Since his wife died, to be exact. She was the one who decided to move here; he would have preferred a place upstate, something greener, with more distance involved. The commute, she said, and the maintenance. A city place just makes so much more sense, and here they’ll take care of everything for us. She was right of course, as she always seemed to be. Now the emptiness of his unit each day when he returns reminds him of her. When he gazes out the windows he views a memory.
The woman, the visitor, looks at him as he stares at the elevator’s video monitor, which plays an ad for the Met, an exhibition of works by Matisse. He can see her from the side, can see that she assesses him with curiosity, but feels a slight disapproval, as though he does not deserve his wealth and status, as though he owes his good fortune to his friends, or his marriage, or something illicit. He hears her condemnation as a voice—his conscience, which assaults him now constantly, heaping guilt since his wife’s passing, that he didn’t do enough for her in her last days. She had accumulated her wealth before they wed, after all. Her family questioned his motives. Since she died they broke off communications and hired an investigator. He knows he did nothing wrong. He loved his wife. He knows that they only want the money for themselves.
When the car stops he lets the two women off first. He had wondered when someone might come and take a look at the empty place across the hall. At his front door he enters the combination on the keypad, and glances back at the visitor before he goes inside. Yes, she is about his wife’s age. A little younger, actually. He likes the way she’s pulled her hair back into a ponytail—it gives her an air of youthfulness. He imagines what it would look like released from the band and allowed to fall about her shoulders.
The view, even on this overcast day, extends across the river to the western suburbs. She can only think of it in the opaque terms she read in the brochure: spectacular, breathtaking, inspiring. Floor to ceiling windows comprise an entire wall. Each room would fill with sunshine on a brighter day. Every surface is chrome or marble or burnished steel, or clad in white, and the display furniture is white, creating the effect of life inside a cloud. The woman conjures plates of fruit and people dressed in tunics, chalices of nectar, and she cannot help but imagine her life as one of those gods.
The associate points out the closet space. “And I haven’t even begun to tell you about the personal services provided on site. Log in to your account and order fresh groceries for the evening meal. We have a restaurant on level five, and another on the eightieth floor. Both will deliver to your unit. Flowers, fresh every day if you like. And valet, of course, in the garage.”
“Of course.”
“You get so much more than the purchase price indicates. It only begins with the unit. Living here you want for nothing.”
No wants for those so practiced at wanting. Such extravagance makes the woman anxious. No, not extravagance—the unit, the entire tower speaks of the sublime, not the flamboyant. They tour the remaining rooms and the woman realizes the word that describes it best is anticipation—every need foreseen and accommodated, every longing preempted by the transfixing wonder of the urban sprawl so far below—smokestacks like distant cigarettes, traffic reduced to a child’s toys. To come home to this place each day would massage away the city’s frustrations, and replace them with the contentment that comes with such utter control of one’s environment.
The woman stands in the doorway of the master bedroom. She imagines Zeus or something like him sprawled across the white comforter of the bed, naked and hoary, his mane flowing, the muscled thigh across his loin the only vestige of modesty, the flesh of his biceps curled around the white neck of a girl who lies mutely beneath him. She thinks she must leave soon, before she gives herself away.
From within the tower walls we see the lives as they unfold. From here we see everything: the desires fulfilled, the lust and despair of the privileged, the insignificance of those who serve them. This is the black place to their white, the one they never acknowledge, a labyrinth of stairwells and passageways connecting the floors, windowless and dark, cast in raw concrete and unpolished steel. In here live vermin, crawling among the pipes like disease in the bloodstream. In here pass the minions, who make the heaven outside possible. They are told to remain out of sight at all times. Best not to remind the tenants of what it takes to create their seamless existence.
One of them, though, he plans a rebellion. He works in the kitchens and shuttles food to the tenants who call, the tenants who are too busy to cook for themselves, or who do not wish to. It is a meaningless job that anyone could do, and his resentment that he must serve the wealthy, that he must humiliate himself to provide for his family, grows with each trip in the service elevator. Until now he has worn the mask of the courteous, the deferential employee. He has subdued his anger in order to record glimpses of the luxury just beyond his reach. The sense of entitlement the tenants maintain enrages him, he says. It oozes from their every word, broadcasts from their eyes when they look in his direction.
