“Man,” his co-worker said, smiling, “someone needs a vacation.”

Dirk took this comment as a good omen. It sort of righted the ship. If it was a vacation he needed, he’d already seen to it that he was getting one. His mind must have been clouded with the anticipation of handing in his two weeks’ notice.

That’s all.

Dirk headed back to where the tours began. A co-worker passed him, coming from the other direction, and Dirk paused, watched the man pass, and reached over his shoulder, as if looking for a sudden hump.

Get through the next tour, he told himself. Then put in your notice.

But he couldn’t stop thinking that the co-worker reminded him of someone called the Mixed-up Man. Someone Dirk had seen in a very bad dream.

17

This is a good tour, a boy says. And here comes another exhibit.

Dirk thinks he hears something like footsteps coming their way, but mixed in with all the other sounds echoing off the stone walls, it’s difficult to say.

He tells himself that his ears are going to hear things he doesn’t want to hear…that the children shouldn’t hear.

A figure shows ahead.

What is it? a girl asks.

A man, Dirk thinks and then says.

The man is momentarily caught between the darkness of the corridor and the light of the lamppost head. He looks dead to Dirk. Or half a man maybe. Just the front, visible half. But when he steps into the full sphere of the light, Dirk sees he is whole.

Oh my! he says. How was it?

Dirk is cautious as he responds. How was what?

The man fumbles with his hands. He seems extremely nervous. He runs in place then settles down again. He looks Dirk in the eye and then doesn’t. He licks his lips and looks over his shoulder and then back past the children rapidly.

How was the prize? he says. How was the trophy?

The man wears a suit. Because it’s brown it’s difficult to see that it’s covered in dirt and that parts are ripped open. Dirk imagines the man running alongside the stone walls, tearing his clothes apart.

I don’t understand, Dirk says.

The man looks Dirk in the eye and smiles. Then his smile falls from his face and he looks down to his hands. Then back up at Dirk. He squints into the light and says, You are tourists, right?

Dirk isn’t sure he wants to talk to this man anymore. But a boy behind him says, Yes.

Then you must have seen the prize.

Dirk doesn’t want the kids talking to this man.

We’ve seen nothing but stone, he says.

The man stops moving for the first time. He is taken aback, it seems. It’s hard to tell what he feels. His expressions run the gamut of emotions very fast.

Don’t tell me there’s just stone, he says. That would break my heart, he says. I know there must be more, he says. The brochure said so.