conditions were perfect

Here is what is odd: I did not trust him at first, though I am a trusting person. His hair was so long and there was a hole in his shirt, on the inside of his arm, just above his elbow, a place where it seems unlikely to come by a hole honestly. He helped me off the street and we sat down on a park bench together, and he held my hand and patted my shoulder while I breathed heavily. I was not hurt, only frightened.

Though he smiled and murmured comfortingly, I did not trust him. Still less did I want him to accompany me back to the hostel. Least of all, though, did I want him to leave me. Being alone when you cannot breathe is a terrible thing. I've lived through it and hope never to live through it again.

We got into the taxi and he said, "Where is it, dear?"

I still could not quite speak. "It's all right," he said. "Do you know what street it's on?"

"Bloomsbury," I said. My voice was quite hoarse. I wondered if I might begin to sound like Lauren Bacall.

The driver took to the road and Marcus said, "Never mind, we'll find it." He went on patting my shoulder. "Relax."

When I could speak again, I was disappointed to find my voice had returned in its natural form. "I can't thank you enough."

"Yes, yes," he smiled. "You'll be all right. Would you like to tell me your name?"

The modern city is a thing of wonder, especially considering its indeterminate origins. The conventional view holds that changes in climate, along with initial forays into the domestication of plant life, converted the egalitarian gangs of hunter-gatherers to the advantages an agrarian society. Naturally this society made strides forward in production and storage technology, which in turn led to greater population density. Just as people living in proximity tend to breed more people, so do a few commingled ideas tend to proliferate, and in their wake come economic activity, closely followed by politics, culture, religion and arts. Confronted with others, people find themselves, and are instinctively bonded more strongly than ever to the city, not only as a place of provision and refuge, but as a means of personal identity. When the early cities are threatened by famine, disease and the onslaught of marauders, the fledgling citizens evince the virtue known in Roman times as civitas, the spirit of loyalty to a collective entity that transcends their own personal good by making it possible in the first place.

From these early days of embattled civilization, there have been sacrifices that were deemed worthy in exchange for communal security. A lone farmer never had to worry that his sterling plot of land might be corrupted by an unhygienic neighbor's vermin infestation. His view of the bordering mountains was safe from obstruction by the enterprise of a deluxe-model hut. Neither he nor his herds lost their position at the local watering hole to the neighborhood's gentrification or decay. But these nuisances he considered a fair trade for the exchange of goods, services, and ideas, the solace of companionship, and the electricity of possibility that result from life lived cheek-by-jowl. The proponents of metropolis so far outweighed the advocates for isolated independence as to expand not only their real property but also their sphere of ideological influence, with the result that most of us today consider city life to be an unequivocal good, and that its liabilities to be hot, expensive and overcrowded are considerations not worthy to be compared to its advantages. It never occurred to me to question the traffic jam we encountered, Marcus and I in the taxi--it was as natural a part of life as trees with cages around them and noise from the main street on Friday nights--and I was accustomed to finding some way to tune out its annoyance. Thus, as I might never have done if history had not dovetailed to create such opportune circumstances, I told Marcus my name.

"Beth Maysle," I said.

"Lovely!" he said, and I smiled, because we all like to be told that something about us is lovely.

Marcus was a person of very agreeable looks--I expect that he still is. His eyes were a sharp grey-blue color, a very pure color, like steel used in an art sculpture. His hair was pushed up on either side into one of those sort of ridges that men were wearing at the time down the middle of their heads, sharpened to a point that extruded over their foreheads. His clothes were, as I said before, in lamentable condition, but the unexpected brilliance of his smile allayed the unease that his clothes occasioned. I suppose that was the reason for my instinctive distrust of him. The crinkle of a man's eyelids and the boyish curl of his mouth ought not to excuse him so thoroughly from commonplace presentability. Also, he was quite tall, probably six feet and a half, and I expect that, unless he has sustained severe injuries or undergone drastic amputation, he still is.

The lady at the front desk looked desperately relieved to see us. My sister had apprised her of my several conditions, and was paying her to keep an eye on me. I was not supposed to know about it but the blood rushing back to her face when we walked in settled any doubts I might have entertained.

She trilled, "Ooh, hellooo, Miss Mayfield!" and looked askance at Marcus. I took off my coat and dropped it on her desk as we passed, saying, "Send this out with the cleaning, would you?" We went to the common room at the back of the hostel and I offered to fix Marcus a drink. A number of unwashed students were gathered around the pool table; I began to wonder whether Marcus would rather be among their number than sipping poor vodka with me.

"Are you staying here?" he asked.

"Only temporarily," I said. "My apartment is being sprayed."

"Oh," he said. "Where do you live?"