Unlike Arturo, we do not hate the ones we see; we understand them. They are trying only to live, to enjoy what they have. But he sees the injustice of birth, of race, the injustice of opportunity denied. He thinks of his family at home, as far away from the tower in status as in distance, and thinks they will never have their food delivered to them by a young man in a uniform. His family break their backs each day—for it takes all of them to pay the bills—and never know the solace of a faceless other to perform the unpleasant tasks in life. So he will bite the hand that feeds him. He will send them a message to remind them of a larger world, an equitable world, to tell them they are not as special as they believe.
Until then he will smile as he hands over the medallions of beef with the cabernet sauce. He will offer to open the wine and pour. He will promise to return late at night and collect the plates left outside the door. He will maintain the façade his employers insist he display to those who have paid a fortune to live in the tower.
The man from the elevator eases the front door to the unit open a little further and steps inside. His heels tic against the tiled entryway and the woman and the associate turn to see him.
“Are you moving in? I don’t mean to interrupt, but I thought I could be the first to welcome you to the building,” he says.
He still has his black coat on, the horn buttons fastened to the top. The woman notices the hem of the garment fringed in white from the salt the city used to melt the ice from last night’s storm.
“You should get that cleaned,” she says, pointing. “Before it damages the fabric.”
“I should have given it to the concierge when I came in. Thoughtful of you to notice.”
Her smile seems nervous, reinforcing his feeling that she’s here on a lark and has no intention of buying, no ability to do so. He smiles back, hoping to put her at ease. Why not give her some encouragement? If not for his wife he’d never have had the chance to live here either.
“She’s probably told you of all the amenities offered,” he says, nodding at the associate. “I can vouch for that. The level of service is astonishing.”
“They do seem to think of everything.”
“And the amazing thing is that you almost never see them—the staff. Until they show up at your door. They’re like ghosts, in a way. It keeps things quiet.”
“I’ve noticed. You don’t hear anything from the street. And I don’t suppose the residents are the noisy type—loud parties and all that.”
“There’s only me on the floor.”
“Just you?”
He tells her that the unit hasn’t sold in the two years since the building opened. She’d be the first person to live in it. She and her family, that is. Then he tells her of his wife’s passing. The reason he’s alone. “A year ago,” he says. “Where has the time gone?” He hadn’t planned to mention that.
“It would just be me,” she says. “Divorced. No family.”
The associate moves away and stands at the windows, looking out to the surrounding neighborhoods, as if giving the two of them a chance to become acquainted. Perhaps it’s a sales strategy, hoping for a connection between them that will pique the woman’s interest in the purchase.
The man undoes the buttons of his coat. “I guess I’m not outside anymore,” he says. “I didn’t mean to look so formal. But I do like to walk. Especially on the cold days. Get all bundled up and head off around the block.”
“I imagine it’s impossible to drive around here. I’ll bet it’s faster to go on foot.”
“I haven’t owned a car in years. Just take a taxi, when it’s necessary.”
“My new office isn’t that far. I suppose I could walk from here.”
The man takes a step closer. “I’d do that too, if I had to work.” He hasn’t had a date, or even a long conversation with a woman since his wife died. Apart from his daily walks, he rarely leaves his unit, preferring to have meals delivered from the kitchens.
“Edward,” he says, extending a hand. “Has she shown you the restaurant on the eightieth? I’d be happy to do that. They have a lovely bar.”
Is this flirting? The woman realizes that if she lets it go on much longer the lie will take her over. She’ll forget her ruse and be embarrassed. But if she accepts his offer she can leave the associate behind and start fresh, make up anything that comes into her mind, anything necessary for him to think of her as a neighbor, an equal. She starts to say her name, and then thinks it might be best not to divulge it just yet. “Julia,” she says instead, taking his hand with her fingers.
