Page 153 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

there in her hair, which usually looks thoroughly done to a state-regulated

standard. But now there were knots in my mother’s hair. I’d never seen that
before.
—

HAVING SAID I’d sleep on my decision I went over to my sister’s flat and we
talked all night. We both like the Glissando well enough. Discretion is its main
feature: You go there to hide. The furnishings are a mixture of dark reds and

deep purples. Moving through the lobby is like crushing grapes and plums and
being bathed in the resultant wine. There are three telephone booths in the lobby.
Their numbers are automatically withheld and they’re mainly used for lies. Once
as I was leaving the hotel after running an errand for my dad I saw a man in a
trench coat stagger into one of those phone booths. He had what looked like a

steak knife sticking out of his chest and must’ve trailed some blood into the
booth and lost a lot more at quite a rapid rate thereafter, though I didn’t see
much of this. Blood’s a near-perfect match for the color scheme—each drop is
smoothly stirred in.
I lingered in order to provide assistance; the man with the knife sticking out
of his chest picked up the phone, dialed, and explained to somebody on the other
end that he was working late. “Heh—yes, well, save me a slice!” His voice was

so well modulated that if I hadn’t been able to see him I wouldn’t have
entertained even the faintest suspicion that there was a knife in him. Then he
phoned an ambulance and collapsed. That man impressed me . . . he impressed
me. As he waited for the paramedics his eyes darkened and cleared, darkened
and cleared, but he gripped the knife and his grip held firm. He looked honored,
extraordinarily honored, seeming to care more for that which tore his flesh than

he did for the flesh itself, embracing the blade as if it were some combination of
marvel and disaster, the kind that usually either confers divinity or is a proof of
it. To the boy gawping through the glass it seemed that this man strove to be a
worthy vessel, to live on and on at knifepoint, its brilliance enmeshed with his
guts. If he was a man without regrets then he was the first I’d seen. And I
remember thinking: Well, all right. I wouldn’t mind ending up like that.

—

AT THE FRONT desk of the Glissando, guests can request and receive anything,
anything at all. Odette was there when a man with very bad nerves had asked for
a certificate guaranteeing that the building’s foundations were unassailable; this