Arthur walked through the afternoon crowds at Dulles, suit hanging on him, hands in pockets. He knew all too well that he resembled a scarecrow. He had lost ten pounds in the last two weeks, and could ill afford it, but he was seldom hungry now.

Glancing at the American Airlines screen of arrivals and departures, he saw he had half an hour until Harry's plane landed. He had a choice between forcing down a sandwich or calling Francine and Marty.

Arthur was still trying to remember his wife's face. He could picture nose, eyes, lips, forehead, the shape of her hands, breasts, genitals, smooth warm white stomach and breasts the color of late morning fog, the texture of her thick black hair. He could recall her smell, warm and rich and breadlike, and the sound of her voice. But not her face.

That made her seem so far away, and him so isolated. He had spent ages, it seemed, in offices and in meetings. There was no reality in an office, no reality among a group of men talking about the fate of the Earth. Certainly no reality surrounding the President.

Reality was back by the river, back in the bedroom and the kitchen of their house, but most especially under the trees with the smooth hiss of wind and the rushing music of water. There he would always be in touch with them, could be isolated and yet not alone, out of sight of wife and son yet able to get back to them. If death should come, would Arthur be away from them, still performing his separate duties ... ?

The airport, as always, was crowded. A large tight knot of Japanese passed by. He felt a special kinship with Japanese, more so than with foreigners of his own race. Japanese were so intensely interested, and desirous of smooth relations, one-on-one. He walked around the knot, passed a German family, husband and wife and two daughters trying to riddle their boarding passes.

He could not remember Harry's face.

The open phone booth, with its ineffective plastic half bubble, accepted his credit card and thanked him in a warm middle-aged female voice, teacherlike and yet less stern, impersonally interested. Synthetic.

The phone rang six times before he remembered: Francine had told him the night before that Marty would have a dentist's appointment in the morning.

He hung up and crossed a central courtyard to a snack shop, ordering a turkey-pastrami sandwich and Coke. Twenty-five minutes. Sitting on a tall stool by a diminutive table, he forced himself to eat the entire sandwich.

Bread. Mayonnaise. Bird taste of turkey beneath an overlay of pastrami. Solid but not convincing. He made a face and took the last meatless dry double wedge of bread into his mouth.