He is older, but not so old as to be beyond her interest. His hair in this light reminds her of winter wheat in snow. Perhaps too much reading caused the wrinkles around his eyes. She’d like to know just how wealthy this man is, although she doesn’t think that would make a difference in her attraction.
She looks at him and sees that he is waiting for her answer. “That’s very nice of you,” she says. “Yes, I’d love to see it.”
Had she talked herself out of this adventure, or had she come on another day, she would not have met this man. She reminds herself that sometimes things work out by chance, by taking risks. She thinks that the only way she could ever live here is to marry into it.
They step into the hallway. The associate follows them and uses the keypad to lock the door to the unit, and mentions that she’s really not authorized to let non-residents wander around the tower without her company.
“I’ll see that she doesn’t get lost,” Edward says.
“Do check in with me when you’re leaving,” the associate says. “We can talk about your experience and see if we can take your interest to the next level.”
Julia says she’ll be sure to.
The associate takes an elevator down, while Julia and Edward wait for one going in the opposite direction. When it arrives, they encounter a young man in a staff uniform, carrying a tray with a covered dish. The young man moves to the back of the car.
“Is the service elevator out?” Edward asks him.
“No, sir.”
“Shouldn’t you be using it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
“I wanted to use this one.”
Edward muffles a laugh, the kind of laugh provoked by absurdity. He peers at the uniform to note the name Arturo on his badge.
Julia wonders how far Edward will go to report this violation of the service protocols. If he lets the employee get away with his affront, what else might the young man try? She feels certain the staff take liberties when they can, carrying unclaimed food home from the kitchens, and making off with excess supplies. Do they make a living wage working here? Perhaps that doesn’t matter. Presented with the opportunity, anyone would take advantage. The tower management probably accounts for that and builds a premium into the maintenance fees to cover theft. She recalls a job she once had as a waiter, while studying to become a teacher. There the management encouraged employees to take extra food home. They gave the rest to homeless shelters.
She looks up to the elevator ceiling, trying to find a surveillance camera. There must be one. Maybe the management already knows about this incident. If not, at least there’s evidence if Edward chooses to pursue the matter. But he doesn’t seem like the type. Someone so soft-spoken and courteous usually makes allowances, in her experience. He would let the transgression pass, this once. He would understand the frustration that drives the young man to step outside the lines that have been drawn for him. He would understand her curiosity in coming here.
The elevator stops at the seventy-fifth floor and the when the doors open, they step aside to let the young man out. The employee does not say thank you, but he does turn and make eye contact with Edward. When the doors close again Edward shakes his head and says, “I suppose I’ll have to report that. It’s too bad. I wish I didn’t have to.”
Julia nods in agreement. She wonders what were the circumstances of his wife’s death. Maybe he will tell her over drinks.
We do not know what Arturo is up to, exactly, except that he is testing the waters. We have seen him lately in the tenants’ spaces, wandering into the pool area for no reason, and spending a few minutes in the conservatory, sitting at the piano as though he could play it, running his fingers over the keys, barely touching them, the way a child learns about a mysterious new object. Fortunately for him, no one has intruded on these moments, or he would no doubt be on the streets. And then he goes on about unfairness again, ranting about wanting to share the misfortunes of life with those who never know failure. “If we could only bring the want of the real world to their living rooms,” he says. “Or better yet, drag them from their precious tower into the streets, where they could experience the cold and the violence of the poor.”
Sometimes it makes no sense to us, no sense at all.
What will he do, bring a gun and kidnap some of the residents? Build a bomb and plant it in a corner of the restaurant? He wants to make a statement that won’t be soon forgotten. We think of him in the center of the lobby floor, sitting in the terminus of that patterned labyrinth, dousing himself with gasoline and igniting it. But no, Arturo is not one for self-immolation. We know the type. His conflict will never end—he is addicted to it. He is a crusader, a man who will renew the battle after every defeat, because he loves the show, the struggle of war, as much as the goal. He is determined to be noticed in this place where no one is noticed, except for a brief nod of the head.
