The morning after the restaurant bombing I strode into my office exactly at nine, a bit later than usual for me. I had to brush aside questions from my secretary and several co-workers who had either seen the story on the evening TV news or were brandishing morning newspapers with a front-page photograph of me standing amid the injured and the dead.

I slid behind my desk and told my computer to phone St. Mercy’s Hospital. The hospital’s answering computer told me, in the warm tones of a trained human actress, that visiting hours were from two to four p.m.and six to eight in the evening. Ms. Promachos was listed in good condition. She could not come to the phone; the doctor was examining her at the moment.

I left a message saying that I would be there at two. Then I did a day’s work, and more, that morning. For some foolish reason I felt wonderful. It was as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes or a window had suddenly opened to reveal a lovely landscape to me. Yes, I was aware that my memory was virtually a blank, that I did not know who I was or why I was here. I realized that my life was probably in the gravest sort of danger. But even that knowledge was wonderfully exhilarating. Twenty-four hours earlier I had been an emotionless automaton; I hadn’t even guessed that most of my memory had been erased. I was merely going through the motions of being alive. I breathed, but I didn’t feel. Now it was like coming up to the beautifully sunlit surface of the sea after spending much too long in the murky darkness of the depths.

I worked right through the nominal lunch hour; I was much too excited to eat. Like a teen-ager running eagerly to his first date, I left the office just beforetwo o’clockand hailed a taxi down on the crowded, rushing avenue and fidgeted impatiently as the cab wormed its way through the afternoon traffic to St. Mercy’s Hospital.