The banker paused gravely. He was a small, bony man, kind-faced, bright-eyed. “That is very well said, and the speed is impressive too,” he commented. “And because you have repeated it five times without a mistake, I will answer five questions, if you wish to ask them.”

Where are you going? “I am going in search of knowledge and if possible of peace.” Why aren’t you wearing your office suit? “Because I have given up my employment.” Why is Mrs. Venkat crying? “That is a question for her.” When are you coming back? “This step, Malik, is once and for all.” What about Chandra? “He will understand one day.” Don’t you care about us anymore? “That is the sixth question. Over the limit. Be a good child now. Be a good friend to your friend.” Malik Solanka remembered his mother trying, after Mr. Venkat went away down the hill, to explain the philosophy of the sanyasi, of a man’s decision to give up all possessions and worldly connections, severing himself from life, in order to come closer to the Divine before it was time to die. Mr. Venkat had left his affairs in good order; his family would be well provided for. But he would never return. Malik did not understand most of what he was being told, but he had a vivid comprehension of what Chandra meant when, later that day, he broke his father’s old Ink Spots records and shouted: “I hate knowledge! And peace, too. I really hate peace a lot.”

When a man without faith mimicked the choices of the faithful, the result was likely to be both vulgar and inept. Professor Malik Solanka donned no loincloth, picked up no begging bowl. Instead of surrendering himself to the fortune of the street and the charity of strangers, he flew business class to JFK, checked briefly into the Lowell, called a real estate broker, and speedily lucked out, finding himself this commodious West Side sublet. Instead of heading for Manaus, Alice Springs, or Vladivostok, he had landed himself in a city in which he was not completely unknown, which was not completely unknown to him, in which he could speak the language and find his way around and understand, up to a point, the customs of the natives. He had acted without thinking, had been strapped into his airline seat before he allowed himself to reflect; then he’d simply accepted the imperfect choice his reflexes had made, agreed to proceed down the unlikely road onto which his feet, without prompting, had turned. A sanyasi in New York, a sanyasi with a duplex and credit card, was a contradiction in terms. Very well. He would be that contradiction and, in spite of his oxymoronic nature, pursue his goal. He too was in search of a quietus, of peace. So, his old self must somehow be canceled, put away for good. It must not rise up like a specter from the tomb to claim him at some future point, dragging him down into the sepulchre of the past. And if he failed, then he failed, but one did not contemplate what lay beyond failure while one was still trying to succeed. After all, Jay Gatsby, the highest bouncer of them all, failed too in the end, but lived out, before he crashed, that brilliant, brittle, gold-hatted, exemplary American life.

He awoke in his bed-fully dressed, again, with strong drink on his breath-without knowing how or when he’d reached it. With consciousness came fear of himself. Another night unaccounted for. Another blank snowstorm in the videotape. But as before there was no blood on his hands or clothes, no weapon on his person, not so much as a concrete lump. He lurched upright, grabbed the zapper and found the tail end of the local news on TV. Nothing about a Concrete Killer or a Panama Hat Man or a privileged beauty done to death. No breaking of a living doll. He fell back across the bed, breathing hard and fast. Then, kicking off his street shoes, he pulled the covers over his aching head.

He recognized this funk. Long ago in a Cambridge hostel he had been unable to rise and face his new undergraduate existence. Now as then, panic and demons rushed in at him from every side. He was vulnerable to demons. He heard their bat-wings flapping by his ears, felt their goblin fingers twining around his ankles to pull him down to that hell in which he didn’t believe but which kept cropping up in his language, in his emotions, in the part of him that was not his to control. That growing part of him that was running wild, out of his feeble hands… where was Krysztof Waterford-Wajda when he needed him? Come on, Dubdub, knock at the door and pull me away from the edge of the yawning Pit.—But Dubdub didn’t return from beyond Heaven’s door to knock.

This wasn’t it, Solanka told himself feverishly. This wasn’t the story that had brought him all this way! Not this Jekyll and Hyde melodrama, a saga of a lower order entirely. There was no Gothic strain in the architecture of his life, no mad scientist’s laboratory, no bubbling retorts, no gulped potion of demonic metamorphosis. Yet the fear, the funk, would not leave him. He drew the covers down more tightly over his head. He could smell the street on his clothes. There was no evidence linking him to any crime. Nor was he under investigation for anything at all. How many men, in an average Manhattan summer, wore Panama hats? Hundreds, at least? Why, then, was he tormenting himself so? Because if the knife was possible, so was this. And then the circumstances: three failures of nocturnal memory, three dead women. This was the conjunction that required his silence as absolutely as the knife in the dark but which he could not hide from himself. Also that stream of obscenities unknowingly spoken in Cafe Mozart. Not enough for any court to convict, but he was his own judge, and the jury was out.

Blearily, he dialed a number and waited through the interminable mechanized-voice preliminaries to receive his voice mail. You have one!—new message.—The following—one!—new message—has NOT been heard.—First message. Then came Eleanor’s voice, with which long ago he fell in love. “Malik, you say you want to forget yourself. I say you have already forgotten yourself. You say you don’t want to be ruled by your anger. I say your anger has never ruled you more. I remember you though you have forgotten me. I remember you before that doll screwed up our lives: you used to be interested in everything. I loved that. I remember your gaiety, your terrible singing, your funny voices. You taught me to love cricket; now I want Asmaan to love it too. I remember your longing to know, of human beings, the best that we are capable of, but also to look without illusions at the worst. I remember your love of life, of our son, and of me. You abandoned us, but we have not abandoned you. Come home, darling. Please come home.” Naked, courageous, heart-tearing stuff. But here was another gap. When had he spoken to Eleanor of anger and forgetting? Perhaps he had come home drunk and wanted to explain himself. Maybe he had left her a message, to which this was her answer. And she, as ever, had heard much more than he had said. Had heard, in short, his fear.

He made himself get up, stripped and showered. He was brewing coffee in the kitchen when he realized that the apartment was empty. Yet it was one of Wislawa’s days. Why wasn’t she here? Solanka dialed her number. “Yes?” It was her voice all right. “Wislawa?” he demanded. “Professor Solanka. Aren’t you supposed to be working today?” There was a long pause. “Professor?” said Wislawa’s voice, sounding timid and small. “You do not remember?” He felt his body temperature dropping rapidly. “What? Remember what?” Now Wislawa’s voice grew tearful. “Professor, you fire me. You fire me, for what? For nothing. Of course you remember. And the words. Such words from an educated man, I never heard. After this, it’s over for me. Even now that you call to ask me, I cannot return.” Somebody spoke behind her, another woman’s voice, and Wislawa rallied, to add with considerable determination, “However, cost of my work is included in your contract. Since you fire me unjustly I will continue to receive this. I have spoken to landlord and they are agree. I think they will speak also to you. You know, I work for Mrs. Jay long time.” Malik Solanka put the receiver down without another word.