"You seem sad," Laura said beside him. Mr. Rebeck had not known that she was looking at him. He hastily subpoenaed a sleepy smile.
"Not sad. A little puzzled, I suppose. This has been a strange evening, and it takes me a while to get used to new things. But I'm not unhappy or anything like that."
"That's good," Laura said. She hesitated, and then said quickly, "I think I know how you feel."
Mr. Rebeck looked at her, seeing even in the dark her straight-haired, wide-mouthed plainness, and seeing also the beauty that this one night, at least, had made of it without changing it at all.
"Do you?" he asked thoughtfully. "Because I don't, myself."
"I do," Laura said. Michael called her then, and she turned from Mr. Rebeck and added her voice to the chorus of the song. The three of them sang it together, and Mr. Rebeck listened. The song rose up like smoke, rum-colored smoke.
Laura's voice was the best of the three, Mr. Rebeck thought. It was a high, sweet memory, a voice for gardens and riverbanks and vineyards and the celebration of sea birds. She looked at him as she sang, and he closed his eyes and listened to her woman's voice, wise without being knowing. It had been a long time since he had drunk rum and heard a woman singing.
Damn it! he thought so fiercely that for a moment he thought he had spoken the words. Damn it, damn it, what is it I feel? What is it I miss? Am I sad, after all? I don't think I am. Why should I be? Michael's happy. Laura is happy—look at her. Campos is happy, or whatever emotion it is he uses at times like this. Why can I not relax and accept the moment and listen to the singing? What twists in me when they sing?
Michael's voice now, dusty around the edges, but true and sardonic, singing to enjoy himself. And Campos, laughing deeply, his voice heavier than the ghost-voices, harsh with the meaning of the song.
They never sang for me, Mr. Rebeck thought. Perhaps that is what makes me sad, that we never sang together. They came to me for comfort and conversation, they came to play chess and go for walks and simply be near somebody alive. But they sing with this man, and I have never seen them so happy. He taught them a song and now they are singing it with him. Could I have done that, I wonder?
Laura played with the melody as they sang the chorus, tossing it high like a tinsel ball, letting it wink and glitter in the light as it came down to where she waited.
Mr. Rebeck plucked a blade of grass and put it between his lips. It was sour and good to chew on.
Now is it their friendship I want, he wondered, or their dependency? I think it is very important to know. Am I sorry that they can talk to each other and to this man, am I frightened that there will be others like Campos? Am I so dull a man, even to myself, that I fear these others will take my friends from me? Am I so tired and so purposeless that I want to keep them with me forever, living off their need and their loneliness? You can't do that, Jonathan. They are minds, and you cannot make minds dependent on you. That would surely make you the devil.
Cuando se ven queridos,
No corresponden
They were laughing as they finished the song. Mr. Rebeck lay on his back and applauded. "Bravo," he said. "And brava for Laura."
"Did you catch my harmony on the second chorus?" Michael asked them all. There was no answer. "Don't everybody jump at once."
"Haunting," Laura said dryly.
"Subtle," Mr. Rebeck offered, with the air of a man trying to be both helpful and honest. "Very subtle."
"Fourth-dimensional," Michael said. "But I mustn't chide you for your stupidity. You have no means of comparison, no point of reference. Campos appreciates my harmony. I can tell by his sullen silence."
"What does the song mean?" Mr. Rebeck asked Campos.
The big man shrugged. "Means women are wonderful. Never was a tree without a shadow, a house without dust in the corners, and a woman who didn't love somebody sooner or later. Means men are sons of bitches. Soon as you love them, they run. Don't trust the sons of bitches."
"Simple folk wisdom," Michael said. "Handed down from the Mayans. Close your eyes, dear, and think of England."
"There are a lot of songs like that," Laura said. "All from the woman's point of view. Never trust men, they say. Beware of lovers. All men leave you. The faithful ones just die before they get ready to leave."
"There are just as many songs from a male standpoint," Michael answered, "only they're not sung. They're not funny and they're not beautiful. Love songs have to be one or the other, like people. So nobody ever sings them at Town Hall concerts. But every man knows a few."
