The airport was pretty. His suitcase came quickly. Yet Claudio had the feeling that he was in a rather artificial, somehow unreal place. He had flown to Halifax in order to present his doctoral thesis at a congress of archaeologists. And although this wasn’t the first congress he had attended, Claudio was always surprised at the forced smiles, the commonplaces (in a place that was by no means common for most of the delegates), at meeting up again with colleagues whom in reality it was only a pleasure to see at congresses. 

The talks were scheduled to begin the next day, on the eighth of June. And on the ninth, Claudio would be presenting the results of his research, the same research that had taken him to Egypt and enabled him to make the acquaintance of more bats than Dracula could have imagined in his entire lifetime. Brr, he cringed inwardly. The thesis was written, his talk was already jotted down and rehearsed, yet Claudio had never given a lecture at such a prestigious congress before. He was afraid of getting tongue-tied, of making a mistake, of not ‘communicating effectively’, as the saying went among the professionals. 

Claudio arrived at the university guest-house where he would be staying. A pretty gloomy place in the summer, completely empty and rather rundown. The handles on the doors were broken, the ashtrays were chipped, the tables were scarred. And all just to save a few dollars. 

After he checked in, he left his things in the room and went out for a walk around the city. He headed for the jetty and stared out at the beautiful Atlantic Ocean, cold and deep blue. 

It was hard to enjoy the scene while his thoughts turned repeatedly to his talk on the ninth. Just twenty minutes. But Claudio couldn’t take his mind off it. 

He went to register for the congress and picked up his name tag (which he rarely attached to his lapel as he was supposed to), a folder containing the programme, a map of Halifax together with some brochures about the city, some notepads, flyers advertising new scholarly publications, and a few other unimportant things. He bumped into a few acquaintances, but there were few people of his own age. Claudio decided to eat alone since the professors generally went to expensive restaurants. 

However, he found it pleasantly distracting to walk and continued, absorbed in his thoughts, until the late sunset reminded him of his hunger. He went into a tavern whose modest appearance and plentiful customers caught his eye. 

He ordered a rib steak, french fries, peas and a beer. The food was very tasty. The restaurant was quite noisy, and seemed to get noisier after he’d drunk his beer. It didn’t help him relax. 

The night passed slowly. He woke up feeling cold, got up to close the window, nestled more deeply in the bedclothes. Thinking about his talk, naturally. 

Claudio arrived at the congress the next morning punctually at nine o’clock. He really wanted to hear some of the talks. He enjoyed listening to writers whose work he read all the time. To be able finally to put a face and a voice to a name, to find out if they were nice or not, if they were shy or brash, to discover their human side. 

The programme was fairly busy, and since there were several simultaneous sessions, Claudio had to choose carefully where best to spend his time and attention. 

The first panel session he chose was devoted to ‘New discoveries on Easter Island’. The speakers were good, their theories well presented. The first two talks were especially interesting, but the third one was rather boring despite the fact that a lot more could have been done with his material. Claudio spent the time looking around to see if he knew anybody there, if only to exchange a look of complicity with someone and to find the strength to put up with the rest of the talk without offending the speaker by getting up and leaving half-way through. He didn’t recognize a soul, but the faces of two or three of the delegates, as bored and distracted as he was, caught his eye, sharing his feelings. 

At ten thirty, Claudio went into the room where they were discussing the latest theories on The Fall of the Roman Empire in Constantinople. The discussion had begun fifteen minutes earlier, and since there were no free seats, Claudio stood leaning against the wall at the back, to the right of the door. 

Nothing worthy of note in that session. Or almost nothing. No familiar faces. Or almost none. A young woman, about thirty, also arrived late and stood leaning against the wall on the left. Claudio recognized her at once. She was one of the interesting faces he had noticed at the other session. 

When the talk was almost over, the woman left before Claudio could even string together a sentence in his head. It was better that way, since there was something repellent about her, something that told him to keep a distance. Yet. 

At lunch-time, Claudio looked around for her. He was unlucky. She was nowhere to be seen. 

He attended two lectures that afternoon. Each on an entirely different topic. He arrived late to one. The other was in a hotel across the street. The woman was there. She even arrived late to the first talk, and got there before him at the second. At the final session at the end of the day, Claudio decided to go up to her and read the name on her tag. Clarissa Fromkin, University of British Columbia. But even if he’d wanted to say something, he wouldn’t have been able to since she turned and walked away. 

