JUST SOUTH OF THE Sick Rock I encountered a black omen: Gilliatt.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Don’t you ever check back with your office?” He brandished a portfolio at me. I would not, of course, tell him how the day was crumbling about me.
“It’s five o’clock,” he said. “You have to sign the daily estimate sheets.”
“I’ll do it here, on the Rock. Did you find poor Barbara?” The qualifying word was inadvertent; Gilliatt did not miss it.
“Poor Barbara is still missing,” he said. “Though your Mister Cardillo claims to have seen her. Sign both copies, please. How was the Board of Management?”
“How would I know?”
“Didn’t Rath and Brand interrogate you?”
“In a way.”
“That was the Board of Management meeting.”
I refused to show him my confusion and dismay. He gazed at me wisely, as if assaying my reserves of control, measuring how far I was from a break. It was an acquired Academy skill.
“I don’t think you won this time,” I said.
“Maybe. But perhaps you lost anyway.”
“Hell of a place to sign papers,” I grumbled.
“I know—the modern Jew’s traditional dislike of the outdoors.” It was comforting to meet again the familiar, clearly directed hostility. My strength seemed to return.
“Simply the Jew’s traditional sense of order,” I said. “‘Unto all things a time and a place.’ Signing papers: indoors—”
“And ice skating: outdoors?”
Gilliatt knew. On this day of days everyone knew everything except, it seemed, myself. “I’ve set up interviews,” he proceeded easily, “for Barbara’s replacement. Eight to nine tomorrow morning.” Tomorrow. The improbable cool comfort of the word.
“If we find her—”
“Or if we don’t! Legal has the replacement papers.”
“All right. How do the day’s choices seem to be stacking up?”
He stuffed the papers back into his portfolio. “Hard to say yet. It’s not been a typical day. See you at dinner.”
When he had gone about fifty yards I called out after him, “Gilliatt!” He turned, an oddly balletic turn, black calligraphy against paper-white snow.
“Who’s the spy, Gilliatt, you or me?” It was too far to be sure but I thought he grinned.
“Don’t you know either?” he called back. His blackness receded.