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glittering there these days were the freshly refurbished payphones, tricked out in their new Bell Atlantic decals, silver coils and bellies gleaming in the streetlights. I gave them a wide berth, plunging on through the thick sleet still splashing down like icy paint, till I came to the theater, a modest-looking establishment in the basement of what appeared to be a derelict synagogue.
    Down the stairs, through a bruised-looking metal door, was a neon-lit lobby with an empty chair at a table bearing programs and a roll of tickets. Off this was a self-closing double-door. I put my ear to it, but it had been soundproofed and I could hear only muffled, incomprehensible voices. I would have opened it, but I didn’t want to risk being seen by Bruno and his friends, and having to explain myself later on.
    A fresh cannonade of pain burst in my head: the caffeine didn’t seem to be working. As I stood there, wondering what to do, a man appeared, dressed in a shabby black suit. He was about my age, with odd, pasty skin, and white hands. He lit a cigarette and looked at me with a secretive expression that I took for distrust.
    â€˜What do you want?’
    â€˜Well, I –’
    â€˜The show’s half over.’
    I decided to come straight to the point:
    â€˜I was actually trying to find out about Bogomil Trumilcik.’
    The man eyed me, puffing at his cigarette.
    â€˜What did you want to know?’
    â€˜Well … Where he is, for one thing.’
    â€˜Are you a friend of his?’
    I looked at him. I dislike lying and am very bad at it, and even though a white lie might have helped me at that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to tell one.
    â€˜More a colleague,’ I said, ‘or ex-colleague. I teach at Arthur Clay.’
    â€˜Uh huh.’ Again something secretive, almost sly, in the man’s expression. I had a vague feeling I might have seen him somewhere before.
    â€˜Well he’s in Bulgaria,’ he said with an air of finality.
    â€˜Are you sure?’
    â€˜Excuse me?’
    â€˜I mean are you sure he isn’t in New York?’
    â€˜Why would he be in New York?’ Evidently I had given him an excuse to take offense and stonewall me. I changed my tack.
    â€˜Can I ask how you came across his adaptation?’
    â€˜Of the story? I have no idea. You’d have to ask the director.’
    â€˜Ah. I was thinking you might be the director.’ I said this more in an attempt to flush something – anything – out of him before I left than because I really had been thinking any such thing.
    â€˜Me? No. I’m Blumfeld.’
    I realised then that the pastiness on his skin was makeup. Even so, I was thrown: I’d pictured the Blumfeld of the original story as a much older man. He glanced at a clock above the entrance.
    â€˜I have to go back on in a moment.’ He flashed me a grin.
    â€˜Just time for a quick smoke before the girls find my balls.’
    Mildly exasperated, my head hurting more than ever, I turned to go.
    â€˜May I take a program?’
    â€˜Please. Help yourself.’
    I took one of the programs.
    â€˜Are you by any chance suffering from migraine?’ the man asked as I moved off.
    The question stopped me in my tracks.
    â€˜How did you know?’
    â€˜Your eyelids are all puffed up and your lips are almost white. My brother had migraines as a kid. I know the symptoms. Here, if you’ll allow me …’
    To my surprise, he put his hands on my temples, pressing both thumbs into the center of my forehead, extremely hard. For a moment I thought my skull was about to split. Then suddenly, magically, the pain lifted. As it did, an unexpected wave of emotion passed through me, as though some sweet intimacy, dreamlike in its utter mysteriousness, had just occurred between us.
    I thanked him, amazed. He shrugged, smiling pleasantly.
    â€˜I’ll try to get word to Trumilcik that you’re looking for him,’