The ticket had worn thin where his thumb covered the seat number. Row F was still legible. He put it on the auditor's table when she asked for his next of kin.
Eleven years. Never a Thursday missed. He gave her no name.
He was eighty-one. His coat still had the wide pockets of a stage coat. The ticket had its own.
Meral from care liaison had brought Brave New World from home.
“You said something familiar.”
He opened it. His shoulders went down.
“It isn't part of the test,” the auditor said.
Meral squared it with the form. “Then keep it out of the charges.”
The auditor drew a line between them.
On the form his estate was one hundred and sixty-two words of proven retention.
The auditor read a sentence. He repeated it. She read another. He added something about the waiting. On the third he could not hear the end. He adjusted the instrument in his ear with both hands. She offered to read it again.
He nodded. She made another mark in the charges.
Hearing is part of retention. She had read it twice. Both readings were billed.
He asked her to begin with a play. Eleven thousand lines, he could give her the cues as well. She showed him the provision for authors' estates. His license had ended with the run.
He moved his chair back. The legs caught in the carpet. He lifted it clear, placed it against the wall and came forward again.
For a moment he stood without the table between them.
Stay for the part where I remember you.
He waited. The auditor had stopped writing. He waited a little longer, then reached for his chair.
She continued the test.
Eight hearings. One hundred and forty-one left. On the form: The patient failed.
Meral's list still had him down for tomorrow. The auditor showed her today's date on the completed test. Meral crossed the appointment off her own sheet.
“He'll still be called,” the auditor said.
Meral wrote her extension on the auditor's form. She put a slip into the book at his place and took it with her.
The auditor wrote the line on a separate sheet. She asked whether it was correct. He marked the place where he took a breath. Then she pushed the ticket back across the table.
He had kept it after the last Thursday. There were others once, programs, flowers, a photograph with a name across the face. This was what he brought now.
He put the ticket on her copy of the line.
She offered to copy the ticket too. He shook his head.
She opened the file. He watched her put both inside.
The wide pocket lay flat. He put his hand into it before he stood.
One door was marked. The other had no sign. Between them he asked which entrance was his tonight.
She heard a latch. When she looked up from the file, both doors were shut.