Amos did not move. He stayed pressed against the wall, and his back was flat to the plaster, and his hand stayed pressed to his cheek, and his breathing was shallow and quick. The mark on his cheek was rising now, a dark red bloom spreading across the pale skin, and the corner of his mouth was swollen, and a thin line of blood showed where his teeth had caught his lip. He was sixty eight years old, and his body was thin, and his navy sweater hung loose on his frame, and he looked fragile against the wall, and the sight of him made Louis feel a sudden shame that rose up alongside the anger and mixed with it until he could not tell one from the other. Amos tried to speak, and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper, and he said that he had not done it, and he said that it was not him, and the words were so quiet that Louis had to lean closer to hear them. Louis shook his head, and he said that Stella had pointed at him, and he said that the torn blouse was proof enough, and he said that he had seen it with his own eyes, and his voice shook as he spoke, and he knew even as he said it that he had seen nothing except his wife crying and the old man standing near her.
The hallway was still, and the only sounds were Stella's ragged breathing and the faint buzz of the ceiling bulb and the distant hum of a television from behind one of the closed doors. Louis stood with his fists clenched at his sides, and his tuxedo jacket was open, and his shirt was damp with sweat at the collar, and his bow tie hung crooked, and he felt the evening slipping away from him, the dinner and the speeches and the polite smiles all gone, and in their place this narrow hallway and his wife's torn blouse and the old man's red cheek. He thought of the drive home, and the quiet streets, and the way he had loosened his bow tie in the car, and how he had looked forward to the kettle and the sofa and Stella asleep with a book on her chest, and the memory felt like it belonged to another man, a man who had not yet walked into this hallway and raised his hand. He looked at Amos, and he looked at Stella, and he felt the anger draining out of him and leaving something cold and uncertain behind, and he did not know what to do next, and he did not lower his hand, and he did not step back, and he stood in the hallway with his heart pounding and his palm still stinging, and he waited for someone to speak.
Louis did not step back. He stood over Amos with his shoulders squared and his fists clenched at his sides, and his tuxedo jacket hung open, and his shirt was damp at the collar, and his face was flushed a deep red that crept up from his throat to his hairline. His voice came out loud and rough, and it filled the narrow hallway and bounced off the pale green walls, and every word landed like a blow. He demanded to know what Amos had done to his wife. He demanded to know how long the old man had been watching her. He demanded to know why he had followed her up the stairs. He called him a coward, and he called him a disgrace, and he told him that a man who laid hands on a woman in her own building deserved to be thrown out into the street. Amos pressed himself harder against the wall, and his hand stayed pressed to his cheek, and his eyes stayed fixed on Louis, and his mouth opened and closed without sound, and his whole body seemed to shrink against the plaster as if he wished the wall would open and take him in.
Stella watched from behind her husband, and her hands were still clutched at her torn blouse, and her tears had slowed to a thin trickle, and her breath came in shallow gasps. She had pointed at Amos, and she had named him, and her husband had believed her, and now Louis was shouting, and the old man was against the wall, and the hallway felt as if it were closing in around them. She tried to hold on to the certainty that had carried her out of the stairwell and into the hallway, but the certainty was slipping through her fingers like water. She closed her eyes, and she tried to see the stairwell again in her mind, and the picture would not come clear. There had been darkness, and there had been hands, and there had been a tearing sound, and she had screamed, and she had run. But whose hands had they been? She had felt them on her arm, and on her shoulder, and the grip had been hard and sudden, and the sleeve of the coat had brushed against her face, and the coat had been gray. She was sure of the gray. She could see the gray sleeve in her mind, the rough wool, the dark cuff. And Amos was wearing a navy sweater. There was no gray on him anywhere.
She opened her eyes and looked at Amos, and she saw him as if for the first time. He was sixty eight years old, and his hair was white, and his hands were thin, and the veins stood out blue on the backs of them, and the fingers trembled as they pressed against his reddening cheek. His navy sweater was pulled crooked at one shoulder, and there was a small hole at the cuff, and the wool was worn thin at the elbows, and he looked like a man who mended his own clothes and ate his meals alone. The hands that had grabbed her in the stairwell had been strong. She remembered the strength of them now, the way they had seized her arm and pulled her back, and the way they had yanked at her blouse until the buttons flew. These thin trembling hands could not have done that. She felt a cold weight settle in her stomach, and her knees went weak, and she put one hand against the wall to steady herself, and she looked at her husband, and she looked at Amos, and she did not know what she had done.
