Collected Stories of Reynolds Price

by Reynolds Price

  Only now did Sam crouch forward and point to the right—“Here, here.”

  I noticed he’d started dropping the sir; but that discovery was swamped by a sight at the next road-fork—a sign saying left to Bethlehem, right to Hebron (Jesus’ birthplace or Abraham’s tomb, choose one but quick). I bore to the right as Sam indicated, for Abraham; and we picked up speed to pour ahead through deeper dark—if that could be—till whatever shine poor Bethlehem threw on the left skyline was well behind us; and nothing whatever faced us here but blackness unlike any I’d faced. Well, sure. Pour on. My work was done; I’d take what came.

  Sam looked ahead and never turned, but he said at last “You will honor my home by visiting now.”

  I could hear it was not so much a question as a fact recorded. I thanked him and said I knew he was tired.

  “You are my friend. You will visit my home.”

  “Sam, you’re kind. You’re my young brother and I’m truly honored but surely they’re sleeping.” There had to be a family waiting—not one Arab goes home alone.

  He let a half mile slide beneath us. “They will wake to see my friend, believe me. You will drink some coffee and eat with me.”

  The whole lamb dinner was still aboard; I doubted I could eat a crumb. But I heard the arms of Eastern welcome lock around me once again; and I saw no way, nor wanted to, to flee politely. So we lapsed again and drove ahead.

  Maybe two miles later Sam sat forward and studied the road close to the glass. “In fifty meters you will turn to the left.”

  I heard a feverish rise in his voice, and I might as well have been embedded in solid night, but I shifted down and slowed by half.

  “No danger yet.”

  Yet. As we reached the turn, I could see the new road was only a little narrower and paved, though still there were no clear signs of life—no house or light. It was only when I’d taken the left that I noticed the sky, this far south, was suddenly lined with infinite stars so big they seemed like live faces too ardent to watch. “You specialize in stars down here”—I meant to sound easy.

  “You have seen nothing yet.” Sam was watching me but his hand came up and pointed on.

  We rode on silent in the pitiful hoop of our headlights for another stretch that could have been either two miles or ten—I was that lost now, that certain I moved toward some hard trial, though my hands and mind were calm as in my steady youth.

  At last Sam faced the road again. “I will tell you soon to stop the car.” He leaned again to the glass intently. “Slow now and stop near that big stone.”

  The whole land was one big stone and ten billion pebbles, but I slowed and pulled to the rugged shoulder by a white outcrop.

  Sam said “You drive very well, I think.”

  It seemed a solemn offering to me, the night’s next gift. I even thanked him.

  But he’d opened his door and was climbing out. The lights were still on; he crossed in front of them, waving me toward him with both strong hands as if I were some new pet he was breaking. As he moved, his limp was healing before me. His legs were level and he stood maybe half a head taller here.

  So I killed the engine to join him in the freezing dark—it was much colder now—but when I stood upright on the road, Sam was already hid to my left.

  “Come here to me.” The sir was now completely gone. Did that make me his trusted friend or willing victim? I crossed the black space, and what was waiting was an open hand that fumbled for mine.

  “I am leading you.” The voice was almost surely Sam’s; but the hand was larger, the skin was leather. Still I took its lead; and for a stretch, the ground dipped through a scrubby ravine; then a scramble up through thorns and grit. The hand dropped mine. I was on what felt like a broad flat rock. The stars burned harder overhead; beyond and up a long steep hill was a single flame—a lantern maybe (the light was yellow), though it held its place as firmly as if it sat on an altar, surviving change.

  Sam’s voice said “You are going there now.”

  The hand was behind me, then on my shoulder. It pushed me slightly and I climbed on in air so cold my lips were sealed in a thinner smile than the French Franciscan’s. I longed to show his arctic eyes this outcome of his ticket-brush with one dazed Yank who refused to lie, and his power crowded the rest of my mind—him and the voice of the monk in the tomb, “Commences now.” Let it then; I was ready to meet it, whatever it brought; and though I felt entirely alone—no sound of Sam—I walked the straightest possible line toward the rigid flame.

