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successful software company, he looks like an ordinary family man who has decided that tonight’s the night to do a flit.
    He comes up to me, talking as if he’s obliged to answer the question he reads in my eyes. He is agitated: maybe he took somethingto stay awake and overdid it. He tells me a muddled story about information he’s considered, parameters, reports he’s been following closely, all day now. The input is steady, the calculations precise, the reliability has never been higher, the margin of error is negligible. A man like him can’t stay blind. No one can stay blind, no one, make no mistake about that.
    I watch his mouth opening and closing to the rhythm of the words, so far it all makes sense. But I don’t get any farther; beyond this point I seem to be lost in someone else’s dream. I still experience the physical presence of all that surrounds me. I am in the middle of a stream of air issuing constantly from Mr. De Bontridder’s body. I am sure of that much. I can mainly smell leek, but also fish. Salmon, I think.
    At this hour, it’s only natural that I lend a hand. After he has fetched the Mercedes coupé, I load his luggage into the trunk. The car is decades old but magnificently designed and, now that I finally have a chance, I can’t resist the temptation to run my hand over its coldly gleaming silver curves while Mr. De Bontridder, sitting at the wheel, talks into his telephone in a hoarse voice. Not much later the familiar signal sounds, the elevator door opens with a sigh and Mrs. De Bontridder dives into the passenger seat as if it’s raining cats and dogs.
    25
    The next residents appear early in the morning. We’re on our feet all day in a basement that’s as busy as a train station. Almost no one pays us any attention. Today we’re a royal guard, constantly at attention, unable to be distracted from our official protocol.
    Only Mr. Olano shakes our hands late in the afternoon before climbing in next to his chauffeur. A handshake accompanied bya solemn nod and “See you later.” Although it’s definitely not small or cold, his hand is neither particularly large nor particularly warm. His politeness, however, is most peculiar. Has Claudia told him about us in the darkness of her room? Has he ended up developing a soft spot for the two men in the basement who guarantee his security?
    Peace returns in the evening.
    Harry shakes his head. He’s worked here longer than me and never experienced this before. There’s nothing unusual about fluctuations in the occupancy rate: all of the owners have multiple residences at their disposal. But an exodus like the last few days’, no, he can’t remember anything comparable. According to his count there is only one resident left in the building. He doesn’t know his name as he only goes out sporadically. A strange, withdrawn character in his early thirties, who keeps his head shaved and always wears black. Harry couldn’t point out the staff who serve him either, not if they were standing right in front of his nose.
    26
    The signal for the service elevator, after three days without any sign of life. A group of staff—presumably they all serve the same family—step out of the elevator. They’re in high spirits. The men laugh as one, teasing the women, who are made up and have let their hair down, tossing it over their shoulders or softly pushing back their curls. Their leave has started. They greet us casually and we give a cursory greeting in reply. Not one of them disengages from the group. Here, in the building, they stay close together as if lassoed with an invisible rope, walking as one unit toward the entrance gate and the outside world, where it seems to be quiet and where it is very likely that their relationships with each other will change rapidly.
    Before the after-image of the daylight has faded from our retinas, the next carefree group emerges from the elevator. The staff are paid not by the families, but by the building;