“I’ve lost interest in buying clothes,” I said. “I hardly look at shop windows any more. In the past I wanted to wear something different every day, now I wear the same thing for months. As for my shirt, there was no laundry service at the hotel yesterday.” “What have you got in your bag?” Claire asked. “Underwear and books,” I said. “What are you reading now?” “Green Heinrich by Gottfried Keller.” She hadn’t read it and I said I’d read parts of it to her. “Maybe tonight, before we go to bed,” she said. “Where will that be?” I asked. “In Donora, south of Pittsburgh,” she said. “I know a motel there, it’s off the road, it will be quieter for the child. I hope we get that far, it’s almost three hundred miles and the Allegheny Mountains are in between. Have you learned to drive in the meantime?” “No,” I said. “Never again will I let anybody examine me. The thought of someone asking me questions and making something depend on my answers has become intolerable to me. In the past, say ten ye...
