Only one other thing to do, I thought, but it must wait.

I went to the window and looked out. The strolling couples from the Dutch Reformed church were like standins from a scene out of 1955. Their walk was slow-moving— a few steps, then stopping to examine something that had caught their attention. Couples huddled together in pools of sunlight. Their easy talk and laughter rose up from the street and sidewalks.

I saw among them a younger couple, perhaps in their early thirties. Both were blond, with the kind of athletic bodies that pose for fashion catalogs. They wore matching tennis shirts and shorts. Their legs were muscled and tan. And I wondered why they were there. Was their marriage so fragile that it needed a retreat? Did they touch only when they were posing in their fashion-catalog poses? Had they had affairs?

They were talking to an older couple, who seemed uncomfortable in their presence. Even from the window, I could see the expressions on the faces of the older couple. It was as though they had comic-strip balloons over their heads, with hand-lettered words telling their thoughts:

What do they know, these young people?

They’re children.

They don’t have the first idea what marriage is about, how mean it can get.

If they’ve got any sense, they’ll get out while the getting’s good.

The younger couple walked away—paraded away on the runway of the sidewalk—and I saw the old man’s eyes lingering on the slender body of the blond woman.

Damn, I’d like to have something like that one time before I die.

The older woman jabbed at her husband with her hand and he turned his head away from the blond woman with the slender, remarkable body. I could see the older woman lean to the older man and hiss something. He snarled like an irritated animal and stalked off, leaving his wife to glare bitterly at him.

And I suddenly remembered the night that Jimmy Crenshaw—Whistling Jimmy, a waiter for a short time during the summer of 1955—tried to kill Dave Klein with a knife used for slicing cheese.

Dave Klein was the wealthiest and most demanding guest of the Inn, even more wealthy and more demanding than Harry Burger. He also imagined himself a ladies’ man, an illusion that Harry promoted because, to Harry, it was great humor.

One evening, Dave became annoyed with Jimmy because Hilda Klinger, a woman he was trying to impress at Harry’s urging, was last to be served on the service rotation. He began to shout at Jimmy, insisting that Jimmy serve Hilda immediately. Jimmy quietly tried to explain the rotation to Dave, but Dave refused to listen. His shouts became more belligerent, more insulting. And Jimmy finally broke. He grabbed the knife from the cheese tray and bolted across the room, shouting, “You old bastard, I’m going to kill you!”