Disappearing Act, Part X

Wednesday afternoon

There’s only one way to know if Jane and Sally had really disappeared.

I met Jane by the intermediary of one of my friends from college. Both of them were from Chicago. It was him that gave me her address in New York, the Stanley Club. He didn’t know that I was married.

I paid a visit to Jane, I went out with her, and Mike with his friend Sally. This is how everything went. I know that everything was like this.

Today I wrote to my friend Dave. I told him what had happened. I asked him to go to Jane’s parents and tell me if it seemed like a joke or just a series of coincidences. Then I took out my address book.

Dave’s name wasn’t in it.

Was I really becoming insane? I know perfectly well that address was in there. I remember the evening when I wrote it down so as not to lose contact with him after college. I even remember the inkblot from my pen that had fallen.

The page was blank.

I remember him, his name, his features, his manner of speaking, the things that we had done together, the classes that we had taken.

I had even kept a letter of his that he had sent in college, one year during our Easter vacation. Mike was with me in my room when I received it. As we lived in New York, we didn’t have the time to go to our families, since the vacation only lasted a few days.

But Dave had gone back to his house, in Chicago, and from there he had sent us this funny letter express. He had sealed it in wax, with the mark of his ring like an imprint, to make us laugh.

The letter was in my drawer with other old souvenirs.

It wasn’t there anymore.

And I had possessed three photos of Dave, taken after we had received our diplomas. There were two in my photo album. They were still there.

But he wasn’t in them.

There was only the gardens of the university with the buildings in the background.

I was afraid to go any further. I could have written or telephoned the university and asked them if Dave had ever been their student.

But I was afraid of trying.