I had a private class at four o’clock that day with a fourteen-year-old girl and her mother which lasted until half past five. As I sat there I could not wait for the time to pass and a few times the mother caught me looking at my watch. The girl was clever; she had a good memory. I enjoyed watching her grasp various rules and try to apply them. But the mother could learn nothing and remember nothing. I hated being in the room with them, and when the class was over and I took the train back to the city center, I managed to put it out of my mind, as though it were a dark, distant memory from childhood, or something that had not really happened. I had another class in the academy from six o’clock to seven and then the course which I taught three evenings a week from eight thirty until ten. After the first class I normally went home for a while; I loved the city in that last hour when the shops were open and the offices still busy. I walked slowly down Lavalle as though I had nothing to do. I relished my freedom from the classroom. But that day there was another reason to go home; I felt as though the season had changed, or I had just been paid, or I was about to meet a lover. I could not tell what would happen when I rang the number which Susan Ford had given me. I was excited by the idea of speaking to her again, by her American accent. I telephoned her as soon as I had closed the door of the apartment. She picked up the receiver on the first ring. I wondered what she was doing and where her husband was. I imagined her at a desk going through names, trying to learn by heart who we all were, what party or splinter party we belonged to, and trying to work out the possibilities. Who should she see? Who should she encourage? Who would she need?