She remembered the smell of the stairwell too, the damp concrete and the stranger's coat, a sharp smell of rain and cigarettes that had filled her nose when he seized her arm. She breathed in now, and the hallway smelled of floor polish and the faint scent of tea from Amos's flat, and there was no rain and no smoke in it at all. She remembered the sound of the stranger's shoes on the stairs, heavy and fast, running down, and she remembered how Amos had stood in his slippers, soft and silent, and the difference between those two sounds settled in her mind like a stone sinking in water, and she knew then that she had accused the wrong man.
Louis went on shouting, and his voice grew louder, and he told Amos that he would call the police, and he told him that he would see him thrown out of the building, and he told him that no one would believe an old man who attacked a woman in the dark. He pointed one finger at Amos, and the finger shook, and he said that Stella had seen him, and he said that the torn blouse was proof, and he said that he had walked in and found him standing over her. Amos shook his head slowly, and his lips moved, and his voice came out in a hoarse whisper, and he said that he had not touched her, and he said that he had only come out when he heard her scream, and he said that there had been another man. Louis cut him off with a shout, and he said that there was no other man, and he said that Amos was lying to save himself, and he said that liars always blamed a stranger. Amos tried again, and his voice broke, and he said the words again, slower this time, and he said that he had heard her scream from his flat, and he said that he had opened his door and seen a man in a gray coat running down the stairs, and he said that Stella had been standing in the hallway with her blouse torn, and he had only asked her if she was hurt. Louis shook his head, and he said that it was a story, and he said that any man could invent a stranger, and he took one step closer to Amos, and his shadow fell across the old man's face.
A door opened further down the hallway, and a woman's face appeared in the gap, and her eyes were wide, and she looked at the three of them and quickly closed the door again, and the click of the latch sounded loud in the sudden quiet. Stella heard it, and she thought of all the neighbors behind their doors, listening, and she thought of how the story would travel through the building by morning, and she felt shame wash over her, hot and sudden. She looked at Amos, and she saw the red mark blooming across his cheek, and she saw the thin line of blood at the corner of his mouth, and she saw the way his hand trembled against his face, and she thought of the slap, and she thought of her husband's hand, and she thought of the gray coat, and the cold weight in her stomach grew heavier. She had been so sure in the stairwell. She had been so sure when she pointed at Amos. But now the surety was gone, and in its place there was only a fog, and through the fog she could see the gray sleeve, and the strong hands, and the dark stairwell, and none of it looked like Amos.
Louis turned toward her, and his face was still flushed, and his breath was still fast, and he asked her to tell him again what had happened, and he asked her to say it clearly, and he asked her to look at Amos and say his name. Stella opened her mouth, and the words would not come, and her throat closed, and she shook her head, and her hair fell forward over her face. She tried to speak, and her voice came out as a whisper, and she said that she did not know, and she said that it had been dark, and she said that she had been frightened, and the admission felt like a stone dropping into still water. Louis stared at her, and his mouth opened, and for a moment he said nothing, and the silence in the hallway was so complete that Stella could hear the faint buzz of the ceiling bulb and the sound of her own heart beating. She looked at her husband, and she saw the anger drain from his face, and she saw confusion take its place, and she saw him glance back at Amos, and she saw the doubt flicker in his eyes for the first time.
Amos lowered his hand from his cheek slowly, and the red mark showed plainly on his skin, and his lip was swollen, and his voice was steadier now, and he spoke to Stella, not to Louis, and he called her by her name, and he said that he knew she was frightened, and he said that he had only wanted to help her, and he said that he had lived across the hall for nine years and had never once raised his voice to her. He said that he had heard her scream through his door, and he said that he had come out in his slippers, and he said that he had seen the man in the gray coat on the stairs, and he said that the man had pushed past him and run down, and he said that he had asked Stella if she was hurt and she had screamed at him and run into the hallway. His voice was quiet and even, and there was no anger in it, and there was only a tired dignity, and Stella listened, and every word he spoke rang true in a way that her own memory could not. She remembered now that when she had burst into the hallway, Amos had been standing in his own doorway, and his sweater had been neat, and his slippers had been on his feet, and he had looked as frightened as she was. She had not seen that then. She had seen only a man, and she had pointed, and her husband had believed her, and now the old man stood against the wall with a red cheek and a bleeding lip, and she had done this to him.
