Free Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam Page B

until the screen flashed No Answer again.
    From his inner jacket pocket, Fitzgerald removed the keys. He opened the front door, went up the elevator, and his feet were light and fast as he walked down the hallway to Ming’s door.
    He knocked using his fingers, making a short little rhythm.
    Silence.
    He knocked again, rapped with his knuckles.
    Still quiet.
    The tip of the key trembled as he tried to bring it to the lock, and then with two hands he steadied and pushed the toothed key into its slot. It went in easily, without jamming or catching. He turned it. It turned smoothly, a soft click. She had not changed the lock.
    He opened the door and called out, “Hello?”
    No one.
    Again, “Ming? It’s me.”
    Quiet.
    When he had last seen the apartment, it had been almost bare—furnished by her parents with one station-wagon load of prefabricated Swedish furniture and three brush-painted scrolls. Now, Ming had settled in. There were sandals and a single black pump in the hallway. In the kitchen, oven mitts that were supposed to look like slices of watermelon hung from a drawer knob. Medical pathology books and dissection notes covered the surface of the coffee table. Fitzgerald removed his shoes and winter coat, put them in the closet, and sat in the armchair that faced the couch.
    On top of the study notes was a half-finished cup of tea, its inner surface ringed with brown circles. The apartment smelled of ginger and garlic. A large print of Van Gogh’s Starlight over the Rhone hung above the couch, and Fitzgerald stared at it for a long time. He examined the rippled lines of the light reflected in the water, and the hunched stance of the man and woman. Why were they looking at the artist, and not at the deep cobalt water shot through with the light of reflected stars? They faced away from the riverbank, away from the dark liquid at the heart of the scene. They stared out at the viewer, who could be none other than an eye looking down from the black night.
    She shouldn’t be surprised, he thought.
    He had written, he told himself, sitting there in his socks.
    For weeks, he had sent letters reminding her of his interview date, asking if they could meet. She didn’twrite back. He wrote notes in which he addressed possible objections she might have to seeing him. Was she afraid of hurting him? If so, he wanted nothing more than to see her. Perhaps she felt that because their relationship was over, they shouldn’t see each other? If this was her concern, he wrote, she should feel completely comfortable because he had accepted that the relationship was done, that their romance was finished, but it hurt him to not be able to see his closest friend. Maybe she was too busy? They would meet quickly, eat a meal like old friends—didn’t she have to eat? Did she feel that everything between them was in the past? He wrote that although the past was gone, he didn’t discount the future. Since he would be in Toronto for his interview and neither of them was deliberately travelling to see the other, this would be a perfectly neutral meeting—not evoking the past but also not requiring a future. Did she hope they would simply forget each other? Impossible.
    He had written these things to her, but no reply had come. She should not be surprised to see him. He had tried to express the important but casual and enjoyable nature of a meeting. He didn’t write that he would simply come to her apartment, enter, remove his shoes, and wait. Why not? Perhaps he didn’t really think he would do it. The idea had run in his mind like a movie: she would be surprised at first, but then seeing him in her home would allow all of the old feelings to come back to her. She would hold him, she would thank him forseeking her out, she would swear to never turn away from him again.
    Maybe he didn’t think any of this could be real. It was unreasonable to break into her apartment, and so perhaps he