IT WAS AFTER midnight by the time I got home. The motorcycle was, of course, no longer parked by the front entrance. I took the elevator to the fourth floor, unlocked the apartment door, and went in. Everything was pitch-black except for a small fluorescent light above the sink. My sister had probably gotten fed up and gone to bed. I couldn’t blame her.

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and emptied it in one gulp. I used lots of soap in the shower to wash the foul-smelling sweat from my body, and then I did a thorough job of brushing my teeth. My face in the bathroom mirror was enough to give me chills. I looked like one of those middle-aged men you see on the last trains from downtown, sprawling drunk on the seats and fouling themselves with their own vomit. My skin was rough, my eyes looked sunken, and my hair had lost its sheen.

I shook my head and turned out the bathroom light. With nothing on but a towel wrapped around my waist, I went to the kitchen and drank some tap water. Something will work out tomorrow, I thought. And if not, then tomorrow I’ll do some thinking. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.

“You were so late tonight,” came my sister’s voice out of the gloom. She was sitting on the living-room couch, drinking a beer alone.

“I was drinking,” I said.

“You drink too much.”

“I know.”

I got a beer from the refrigerator and sat down across from her.

For a while, neither of us said anything. We sat there, occasionally tipping back our beer cans. The leaves of the potted plants on the balcony fluttered in the breeze, and beyond them floated the misty semicircle of the moon.

“Just to let you know, we didn’t do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Do anything. Something got on my nerves. I just couldn’t do it.”

“Oh.” I seem to lose the power of speech on half-moon nights.

“Aren’t you going to ask what got on my nerves?”

“What got on your nerves?”

“This room! This place! I just couldn’t do it here.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, is something wrong with you? Are you feeling sick?”

“I’m tired. Even I get tired sometimes.”

She looked at me without a word. I drained the last sip of my beer and rested my head on the seat back, eyes closed.

“Was it our fault? Did we make you tired?”

“No way,” I said with my eyes still closed.

“Are you too tired to talk?” she asked in a tiny voice.

I straightened up and looked at her. Then I shook my head.

“I’m worried. Did I say something terrible to you today? Something about you yourself, or about the way you live?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“Really?”