the solace of bedcovers, the luggage waiting to be unpacked, the light from the television casting your shadow on the hotel wall. A photograph is what remains of a moment. This hotel was the first one in Asia to have elevators, the first to have an electronic communications system installed in all rooms. The opposite of absence is a souvenir. A window fails when it thwarts the light. The architect of the hotel also designed the General Hospital, but that is a place from which you can never depart. Manileños were forbidden to be part of that world—Americans were surprised when Filipinos had meals in the huge banquet room; weren’t they just waiters, busboys, a word is a limb of a thought, bellboys, elevator