What I Loved

door, but instead of the elevator, I found myself looking down a narrow hallway. Hanging on the wall at its dead end, I saw a painting I recognized, one Bill had painted of Mark when he was two years old. The little boy was laughing madly as he held a lamp shade on top of his head like a hat, and he was naked except for a paper diaper so heavy with urine or feces that it had sunk low on his hips. I didn't move. The image of the little boy seemed to float toward me. I made a surprised noise. Behind me Giles said, "Wrong door, Professor."
    "That's Bill's," I said.
    "Yes, it is," Giles said.
    "What's it doing here?"
    "I bought it"
    "From whom?" I said.
    "From the owner."
    I turned to him suddenly. "From Lucille? You bought it from Lucille?" I knew as well as anyone that paintings circulate—move from owner to owner, languish in dark rooms, reappear, are sold and resold, stolen, destroyed, restored for better or for worse. A painting may resurface anywhere, and yet the sight of that canvas in this place appalled me.
    "I'm thinking of using it," Giles said. He was standing very close to me. I could feel his breath on my ear. Instinctively, I pulled my head away.
    "Using it?" I echoed. I began to walk toward the painting.
    "I thought you were leaving," Giles said from behind me. There was a note of amusement in his voice, and as soon as I heard it, I fumbled inwardly, dropped further into confusion. Giles's lilting "We?" had started it. Whatever advantage I had had during our conversation disappeared in that hallway. My own feeble repetition "Using it?" sounded like a scoff aimed at myself, a self-inflicted jeer I couldn't repair with a witty retort All I could see was the painted child in front of me with his wild expression of glee and manic pleasure.
    I am still muddling over what happened to me then and the exact sequence of events, but I know I had a sensation of enclosure and then of dread. Teddy Giles was hardly imposing, but he had managed to intimidate me with a couple of cryptic comments that suggested worlds, whole worlds, and it seemed to me that Bill was somehow at the center of all of them, that it didn't matter that he was dead. The mostly unarticulated combat between me and Giles was over Bill, and my sudden awareness of this turned into near panic. Then, just as I reached the painting, I heard a toilet flush. The sound of the toilet brought with it a belief that I had heard other sounds earlier and that my reaction to the painting had only partly blotted them out. I stopped to listen. Gagging noises came from behind a door, then a low hoarse cry for help. I yanked open the door directly in front of me and saw Mark lying on the floor of a bathroom, its walls covered with tiny green glass tiles. He was slumped on the floor near the bathtub with his mouth open and his eyes closed. His lips had turned blue. The sight of Mark's blue mouth made me suddenly calm. I moved forward and felt my shoe slip for a second. After I caught my balance, I noticed a pool of vomit at my feet. I knelt beside Mark and grabbed his wrist as I looked down at his white face. My fingers moved upward on his clammy skin, searching for his pulse. Without turning around, I said to Giles, "Call an ambulance." When he didn't answer me, I looked back at him.
    "He'll be all right," he said.
    "Go to the phone," I said, "and dial 911 right now before he dies here in your apartment."
    Giles disappeared down the hallway. My fingers kept searching. He had a weak pulse, and when I looked down at his face, I saw that it was dead white. "You're going to live, Mark," I whispered to him, and then again, "You're going to live." I put my ear to his mouth. He was breathing.
    He opened his eyes, and I felt a rush of happiness. "Mark," I said. "I have to get you to a hospital. Don't sleep. Don't close your eyes." I put my arm under his head to cushion it and looked down at him. He closed his eyes. "No," I said emphatically. I began to tug him upward. He was heavy, and as I pulled on him, my pants leg slid in the vomit on the floor. "Listen to me," I said sternly. "Don't sleep."
    Mark looked at me narrowly. "Fuck you," he said. I grabbed him under his arms and began to pull him out of the bathroom, but he resisted. With an abrupt motion he reached for my face, and I felt his nails dig into my cheek. The sudden pain shocked me, and I dropped him. His head thudded on the tiles and I heard him groan. A long glistening thread of saliva dripped from his open