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‘Shock. Poor guy. What a pity.’ They covered his face. ‘Did you ever see a face like that?’
‘Loneliness. Shock.’
‘Yes. Lord, what an expression! I hope never to see a face like that again.’
‘What a shame, waiting for us, and we arrive, and he dies anyway.’
They glanced around. ‘What shall we do? Shall we spend the night?’
‘Yes. It’s good to be out of the ship.’
‘We’ll bury him first, of course.’
‘Naturally.’
‘And spend the night in the open, with good air, right? Good to be in the open again. After two weeks in that damned ship.’
‘Right. I’ll find a spot for him. You start supper, eh?’
‘Done.’
‘Should be good sleeping tonight.’
‘Fine, fine.’
They made a grave and said a word over it. They drank their evening coffee silently. They looked at the lovely sky and the bright and beautiful stars.
‘What a night,’ they said, lying down.
‘Pleasant dreams,’ said one, rolling over.
And the other replied, ‘Pleasant dreams.’
They slept.
The Time of Going Away
THE thought was three days and three nights growing. During the days he carried it like a ripening peach in his head. During the nights he let it take flesh and sustenance, hung out on the silent air, coloured by country moon and country stars. He walked around and around the thought in the silence before dawn. On the fourth morning he reached up an invisible hand, picked it, and swallowed it whole.
He arose as swiftly as possible and burned all his old letters, packed a few clothes in a very small case, and put on his midnight suit and a tie the shiny colour of ravens’ feathers, as if he were in mourning. He sensed his wife in the door behind him watching his little play with the eyes of a critic who may leap onstage any moment and stop the show. When he brushed past her, he murmured, ‘Excuse me.’
‘Excuse me!’ she cried. ‘Is that all you say? Creeping around here, planning a trip!’
‘I didn’t plan it; it happened,’ he said. ‘Three days ago I got this premonition. I knew I was going to die.’
‘Stop that kind of talk,’ she said. ‘It makes me nervous.’
The horizon was mirrored softly in his eyes. ‘I hear my blood running slow. Listening to my bones is like standing in an attic hearing the beams shift and the dust settle.’
‘You’re only seventy-five,’ said his wife. ‘You stand on your own two legs, see, hear, eat, and sleep good, don’t you? What’s all this talk?’
‘It’s the natural tongue of existence speaking to me,’ said the old man. ‘Civilization’s got us too far away from our natural selves. Now you take the pagan islanders –’
‘I won’t!’
‘Everyone knows the pagan islanders get a feel for when it’s time to die. They walk around shaking hands with friends and give away all their earthly goods –’
‘Don’t their wives have a say?’
