Ian toyed with the staff card hung on a lanyard around his neck. He considered us for a moment before ambling over to have a word with the security guard, who led the way to one of the black doors and turned his key in the central dial.

“Thanks ever so much,” said Ian. “We’ll only be a minute. You won’t tale on me, will you?”

In his haste to get us through, Ian’s hand touched my back, and then the door swung shut and the darkness was complete. There was nothing to breathe, only the stifling, metallic odor. Flare of a light: Ian’s phone. He passed the beam over the perimeter of the tank. Cylindrical in shape. Three or four times a person’s height. Surface covered with a rusty iron grid. The tank had been emptied and turned to other uses, but it was still hostile to human trespass.

I let Alison ask the questions. But what kind of participation . . . ? Who is it for . . . ? Why no light from above . . . ? What about the oil . . . ? That curious and confident voice she’d used for the interview hardly sounded like hers. And Ian’s monotone: “Not exactly white cube but not black box either . . . You had to take a lie detector test . . . Tania Bruguera. Surplus Value. William Kentridge. Three sixty, eight channel. Shadow boxing meets the Russian avant-garde . . . North Sea possibly. Africa possibly . . .”

All that oil, enduring year after year in the airless dark.

“Still seeping through the walls . . .” droned Ian. “Art in Action. A space for the short-lived. . . .”

Impossible to breathe deeply.

“Spectacle in place of fossil fuels . . .”

Around me fizzed lights of my own making. I bowed my head. Currents sparked and fused on the sides of the tunnel, rushing to enclose me. A hand gripped my arm, more hands were on me; the door was shoved open, light roared in, and soon I was outdoors seated on a bench under the puffy chrome supports of the bridge and Alison was scrolling down my contacts to find Robin’s number.

“I needed some air,” I said. “There was no air.”

She peered into my face. “Do you have diabetes or something? Should I call an ambulance?”

“Low blood pressure. My mother has it. Maddy had it. We’re all prone to fainting.”

She pressed the phone to my ear. “Pay attention! It’s ringing.”

“Went to voicemail,” I said, curious to see Alison so agitated. “He must be at the lake. The signal is terrible up there.”

I tried to stand. She yanked me back and left her hand there, a reassuring weight on my arm. Somewhere out of sight, a flute was playing.

“Ian disappeared in a hurry. How embarrassing! I don’t know what it was about that place.”

“It was amazing,” she murmured. “I didn’t want to leave.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m fine now. Did I scare you?”

“Don’t do it again.”