Had his interlocutor been anyone but Alex Foss, his voice would not have carried; I would never have heard the answer, and no one would have been the wiser. But, as it was Alex Foss, I heard every word as clearly as if he had been standing next to me, speaking into my ear.

“Who?” he asked.

Reinecke answered, still inaudibly.

“That’s a good question,” said Foss. “I’ve never really been sure myself. But my impression is that he’s some kind of glorified secretary.”

17

To hear such bald words about yourself so early in the morning—it’s discouraging, to say the least.

When I could be sure that the two men had gone, I continued on my way down the hallway, let myself into my office, and sat down at my desk. For some time I could do nothing but sit and stare into space. Might it be possible, I wondered, to simply pack up and leave for the day, to admit defeat, though the clock on my shelf showed it was not yet even eight o’clock in the morning? That was not a solution, I knew, although I would be lying if I said the thought was not tempting. Eventually I settled down and tried to do some work. I made a few half-hearted attempts at different projects, accomplishing nothing in particular. At around eleven-thirty I gave up for good, and took myself back to the break room to microwave the leftover spaghetti I had brought with me for lunch.

At the door I tensed a little, but it was mercifully quiet. I decanted my spaghetti into a bowl and covered it with a plate, put it in the battered microwave and pressed start. I stayed there, leaning against the counter, watching through the little frosted window as my spaghetti made its lazy revolutions, and as I did, an uncanny feeling crept over me, a peculiar set of conditions settled like a fog into every corner of my mind, and I felt as though I were having a strange, waking dream.

Only it was not a dream. It was a memory, a particularly clear one, of a visit my father had paid me when I was a young man living in Ottawa.