"Vicker Street," I answered. "And you?"

"Oh, I live just on the other side of the street where you..."

"Oh, dear!" I said. "I've taken you terribly out of your way."

"No, it's all right," he assured me, putting his hand on my arm. I suppose he was afraid I might fling myself out the window or something.

"Look," I said to him, setting down my glass. "I want you to understand. It was only an accident..."

"Of course," he murmured.

"No! I hadn't eaten anything all day and I've been worrying about things--I'm just a nervous person. But the point is, I just fell down. I wasn't trying to..."

He waited for me to finish, and when I didn't, he patted my arm again.

"It doesn't matter," he smiled. "Really. I'm just glad you're all right. But it's a shame you have to stay here while your apartment is getting sprayed." He looked at the unwashed students as he said this, and the grimace on his face filled my heart with song.

"Well," I said cheerfully, "it really isn't that bad. And it's only for a little while. I just try to stay out as often as possible."

"What will you do later today?" he asked.

"Hm. Maybe I'll go to the zoo."

I waited for him to offer a comment on this proposal, and when he didn't, I shifted in my seat. Then I cried out in pain.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," I said. "I think I've cut myself."

Marcus took hold of my ankle and lifted it up gently, and slowly he drew up the hem of my skirt until my knee showed. There was a small gash there--it had reopened and was bleeding again.

"Damn!" he said. "Do you suppose there's any disinfectant around?"

One of the unwashed shrieked, "Holy crap! She's bleeding!", and bounded over to where we sat. She bent over beside Marcus.

"Can you find us some disinfectant?" he asked her brusquely, and she bounded away with the upward and forward motion of a springbok.

"Wouldn't you rather stay in a hotel while your apartment is sprayed?" he asked me.

"I never stayed in a hostel before," I told him--the first truthful thing I had told him since we left the taxi.

"Really? Not even during a gap year or something?"

"A gap year?"

"A wild excursion abroad with the girls?" The disinfectant arrived and he kept talking as he applied it, hoping, I suppose, to distract me. "A last romantic fling across the continent before settling down? Surely there must have been something of the kind in your past."

"Mmm," I murmured, "once."

He looked up and smiled brilliantly, again, saying nothing.

He straightened up, and looked about him. Then he tore the lower border off the back of his shirt and brandished it before me. "It's clean," he said, "and it will do you until you can get a proper bandage."

It seemed he thought it was time for me to walk him out, so I began to.

"How did you know?" I asked him.

"Know?"

"About the past," I said.

"Your wild romantic getaway past, you mean? It's obvious." He tucked my arm into the crook of his elbow. "You don't bear any trace of the frustrated woman who put off the opportunity for free expression."

I found myself laughing--and you ought to understand that I had not laughed for a very long time prior to that. I was caught by surprise.

"Well," he said, "thank you for a lovely afternoon."

We stepped into the threshold of the hostel. The sky was evening grey and purple, and the street was quiet in the interim lull between the market hour and the nightlife hour.

"What will you do now?" I asked Marcus.

"I work nights," he said.

"Really? Doing what?"

"I tend bar at the Rose and Crown," he said.

"Every night?"

"Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays," he said.

"Do you like it?"

He gave a short laugh. "It's a job," he said. "I don't mind it." He lifted my hand up and kissed it like a courtier.

"Thank you," I said.

"Take care of your knee," he said. "I hope for your sake that the apartment spraying is taken care of soon."

"A day or two, they told me," I said.

"Good," he said. As he left, I saw something leave the third-floor window of the building adjacent to the hostel. It looked as though it might be the head of a flower borne out by the wind. A great mass of the unwashed students eked out from behind me, then, and trundled chattering away into the dusk. When I looked again for Marcus, he was just disappearing around the corner.

The hostel foyer was quite empty by that time. The lady at the front desk was painting her fingernails, and looked up at me when I came in.

"Hello!" she said, her face and her voice as bright as metal. "All right?"

"Has my sister called?" I asked.

In answer, she lifted up the telephone receiver and offered it to me.

"Beth!" said Molly. "How are you? Mrs. Foster told me you came in with a younger man."

"Did she?" I sighed. "Younger than what?"

"When are you going home?" asked Molly.

"I don't know yet," I told her. "Maybe I'll go tomorrow."

"I think you should," said Molly.

I was silent until she spoke again.

"Who was the boy?"

"He wasn't a boy."

"The young man, then."

"The younger man," I said testily. "Didn't Mrs. Foster tell you?" I sighed. "I fell down in the street and he helped me get home."

"You fell down in the street!" I heard her breathing heavily. "Oh my God!"

I handed the receiver back to Mrs. Foster and walked down the empty hall to my room.