Chapter II.I

Jo was led into a small room with gray walls, where, apart from a table and two chairs, there was nothing else. The guard lightly pushed the prisoner in the back and, making sure that he obediently sat down on the chair closest to the exit, closing the door behind him. Gloomy thoughts hovered in Jo's mind. He had been serving his sentence in this prison for two whole years, and that was only one-ninth of the entire sentence. During this time, he almost forgot what it was like to be free, breathe fresh air and communicate freely with other people... 

A crazy thought crept into Jo's head that he was called into this room in order to release him from here early, but common sense suppressed this idea. Eighteen minutes have passed since the guard walked out the door. Jo, although accustomed to long and tedious sitting in a cell, was already tired of sitting on this hard chair, and he wanted to get up - not to go out, but just to stretch his stiff legs - when suddenly the front door, which was located just behind his chair, opened and the prisoner heard measured steps.

The man walked around the table and sat down in the chair opposite Jo. The prisoner began to look at the stranger. He looked like he was about thirty-something years old, or at most forty. He had short black hair and a neat moustache under an aquiline nose. He was dressed in a gray and clearly worn-out jacket, under which was a white shirt with a black check, and around his neck was a black tie. The stranger’s behavior, or rather the way he confidently carried himself, could be evidence that he had previously served in the military.

Jo, bored within the walls of this dull place, only had two minutes to understand in general terms who was sitting in front of him. It worked out that the stranger was in no hurry to start a conversation - automatically he said a dry greeting and, sitting in a chair, simply looked at the prisoner, clearly waiting for something. Finally he broke the silence in the stuffy air:

- So, I have the honour of seeing before me Jordan Thurlow, the same man who, two years and five months ago, was sentenced in United States District Court for the District of Oregon in the criminal case of one Delia Yonce? - he said insinuatingly.

When the stranger finished this introduction, Jo felt his insides turn over. It was not a matter of the somewhat rude intonation performed by the interlocutor’s baritone, but the fact is that this man, whom Jo sees in front of him for the first time, uttered a name dear to him - even if it was not a secret to everyone who was in this building, but for him, twenty-six-year-old Jo Thurlow, these two inmost words caused his body to experience an uncontrollable increase in heart rate and some breathing problems that only went away as the day went on. It was clear as day that the heart wound was fresh even after so much time spent in the dull dungeons of this concrete coffin.

The topic that the stranger brought up interested Jo. The momentary confusion caused by the spoken name soon gave way to calm and determination. Jo confirmed that the stranger was not mistaken in his guesses, internally understanding that in fact this man already knew everything if he was assigned a conversation with him. Adjusting his moustache, the inspector Galbraith - this is how the interlocutor introduced himself to the prisoner - made it clear that now the two of them would have a long interlocution.

The policeman asked Jo to start a story about how he ended up behind bars, and in particular to focus in the story on everything that concerns Delia Yonce, because this will serve as the basis for the subsequent story, but from his, Galbraith's side. Jo asked why mister inspector decided to start this speaking, but having received a dry response "Your words, Jordan, will help my investigation", he decided not to waste time and got down to business.

So, two years ago... Those blessed times for Jordan Thurlow had such a halo in his eyes that it seemed as if a completely different person had lived that life, and that for some reason someone else's memories had entered his head. This state of affairs was not caused by the passage of time - in fact, from the very first day of his prison sentence, Jo deliberately tried to abstract himself from what he had lived before, so that his heart would not suffer from the pain of loss. But no matter how much he wanted to push all the memories away into the attic of his mind, Jo, hearing this dear name from the lips of other people, fell into a state when his heart was ready to jump out of his chest from melancholy. Delia... He said her name tenderly. It sound so pretty and sophisticated at the same time...

Preparing to lay out the information of interest to the inspector, mister Thurlow, as he always did, began to collect his thoughts randomly scattered throughout his mind into a single whole, and also tried to feel as if he was reliving the events of days gone by. If not for this, he would hardly have been able to string together at least two words, and so he, having begged mister inspector for a little time - four minutes to be exact - began to tune in to catch the wave of the past. Having thrown away the nonsense of high-flown judgments, Jo seemed to freeze in one place - fixing his gaze in front of him, he seemed to begin meditation and surrender his thoughts to the foretime.

When Jo finally pulled himself together, the silence in the visiting room was finally broken. His interlocutor, slightly stretching his numb hands, prepared to catch every word that would come out of the mouth of this prisoner...

⁂

August of that year was unusually hot. Jordan Thurlow noted that this had never happened in his area before. Since his mother's death, he has never travelled outside of his hometown of Portland, and in connection with this, Jo, who previously did not like to travel around the world, roundly took root in the soil of his native home. Most of his free time, which was available to him in his chosen profession of culturologist, then twenty-four-year-old Jo spent walking in the forest behind his residential area.