“What are you doing?” Merrimount mumbled.

Lake turned, the light streaming from the window almost unbearable, and said, with a wry, haunted grin, “I’m painting.”

The Strange Case of X

The objects that are being summoned assemble, draw near from different spots; in doing so, some of them have to overcome not only the distance of space but that of time: which named, you may wonder, is more bothersome to cope with, this one or that, the young poplar, say, that once grew in the vicinity but was cut down long ago, or the singled-out courtyard which still exists today but is situated far away from here?

—Vladimir Nabokov, “The Leonardo”

It was damp and unpleasant that morning, a methodical drizzle drifting down out of a dull gray sky. An ephemeral rain he might have thought, and yet the buildings, discolored and blackened in their sooty ranks, steeped in the smell of gasoline and hay mixed with dung, seemed to have been contoured and worn down by it, or at least resigned to it. The few passersby on the street, shivering against the cold, were subdued, anonymous, sickly; their shoes made wet splacking noises in the puddles. The sound, startling in the silence, depressed him and he was glad to reach his destination, glad when the glass doors closed behind him, shutting out the smell of the rain.

Inside, the ironic smell of mold and a sickly sweet sterility. He sneezed and put down his briefcase. He took off his galoshes, placed them by the door. Removed his raincoat, which looked as if the rain had worn grooves into it, and hooked it on the absurdly sinister coat rack with its seething gargoyle heads. He shook himself, stray water drops spraying in all directions, straightened his tie, and smoothed back his hair. Bemoaned the lack of coffee. Took a slip of paper from his jacket pocket. Room 54. Downstairs. Down many stairs.

He stared across the empty hall. White and gray tile. Anonymous doors. Sheets of dull lighting from above most of it aflicker with abnormalities. And clocks—clocks created for bureaucrats so that they formed innocuous gray circles every few yards, their dull hands clucking quietly. He could only hear them because most of the staff was away for the holidays. The emptiness lent a certain ease to his task. He meant to take his time.

He picked up his briefcase and walked up the hall, shoes squeaking against the shiny tile floor; amazingly enough, the janitorial staff had recently waxed it.

He passed a trio of coat racks, all three banal in their repetition of gargoyles, and not at all in keeping with the dream of a modern facility dreamt by his superiors. Ahead, a lone security guard stood at attention in a doorway. The man, gaunt to the point of starvation, looked neither right nor left. He nodded as he passed but the guard did not even blink. Was the guard dead? The man smelled of old leather and tar. Would he smell of old leather and tar if he was dead? Somehow the thought amused him.