—and someone upstairs has reached the word I haven’t heard downstairs. Dum. Di-da. Di-da. I came through the middle. A small voice counting five has carried seven past the door. Already here. Not yet. The room on the left keeps a place for me. The room on the right has given it away. I turn— and the sentence continues without the person who began it. Oo. Ah-ee. Oo. Someone is singing my answer to a question from another floor. I follow the vowel. It bends at the landing. It slips through a wall. It arrives in a mouth that was open before I arrived. Not yet here. Already gone? Here. Dum-di. Da. Di-da-da. The low voice stays. The bright voice changes its address. A third voice carries the last syllable into a room where it becomes the first. I know this tune. I knew this tune until that note. Stay there— no, carry on— I can hear both. Five small voices borrow one breath. One long voice walks through eleven doors. Behind me, the room I entered is still arriving. Ahead, someone has almost finished beginning my name. Ah. Ee-ah. Oo-ee-ah. There is a place between the voices wide enough to turn around. I turn. The low voice changes. The bright voice stays. Someone downstairs has reached the word— and through the next door I can already hear
