Читать книгу The City Man - Howard Akler - Страница 8

Leaving Union Station, the taxicab struggles in the noontime traffic. Pedestrians, autos and streetcars all take turns with the lurch and idle.

Slumped in the back seat, Eli pats his breast pocket. Through the fabric of his jacket, he can feel the edge of the folded page, the slim heft of his release papers. He closes his eyes and mouths two words that are lost to a sudden honking horn. Eli opens his eyes, looks out the window. All the automobiles, the main street that disgorges more and more hustle. Three women, laughing, dodge the imbroglio and then the cab follows suit. Makes a quick right and, for the rest of the way, moves quietly through a mesh of side streets.

Garron’s Smoke Shop, on College west of Bathurst. In the big store window, ads for Sweet Caporals are pasted around a selection of pipes and the florid face of Garron’s missus, who waves. Eli waves back. He enters off the side and up one floor. Walks down a hallway of crumbling plaster, taking the same unhurried steps he has always taken, to the last door on the right.

Inside. He drops his satchel on the floor and makes a small circle of the apartment. One step after the other, Eli rounds the room with slowly increasing wont. He tilts his head, blinks before an old armchair. Seconds pile into minutes while he eyes a tear in the upholstery. He leans close to a nightstand, lamp with a fake pewter base. Four minutes pass by the time he continues to the kitchen, where look turns to touch. His left forefinger feels the dust-covered countertop and then runs a pale line clear across to the icebox. Up a wall. Stops on a calendar, two months out of date. Two months. Not much by the looks of it. Nothing more than a couple of pages. All the days he’s been gone marked with tidy little boxes, check check check. The days counted out so effortlessly here. Not there. There, time passed only with a nurse’s permission. A doctor’s needle. But here, whole seasons can change with one flip of the page.

RIIIII-iip goes January. He reaches out for February now. Takes hold. RIIIII-iip! The two pieces of paper flutter down. Eli begins to catch up.