“Even if John Coetzee is nothing more than a text that exists in intertextual opposition to the text that is my life, I still want to find him,” I say. “I want to speak to him. Our conversation will be yet another text that can engage in dialogue with the other texts.”

“You say he lives in Adelaide now?”

“Yes. I managed to worm that out of one of his colleagues in the English Department.”

“And you can’t afford to fly to Adelaide to beard him in his den.”

Only in my daydreams.

I don’t tell Eugene about the daydreams. They are more like hallucinations. I wonder if I go into a petit mal state when I have them. Time passes—time that I have no memory of. My only memory is of the dreams.

They have become as much a part of the warp and weft of me as my actual memories. The other day, I read an interview with a woman who had survived a shark attack. As she described the fear, the numbness, the bloom of blood in the water, I thought, yes, that’s how it was for me. Then I remembered that I have never been attacked by a shark. I had a daydream about it once, and now it has been assimilated into my memories.

That’s not something you share on a first date. I will edit myself until he can handle my unexpurgated self.

It is time for us to go our separate ways. This meeting went well, but not well enough for our coffee date to turn into a lunch date, despite strong hints from the restaurant. The smell of coffee and burnt onions has been replaced by coriander and roast pumpkin. The tables are filling up. The waiter has asked us twice if we’d like to see menus.

Eugene waves him away. We split the bill and walk out into the street. The wind has come up. The black southeaster. It blows us apart and we go our separate ways.

CHAPTER 11

There is no time for reflection. If I had the leisure, I would mull over every nuance of our date and online conversations. Not because I am a woman, but because I don’t have enough to occupy myself. My mind runs along well-worn grooves. There is nothing to tempt it to jump the tracks and try something else. I don’t have enough to think about.

Until today. Today I have plenty to think about. Too much, in fact, and none of it good. My father phoned last night while I was eating. He told me the insurance company was being difficult. This is a refrain I am accustomed to hearing, so I didn’t give it my full attention. It seemed that it was the value of the furniture that was in dispute, so I made appropriate noises.