  It shone from a wide door—open and lit—in a squared-off low house, white in the dark. And when I’d climbed the final slope and was ten yards off, I could see it was one oil lantern set on the inside edge of the front doorsill. A normal white plaster wall stood ten feet behind it, but there was no other sign of life. I looked around for Sam behind me—again no sign. I tested my mind. It had never been calmer. I walked toward the door, then stopped at the sill in reach of the lamp. It lit enough of an empty room to show four walls and a concrete floor. I heard a snatch of a song or whistle, and I looked behind me.

  All below down the rough slope, the Earth was washed in blue starshine—only the ridge of rounded hills beyond the road was shaded now. I’d been in various deserts before, on mountains above the dirt of cities; but these stars burned with a whole new strength that was half alarming and showed me sights I’d failed to notice till my eyes adjusted. To my left the ground fell steeply away; the house was poised on a jagged lip at the rim of a pit. To my right near the road, there seemed to be a level field; and in the midst of a shrubby patch, a black shape moved like a purposeful dwarf.

  It would crouch to the ground, then rise, shake its arms, move a yard or so, then crouch again and repeat the motion. At last it rose and started toward me—a tall man maybe, in powerful strides.

  I looked behind me—the lantern still, no one in the room.

  The man came on; both arms were burdened with heavy loads.

  I thought the monk’s main words again; and I walked toward the man, entirely reckless.

  It was Sam very likely but firmer footed, barely limping.

  As I moved down on him, he said “No. Stay. Go in the house.”

  I held my ground and when he was near, enough light struck him to show he held what looked like two dirty objects—rocks, maybe clods?

  He came on at me and held them out. “We will eat these now.”

  They were some kind of tuber dug from the ground—giant yams? Turnips maybe, the first I’d seen since family meals in Depression days; and I asked the first normal question in hours. “You grew these here?”

  “My mother,” Sam said. He pointed behind me toward the door.

  I looked and saw a short brown face, a five-foot body in dark robes of green and black that fell from the crown of her head to the floor, her small bare feet.

  “My mother speaks no English, sir. She welcomes you.”

  Her brown face nodded beneath its mantle, and a wide smile spread. Two strong hands spread palm-open toward me.

  Sam stopped beside me. “In, sir. Please.”

  Sir, the sir was back again.

  His mother took the heavy lantern and stepped aside, nodding yes.

  So I took the last steps too and entered.

  A half hour later by the round wall-clock, Sam and I were seated in sockfeet against the cold wall on the colder floor, exhausting our few common subjects—his boyhood friend who was now in Portland, Oregon (would I take him a gift when I returned?), the months that Sam spent last year in prison for “throwing one stone” at an army truck, the details of my sons again and the lives they led.

  His mother had brought out thick wool cushions and a gray blanket with which she draped my shoulders and arms; Sam stayed in his parka. Then she’d vanished deeper into the house and silently made us scalding mint tea which she served in glasses iridescent with gold and shades of aquamarine like ancient Roman glass unearthed. As she bent before us, I’d seen the blue tattoos
on her forehead and cheeks, at the ends of her mouth, on her upper lip and strong square chin—small marks grouped in patterns of three like a fox’s track (I’d read they were charms against headache and the Evil Eye). Smiling, she’d left us and vanished again in the perfect silence beyond our room. We were still lit only by the lantern and whatever starlight fell through the door, still open on the freezing night. There was no other heat inside but the bright two inches of lantern flame.

  And soon Sam asked me the first hard question. “Sir, why are you here, alone and sad?” His eyes were baffled. Who was this creature under his roof who’d chosen to wander the Earth alone, what fate had Allah struck me with, did I know why and how did I bear it? Surely soon I would choose a new wife and have new children, or my heart would dry—he used that phrase.

  I gave him true but brief replies. I was a lifelong picture-painter; divorced with two grown sons, one married (I omitted the several gone companions); I had no present prospect of marriage and felt I was years too old for children.

  Sam thought about it. “You will go back soon to live with your sons?”

  How was I going to tell a young man, so plainly a part of the world’s immense majority of clannish kin, that in America now an old-aged life among your children is more unlikely than universal wealth for the poor? I only said “Maybe when I’m very old, if I live that long, they’ll take me in.” I could feel I was grinning—the hope was wild.

