“Fine, thank you,” I looked at him coldly.

He told me that he would need to see me in another four weeks, and he gave me a prescription to give to the pharmacist at the hospital, and a list of things which he wanted checked in a blood test. Then he stood up and smiled and shook my hand. I wondered if he was shaking my hand to show that, even though I had an infectious disease, he was not afraid to touch me. I thought as I stood there that drawing graphs for people showing them how they would die was a strange way to make a living. I did not smile at him.

I began to work again. I lived in the apartment and constantly intended to telephone John Evanson and give him back the keys of his light-filled house by the marina and tell him that I could no longer live there, but I postponed it. I traveled to New York for a lunch with potential investors and a few days briefing various journalists. I saw Tom Shaw a few times. I even had a drink on my own with him once, but we talked about business and strategy. I did not know if he could tell that I was sick. He was too guarded in his manner and his responses for anyone to know anything about him. I did not think about sex.

Slowly, I became used to the idea that I was going to die. I became afraid only if I thought that something specific was wrong, especially if I woke in the night. In New York the heating was too high in the hotel and I woke in a sweat a few nights in a row. I wondered if this was the beginning of night sweats, and I lay there worrying if I should see a doctor now, if I should telephone Buenos Aires and tell Doctor Cawley about my symptoms. I had lost weight in the hospital; often, I looked in the mirror to see if I looked like a man with AIDS. If I came across the reflection of myself I found that I looked frightened, insecure.