We have seen him try to persuade his peers to join his revolt. They all refuse, some out of fear for their livelihoods, others because they believe the lies about themselves, that they are worthless to the world, insignificant. A few tell him he is right, but what can they do? Others say to his face that he is crazy. He only grows more angry at their rejections and vows to show them that he will act where they will not. We think he prefers it that way, to fight alone.
He doesn’t realize that the white man in the black coat is right, that working here is an opportunity, as good an opportunity as he will get. Why not make the most of it, Arturo? He doesn’t know that when he finally decides to act that we will have no choice but to call him out and ruin him. Our sight is indiscriminate—rich or poor, resident or servant, we see them always, record their every act, and yet they fail to account for us. They can look straight at us and not see us. They can see us and not know it is us.
We predate them all. We have existed here, our lenses inches from the light and air of the apartments, embedded in the infrastructure since before the first tenant moved in, before the first flower adorned the lobby. It is never too soon to ensure security, to guard against crime and mischief. We counted the floors going up since the hole in the ground, the hole that goes down further than most buildings are tall. We watched the structure rise as if spawned by the earth, a spike stabbing ever higher into the air, intent on wounding the sky.
Julia and Edward linger over their drinks, their conversation awkward, interrupted by her occasional gaze out the restaurant windows to admire the view. He has a Scotch and soda; she ordered a Chardonnay, pointing to the name on the list instead of trying to pronounce it. He tells her about the symphony concert he attended last week. He tells her about his season tickets, and how he has rarely used them this year. She watches the strobe of a fire engine in the streets below, but hears no siren.
The leather seat of the booth has a perfect texture. The restaurant walls are paneled in mahogany. She imagines Edward leaning over and trying to kiss her while encumbered by the black coat. But the coat is on the rack in the corner of the restaurant, the waiter having hung it there for him. He wears a black sweater over his white shirt, and she notices it’s cashmere as well. Perhaps his late wife purchased these things for him. He dresses stylishly for a man his age, and Julia appreciates his attention to appearance, especially in his situation. Another man would have let himself go, reduced himself to jeans and sweats in his sorrow. Julia believes she understands his loneliness, but she doesn’t know how she will react if he tries to touch her.
“What did you think of the unit?” he says. “One gets very used to the luxury, having everything taken care of. As long as you have the money. But it’s a bit of a trap—a velvet coffin. You can lose your perspective on the real world outside when you’re so pampered.”
She wonders if that was meant as a joke. He asks her if she’d like another glass of the wine. He’s already signaled the waiter over to order another drink, and she says, “Why not? I’m enjoying our talk. This is so much more intimate than following the agent around.”
A female waiter flashes by on her way to the bar, a girl with hair bleached white, dressed in black, in a skirt barely covering her thighs. The girl hurries to place an order for a customer. Julia sees her as Atalanta, swifter than any suitor, toying with them all as they give futile chase. Their waiter interrupts to place her wine on the table. Julia notices its golden color, as gold as the apple in the famous race.
She watches Edward take a sip of his drink, and then pictures nights of awkward sex, of helping him to complete the act, and soothing his ego when he can’t. She looks away, out the windows again to the city, and imagines him much older and sick, imagines looking out the window of their home on the fifty-seventh floor, waiting for him to die so that she can enjoy the money on her own.
What will people say if this turns into something, if this leads to a relationship or more? Would it be so impossible for her to fall in love with him?
He has his free hand resting on the table. It looks pale and worn, and she notices a large brown spot near the base of the thumb, and several others across the knuckles. She has an urge to reach out and touch her fingers to his, but these spots disgust her. She has an equal urge to let the conversation fade, and thank him for the drinks, and take the elevator back down to the lobby, where she will avoid the associate and walk back out to the street. She fears disappointment, whatever she decides.
