The Last Lover

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Joe, the manager of the Rose Clothing Company’s sales department, clamps a briefcase under his arm as he passes through the narrow streets that lead to his office. He is a small, conservative man between middle and old age, meticulous in his dress, with shoes invariably spotless, his beard and hair regularly trimmed. His pale green eyes sometimes have a blank expression, either because he’s absentminded or because he’s eccentric. He often harbors thoughts of madness. Joe has a mania for reading, and for years he’s read one book after another, muddling all the stories in his mind. His memory is of the kind that’s excellent at making choices — a grafting memory — so the pathway of his thought is always clear. He usually sits in his office in City B with a novel hidden under the files, trying to look as if he’s hard at work. In fact, he’s reading all kinds of stories. As he is circumspect and conservative, his clients over the years have never discovered this secret. Joe’s manner of reading allows him to practice a singularly coherent method of linking his thoughts together. Every day his job interrupts him countless times, but in the space of a second he can get back into the flow of a story.

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