The Double Read Free Page B

its forgiveness for his neglect, and worked into the night, like the scrupulous teacher he had always prided himself on being, full of pedagogical love for his pupils, but rigorous with dates and implacable when it came to epithets. It was late by the time he reached the end of the task he had set himself, but, still repentant for his lapse, still contrite for his sin, and like someone who has decided to swap one painful hairshirt for another no less punitive one, he took to bed with him the book on ancient Mesopotamian civilizations and began
the chapter about the Amorites and, in particular, about their King Hammurabi and his code of law. After only four pages he fell peacefully asleep, a sign that he had been forgiven.
    He awoke an hour later. He had not been dreaming, no horrible nightmare had disordered his brain, he had not been flailing around, trying to defend himself against a gelatinous monster that was stuck to his face, he merely opened his eyes and thought, There's someone in the apartment. Slowly, unhurriedly, he sat up in bed and listened. His bedroom has no windows, even during the day any outside noises are inaudible, and at this time of night, What time is it, the silence is usually complete. And it was complete. Whoever the intruder was, he was staying put. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso reached out to the bedside table and turned on the light. The clock said a quarter past four. Like most ordinary people, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a mixture of courage and cowardice, he isn't one of those invincible cinema heroes, but neither is he a wimp, the kind who pees his pants when, at midnight, he hears the door of the castle dungeon creak open. True, he felt all the hairs on his body prickle, but that even happens to wolves when faced by danger, and no one in their right mind would describe wolves as pathetic cowards. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is about to prove that he certainly isn't either. He slid quietly out of bed, picked up a shoe for lack of any sturdier weapon, and, very cautiously, peered out into the corridor. He looked right and left. The sense of another presence that had woken him up grew slightly stronger. Turning on lights as he went, aware of his heart pounding in his chest like a galloping horse, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso went first into the bathroom and then into the kitchen. No one. And oddly enough, the presence seemed less intense there. He went back into the corridor and, as he approached the living room,
he felt the invisible presence growing denser with each step, as if the atmosphere had been set vibrating by reverberations from some hidden incandescence, as if Tertuliano, in his nervousness, were walking over radioactive ground carrying in his hand a Geiger counter that, instead of sending out warning signals, was pumping out ectoplasm. There was no one in the room. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso looked around him, there they were, solid and impassive, the two tall, crowded bookshelves, the framed engravings on the walls, to which no reference has been made until now, but which are nonetheless there, and there, and there, and there, the desk with the typewriter on it, the chair, the coffee table in the middle with a small sculpture placed in its exact geometric center, and the two-seater sofa and the television set. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso muttered fearfully to himself, So that's what it was, and then, just as he uttered that last word, the presence, like a soap bubble bursting, silently disappeared. Yes, that's what it was, the television set, the VCR, the comedy called
The Race Is to the Swift,
an image from inside that had now returned to its place after going to rouse Tertuliano Máximo Afonso from his bed. He couldn't imagine what it could be, but he was sure he would recognize it as soon as it appeared. He went into the bedroom, put a dressing gown on over his pajamas, so as not to catch cold, and came back. He sat down in the armchair, pressed the play button on the remote control, and