His manner intimidates her, he thinks. His ease amid the luxury of the tower must convey a sense of privilege, may even flaunt the differences in their lives and their respective affluence. But he had to learn to live here when he first moved in, adapt to the castes of wealth, and the code of the servants and the served. She seems eager to be part of it. He would indulge her, if she gave him the chance. Take her to the exclusive shops, the ones she never dared enter before. A small price to pay to end this solitude. He would show her a vacation more like an adventure, an expedition to the pampas, or some other place she’s never heard of. They would share every second of the experience, and he would feel no guilt about the relationship. His late wife would not begrudge him this; he’s grieved long enough. He never understood the contentment that marriage afforded—to touch, to talk, even when they disagreed—until it was gone.
He sees the young man from the elevator come out from the restaurant kitchen, carrying a tray, on his way to deliver to one of his neighbors in the tower, and thinks he’s seen him before; perhaps he’s brought something to his unit. The young man stops in front of their waiter to talk, and turns and shoots a glance in their direction.
“There he is again,” Julia says. “Will you report him?”
“No. I think he understood his mistake.”
“That’s nice of you. He probably needs the job.”
“I’d feel terrible if they fired him,” he says. “And me on the board of the employment commission. I’m supposed to help create jobs, not eliminate them.”
“Sounds important.”
“They’re all important. The symphony, the historical museum—”
She sighs and exhales slowly, and says, “You believe in giving back.”
He wants to say that with wealth and prominence come responsibility, but it would sound so sanctimonious. He wants to say that he would love to teach her. Instead, he reminds himself not to speak to the woman like a father to a daughter. Or a grandfather. Keep the conversation light. Focus on the luxury of tower life. Enjoyment is as much a part of living as responsibility. If wealth is a gift, then he should pursue it to the fullest, as anyone would do.
The young man leaves at last. This time he heads toward the service elevator.
“I was thinking of the unit you saw,” Edward says. “I hadn’t seen how they’d decorated it.”
“I do like it. But to be honest,” Julia says, “all that white makes it look a bit sterile.”
He felt the same way when he moved in.
“I’m sure that’s just to give you the impression of how open it is. How airy. Part of the marketing.”
“I would do some things to make it more comfortable.”
Edward nods as though he understands. “Let me show you what my designer accomplished,” he says. “Color and comfort. Having the right professional makes a difference. Please let me.”
She takes up her purse, and he signals to the waiter to have the drinks added to his account. The waiter acknowledges him, and then offers a nod and a smile, as if to congratulate him on his conquest, the way foolish young men do when a friend seduces a woman. But who has been seduced? Julia has come to the tower, a stranger with no chance of staying, and in an hour her status has equaled his, almost as if she planned it to happen.
But Edward wants to believe it is more than that.
Arturo has a plan now. We know it when we see him stare at a blank wall as though he could destroy it with a thought. He stops on the landing in a stairwell and nods his head—yes, he has something, a way to make the world notice, to look at this tower, to look at him, ready to gather an army and fight. A beginning. He knows now that despite their fear, his peers will follow him. If he gives them an example, a sign. Something unmistakable.
He has seen the rich man and woman again in the restaurant. They had nothing to do except get drunk in the afternoon, and then go back down to his condo. Arturo laughs at the old fool. He doubts the man can get hard for her. She will surely be disappointed. Sometimes it is all he can do to keep from spilling drinks on people like that. He can make it look like an accident and they will never suspect. But that would do nothing. He wants them to feel his rage, wants them to fear it. The tower is their prison and he wants them to know it, just as he knows it is his prison as well. But only he wants to escape its stifling hold on his life.
Arturo, what have they done wrong? They have taken the advantages of their station and pursued them to the fullest. You would do the same. They haven’t cheated you out of wealth, or out of life. Such a life was never yours to experience. Your peers understand this. See how they go about their duties with an air of acceptance. They understand it is their place to serve.
And now he will declare this war. He will fire the first shot. We cannot stop him. We can only watch him and report what we have seen. So many others have preceded him, have trod the same path of anger and resistance. Has it ever worked?
