I'd go on looking out at all that for a while, and then I'd turn to look at him and see that he wasn't sleeping, that his eyes were wide open. For some reason I'd find myself unable to speak, and so I'd remain silent, simply gaze deep into his eyes. He shouldn't have been able to see outside, since he was lying down, but the look in his eyes was always so bright and clear it was like he'd taken it all in, all the sounds outside the window, all that scenery.

“How's the weather?” he'd ask me, very quietly.

And I'd answer that it was raining, or windy, or that it was so clear you could see the stars. Then I'd start feeling lonely, like I might be going sort of crazy. Why do I feel so lonely when I'm with this guy? I'd think. Maybe it's because things between us are so complex? Or maybe it's because I have no feelings at all about our relationship except that I like it, because I have no clear sense of what I want us to be doing?

The only thing I'd understood right from the very beginning was that our love was supported by loneliness. That neither one of us could haul ourselves up out of the deadly numbness we felt when we lay together, so silent, in darkness so isolating it seemed to shine.

This was the edge of night.

The small company I'd been working for was so terribly busy that it was impossible for me to find time to see him, so I quit pretty soon. For almost half a year now I'd had nothing to do. My days were empty, and so for the most part I passed them relaxing, shopping for myself, doing laundry.

I did have some savings, though not much, and my boyfriend put an incredibly large sum of money into the bank for me each month—after all, he said, I'd quit my job for him—so living was easy. At first I was hesitant to accept this, thinking that it would seem too much like being his mistress, but then it's always been my policy to take what people offer me. In the end I decided to take the money and be glad. All of which is to say, maybe I slept so much simply because I had so much free time. I've no idea how many young women like this there are in the world, but I kind of wonder if those oddly vague people you see in department stores during the day, women who don't quite seem to be students or people who work on their own, might not be the same. I know very well that I used to be like that myself, that I used to walk around with the same utterly unfocused look in my eyes.

I was walking down the street like that one cloudless afternoon when I happened to run into a friend of mine.