“Not really.” He’d only been a temporary occupant of the American, but long enough to find the matter putrid, nothing to revisit.
“If you’re tired, you should go sleep. May I call you a car?”
“I’ll walk.”
There was nowhere safer than Singapore in the morning. Yet it was no more dangerous at night. That was what made it Singapore! This permanent marvel amused the tall figure in the white linen suit as he strode across the Sentosa Gateway, past Brani Island, into the city, gripping the stone in his pocket, otherwise unburdened. He needed sleep, yes. But he thought he might first cross along the viaduct and turn into Labrador Villa Road. He wished to see the birds there.
It was reason enough to be content that Edgar Falk had settled here in Singapore, at Sentosa Cove: the birds. The giant cormorants—one, at least, always seemed to be waiting there. His shorebird, the only animal that followed him everywhere he went in the world, beginning at Stinson Beach. He could rename himself after the bird, even. Alexander B. Cormorant.
Or he might accept his name at present—the Mummy. Hoary, but conveying a kind of legacy.
In practice, he was a surgeon, delving through faces to what lay underneath, to look out through the eyes. There, to learn the only important thing about most men: what cards they held. He might even call himself Noah Behringer, for amusement’s sake. He wondered if Edgar Falk would recognize that name, or whether it would be lost on him…
Flashman, Nooseman, Anonymous, Abide.
Ich bin ein Vegetarierin.
We’re all Unknown Tragics on this bus.
Or a Vietnam vet, employed as a hydrotherapy attendant at Alta Bates, and looking on as a helpless white kid spunked up a whirlpool, mess you’d be obliged to clean up, damn. If he quested back he might even retrieve the man’s name…
Anyone, anyone, but “Alexander Bruno”—words for one who no longer existed.
Thanks
Dr. Adam Duhan
Dr. Michael Blumlein
Dr. Marie Warburg
Dr. Laurence Rickels
Dr. Atul Gawande
Dr. Michael Zöllner
Dr. Chris Offutt
Dr. Amy Barrett
About the Author
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Dissident Gardens, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn; two short-story collections; and two essay collections, including The Ecstasy of Influence, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Lethem is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among other publications.
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