The first thing that hit me was the noise. It was a while since I had been to a party and I was hardly prepared for the dense, unremitting commotion of bass beats and voices and high-pitched, indefinite chatter. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once in order to. make themselves heard over the music provided by Hugo's hired DJ, but they might as well have been babbling in Mandarin for allthe sense I could make of it.

For a moment I felt at a loss. Did I really want to be here? Did I need to be here? Who would miss me if I wasn't here?

As a matter of fact, I would not have come to this party at all if Hugo had not been so insistent. Not that I had had any trouble in getting here. All that I had had to do was walk down a couple of fights from my flat at the top of the building. No, it was just that I hadn't been in the mood. I hadn't been in the mood for a long time, and when I reached the double doors of Hugo's apartment just now and heard the sounds within and sensed the atmosphere awaiting me, I had had the impression that, far from coming to a party, I was standing at the gate of the infernal regions, willfully asking permission to enter, when all my better instincts were urging me to turn around and flee.