Atdtda29: By now she had heard enough, 817

[Paul Nightingale]

What is and what isn’t: “... [not] exactly the Hotel de Ville” etc. The
noise: “... not really unremitting” etc. A desire for precision: on 816,
geometry, here, “quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she
imagined, mathematically so”. The timetable again, and a well-ordered
universe, which includes Vlado: “... unpredictably in and out of town ...”
etc. On 816 he appears with the bora; here, he is associated with various
(human and mechanical) traffic noises, “his step on the carpetless stairway”
isolated (ie, “... there was no mistaking Vlado”). If his movements cannot
be predicted, he still arrives “often”, his appearance as predictable as
that of another café: “... she was never farther than half a block” etc.

By the end of the section Yashmeen has relocated to Venice, putting distance
between herself and Cyprian, apparently an unpredictable course of events:
“I was expecting horses ...” etc. Again: “the complete ensemble of ‘free
choices’” on 811. On that occasion, looking back, ‘here’ isn’t ‘there’. On
816 she was distanced from sex with Vlado. Here, she eavesdrops on sex the
other side of a wall, but fails to learn the performance: “... she didn’t
always remember to”.