TheElephantVanishes - (EPUB全文下载)

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I’M IN THE KITCHEN cooking spaghetti when the woman calls. Another moment until the spaghetti is done; there I am, whistling the prelude to Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra along with the FM radio. Perfect spaghetti-cooking music.
I hear the telephone ring but tell myself, Ignore it. Let the spaghetti finish cooking. It’s almost done, and besides, Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra are coming to a crescendo. Still, on second thought, I figure I might as well turn down the flame and head into the living room, cooking chopsticks in hand, to pick up the receiver. It might be a friend, it occurs to me, possibly with word of a new job.
“I want ten minutes of your time,” comes a woman’s voice out of the blue.
“Excuse me?” I blurt back in surprise. “How’s that again?”
“I said, just ten minutes of your time, that’s all I want,” the woman repeats.
I have absolutely no recollection of ever hearing this woman’s voice before. And I pride myself on a near-perfect ear for voices, so I’m sure there’s no mistake. This is the voice of a woman I don’t know. A soft, low, nondescript voice.
“Pardon me, but what number might you have been calling?” I put on my most polite language.
“What difference does that make? All I want is ten minutes of your time. Ten minutes to come to an understanding.” She cinches the matter quick and neat.
“Come to an understanding?”
“Of our feelings,” says the woman succinctly.
I crane my neck back through the door I’ve left open to peer into the kitchen. A plume of white steam rising cheerfully from the spaghetti pot, and Abbado is still conducting his Gazza.
“If you don’t mind, I’ve got spaghetti on right now. It’s almost done, and it’ll be ruined if I talk with you for ten minutes. So I’m going to hang up, all right?”
“Spaghetti?” the woman sputters in disbelief. “It’s only ten-thirty in the morning. What are you doing cooking spaghetti at ten-thirty in the morning? Kind of strange, don’t you think?”
“Strange or not, what’s it to you?” I say. “I hardly had any breakfast, so I was getting hungry right about now. And as long as I do the cooking, when and what I eat is my own business, is it not?”
“Well, whatever you say. Hang up, then,” says the woman in a slow, sappy trickle of a voice. A peculiar voice. The slightest emotional shift and her tone switches to another frequency. “I’ll call back later.”
“Now, wait just one minute,” I stammer. “If you’re selling something, you can forget right now about calling back. I’m unemployed at present an ............

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