  “You are old now.” Sam didn’t smile but reached to touch my all-white hair as if it were some snow leopard between us.

  I could see he meant me plain respect—I was old in a house where age was prized and kept at hand. His mother’s hair had been a coarse brown for all her wrinkles—you knew such hair would make stout rope if you plaited it tight. I said “Are you here alone with your mother?”

  “My mother is very old like you. She says she is more than fifty years, but all her life was spent in the desert—she does not really know these things like age and time. We are Bedu, sir. She still goes out in the spring with our sheeps.” In this cold light Sam’s face had grown younger. The forehead had smoothed; his eyes were somehow rested and cleared. Surely he couldn’t be twenty-five.

  I said “Will you try to marry soon?”

  Again he held back. But then he grinned, his first real grin and wide as the door. “You see I am only a weak boy. I am safe at home for some more years.” He made a childish blank face; then waved around at the room, the walls—only the clock, a pale framed photo of Sam airbrushed to near-extinction, a framed diploma in Arabic from Sam’s school maybe, and the frozen air that now was seeping into my core. His home—safe, he thought.

  I suddenly knew he wasn’t safe; something waited to do him harm. I must have shivered under the blanket.

  Sam’s eyes went to sharp black points. “You are ready now?”

  “For what?”

  He faced the narrow door that led elsewhere in the house; then called one word in a near whisper, surely an order.

  I watched the door as intently as he. Who or what would come and why?

  A shuffling sound, a single thunk; and then the mother entered quickly, her feet still bare. She brought a round tray with china bowls and set them by us on the clean-swept floor. Another quick trip and she brought huge circular flaps of flat bread, moist and warm.

  My relief at the sight of anything warm was so compelling, I was all but stunned; and before I could thank her and wonder how she’d summoned a meal in this cold hut without a sound, she left again.

  Sam carefully told me the names of things—the turnips were sliced and lightly fried in olive oil, still hot and crisp on a bed of fried rice. There were olives, chopped greens in a piercing vinegar, thick goatyogurt fierce with a high ammonia reek, and orange jam for the grainy bread. As he named each dish, he dipped me a taste on a fold of bread.

  Odd as they were in combination, I ate them all like a long-lost sailor. “Does your mother wait for you here each night? Do you eat this late?”

  “Sir, no. I eat in Jerusalem. All this is for you, our celebration for your first visit to our sad country.”

  “Your mother was sleeping?”

  “Yes, since dark. She heard our car.”

  Ours. The car was parked a half mile off; but in this clean air, sound would carry far. “She was very kind to cook this much.”

  Sam waited as if to contradict me but then said “She is my mother—I told you.”

  That instant a barefoot child rushed in through the door from the night—a boy maybe ten in a man’s army jacket that fell to his bare knees. He shot a hot stream of words at Sam, and his arm kept jabbing at the downhill air.

  Sam leapt upright and slipped on his shoes. “The soldiers now are down at your car. I will tell them you are my friend and safe.” I started to rise but he forced me down. “Not you, not now. I will let you know.” Then he was gone with the child behind him.

  The car had a rental sticker and license; my name was on the rental agreement inside the glove box, but I’d left nothing personal behind. Had some Israeli patrol decided I was lost or kidnaped, dead or a spy? (Sam had mentioned spies as we drove through the night. On two occasions he’d pointed out dark houses we passed—“This man is a spy. He will soon be gone; no one will find him, even the hawks.” He pronounced it spee.) Had I got young Sam and his mother in dutch—an even more ominous stamp in his papers, his house blown up? Would the soldiers believe him or climb up here and grill me or worse? I’d after all plunged myself in the heart of the dark West Bank, scorched as it was—a land fought over these five thousand years, no sign of peace and maybe no hope.

  Again I was calm, though in my mind I no longer saw my damaged kin, only Sam’s hot face as it ran off to save me; and all I thought was Son, son—I must have meant Sam, with the leery soldiers in their hard light, another victim pinned at the edge of his turnip patch in sight of his Bedouin mother’s roof—her winter quarters, this concrete tent. His face was white and slatted with moving shadows like bars. I stood and fumbled into my shoes; I’d fully explain myself to the soldiers and free us all or make loud Yankee protest cries.