"Sing one," Laura challenged him. "Sing one now."
"You have to be in an evil mood to sing one," Michael said, "and I feel rather amiable. Also, you have to sing it when you don't feel like singing, and I feel very much like singing. I'll sing it for you, if you like, but I want you to understand my handicaps."
"May I sing something with you?" Mr. Rebeck asked. "I can't really sing, but I'd like to."
All three stared at him, and he read the look in their eyes as a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. That was foolish, he thought. Why did I do that? I wish I had it back.
Michael spoke first. "Of course you can. Did you think you had to ask?" He turned to Campos. "Teach him 'El Monigote,' the one about the dummy. It takes five minutes to learn."
But Laura spoke quietly. "No. Teach us something new, something none of us knows. That's the best way to learn songs."
"I can't really sing," Mr. Rebeck said again, but Campos interrupted him.
"Know a lullaby," he said loudly. "They sing it to kids. You want to learn it?" The three nodded.
"Simple as hell," Campos said. "Like this." He sang the words deep in his throat, looking far up the road as he sang.
Dormite, niñito, que tengo que hacer,
Laver tus panales, sentar me a comer.
Dormite, niñito, cabeza de ayote,
Si no te dormis, te come el coyote.
"I caught the coyote bit," Michael said. "What's a coyote doing in a lullaby?"
"Like the bogeyman. What it means, sleep, kid, I got to wash your clothes and get something to eat, sleep, kid, little pumpkinhead, if you don't go to sleep, the coyote'll get you."
"Oh, lovely," Michael said. "They know how to raise kids in Cuba. No fooling around."
Campos ignored him. "Then it goes like this."
Arru, arruru,
Arru, arruru,
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, arruru.
Mr. Rebeck started to sing a few notes behind Michael and Laura. He had been afraid that he would not be able to sing at all, and when he heard the first notes of the new voice in the chorus he was so startled that he stopped for a moment. He had known that his voice would sound dry and rusty with disuse, but he found that it was actually painful to sing. His throat was full of sawdust and he could not swallow. His lips felt tight and crusted.
Still singing, Campos reached over and shoved the last bottle of rum into his hand. Mr. Rebeck drank from it and felt the wall of thorns in the back of his throat go down and the song step over it. He drank once more, to wash the last thorns away, handed the bottle back to Campos, and began to sing again.
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, arruru. . . .
When the chorus came to an end, he began to sing it all over again. He sang alone, his voice loud and joyous, losing the tune at once and finding scraps of it as he went along, changing the key when he couldn't hit the top notes. Laura and Michael smiled at each other, and he was sure they were laughing at him. I am making a fool of myself, he thought, but I was born to be a fool and I have had a long enough vacation from being a fool. Of course they are laughing. I would laugh myself if I weren't singing.
But he also thought, Sleep, child, sleep, little pumpkinhead—and he sang the meaningless syllables with his eyes shut because he thought he might stop if he saw them laughing at him.
Then Michael began to sing with him, softly, absently, not looking at him, not looking at anyone. They
finished the song together.
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, Arruru.
Michael sang the last note and stopped, but Mr. Rebeck held on to the note as long as he could, until there was no breath in him and he had to let it go.
A black feather dropped into the dim light, and they heard a snort of disgust in the darkness above them. Then the raven plumped down into their midst, beating his wings wildly as if he had just fallen off the wind. He regained his balance, blinked at the four of them, and said, "What the hell is this, group therapy?"
Michael was the first to recover. He pointed at the feather in the grass. "You dropped something, I believe."
The raven looked ruefully down at the lost feather. "I'm a lousy lander," he said. "Never in my life have I made one decent landing."
"Hummingbirds land well," Michael said. "Like helicopters."
"Hummingbirds are great," the raven agreed. "You should have seen me when I found out I wasn't ever going to be a hummingbird. I cried like a baby. Hell of a thing to tell a kid."
"What are you doing up so late?" Mr. Rebeck asked. "It must be four in the morning."
