The house came with the painting: an old thing in a wooden frame on the back wall, folk workmanship, dark colours, a banquet table with people sitting around it and their faces worn to nothing.
He counted the figures on his second day, the way you do. Seven.
The next morning there were eight.
He started keeping a tally on the wall in pencil. Nine. Ten. On the fourth day he took the painting down, rolled it, put it in the cupboard and shut the door on it, and in the morning the cupboard door stood open a hand's width and the painting was back on its nail.
Eleven.
On the seventh day he stood in front of it for a long while before he raised his hand and went along the row with his finger. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. His finger stopped on the last one.
It was sitting at the foot of the table with its back to the room, and the clothes it was painted in were the clothes he had on.
He took a step back. On the wall beside him the pencil column read eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, all in the same hand, evenly spaced, the way a person writes when they are keeping a careful record.
He remembered stopping at ten.