  But there again in the outside door stood the messenger boy, a little breathless. And dim behind him was a grizzled man in the checkered black headcloth worn by every terrorist east of Gibraltar. The boy stepped up to the still again and said “Oh please?”

  I beckoned him in as if this were mine. And when he was in, I asked if Samir was safe with the soldiers.

  The boy only looked back to the man and waved him in with the start of a laugh.

  The man was my age, maybe older, with the terrorist’s standard three-day growth of beard on hanging jowls and neck. Wrinkled pants and a tan suit jacket from the 1940s hung on him loose, two sizes large.

  They both went to the far-end wall and hunkered there silent, fixed on me.

  Did nobody out here bother to sleep? The clock said nearly a quarter past midnight, but hadn’t it said that a long while ago? I tried again— “Samir is coming?”

  They faced each other; the boy nodded and the man laughed once. “Samir, Samir.” With two palms down he signed me to sit.

  I took one long look through the door. Just since Sam left, the stars had greatly multiplied. Broad clotted bands of light were laid from zenith to ground, though still the car and Sam were hid—and the soldiers, if any soldiers had stopped. I went to my place and crouched again in the heavy blanket. By then its harsh clean animal smell came like a welcome offer to shield me. When I looked again the boy had lowered the lamp by half.

  The room was all shadow, but he and the man were smiling now and nodding at me. The man’s hands went on in the air before him, urging me down.

  Some bread was left and a few cold scraps. I tried to wave them over to join me, which was maybe a try at saving my neck—isn’t it strictest Muslim duty to honor the man you break bread with? True or not, I clung to the hope like a signed safe-conduct.

  Smiling still they refused
the food. The boy cupped his thin belly to claim he was full, though he looked half starved. The man put both hands up by his cheek, closed his eyes and made the sign for peaceful sleep (or was it prayer?). When I looked puzzled he made clear signals—I should lie flat down.

  I stayed upright and his smile quit.

  With no more coaching the boy said “Rest” and smoothed the air as if to ease the line of my body.

  I was bone-tired, so numb my frame felt nearly transparent. I felt I could punch holes through my chest with gentle fists; I knew my legs would refuse to stand if I tried to make a lunge for the road, whatever was down there or ever had been. Whatever was here with these two watchers posted beside me. I thought there was a serious chance my life would end if I obeyed them and lay down now. The tender sides of my throat were cringing at the real chance of a swipe from a long blade—my mind saw a black old-time iron blade with a dried bone handle. It could slice right through to my spine in an instant, almost no pain. In some entirely baffling way though, the serious question I thought of now was not my life or tortured death but the livest mystery of all—was any of this hour real, in this apparent outpost of hope or dream? This hour? What night and year was this, what nameless world, what target for light or black-hole dark?

  I can only tell my next two moves—I can’t explain or justify. Calm as a young lord, I tore a palm-sized piece of bread, sopped it in oil, chewed it slowly and swallowed hard. That showed at least I was human and helpless. Then I lay down long on my right side and faced the door, not seeing the boy and man (were they here?). A final thought cut through me, painless—Christmas, Bridge: day’s surely near. In an instant I slept.

  Next it was quiet and colder still, but my eyes opened on the door to the world. All the low air near the ground, all down the hill, was locked in dark. But the bands of stars were joining now and bending inward on themselves like grinding gates, broad slots of seamless pure white shine that poured from unimagined depths beyond the night. The man and boy?—there was only an empty wall where they’d crouched, though the lantern burned on lower still. I waited for what felt like a week, then raised my head for any sound. But the house might not have been around me—the only noise was a faint oiled purr as if those gates in the sky still turned. Yet what I could see of the sky was paler, a uniform unblemished bowl of gray (I was facing east; had I slept till dawn?). The clock was too dim, but I thought I could see it was snagged on midnight—a quarter past. I bit down on my tongue and lips; then dug a fingernail into my temple—I was feeling at least, one hint of life.