Getting down from the stool he thought, For him to know. For me to find out. He stopped only to pick up the drink and take it to the bathroom, where he poured it down the toilet. Then he went into the living room and looked out the window. The light was dimming; there was no one on Sixty-third Street. He pushed the window higher, leaned out. Looking to his right he could see the intersection with Madison. He saw several of them crossing it. One looked his way and waved. He did not wave back. What he did was take the two bottles and drop them down to the street where they shattered. He thought of a man’s body, shattering, in a motorcycle wreck. In France? Certainly in France.

A group of four of them had turned the corner at Madison and were walking toward him. All of them had their hands in their pockets. Their heads were all inclined together and they appeared to be having an intimate, whispered conversation. Why whisper? Harold thought. I can’t hear you anyway.

He pulled himself up and sat on the window ledge, letting his legs hang over. He stared down at them and forced himself to say aloud, “Paul.” They were directly below him now, huddled and whispering. They seemed not to have heard him.

He took a breath and said it louder: “Paul.” And then he found somewhere the strength to shout it, in a loud, clear, steady voice. “Paul,” he shouted. “Paul Bendel.”

Then the four faces looked up, shocked. “You’re Paul Bendel,” he said. “Go back to your grave in France, Paul.”

They stood transfixed. Harold looked over toward Madison. Two of them there had stopped in their tracks in the middle of the intersection.

The four faces below were now staring up at him in mute appeal, begging for his silence. His voice spoke to this appeal with strength and clarity: “Paul Bendel,” he said, “you must go back to France.”

Abruptly all four of them averted their eyes from his and from one another’s. Their bodies seemed to become slack. Then they began drifting apart, walking dispiritedly away from one another and from him.

***

He was redoing a smeared place on the painting when the telephone rang. It was Janet. She was clearly in a good mood and she asked if the zucchini soup had been all right.

“Fine,” he said. “I had it cold.”

She laughed. “I’m glad it wasn’t too burned. How was the jarret de veau?”

Immediately, at the French, his stomach tightened. Despite the present clarity of his mind, he felt the familiar pain of the old petulance and jealousy. For a moment, he hugged the pain to himself, then dismissed it with a sigh.

“It’s in the oven right now,” he said. “I’m having it for dinner.”

ECHO

“How many electrodes are there in that thing?” Arthur said.

Mel gave him an irritated look. “More than anyone could count, old buddy.” He was checking some of the connections of the coils that went from the big tape recorder to the helmet; they were as profuse on the helmet as Medusa’s snakes. Arthur and Mel had left the party upstairs to come down to Mel’s basement laboratory. Mel taught paraphysics at the University.