Claudio went back to the guest-house, and while he showered, he pondered the likelihood of meeting the same person four times in a single day at talks on entirely unrelated subjects, especially of them both showing up late at the same places. Incredible. 

His nervousness at the talk he had to give left him with little time to worry about the day’s coincidences. When all said and done, these things happen when you travel. Otherwise, why travel? 

He’d already worked out what he could do for dinner. He’d go back to the same place he went to the night before. The waiter even recognized him and brought him a beer as soon as he saw him, without Claudio having to order it. The day’s special was vegetable soup and homemade stew. Peaches in syrup for dessert. Delicious. Only the talk, the ever present talk, stopped him from ordering another beer. 

The sea was calm, calm enough to stay looking at it for a long while. The night passed quietly. Claudio was almost always more nervous two nights before an important event of some kind, but the night before, he usually slept soundly. 

Early the next morning, Claudio was back at the conference centre, his stomach half-knotted, and half-empty. His talk would begin at some time between ten thirty and twelve, so he decided to go and hear a talk from nine to ten so as not to think too much. He would deliberately choose a boring topic, and he would force himself to pay attention and thereby distract himself from his worries. 

The Annual Report of the Director of the Centre for Archaeology in the Yukon struck him as suitably tedious. On the agenda were such items as the approval of the purchase of a computer for the Centre’s main office and decisions concerning the refinancing of the Centre’s debt. 

The room was practically empty. Eleven of the twelve members of the Centre were present together with three or four onlookers, himself included. He shuddered when he realized who he would see when he looked to the back of the room. Yes, Clarissa Fromkin was there. She didn’t even look at him, though he knew she had seen him. Or foreseen him. 

At ten o’clock, Claudio went to the cafe opposite to relax a bit. He ordered a Seven-up instead of coffee since he had no need of caffeine. Yes, the time had come. 

The other three speakers were at the front of the room, chatting informally. Claudio went up to them. He was so nervous his actions were almost automatic. His hands were sweating, his heart was racing, his shirt collar felt a little too tight. The moderator, Dr. Janice Kirkwood, was a pleasant woman who in a few minutes arranged the details of the session. The five of them (herself included) would sit at a table, facing the audience, and she would introduce each one as their turn came. In accordance with the order indicated in the printed programme, Claudio was third. 

There was one thing he was certain of. Clarissa would show up. That rare coincidence of meeting her would happen again. Fortunately. That reassured him. Abnormal events were following their normal course. It would be a coincidence this time too since up to then Claudio hadn’t used his name-tag, so Clarissa had no way of knowing that he was the scheduled speaker. But he had no doubt that she would appear. 

The first speaker was probably quite interesting, to judge from the unusual applause, since Claudio was unable to absorb much of what he’d heard. 

There were a few moments of stretching, shuffling, people entering and leaving, while Dr. Kirkwood began her introduction of the second speaker. 

Damn, no sign of Clarissa. What was going on? Claudio had avoided all his nervousness and fear by focusing on her appearance. Her failure to turn up brought all his anxiety into the open. He felt that his entire destiny could change, and that maybe, if he lost the usual fluency he had when he spoke in public, his talk would be a disaster. 

Claudio kept looking at his watch. Between each glance, he scanned the audience looking for Clarissa. No, she wasn’t there. But, maybe, yes, there would be a short break between this talk and his own. His own. His talk. He’d do well to go over his notes again, ready himself, clear his throat mentally. 

The applause at the end of the second talk brought him back to reality. Claudio was alert to the movements in the audience, while focusing his attention on his script, collecting his slides in his left hand, starting to make use of the surge of adrenalin being pumped through his body. 

Yes, there was no doubt about it. Something had gone wrong. Clarissa wasn’t in the audience. Claudio would have to get through his talk alone, his silent agreement with Clarissa now broken. 

Dr. Kirkwood went up to the podium to introduce him. 

“And now, here on my right, a colleague who has done a very interesting piece of work on Ramses the Second, the most famous of the ten Kings of Egypt that bore the same name,” there was a pause as she cleared her throat and then, smiling, she added softly “Dr. Clarissa Fromkin.”

This story appears in Still…life, Mosaic Press, Canada, copyright David Mibashan