The Key to Midnight

sometimes crept over her, usually when she least expected it. Periodically she fell victim to a brutal, disabling loneliness that bordered on despair. Bleak, unremitting loneliness, yet more than that, worse than that. Aloneness. That was a better term for it. Without apparent reason, she sometimes felt certain that she was separate, hideously unique. Aloneness. The depression that accompanied one of these inexplicable moods was a black pit out of which she could claw only with fierce determination.
        Haltingly she said, 'The emptiness is like… well, it's like I'm nobody.'
        'You mean… you're bothered that you have no one.'
        'No. That's not it. I feel that I am no one.'
        'I still don't understand.'
        'It's as if I'm not Joanna Rand… not anybody at all… just a shell… a cipher… hollow… not the same as other people… not even human. And when I'm like that, I wonder why I'm alive… what purpose I have. My connections seem so tenuous…'
        He was silent for a while, but she was aware that he was staring at her while she gazed blindly at the mural. At last he said, 'How can you live with this attitude, this emptiness, and still be… the way you are?'
        "The way I am?'
        'Generally so outgoing, cheerful.'
        'Oh,' Joanna said quickly, 'I don't feel alienated all the time. The mood comes over me only now and then, and never for longer than a day or two. I fight it off.'
        He touched her cheek with his fingertips.
        Abruptly Joanna was aware of how intently he was staring, and she saw a trace of pity mixed with the compassion in his eyes. The reality of Nijo Castle and the actuality of the limited relationship that they shared now flooded back to her, and she was surprised - even shocked - by how much she had said and by how far she had opened herself to him. Why had she cast aside the armor of her privacy in front of this man rather than at the feet of someone before him? Why was she willing to reveal herself to Alex Hunter in a way and to a degree that she had never allowed Mariko Inamura to know her? She wondered if her hunger for companionship and love was much greater than she had ever realized until this disturbing moment.
        She blushed. 'Enough of this soul baring. How'd you get me to do that? You aren't a psychoanalyst, are you?'
        'Every private detective has to be a bit of a psychiatrist… just like any popular bartender.'
        'Well, I don't know what in the world got me started on that.'
        'I don't mind listening.'
        'You're sweet.'
        'I mean it.'
        'Maybe you don't mind listening,' she said, 'but I mind talking about it.'
        'Why?'
        'It's private. And silly.'
        'Didn't sound silly to me. It's probably good for you to talk about it.'
        'Probably,' she admitted, 'But it's not like me to babble on about myself to a perfect stranger.'
        'Hey, I'm not a perfect stranger.'
        'Well, almost.'
        'Oh, I see,' he said. 'I understand. You mean I'm perfect but not a stranger. I can live with that.'
        Joanna smiled. She wanted to touch him, but she didn't. 'Well, anyway, we're here to show you the palace, not to have long boring Freudian discussions. There are a thousand things to see, and every one of them is more interesting than my psyche.'
        'You underestimate yourself.'
        Another group of chattering tourists rounded the corner and approached from behind Joanna. She turned towards them, using them as an excuse to avoid Alex's eyes for the few seconds required to regain her composure, but what she saw made her gasp.
        A man with no right hand.
        Twenty feet away.
        Walking towards her.
        A. Man. With. No. Right. Hand.
        He was at the front of the group: a smiling, grandfatherly Korean gentleman with a softly creased face and iron-gray hair. He wore sharply pressed slacks, a white shirt, a blue tie, and a light blue sweater with the right sleeve rolled up a few inches. His arm was deformed at the wrist: There was nothing but a smooth, knobby, pinkish stub where the hand should have been.
        'Are you all right?' Alex asked, apparently sensing the sudden tension in her.
        She wasn't able to speak.
        The one-handed man drew closer.
        Fifteen feet away now.
        She could smell antiseptics. Alcohol. Lysol. Lye soap.
        That was ridiculous. She couldn't really