"I'm up early. You're up late. Too hot to sleep, anyway. I was flying around and I heard the glee club. Celebrating something?"
"No," Mr. Rebeck said. "We couldn't sleep either."
The raven cocked his head to look at Campos. "This one I know from somewhere."
"Campos," the big man said. "I'm a terrible guard."
"Yeah," the raven said. "I remember you. I hitched a ride on your truck once."
Campos shrugged. "Ride all you like. Ain't my truck. Belongs to the city."
"Healthy attitude," the raven said.
"He can see Michael and Laura," Mr. Rebeck told the raven. "Like me."
The raven looked from Campos to Mr. Rebeck and back. "Figures. You got the same nutty look."
"What kind of look is that?" Laura asked.
"Half here and half there," the raven answered. "Half in and half out. A nutty look. I know it when I see it."
He turned to Michael. "Latest news and weather forecast. Your old lady's in more trouble than there is in the world."
"Sandra," Michael said. He sat up quickly. "What's happened?"
Laura did not move, but Mr. Rebeck thought that she had become a little more transparent, harder to see. He tried to catch her eye, but she would not look at him.
"The cops found a piece of paper on the floor," the raven said. "Little piece of paper, folded up like a cone. Grains of poison all over it. Everybody's making a big fuss about it."
"Are her fingerprints on it?" Michael asked. He looked hungry, Mr. Rebeck thought, and somehow tired.
"No fingerprints," the raven said. "They figure she held it in a handkerchief when she used it and lost the thing before she could burn it. It was torn off a sheet of typing paper. They're trying to find the rest of the paper now."
Michael sank back slowly. "That's it, then. That's got to be it. It's over."
"Michael," Laura said softly, "drop it. Let it alone. It doesn't matter now."
Michael's voice was fierce and angry. "It matters to me. She's trying to prove I committed suicide. If they let her off, they'll come charging out here with their little shovels and dig me up. Bury me somewhere else, with all the other suicides. Would you like that? Do you want that to happen?"
"No," Laura said. "No. But I don't want her to die."
They stared at each other, ghost and ghost now, oblivious of the two men and the black bird. It was Michael who lowered his eyes first.
"I don't want her to die," he said. "I thought I did, but it doesn't matter. I don't care what happens to her, but I hope she doesn't die."
"Big discovery," the raven grunted. He cackled softly at some private joke. "Her lawyer asked for a postponement. They gave him a week. Trial's on for the fifteenth now."
"They've got her," Michael said without joy. "She must know it. The rest is just ritual. Will you let me know how it goes?"
"Don't nag me," the raven said. "I'll come around again today, after I get a look at the afternoon papers. Anything's in them, I'll let you know."
"Thank you," Michael said.
Campos was sitting cross-legged, with his head tilted far back on his neck, looking straight up into the sky.
"Lose something?" the raven asked him.
Campos lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "Nobody gonna do any flying today. Rain coming."
The raven fell in with the change of subject. "How the hell do you know?"
"No birds singing," Campos said earnestly. "You hear birds singing, it's not gonna rain. Birds don't go out in the rain."
"That," said the raven, "is a large crock. I used to believe that stuff myself. No more. I woke up one morning and it was all gray, like it was going to storm any minute. But I hear the little birds singing and I think, Nah, my feathered friends wouldn't be out there singing if it was going to rain. They know what they're doing. So I went out to get breakfast, and as soon as I was out in the open it rained like hallelujah, brethren. Just sitting up there, waiting until it could get a good shot at me. And those feathered little bastards sang right through it. They sat in trees and sang. I didn't get dry for a week. Never trusted a bird from that day to this. Never going to."
"You don't like birds, do you?" Laura asked. "I've never heard you say a good word for them."
"It's not I don't like them. I just don't trust them. Every damn bird's a little bit nuts."
"You too," Campos muttered. "You too."
"Me too. Me most of all." The raven poked the lost black feather with a yellow claw. Finally he picked it up in his beak and gave it to Mr. Rebeck. "Put it somewhere," he said. Mr. Rebeck put it in his pocket.