Louis looked from his wife to Amos and back again, and his fists unclenched slowly, and his hands hung at his sides, and his shoulders sagged, and the heat went out of him all at once, and he felt suddenly tired, as if he had run a long distance and arrived nowhere. He looked at the torn pink satin of Stella's blouse, and he looked at the gray of nothing on Amos, and he looked at the red mark on the old man's cheek, and he felt the ground shifting under his feet. He asked Stella if the man in the stairwell had worn a gray coat, and his voice was quiet now, and Stella nodded, and she said that she thought so, and she said that she remembered the gray sleeve against her face, and she said that she was sorry, and the word came out small and broken. Louis turned to Amos, and his mouth opened, and he did not know what to say, and Amos raised one hand, palm open, asking for a moment, asking to be heard, and his eyes lifted, and his gaze traveled upward toward the corner of the hallway where the ceiling met the wall, and Stella followed his gaze with her own eyes, and she saw what he was looking at, and her breath caught in her throat. Louis saw her face change, and he turned his head, and he looked up as well, and the three of them stood in the hallway with their faces raised, and none of them spoke, and the only sound was the faint buzz of the ceiling bulb and the slow ticking of the clock in Amos's flat across the hall.
The flower shop smelled of wet stems and cool earth in the last hour of the day, and the low sun came through the front window in a single wide band of gold that lay across the wooden counter and made the glass vases shine. Stella stood behind the counter with her sleeves pushed back and her long black hair falling loose over one shoulder, and she worked on the last order of the day with the slow care of a woman who loved the work and did not want to hurry it. The order was a bouquet for a wedding the next morning, white roses and lilies with sprigs of green tucked between them, and the bride had asked for something simple and clean, nothing showy, nothing that would fight with her dress. Stella had built it stem by stem all afternoon, turning it in her hands, stepping back to look at it, trimming a stem here and adding a leaf there, until the shape of it pleased her. Now she wrapped it in pale paper and tied the ribbon in a neat bow, and she set it in the tall vase by the door where the bride would collect it in the morning.
The shop owner had gone home an hour earlier, after locking the cash box and counting the day's takings and telling Stella to lock up when she finished and not to stay too late. "Go home to your husband," the owner had said, smiling, and Stella had smiled back and promised that she would. But the bouquet had needed one more touch, and then one more, and the light had faded while she worked, and now the street outside was turning blue with evening and the lamps were coming on one by one along the pavement. Stella washed her hands at the small sink in the back room and dried them on a towel, and she looked at herself in the narrow mirror by the door. She wore her favorite blouse that day, bright pink satin that caught the light whenever she moved, and a black pencil skirt, and her long black hair was loose because the pin that usually held it had slipped out somewhere between the roses and the lilies. She looked tired and pleased at once, the way she always looked at the end of a good day, and she smoothed the front of her blouse with one hand and thought about going home.
Louis would already be at the charity dinner, she thought, in his black tuxedo with the bow tie he always fussed over, standing in a bright hall full of people in evening dress and talking about the new wing for the children's hospital. He had left the flat that afternoon in a hurry, kissing her goodbye at the door and telling her not to wait up if the dinner ran late. She had told him she would be home by seven, and it was already past seven, and she felt a small tug of guilt at the thought of the cold supper waiting in the kitchen and the empty flat waiting for her. The day at the shop had been a good one, and she thought back over it as she walked, the way she often did on the way home. A young man had come in at noon, nervous and shy, and had asked for a single rose for a girl he hoped to marry, and Stella had chosen the best one in the shop for him and wrapped it in tissue and wished him luck, and his smile as he left had stayed with her all afternoon. An old woman had come in after that, moving slowly with a cane, and had bought a small bunch of violets for her sister's grave, and Stella had tied them gently and spoken softly to her, and the old woman had pressed her hand before she left. The work had been steady and kind all day, and the shop had smelled sweet, and Stella felt glad to have a trade that put beauty into people's hands. She picked up her bag and the small bunch of leftover lilies she had set aside for the table at home, and she turned off the lights in the back room, and she locked the front door of the shop behind her and stepped out onto the pavement.
