Mallory turned, finally, from the window. He looked for disdain or anger in her eyes, but they simply seemed tired, unable to focus.

“You’re a photographer, Ethan. Where’s the fucking mystery?”

“It’s just not something I do,” he said.

And it wasn’t. It was one of the myriad little weirdnesses in their relationship that suggested the larger dysfunction. He was a photographer and he photographed her so rarely—so rarely, anyway, did she allow candid shots. He could probably count them on one hand. There had been a few times during their courtship before he knew better, and once in Key West when he caught her by surprise. Early on, she let him bring his camera to bed as a sort of game, but he realized later that those moments were posed for him: Samantha from behind with her hand braced against the headboard and the flash shadowing the muscles in her arm, throwing the sweat between her arched shoulders into a rainbow of broken glass, or Samantha kneeling between his legs with her hair tied back and her eyes open and wide and staring straight up at the camera. A moment manufactured as carefully as the advertisements she developed. Nothing beyond her control.

“Do you think the monks drew grotesques and monsters into the margins of their Bibles to represent the terrors of the fallen world?” Mallory asked. “Or were they just mean and celibate and bored?”

Her eyes would not focus properly. There was something familiar about the dwarf’s song, but the words were in Spanish and Ethan did not know any Spanish songs. The dwarf still faced their table, crooning up at them.

“Let me buy you another drink,” Ethan said. “Tell me about the dissertation.”

“Not likely. No one wants to talk about their dissertation. Not to you.”

The dwarf’s tone had changed. He was snarling the words, singing as if in a rage, and Ethan recognized the song now. It was “As Time Goes By” sung in Spanish. There was no piano. The dwarf sang and sang and stared up at them. The light leant his grimacing aspect the stilted, static look of a weeping clown mask. Ethan turned away. Outside, it had begun to rain in icy sheets, but still the red light hung over the city.

“What’s with this light?” he said.

Mallory made a dismissive gesture in the air with her hands. She seemed barely able to lift them.

“The pigs are lurking about the crib,” she said.

“Are you on drugs? Or is that Chaucer?”

“Ethan, are you relieved that your wife is leaving you?”

The song had not ended. Hail tapped at the window now. The dwarf barked the Spanish refrain over and over and the bartender made no move to stop him. Clearly, the singer was crying.

“It’s a simple question, Ethan. It’s not some trick. Are you relieved?”