My love for Agnes had changed, and was different now from anything I’d experienced before. I felt an almost physical dependency on her; when she wasn’t there I had a dismaying sensation of not being complete. Whereas in my previous relationships I’d always insisted on having a lot of time for myself, it wasn’t possible for me to see enough of Agnes. Ever since our hike in the park, I thought about her all the time, and only really calmed down when she was with me, and when I could look at her and touch her. Then, when she was with me, I felt intoxicated, and everything around me, like the air and the light, seemed painfully clear and close, and time itself got to seem concrete and actual as it passed. For the first time in my life, I had the sensation that something outside me, something strange and incomprehensible, was entering me.
I began observing Agnes, and I saw how little I actually knew her. I noticed the private rituals she celebrated, apparently unaware of them. When we went out to restaurants, and the waiter or waitress had set the table, Agnes always adjusted her cutlery. When her food was brought in, she lifted the plate on her two index fingers and balanced it in the air for a moment, as though looking for its center of gravity, and then put it down again.
She never touched strangers, and avoided being touched by them. However, she couldn’t stop touching objects. She would brush against furniture and buildings with her hands when walking past them. Smaller things she would practically grope, as though she couldn’t see them. Sometimes she would sniff them too, but when I drew her attention to that, she would claim not to realize.
When she was reading, she would be so immersed in her text that she wouldn’t reply if I spoke to her. Echoes of what she was reading, intimations of feelings, would chase across her face. She would smile, she would press her lips together. On occasions, she would sigh, or frown with annoyance.
Agnes seemed to be aware that I was observing her, but she didn’t say anything. I think she enjoyed it. Sometimes she would respond to my amazed expression with a smile, but never with vanity.
A few days after our excursion to the lake, the story moved into the future. Now Agnes was my creation. I felt the new freedom lend wings to my imagination. I planned her future for her, the way a father would plan his daughter’s. She would write a dazzling doctoral thesis, and be a star in the university. We would be happy together. I could see that eventually Agnes would come to life in my story, and go her own ways, and that no plan of mine could prevent that. I knew such a moment would come, if the story was any good, and I was both pleased and apprehensive at the prospect.
We didn’t see each other for a few days, but I’d thought about Agnes the whole time, and gone on with the story. When my publisher called me to ask how I was getting on with the book, I tried to set him at ease, and said I’d had difficulties getting hold of certain documents. He said he’d scheduled the book for next autumn, and I promised to deliver the manuscript by Christmas. I put the phone down, rang Agnes, and asked her over.
“You’ll be wearing your navy-blue dress,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked in amazement.
“I’ve overtaken the present,” I said. “I know the future.”
She laughed.