The evening air was cool after the warmth of the shop, and it smelled of rain that had fallen earlier in the afternoon and of bread from the bakery two doors down. Stella walked with a light step, glad to be out in the open after a long day among the flowers, and she looked in the shop windows as she passed them, at the shoes and the scarves and the books, the way she always did on the walk home. The streets were busy with people heading home from work and couples going out for the evening, and the sound of their voices and their footsteps filled the air around her. She did not notice the man in the gray coat. He stood across the street from the flower shop with his hands in his pockets, pretending to look at the window of the bookshop, and he watched her lock the door and step out onto the pavement, and he watched the pink of her blouse catch the light of the street lamps as she turned toward home. He waited until she had gone a little way down the street, and then he fell in behind her, unhurried, keeping his distance, his shoes quiet on the pavement.
Stella walked on, thinking of nothing more than supper and a hot bath and the sound of Louis coming home late and telling her about the dinner. She thought about the bouquet waiting in the tall vase by the shop door and hoped the bride would like it, and she thought about the lilies in her hand and where she would put them when she got home, and she thought about Amos, the old man who lived in the flat across the hall from theirs, and how he had nodded to her that morning in the hallway and asked after her roses. Amos was a quiet man, a retired schoolteacher, and he lived alone since his wife had died, and Stella always felt a small ache of kindness toward him whenever she saw him carrying his shopping bags up the stairs one step at a time. She thought she might invite him for tea one day soon, and the thought pleased her, and she smiled to herself as she walked. The man in the gray coat had been waiting a long time. He had stood near the flower shop since the late afternoon, moving from doorway to doorway whenever anyone looked his way, and he had watched the owner leave and watched the lights burn on in the shop while Stella worked alone inside. He had seen the pink of her blouse through the window as she moved behind the counter, and he had waited with the patience of a man who had all evening before him, until at last she locked the door and stepped out. He did not hurry. He knew the streets she would take, and he knew the building where she lived, and he knew that the quiet road and the dim entryway would suit him better than the busy street. He kept his hands in his pockets and his head down, and he followed her the way a shadow follows a woman in the evening light.
Behind her, the man in the gray coat kept his distance, and he matched his pace to hers without ever coming close enough for her to hear him. He was a tall man with a narrow face and dark hair, and his gray coat was too heavy for the mild evening, and he kept one hand in his pocket and the other loose at his side. Twice Stella stopped to look in a window, and twice he stopped too, turning to look at a doorway or a poster as if he had business there, and when she walked on he walked on again. She never turned around. The street was full of people and the evening was ordinary, and nothing in the ordinary evening told her that she was being followed. She reached the corner where the bakery stood, and she crossed the street, and she turned into the quieter road where their building stood among the trees, and the sound of the busy street fell away behind her, and the evening grew still around her.
Their building was an old brick building with a heavy front door and a small garden at the side, and the windows of the flats glowed warm in the blue dusk. The road was quiet, lined with trees whose leaves rustled softly in the evening breeze, and the only sounds were the distant hum of the busy street and the call of a bird settling for the night. Stella knew every window and every door of that road, and she knew the old woman on the ground floor who grew herbs in pots by her window, and the young family on the first floor whose baby cried at night, and the smell of cooking that drifted from the kitchens in the early evening. It was a kind road, a safe road, or so it had always seemed to her, and she had walked it a hundred times without a second thought. Stella slowed as she reached the gate, and she looked up at the windows of their flat and saw that they were dark, and she remembered that Louis was at the dinner and would not be home for hours yet, and she felt a small sigh rise in her chest at the thought of the empty rooms. She pushed open the gate and walked up the short path to the front door, and she took her keys from her bag, and she fitted the key into the lock, and she turned it, and the door swung open on its hinges with a soft creak. The entryway inside was dim and cool, lit by a single small lamp above the mailboxes, and it smelled of floor polish and old wood. Stella stepped inside, glad to be home, and she let the door swing shut behind her, slowly, on its heavy spring.
The man in the gray coat had reached the gate by then, and he moved quickly and quietly, and he caught the front door with one hand before it closed, and he slipped inside after her, silent as a shadow, and he let the door close softly behind him. Stella did not hear him. She was already crossing the entryway toward the stairwell, her heels clicking softly on the polished floor, the lilies in one hand and her bag in the other, her mind already on the supper she would make and the bath she would take. The entryway was long and narrow, with the mailboxes on one wall and a row of hooks for umbrellas on the other, and at the far end a door led into the stairwell, where the stairs rose in a steep flight to the first floor and the second. Stella reached the stairwell door and pushed it open with her shoulder, and the door swung inward, and the stairwell beyond was dark, lit only by a small bulb on the landing above that flickered weakly and cast long shadows on the steps. She stepped through the doorway without hesitating, the way she had done a hundred times before, and behind her, in the dim entryway, the man in the gray coat waited in the shadow by the mailboxes, and he watched her go, and he counted her steps on the stairs, and then he followed.
