Part II. The Letter from a Dead Man
 

I do not stay in one place for long, which means that letters have to chase me all over the world. Every time I check out of a hotel and leave an address for mail forwarding, I imagine a string of letters following me as a flock of birds who have strayed from their journey to the south. These letters must be among the few things that still tie me to my old life.
 

I am not usually very happy to receive another letter, as they tend to contain requests which have been rendered completely meaningless due to the changes in my situation. But this time, in Addis Ababa, I was closer to joy – it was a letter from Peter Dorrigan for whose field camp I was bound that morning. I decided to read the letter without delay, to avoid any misunderstandings between me and my old friend Peter. This is what it said:
 

 “My dear K.,

I cannot stop thinking about that evening when Julia went missing. You’ll remember that I was there, in your house, and I could have prevented it all, and this knowledge is still causing me distress. I keep recalling detail after detail, desperately trying to rummage in my sieve of a memory for anything that could serve as a clue for you. But alas! scarcely anything new comes to mind. “Scarcely” is the reason why I am writing this letter to you. It is half past one in the morning, and unless I write this down at once and send it to you, I shall surely forget it, and I do not want to feel even more inexplicably guilty towards you, my friend, than I do already.
 

So here it is. You know, I cannot fathom how this could have slipped my memory, but I now recall a detail of the evening your wife was lost that may be of interest to you (but then, it may be of no use whatsoever).
 

The messenger that brought the letter to your wife looked unbelievably, bizarrely... like yourself. I was not so sure at the time, so I did not want to upset you with this strange and meaningless fact, but now that things have calmed down, I have been going over it in my mind, and somehow it seems significant.

I am sorry to burden you with this now, my friend.

Peter.”
 

I tucked the letter away. I cannot begin to understand the meaning of it all, and why Peter did not recall it until now. I decided I would ask him when I saw him.
 

But this meeting was not meant to happen. Two days later, when I arrived at the camp, I found that Peter was dead.