Light Years
Page 30
He was wearing a gray suit bought in Rome. He walked slowly. The soles of his shoes grew dark with moisture. The trees were huge and without lower branches. They had died and fallen while the crown sought the light. Damp, buried, they broke beneath his feet. He saw the faded flag of a surveyor’s stake; further on, forgotten, a children’s fort. Nearby was a hammer, rusted, its handle eaten by worms. Every step he took bristled with the sound of twigs and branches, the debris of years. He tried the hammer, the handle snapped. In the silence birds were calling. There were tiny flies in the air. Above, in the far sunlight, the roar of airliners bound for Europe.
The fort had fallen, the children were gone. They had hidden in these woods, had lain among the small wild flowers. Hadji had rolled in the snow, bathing in it, squirming on his back and pausing, fragrant beast, eyes dark as coffee, smiling mouth. Those afternoons that would never vanish, all ended. He, resettled. His daughters, gone.
An old man in the woods, his thoughts flashed forward as quickly as they had gone back. He walked with slow, careful steps, his gaze to the ground. He saw something then, domed and wondrous. He stopped in disbelief. How it had escaped the cars, the keen eyes of children, of dogs, he could not understand, but somehow it had. It was the tortoise. It had not seen him, he watched it going its way, rustling the leaves as it walked. He bent and picked it up. The reptilian face, impassive, wise, acknowledged nothing; the pale eye, clear as a bead, seemed anxious to look away. The powerful legs were curving their strokes at his fingers, but in vain. Finally it withdrew into its shell on which, faint as weathered writing on a board, the initials were scratched. He could barely make them out. He wet a finger and rubbed; miraculously they became plain. He put the tortoise down, he was reluctant to. He watched it for a while. It did not move.
It seemed the woods were breathing, that they had recognized him, made him their own. He sensed the change. He was moved as if deeply grateful. The blood sprang within him, rushed from his head.
He walks toward the river, placing his feet carefully. His suit is too warm and tight. He reaches the water’s edge. There is the dock, unused now, with its flaking paint and rotten boards, its underpilings drenched in green. Here at the great, dark river, here on the bank.
It happens in an instant. It is all one long day, one endless afternoon, friends leave, we stand on the shore.
Yes, he thought, I am ready, I have always been ready, I am ready at last.
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Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
C
hapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part Five
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11