Quinn heard laughter in the' hallway, first from a woman and then from a child-the high and the higher, a staccato of ringing shrapnel-and then the basso rumbling of Auster's guffaw. The child spoke: "Daddy, look what I found!" And then the woman explained that it had been lying on the street, and why not, it seemed perfectly okay. A moment later he heard the child running towards him down the hall. The child shot into the living room, caught sight of Quinn, and stopped dead in his tracks. He was a blond-haired boy of five or six.

"Good afternoon," said Quinn.

The boy, rapidly withdrawing into shyness, managed no more than a faint hello. In his left hand he held a red object that Quinn could not identify. Quinn asked the boy what it was.

"It's a yoyo," he answered, opening his hand to show him. "I found it on the street.

"Does it work?"

The boy gave an exaggerated pantomime shrug. "Dunno. Siri can't do it. And I don't know how."

Quinn asked him if he could try, and the boy walked over and put it in his hand. As he examined the yoyo, he could hear the child breathing beside him, watching his every move. The yoyo was plastic, similar to the ones he had played with years ago, but more elaborate somehow, an artifact of the space age. Quinn fastened the loop at the end of the string around his middle finger, stood up, and gave it a try. The yoyo gave off a fluted, whistling sound as it descended, and sparks shot off inside it. The boy gasped, but then the yoyo stopped, dangling at the end of its line.

"A great philosopher once said," muttered Quinn, "that the way up and the way down are one and the same."

"But you didn't make it go up," said the boy. "It only went down."

"You have to keep trying."

Quinn was rewinding the spool for another attempt when Auster and his wife entered the room. He looked up and saw the woman first. In that one brief moment he knew that he was in trouble. She was a tall, thin blonde, radiantly beautiful, with an energy and happiness that seemed to make everything around her invisible. It was too much for Quinn. He felt as though Auster were taunting him with the things he had lost, and he responded with envy and rage, a lacerating self-pity. Yes, he too would have liked to have this wife and this child, to sit around all day spouting drivel about old books, to be surrounded by yoyos and ham omelettes and fountain pens. He prayed to himself for deliverance.

Auster saw the yoyo in his hand and said, "I see you've already met. Daniel," he said to the boy, "this is Daniel." And then to Quinn, with that same ironic smile, "Daniel, this is Daniel."

The boy burst out laughing and said., "Everybody's Daniel!"

"That's right," said Quinn. "I'm you, and you're me."

"And around and around it goes," shouted the boy, suddenly spreading his arms and spinning around the room like a gyroscope.

"And this," said Auster, turning to the woman, "is my wife, Siri.

The wife smiled her smile, said she was glad to meet Quinn as though she meant it, and then extended her hand to him. He shook it, feeling the uncanny slenderness of her bones, and asked if her name was Norwegian.

"Not many people know that," she said.

"Do you come from Norway?"

"Indirectly," she said. "By way of Northfield, Minnesota." And then she laughed her laugh, and Quinn felt a little more of himself collapse.

"I know this is sort of last minute," Auster said, "but if you have some time to spare, why don't you stay and have dinner with us?"

"Ah," said Quinn, struggling to keep himself in check. "That's very kind. But I really must be going. I'm late as it is."

He made one last effort, smiling at Auster's wife and waving good-bye to the boy. "So long, Daniel," he said, walking towards the door.

The boy looked at him from across the room and laughed again. "Good-bye myself!" he said.

Auster accompanied him to the door. He said, "I'll call you as soon as the check clears. Are you in the book?"

"Yes," said Quinn. "The only one."

"If you need me for anything," said Auster, "just call. I'll be happy to help."

Auster reached out to shake hands with him, and Quinn realized that he was still holding the yoyo, He placed it in Auster's right hand, patted him gently on the shoulder, and left.

11

QUINN was nowhere now. He had nothing, he knew nothing, he knew that he knew nothing. Not only had he been sent to the beginning, he was now before the beginning, and so far before the beginning that it was worse than any end he could imagine.

His watch read nearly six. Quinn walked home the way he had come, lengthening his strides with each new block. By the time he came to his street, he was running. It's June second, he told himself Try to remember that. This is New York, and tomorrow will be June third. If all goes well, the following day will be the fourth. But nothing is certain.

The hour had long since passed for his call to Virginia Stillman, and he debated whether to go through with it. Would it be possible to ignore her? Could he abandon everything now, just like that? Yes, he said to himself, it was possible. He could forget about the case, get back to his routine, write another book. He could take a trip if he liked, even leave the country for a while. He could go to Paris, for example. Yes, that was possible. But anywhere would do, he thought, anywhere at all.

He sat down in his living room and looked at the walls. They had once been white, he remembered, but now they had turned a curious shade of yellow. Perhaps one day they would drift further into dinginess, lapsing into gray, or even brown, like some piece of aging fruit. A white wall becomes a yellow wall becomes a gray wall, he said to himself. The paint becomes exhausted, the city encroaches with its soot, the plaster crumbles within. Changes, then more changes still.

He smoked a cigarette, and then another, and then another. He looked at his hands, saw that they were dirty, and got up to wash them. In the bathroom, with the water running in the sink, he decided to shave as well. He lathered his face, took out a clean blade, and started scraping off his beard. For some reason, he found it unpleasant to look in the mirror and kept trying to avoid himself with his eyes. You're getting old, he said to himself, you're turning into an old fart. Then he went into the kitchen, ate a bowl of cornflakes, and smoked another cigarette.

It was seven o'clock now. Once again, he debated whether to call Virginia Stillman. As he turned the question over in his mind, it occurred to him that he no longer had an opinion. He saw the argument for making the call, and at the same time he saw the argument for not making it. In the end, it was etiquette that decided. It would not be fair to disappear without telling her first. After that, it would be perfectly acceptable. As long as you tell people what you are going to do, he reasoned, it doesn't matter. Then you are free to do what you want.

The number, however, was busy. He waited five minutes and dialed again. Again, the number was busy. For the next hour Quinn alternated between dialing and waiting, always with the same result. At last he called the operator and asked whether the phone was out of order. There would be a charge of thirty cents, he was told. Then came a crackling in the wires, the sound of further dialing, more voices. Quinn tried to imagine what the operators looked like. Then the first woman spoke to him again: the number was busy.

Quinn did not know what to think. There were so many possibilities, he could not even begin. Stillman? The phone off the hook? Someone else altogether?

He turned on the television and watched the first two innings of the Mets game. Then he dialed once again. Same thing. In the top of the third St. Louis scored on a walk, a stolen base, an infield out, and a sacrifice fly. The Mets matched that run in their half of the inning on a double by Wilson and a single by Youngblood. Quinn realized that he didn't care. A beer commercial came on, and he turned off the sound. For the twentieth time he tried to reach Virginia Stillman, and for the twentieth time the same thing happened. In the top of the fourth St. Louis scored five runs, and Quinn turned off the picture as well. He found his red notebook, sat down at his desk, and wrote steadily for the next two hours. He did not bother to read over what he had written. Then he called Virginia Stillman and got another busy signal. He slammed the receiver down so hard that the plastic cracked. When he tried to call again, he could no longer get a dial tone. He stood up, went into the kitchen, and made another bowl of cornflakes. Then he went to bed.