shreds indeed! I worked my way up the electrical system, searching every roomand unintentionally spying on the family who had bought the house after herdeath. In the kitchen apuffy man stood with his sleeves rolled up, elbow-deep inthe sink, angrily washing dishes by candlelight. A woman who was surely his wifeexpressively smoked a cigarette at his stiff back, drawing in the smoke withbitter intensity and exhaling it in puffs of hatred. On the second floor apreadolescent girl clutched a tortoise-shell cat so tightly it struggled toescape, and cried into its fur. In the next room a younger boy sat on his bed inearphones, Walk-man on his lap, staring sightlessly out the window at theburning transformer. No Widow on either floor.

How, I wondered, could she have endured this entropic oven of a blue-collarrowhouse, forever the voyeur at the banquet, watching the living squander whatshe had already spent? Her trace was everywhere, her presence elusive. I wasbeginning to thing she'd despaired and given herself up to the sky when I foundher in the attic, clutching the wire that led to the antenna. She looked up,amazed by my unexpected appearance.

"Come on," I said. "I know a way out."

Returning, however, I couldn't retrace the route I'd taken in. It wasn't so muchthe difficulty of navigating the twisting maze of pipes under the street, thoughthat was bad enough, as the fact that the Widow wouldn't hazard the passageunless I led her by the hand.

"You don't know how difficult this is for me," I said.

"It's the only way I'd dare." A nervous, humorless laugh. "I have such a lousysense of direction."

So, steeling myself, I seized her hand and plunged through the wall.

It took all my concentration to keep from sliding off the water pipes, I was sodistracted by the violence of her thoughts. We crawled through a hundredmemories, all of her married lover, all alike. Here's one: