Free The World of the End by Ofir Touché Gafla Page B

original name, but like I said, you can’t add names, you can only subtract. Think about it, with a name like Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, who would find him? Anyway, he decided to drop Wolfgang. You know, just keep the essence. Amadeus Mozart. I don’t know what he was thinking. They’ve been combing the world for him for two hundred years and now suddenly it’s over? The truth is, he almost pulled it off, would have actually, had it not been for Salieri, the tattler, who bumped into him at a Beethoven performance, the Tenth I think, and then followed him back to his apartment where he uncovered the ruse.
    “Since then, the poor guy’s been on the move, darting from place to place. Anyway, my Arthur’s borne the brunt of it. You know how many times they’ve come to his place by mistake because of the initials? And these aren’t sane people, mind you. Even when they see they’ve made a mistake, they ask permission to search the place. These loonies think Arthur’s hiding Mozart in his apartment. He moved eight times before he took my advice and moved in with me. Sure, I’m harassed, too, but not with the same intens—” She yawned and covered her mouth. Ben promised to leave soon; he just wanted to know how she ended up in his wife’s apartment.
    She stretched and sleepily repeated what she had said earlier. “I have a good friend. He finds abandoned places. No one’s lived here for at least six months.”
    “Six months?” Ben asked. “But she only came here a year and three months ago. You’re saying Marian only lived here for nine months?”
    “I have no idea. I’ve been living here for three months. That’s when I was able to set this up.”
    “But this is an eternal address, no? This will be Marian’s address a thousand years down the road, too. That’s what they said during the orientation.”
    “That’s what I meant when I said I was able to get this thing set up. My friend works in the thumb center. So, you know…”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Look, you think I died yesterday? I know you’re just buying time,” she said.
    “No, no, no,” Ben said, “I’ll be out of here in a second. Just so you know, though, I did die yesterday. I hardly know anything about this world. Like that thing with the thumbs. As far as I know, all you use it for is to take out tapes and…”
    “Alright, rookie, alright,” she laughed, opening the door and pointing to an elliptical, thumb-shaped hole. “You see? We don’t have keys or locks. We have the thumb hole. You recognize your apartment by the signs—date of death, initials—and your apartment recognizes you by your thumbprint. In the whole history of this world there’s not been one recorded break-in. You come to your apartment, put your thumb by the door, push lightly, and in you go. Simple, easy, and spares you the sorrow of carrying keys.”
    “But,” Ben said, enchanted by the simplicity of the idea, “this hole is supposed to recognize Marian’s thumb, not yours.”
    She agreed and hurried to explain. “Every time you come and go a blue light goes on in the thumb center HQ. If six months go by without any movement, a red light goes on. It means that the resident either left or went seven over three. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s the former. Once someone’s left, a resident can come and ask the center to move in. The higher-ups in the center have you sign a piece of paper that says that if the initial resident returns you have to pack up and leave within three days. As I said earlier, Arthur and I have been living here for three months and no one has asked to move back in.”
    “And the fingerprint?” Ben asked.
    “Switched!” Marilyn’s copy announced, raising her thumb. “This is my thumb print and my thumb hole. If your wife comes back, I’ll have to leave and take my thumb hole with me.”
    “What about Marian?” Ben asked childishly. “Where is she?”
    The woman rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I left