Beneath the Skin Read Online Free Page A

said, and pushed the door shut with a naked foot.
    I took them upstairs and spilled them onto the table in the main room. I picked a dainty lilac envelope to open but I already knew what they were. One of the things about having a great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather who walked out of Armenia about a hundred years ago with nothing but a recipe for yogurt is that you’re very easy to look up in the phone book. Why couldn’t he have changed his name like other immigrants? I read the letter.
Dear Zoe Haratounian,
    I read of your heroic exploit in this morning’s newspaper. First may I be allowed to congratulate you on your courage that you showed in tackling that person. If I may trespass a little longer on your patience . . .
    I looked ahead and then over the page and then the page after that. There were five of them, and Janet Eagleton (Mrs.) had written on both sides of the paper in green ink. I’d save that one for later. I opened an envelope that looked more normal.
Dear Zoe,
    Congratulations. You did brilliantly, and if more people behaved the way you did, London would be a better place to live. I also thought you looked lovely in the photograph in the paper and that’s really why I’m writing. My name is James Gunter and I’m twenty-five and I think I’m quite presentable looking, but I’ve always had trouble meeting the right girl, Miss “Right,” if you will. . . .
    I folded up the letter and placed it on top of Mrs. Eagleton’s. Another letter was more like a package. I opened it up. There was a bundle of paper half folded, half rolled up. I saw diagrams, arrows, subjects arranged in columns. But sure enough, on the first page it began as a letter addressed to me.
Dear Ms. Haroutunian,
    (That’s an interesting name. Might you be a Zoroastrian? You can let me know at my box number (below). I will return to this subject (Zoroaster) below).
    You have defenses against forces of darkness. But as you know there are other forces that are not so easily resisted. Do you know what a kunderbuffer is? If you do you can skip the following and begin at a section I will mark for your convenience with an asterisk. I append one for demonstration purposes (*). The section I will mark for your convenience I will mark with two (2) asterisks in order to avoid unnecessary confusion.
    I put the letter on top of James Gunter’s. I went into the bathroom and washed my hands. That wasn’t enough. I needed a shower. That was always a bugger in my flat. I liked showers with frosted doors that you could stand up in. I once went out with someone whose only redeeming quality, in retrospect, was that he had a power shower with six different nozzles apart from the normal one above. But the shower in my flat involved squatting in the bath and fiddling with decaying valves and twisting the cable. Still, I lay back for several minutes with a washcloth over my face, showering it. It was like lying under a warm wet blanket.
    I got out and got dressed in my work clothes. I made a mug of coffee and lit a cigarette. I felt a bit better. What
really
would have made me feel better is if the pile of letters had gone, but it was still stolidly present on the table. All those people knew where I lived. Well, not quite all. Another brisk inspection of the letters showed that several of them had been redirected from the newspapers where they had been originally sent. Some of them were probably nice. And at least, I thought to myself, they were writing instead of phoning up or calling round.
    At that moment the phone rang, which made me jump. It wasn’t a fan. It was Guy, the real estate agent who was allegedly trying to sell my flat.
    “I’ve got a couple of people who want a look around the property.”
    “Fine,” I said. “You’ve got the key. What about that couple who saw it on Monday? What did they think?” I had no hopes of them, really. He had looked grim. She had talked in a friendly way, but not about the flat.
    “They