August 2, 1994
To live with uncertainty, with nothing sure or safe, with no plans or goals, letting myself be carried along like a bird on the wind: that is what I learned on my pilgrimage. You are amazed that at the age of sixty-two I can still leave from one day to the next and set out with no itinerary or baggage, like a youngster hitchhiking, that I can go away for an undefined length of time without calling you or writing to you, and that on my return I can’t tell you where I’ve been. There is no secret, Alma; I walk, and that’s all. I need very little, almost nothing, to survive. Ah, freedom!
I go, but I always remember you.
Ichi
AUTUMN
When she had failed to turn up to meet him for two consecutive days on the park bench, Lenny went to look for Alma at her apartment at Lark House. The door was opened by Irina, who had gone there to help her dress before she began her day at the home.
“I was waiting for you, Alma. You’re late,” said Lenny.
“Life is too short to be punctual.” Alma sighed.
For several days now, Irina had been coming early to give her breakfast, keep an eye on her in the shower, and help with her clothes, but neither of them mentioned it, as that would have been to admit Alma was starting no longer to be able to live on her own, and would have to move to the second level or return to Sea Cliff with her family. They both preferred to see this sudden weakness as a temporary setback. Seth had asked Irina to give up her job at Lark House and leave her room (which he called the mousetrap) to go and live with him permanently, but she kept one foot in Berkeley so as to avoid the snare of dependency, which she feared as much as the idea of moving to the second level at Lark House scared Alma. When she tried to explain this to Seth, he was offended by the comparison.
Neko’s absence had hit Alma like the beginning of a heart attack: there was a constant pain in her chest. The cat frequently appeared to her in the shape of a cushion on the sofa, a crumpled corner of the rug, her badly hung coat, or the shadow of a tree at the window. Neko had been her confidant for eighteen years. In order not to talk to herself, she would talk to him, knowing he was not going to answer her but understood everything in his feline wisdom. They had similar temperaments: arrogant, lazy, solitary. She loved not only that he was an unprepossessing street cat, but that time had left its mark on him: bare patches on his skin, a twisted tail, rheumy eyes, and the big belly of a good eater. She missed him in bed; without Neko’s weight at her side or feet she found it hard to sleep. Apart from Kirsten, that animal was the only being who stroked her. Irina would have liked to do so, to give her a massage, wash her hair, polish her nails, find some way to get physically close to Alma and make her feel she was not alone, but Alma did not encourage intimacy with anyone. Irina found this kind of contact with other old women at Lark House quite natural, and little by little she was starting to want it with Seth. She tried to make up for Neko’s absence by putting a hot water bottle in Alma’s bed, but when this absurd ruse only made things worse, Irina offered to go to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to find another cat. Alma explained there was no way she could adopt an animal that would outlive her. Neko had been her last cat.
Lenny’s dog, Sophia, waited in the doorway, just as she did when Neko was alive and defended his territory, sweeping the floor with her tail at the prospect of going for a walk, but Alma had exhausted herself with the effort of dressing and could not get up from the sofa. “I’m leaving you in good hands, Alma,” Irina said as she left. Lenny noted with concern how much both Alma and the apartment had changed: the room had not been aired and smelled musty and of rotting gardenias.