When I moved into X’s loft in June 1989 it had seemed empty in a robbed way—bare nails on the wall, hardly any furniture—though I didn’t ask why. We spent nearly all our time at home, especially that first summer when heat waves made the city hellish. When we ventured out at night, everything seemed to be under her spell—private admission to empty museums, restaurants entered through hidden doors, taxis appearing when needed as if by her will. At home again she would read to me as I took a bath. She played the piano and sang. Many nights a week she rolled out a projector and screened films for us—classics I’d never seen, French New Wave, Italian romances, Hitchcock, and sometimes new ones—reels that arrived in big crates from studios or directors. She once mentioned that she’d worked as a projectionist long ago, but when I asked where or when, she didn’t say. She often left such questions answered; I never repeated myself.