"Tango 20: Here's our clean business.
Now let's go down the hall to the black room,
where I make my real money."
"You want to see how things were going
from the husband's point of view,
so let's go round the back.
There stands the wife, gripping herself at the elbows
and facing the husband.
Not tears, he is saying.
Not tears again.
But still they fall.
She is watching him.
I'm sorry, he says, do you believe me?
Watching him.
I never wanted to harm you.
Watching him.
This is banal.
It's like Beckett.
Say something.
I believe, she says, your taxi is here.
He looked down at the street.
She was right.
It stung him, the pathos of her keen hearing.
There she stood, a person with particular traits,
a certain heart, life beating on its way in her.
He signals to the driver, five minutes.
Now her tears have stopped.
What will she do after I go, he wonders.
Her evening.
It closed his breath, her strange evening.
Well, he said.
Do you know?
she began.
What?
If I could kill you, I would then
have to make another exactly like you.
Why?
To tell it to.
Perfection rested on them for a moment like calm on a lake.
Pain rested.
Beauty does not rest.
The husband touched his wife's temple and turned
and ran down the stairs."