CHAPTER NINEMy room, then. There has to be some space, finally, that I claim as mine, even in this time. I’m waiting, in my room, which right now is a waiting room. When I go to bed it’s a bedroom. The curtains are still wavering in the small wind, the sun outside is still shining, though not in through the window directly. It has moved west. I am trying not to tell stories, or at any rate not this one. Someone has lived in this room, before me. Someone like me, or I prefer to believe so. I discovered it three days after I was moved here. I had a lot of time to pass. I decided to explore the room. Not hastily, as one would explore a hotel room, expecting no surprise, opening and shutting the desk drawers, the cupboard doors, unwrapping the tiny individually wrapped bar of soap, proddin

