The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
day eighteen: “We miss you yesterday, Mr. Chet,” said Wang.
“Yeah, gee, had to work all through the lunch hour there at my desk.
Didn’t get a chance even to get up.”
“You have delivery menu? You can call, and we bring food to you.”
“Yeah? That’d be great.”
“No, great for us! Great for us, to have customer who come back so much.
You eat today something special?”
“Sure will. Whatever you bring me, you know that. By the way, just keep
noticing, I like the music you play on the system here while I eat.”
“Oh, yes. Very good music. Chinese music. Different songs, different
instruments.”
day nineteen: From across the street, Abulfaz saw Harry Yaofan and a
woman he assumed was his wife—a plump woman with the pocked complexion
and spherical shape of a lychee—enter the restaurant at 6:08. When they
sat down at a table, some seven minutes later, they were the only customers
there, and they ate, as far as Abulfaz could see through the window, in total
silence. Wang brought them a succession of dishes without being asked and
placed them in the center of the table with a dancer’s arcing grace. Harry and
his wife ate small bites of each dish and drank tea from lidded porcelain cups.
Twenty-eight minutes after they arrived, two men entered the restaurant,
spoke to Wang at the front desk, sat down on chairs by the entryway, drained
a beer each, received a plastic bag of food, and left eleven minutes after they
arrived. No other customers entered. At 7:15, Wang hung a Closed sign in
the window. Harry and his wife left thirty-two minutes later, and Wang, having
cleared their plates, followed behind them, locking the door. One hour
and fifty-seven minutes later, Abulfaz saw the kitchen light turn off, and two
minutes after that, a red Datsun with rust patches and a sagging exhaust system
drove off from behind the restaurant.
day twenty: Abulfaz had made a point of filling up his gas tank one
gallon at a time at eleven different service stations between LaGrange Park
and Skokie. Each time he bantered—or Chester bantered—with the attend-
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