Read Online Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball - Free Book Online Page A

of all their bottles, it turned out to be a sort of boon, because after the great mass of armies had receded to Germany, to Austria, to England, to Russia, to Poland, to Spain, after some years had passed, and France was rebuilding itself, orders began to pour into the same vineyards that had been robbed. The soldiers, the officers, they remembered the glorious wines they had found, and they wanted more.

    James felt himself liking this odd young man. He repeated his question.

    —How did you meet this Stark?

    Carlyle twitched at the word Stark .

    He must not have meant to reveal that, thought James. I've gained something.

    —My parents died when I was quite young, said Carlyle. He took me in and raised me as his son. I always thought I would marry Grieve, but then, five years ago, I began to get horrible headaches. I changed. I became withdrawn, refused to speak to anyone. Stark had doctors come. They told him I had a tumor in my head the size of a fist, and that I would die within the month.

    —But that was five years ago?

    —I didn't die that month, said Carlyle.

    A gentle smile touched his lips.

    —Nor any of the months after that. But my ideas changed. I decided I would not betroth myself to anything, not to an idea, not to a person. That's when I began my studies in earnest.

    He looked away into the dark and nodded to himself.

    —I always thought, said James, that a sudden death would be best.

    —They say mine will be preceded by days of intense headache culminating in a blinding pain that feels, as others have described it, like the light of the sun descended into one's eyes. I have read accounts of it, accounts of such deaths. I do not envy myself what's to come.

    —But it's been five years, said James. The tumor must have shrunk.

    —I have it looked at every now and then. On my birthday, actually. It's a sort of joke. It hasn't shrunk. Not a bit. But it hasn't grown.

    James thought it over.

    —So you and Grieve used to, you know . . .

    —No, said Carlyle, laughing. We only thought we would be for each other, one day, long into the future.

    James and he had begun the walk back to the stairs. He continued laughing.

    —You are welcome to try keeping her happy. No one, of course, has ever succeeded in that.

 

    Carlyle was gone. They had parted when they reached the hall. James felt uncertain. He seemed to be staring at a broad sheet of paper spread out upon the ground, and all the letters were wiggling and moving of their own accord whenever he looked closely.

    He would go back up to his room and see what the day looked like through the windows of the room in which he had woken with Lily Violet.

 

    In the Pillow

    In the pillow no note from Grieve. No notes either upon the shelf.

 

    An hour passed. He fell asleep and woke in the chair. Somehow the maid had been and gone, for in the pillowcase was a note from Grieve.

    It said:

----
    No one spoke of you yet today or acknowledged your existence. I shouldn't wonder if they let you go soon.

----

    This was disturbing to James, who, like anyone, did not like being so easily forgotten. After all, he thought, I spoke with the dying McHale. I know the whole plot. They can't forget me so easily. Besides, he thought, Carlyle said they'd been speaking of me. But he thought of McHale's brusqueness on the porch.

    You know nothing, came the room's quiet reply. And it was true. What had he found out? If this decimal were to be placed like light in a tube then in what becoming would he have failed? He could name three: the first, his dying trust; the second, that owed those he loved (who did he love?); and the third, his own.

    And so in the room James sat and thought how useless the pistol was to him, and how if only he could find his way through these habits and rules to the heart of the game being played . . .

    He felt a horror at incidental things, at the dust in corners, the folding of cloth, the feel of paper.

    James had seen two men die