The stairwell was dark and cold after the warmth of the evening street, and it smelled of dust and old stone and the faint polish that the cleaner used on the handrail. A small bulb burned on the landing above, weak and yellow, and it flickered every few seconds, so that the shadows on the steps seemed to move and shift even when nothing moved. The stairs themselves were old and worn, dipped in the middle where a hundred years of feet had passed over them, and the wooden handrail was smooth from the touch of many hands. A narrow window stood on each landing, letting in a thin slice of evening sky, and at that hour the windows showed nothing but the blue dusk and the dark shapes of the trees outside. The building was quiet at that hour. The old woman on the ground floor had gone to bed early, as she always did, and the young family on the first floor had settled their baby and closed their door, and no one moved in the stairwell but Stella. Stella stepped through the doorway and let the door swing shut behind her, and she started up the stairs with the lilies in one hand and her bag in the other, her heels clicking softly on the worn stone steps. She knew those stairs well. She had climbed them a hundred times, in daylight and in darkness, in summer and in winter, and she did not need to look at her feet. She thought about the supper she would make for herself, something simple, and the hot bath she would take, and the lilies she would put in a vase on the table, and she hummed a little tune under her breath, the way she sometimes did when she was alone and content. Behind her, the stairwell door opened again, very softly, and the man in the gray coat slipped through it and let it close behind him without a sound.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, listening, and he heard her heels on the steps above him, light and unhurried, and he heard her humming, and he waited until she had climbed halfway to the first landing, and then he started up after her, quickly and quietly, his shoes making no sound on the stone. He kept to the shadows at the edge of the stairs, where the weak light from the landing did not reach, and he moved with the ease of a man who had done this before and knew how to be silent. Stella reached the first landing and turned to climb the next flight, and she did not hear him, and she did not look back, and she had no reason to look back, because the stairwell was her own stairwell and the building was her own building and nothing bad had ever happened to her there. Then his hand closed around her arm.
The grip was hard and sudden, and it stopped her where she stood, and for a single moment she did not understand what had happened. She turned, gasping, and she saw his face close to hers in the dim light, a narrow face with dark eyes, and she saw the gray of his coat, and she smelled his breath, sour and close, and fear rose in her like cold water rising in her chest. Her mind raced and found nothing to hold on to. She thought of Louis, far away in his bright dinner hall, and she thought of the flower shop with its sweet smell and its glass vases, and she thought of the morning, when she had dressed in her pink blouse and pinned up her hair and left the flat with nothing more on her mind than the wedding bouquet. All of that seemed very far away now, like something that had happened to another woman in another life, and here in the dark stairwell there was only this hand on her arm and this face close to hers, and her body acted before her mind could catch up. She tried to pull her arm free, and he held on, and his other hand reached for her bag, and she clutched it tighter, and she opened her mouth to scream, and no sound came out at first, only a thin gasp. Then her voice came, loud and raw, a scream that tore out of her throat and rang off the stone walls of the stairwell and echoed up the empty flights above. The man in the gray coat cursed softly and seized at her blouse, trying to pull her back toward him, and his fingers caught the soft pink satin, and the fabric gave way with a sharp tearing sound, and three buttons popped loose and scattered down the steps like small white beads. Stella screamed again, louder, and she twisted in his grip, and her lilies fell from her hand and scattered across the landing, white petals on the gray stone, and her bag slipped from her shoulder and thudded against the steps.
In the flat across the hall, Amos sat in his armchair by the window with a book open on his lap and a cup of tea gone cold on the small table beside him. He was a quiet man who kept quiet hours, and the evening had settled around him the way it always did, with the ticking of the clock and the distant sounds of the street below. He had been reading for an hour, slowly, the way an old schoolteacher reads, pausing now and then to look out of the window at the darkening sky. Then the scream came through the wall, thin and high and full of terror, and Amos froze where he sat, his book half closed in his hands, and for a moment he thought he had imagined it. Then it came again, louder, and he knew it was real, and he was on his feet before he had time to think, his book falling to the floor, and he crossed the room in three strides and threw open his front door. The hallway outside was empty and dim, lit only by the small lamp above the mailboxes, and the sound of the struggle came from the stairwell, a scuffle and a cry, and Amos ran toward it without hesitating, his slippers slapping on the floor, his navy sweater loose around his shoulders.