He came to my room at seven in the morning.
Not a knock. A knock would have been a request. What Victor did was open the door, which he had never done in twelve years of shared household, and stand in the doorway with the specific quality of presence that replaced any need for announcement. He was dressed already, suit and tie, the full formal armature, and his face had the particular composed blankness of a man who had been awake for a long time and had worked through every available emotion until only the functional surface remained.
I was sitting at my desk. I had been up since five-thirty. I had heard his footsteps in the corridor at six and had known from their direction and pace that they were moving toward my room rather than the stairs, and I had had approximately forty-five minu
