The Ruined House by Ruby Namdar

Author:Ruby Namdar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

4

Eleven thirty. Andrew returned to his desk neatly dressed and combed, carrying his second cup of coffee. Passing the mirror on his way from the bedroom, he was more satisfied by what he saw. It had been a bad moment, no more. It was too soon to check his e-mail. Perhaps in an hour, depending on how much he got done. He sipped some coffee. His glasses were at hand. To work!

Andrew scrolled upward to the start of the article. When had he written its first sentences? That was easily checked. He simply had to look for the date on which the document was opened. But what did it matter? He had to stop this compulsive browsing! And he didn’t need an exact word count, either, even though it was encouraging to know that he had already written several thousand. They were a good base to build on; he wasn’t starting from scratch. It would be a nice little article. He had published dozens like it during his productive career—it was productive, no one could deny that—many longer and more complicated than this one. Still, it would be better to go back to the beginning and work up momentum. What had he done with his glasses? The title was fine, as was the opening paragraph. The sentences were well turned. You couldn’t say they didn’t have style. Should he have some more coffee to perk up a bit? No, wait, he still had some in his cup that was warm. Page two. The quotations were fine. It was a good piece. What was new in the world? A world war could have broken out and he . . . should he log on for a second to the Times website? No, stay concentrated! Page three. There was a disturbing flicker on the screen. It was hard to focus on the text. Should he print it? That meant increasing the spacing between lines to leave room for written corrections. Yes, it was a good idea.

Andrew looked for the printer jack, plugged it into the computer, switched on the power, doubled the line spacing (he now had twenty-three pages instead of eleven), and gave the print command. Leaning back in his chair, he waited with an odd pleasure for the machine to start working. A few seconds went by. Nothing happened. Then, something began to clatter and click. Springs unwound, cogwheels turned. The printer shuddered on the desktop, coughed, fell still, and shuddered again. Something muttered and murmured inside it. The top page of the stack of white printing paper was snatched from its place and fed into the printer’s plastic mouth. Andrew watched with childish enjoyment. The mechanical workings were calming; they made him feel an illogical contentment. Out came a handsome, printed white page, gradually covered with orderly, symmetrical lines of characters on which he could meditate without feeling responsible for them. In a curious way, he would have liked to be a part of the process, to spend the

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