This rich man, he says. He talks about his charity to the woman. It is only a show. He does not do it to help the disadvantaged, but to impress his neighbors. That is why they all do it. Otherwise, why are we all still so poor?
If we could cry out to Arturo we would. But even then he would not hear us. When it is long past dark and he should be home with his family, when the city has shut down, he goes to the stairwell, to a quiet corner amid the vermin, and changes into the dark clothes and black running shoes that he has packed in his bag. He walks down the stairs that way, all the way down the eighty stories, one step at a time, a descent that gives him time not to reconsider, but to cultivate his anger. When he gets to the bottom he passes into the trash room, among the stinking dumpsters, and from there slips outside, shat from the bowels of the tower. He does not suspect we are still watching.
Of what does Arturo dream? A new job, perhaps, or money for his family. Is it of another life in this palace, where the roles are reversed and he is king, or does he lust for vengeance and destruction, a cataclysm in which no one survives? Does he picture the tower falling in on itself, raising a cloud of death so great it will hang in the air for weeks?
The moon cooperates tonight, and hides behind a cloud. Arturo moves to the alley and removes his weapons from his bag—two cans shorn of their labels. He squeezes the lighter fluid like a mongrel’s piss onto a discarded pallet, and strikes a match. He holds the flame near his face, so close it threatens to singe his skin, and then drops it in.
The pallet ignites all at once, its blaze licking the side of the tower, scorching the stone finish. Arturo backs away and watches it, shielding his face from the heat of this revolution. Soon he looks around, as if searching for more fuel for his fire, something to increase its anger, make it burn hotter and brighter. But apart from a few stray rags and a cardboard box there is nothing within reach. Typical of such impulsive men—they move before they have completed their plans, too excited by thoughts of action. Arturo watches for a minute more, and then flicks the fluid container onto the blaze. It heats and glows, and then bursts, sending a plume into the night air. But the can, being empty like Arturo, has nothing more to give, and the fire soon begins to die away.
Ah, but Arturo is not yet done. He has chosen also to scrawl his disrespect. He moves further down the tower’s façade and there shapes his message one stroke at a time, in his original tongue to show what is left of his pride. He works in silence, to let his graffito do the screaming: Estamos llegando. Temernos! He belives that in the light of day his coworkers will be impressed; the residents will shrink at this affront.
He stares at his crime, but instead of admiration, we see disappointment and remorse. Arturo, are you thinking of your friends in the restaurant so high above, and how you will miss them? Is it your family at home, waiting for you tonight? How let down they will be when the police come to your door in the morning. Or is it that you have a conscience after all, a remnant of decency to cling to in this indecent place?
It’s too late to regret it. You are a fool to risk the little you have on this hopeless display. Don’t you know the damage will be repaired before sunrise, scrubbed away long before the residents of the tower can see it by the maintenance staff, who have chosen another side in this war? If your anger is ever to be acknowledged, you will have to try again, perhaps many more times, with greater effort and greater violence. But know that whatever you do your cause may never be heard.
Julia stands in Edward’s bedroom, among the photographs of his white-haired wife, looking for her clothes. She picks them up and goes to the window, and notices an orange light from below. Its flicker hypnotizes her for a minute and she stares out into the night to try and discern the source. Then she sees a figure, a shadow, running from the light and into the black, slipping between buildings.
Her lover remains asleep. Julia listens to the uneven sound of his breathing, and the way he smacks his lips in his unconsciousness. She will take another minute before she gets back into bed to fold her clothes and place them on a chair. Without thinking she puts on her underwear. When she looks back out the window the light from below has extinguished.
All night she’s thought about abandoning her pretense and telling Edward the truth about how she came here. But she hasn’t been able to do it, hasn’t found the right moment. He hasn’t pried. She knows so little about him, only that he is so alone, so sad. Why jeopardize anything until she knows where this is going?
The moon has reappeared, and it is full and low, and in the pre-dawn it seems to perch at the top of a distant peak, glowing white against the black night. She imagines it is the rock of Sisyphus, having been rolled to the top of the mountain, ready to come crashing down again.
