Chapter 55

Well, from my point of view, it didn’t seem like it. His angular face looked serene, disappointed, and perhaps also ashamed, but very calm within everything. That patient and self-sacrificing expression as always, almost innocent. His blue eyes followed me as I stepped back toward the closet, and he responded:

“Hans was not very… delicate in saying it.” He paused, as if he needed time to collect his thoughts almost as much as I did, when I took a good thirty minutes in the bathtub. “Obviously, there are a couple of things he’s right about, but that’s just what he thinks. Go. They can think what they want; they don’t know what’s going on inside my head.”

I stopped next to the closet door, searching with my fingers for the handle. The three front doors were joined together with hinges, so that if they were removed from the plinth they folded in on themselves and formed a small screen. It was the first time I was going to use it; I had never needed it before.

He follo