"Tell you something," the raven said. "I was flying over the Midwest once." He stopped abruptly, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and began again. "I was flying over the Midwest. Iowa or Illinois, or some place like that. And I saw this big damn seagull. Right in the middle of Iowa, a seagull. And he was flying around in big, wide circles, real sweeping circles, the way a seagull flies, flapping his wings just enough to keep on the updrafts. Every time he saw water he'd go flying down toward it, yelling, 'I found it! I found it!' The poor sonofabitch was looking for the ocean. And every time he saw water, he thought that was the ocean. He didn't know anything about ponds or lakes or anything. All the water he ever saw was the ocean. He thought that was all the water there was."
"How did he get into Iowa?" Michael asked. "Slept past his station," the raven said scornfully. "How do I know? Probably got lost in a storm. Anyway, he just kept flying around, looking for the ocean. Wasn't discouraged, wasn't afraid. He knew he was going to find the goddam ocean, and all the ponds and streams didn't bother him a bit. Odds are he's still flying around there. Birds are like that."
He bent his head to scratch among the soft underfeathers on his chest and belly. The stars were going out now, one by one, dropping like pennies behind the television aerials and the skylights and the washing strung between the chimneys. The sky was still dark—a sated, navy-blue woman—but the grass was jittery with the expectation of dawn.
"Did you do anything?" Mr. Rebeck finally asked. "Did you help him?"
"What could I do? What the hell can you do for a seagull in Iowa? I just flew away."
"You should have done something," Laura said. "There must have been something you could do."
"I didn't know where the ocean was, for Christ's sake. I was lost too. What else would I have been doing in Iowa?"
"You're never lost," Laura said. "Surely you could have helped him. You could have done something."
"What? What? Will you tell me what?" The raven's beak clicked like a telegraph key. "That's the goddam trouble with you goddam people. You say, 'Something should have been done. You ought to have done something,' and you figure that leaves you clean. No more responsibilities. Don't take it out on me. I'm stupid. I don't know how to help anybody. I was
lost too."
He glared around at all of them, muttering to himself, the golden eyes glowing like the devil's battle decorations, aware and alone.
"All right," Michael said. His voice was very low. "You're right and I'm a hypocrite and I've been one all my life. But that isn't going to stop me from feeling sorry for seagulls."
"It wasn't supposed to," the raven said. He looked away at the pink mouth that was just beginning to open in the east. "Dawn's coming."
"We'll wait," Mr. Rebeck said sleepily. His eyes felt as heavy as ball-bearings, and his neck could no longer hold his head erect. "Sing something, Laura. Sing something while we wait for dawn."
"You're half asleep," Laura said. "We'll take you home. You can watch the dawn as we go."
"No. We've sat through the night together. Let's watch the dawn together. It's important." He tried very hard not to yawn and succeeded.
"There's one of them every day," the raven said. "One's like another. You're dead on your feet."
"A singularly tactless image," Michael murmured.
"I'll sing you a song," Laura said to Mr. Rebeck. He could not see her, but her voice was close by. "Lie back, and I'll sing to you. You can watch the dawn lying down." So Mr. Rebeck lay back and felt the grass crush under his body. He put his hand in the pocket of his bathrobe and clutched the raven's lost feather. The rum has made me sleepy, he thought. I shouldn't have drunk so much, after such a long time. Campos was saying something, but his words were like matches lit in a storm. Mr. Rebeck felt a warm redness behind his closed lids and knew that the sun was beginning to rise. "Sing now," he said to Laura.
Her laughter was very gentle, laughter to pillow the head. "What shall I sing you? A riddle song? A lullaby? A song for lovers? A song about an early dawn and the sun rising. What will you have me sing?"
Mr. Rebeck began to tell her about the kind of song he wanted, but he fell asleep and so he never saw that particular dawn. There were others, and beautiful they were, with songs to go with them, but in later years he was always sorry for having missed that one dawn. It was the rum, he used to tell himself. You shouldn't have drunk so much. It made you sleepy. Campos took him home.
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