Page 160 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

both friends of A’s stepfather. The sister towers over the brother; she’s wooden.

The brother’s made of metal, and his face is one of the most arresting I’ve seen,
composed entirely of jagged scales—scales for eyelids, a button-shaped scale for
a nose. When he opens his mouth to speak, it’s as if the sea is speaking.
I’d decided to show the film to my own sister Odette, and as I waited in the
lobby of Hotel Glissando I used the free Wi-Fi to watch it again in miniature, on
my phone. A man tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up: He was a black
man about my father’s age and half a head shorter than me. Those sideburns: I’d

seen them (and him) before, but couldn’t think where. The man was talking. I
pulled my earphones out.
“. . . looking well, Freddy. How have you been?”
“Yeah, really well, thanks. And yourself?” I hadn’t a clue who he was, but as
long as one of us knew what was going on I didn’t mind chatting.

He nudged me with his elbow, winked. “You’re surprised to see me, eh?
Thought I was dead, didn’t you?”
When he said that it all came back to me; this man really was supposed to be
dead. He was my godfather, and I’d last seen him at my christening. I might
have gone to his funeral but I’m not sure: I’ve been to so many they all blur
together.
“Gosh, yes! So you’re alive after all? Excellent. How did you manage that? I

mean, you went—”
“Sailing, yes,” he supplied, beaming.
“Right, sailing, you were circumnavigating the globe in your boat, and then
there was that Cuban hurricane and bits of the boat washing up on various shores
—”
“I ditched the boat pretty early on, Freddy,” my godfather said, serenely.

“Sailing isn’t for me. I only came up with the idea to get away from the wife and
kid, really, so once I got to Florida I just let the boat drift on without me.”
“So you let your family think you’re dead, er—Jean-Claude?”
“That’s right. I’ve been living here at the Glissando for years.” His hand
moved in his pocket; I could guess what he was doing, having seen others
perform the same ritual—he was running his finger around and around the
outside of his room key card, doing what he should’ve done before he checked

in and became subject to the rules. Before assuming ownership of a key you
should look at it closely. Not only because you may need to identify it later but
because to look at a key is to get an impression of the lock it was made for, and,
by extension, the entire establishment surrounding the lock. Once you check into