“What’s the difference? Six fingers or four breasts?”

Once again, I give the matter some thought, but can’t begin to think of how to explain.

“Tell me, do I ask too many questions?” the girl asks, peering into my eyes from behind her sunglasses.

“You been told that?” I ask back.

“Sometimes.”

“Nothing wrong with asking questions. Makes the other person think.”

“Most people, though, don’t give me much thought,” she says, looking at the tips of her toes. “Everyone just gives the usual nothing-doing answers.”

I shake my head vaguely and to realign my gaze onto the cat path. What the hell am I doing here? There hasn’t been one lousy cat come past here yet.

I shut my eyes for twenty or thirty seconds, arms folded across my chest. Lying there, eyes closed, I can feel the sweat bead up over different parts of my body. On my forehead, under my nose, around my neck, the slightest sensations, as if tiny moistened feathers had been floated into place here and there. My T-shirt clings to my chest like a drooping flag on a doldrum day. The sunlight has a curious weight as it seeps into me. I can hear the tinkling of ice as the girl jiggles her glass.

“Go to sleep if you want. I’ll wake you if I see your cat,” the girl whispers.

I nod silently with eyes closed.

For the time being, there isn’t a sound. That pigeon and the wind-up bird must have gone off somewhere. Not a breeze, not even a car starting. The whole while I’m thinking about that voice on the telephone. What if I really did know the woman?

Yet I can’t recall any such woman. She’s just not there; she’s long departed from my consciousness. Only her long, long shadow trailing across my path, a vision from Chirico. An endless ringing in my ears.

“Hey, you asleep?” comes the girl’s voice, so faint it’s almost no voice at all.

“No, I’m awake,” I answer.

“Can I get closer? It’s easier for me to talk in a whisper.”

“Go right ahead,” I say, eyes still closed.

I listen as the girl slides her deck chair alongside mine, hear the dry clack of wooden frames touching.

Strange, I think, the girl’s voice with my eyes closed sounds completely different from her voice with my eyes open. What’s come over me? This has never happened to me before.

“Can I talk some?” the girl asks. “I’ll be real quiet. You don’t have to answer, you can even fall right asleep at any time.”

“Sure,” I say.

“Death. People dying. It’s all so fascinating,” the girl begins.

She’s whispering right by my ear, so the words enter my body in a warm, moist stream of breath.

“How’s that?” I ask.

The girl places a one-finger seal over my lips.

“No questions,” she says. “I don’t want to be asked anything just now. And don’t open your eyes, either. Got it?”

I give a nod as indistinct as her voice.