Quicker Than the Eye Read online

  She looked around, slowly, at the thousands of books. She felt her heart move quietly. «Did you really call me what you just said?»

  «Mrs. God? Oh, yes. Often. Always.»

  «Come along,» she said at last.

  They walked around the rooms together and then downstairs to the newspaper files, and coming back up, he suddenly leaned against the banister, holding tight.

  «Miss Adams,» he said.

  «What is it, Captain?»

  He exhaled. «I'm scared. I don't want to leave. I'm afraid.»

  Her hand, all by itself, took his arm and she finally said, there in the shadows, «Sometimes-I'm afraid, too. What frightens you?»

  «I don't want to go away without saying good-bye. If I never return, I want to see all my friends, shake hands, slap them on the back, I don't know, make jokes.» He stopped and waited, then went on. «But I walk around town and nobody knows me. Everyone's gone.»

  The pendulum on the wall clock slid back and forth, shining, with the merest of sounds.

  Hardly knowing where she was going, Miss Adams took his arm and guided him up the last steps, away from the marble vaults below, to a final, brightly decorated room, where he glanced around and shook his head.

  «There's no one here, either.»

  «Do you believe that?»

  «Well, where are they? Do any of my old pals ever come visit, borrow books, bring them back late?»

  «Not often,» she said. «But listen. Do you realize Thomas Wolfe was wrong?»

  «Wolfe? The great literary beast? Wrong?»

  «The title of one of his books.»

  «You Can't Go Home Again?» he guessed.

  «That's it. He was wrong. This is home. Your friends are still here. This was your summer place.»

  «Yes. Myths. Legends. Mummies. Aztec kings. Wicked sisters who spat toads. Where I really lived. But I don't see my people.»

  «Well.»

  And before he could speak, she switched on a green-shaded lamp that shed a private light on a small table.

  «Isn't this nice?» she said. «Most libraries today, too much light. There should be shadows, don't you think? Some mystery, yes? So that late nights the beasts can prowl out of the stacks and crouch by this jungle light to turn the pages with their breath. Am I crazy?»

  «Not that I noticed.»

  «Good. Sit. Now that I know who you are, it all comes back.»

  «It couldn't possibly.»

  «No? You'll see.»

  She vanished into the stacks and came out with ten books that she placed upright, their pages a trifle spread so they could stand and he could read the titles.

  «The summer of 1930, when you were, what? ten, you read all of these in one week.»

  «Oz? Dorothy? The Wizard? Oh, yes.»

  She placed still others nearby. «Alice in Wonderland. Through the Looking-Glass. A month later you reborrowed both. 'But,' I said, 'you've already read them!' 'But,' you said, 'not enough so I can speak. I want to be able to tell them out loud.'

  «My God,» he said quietly, «did I say that?»

  «You did. Here's more you read a dozen times. Greek myths, Roman, Egyptian. Norse myths, Chinese. You were ravenous.»

  «King Tut arrived from the tomb when I was three. His picture in the Rotogravure started me. What else have you there?»

  «Tarzan of the Apes. You borrowed it . .

  «Three dozen times! John Carter, Warlord of Mars, four dozen. My God, dear lady, how come you remember all this?»

  «You never left. Summertimes you were here when I unlocked the doors. You went home for lunch but sometimes brought sandwiches and sat out by the stone lion at noon. Your father pulled you home by your ear some nights when you stayed late. How could I forget a boy like that?»

  «But still-«

  «You never played, never ran out in baseball weather, or football, I imagine. Why?»

  He glanced toward the front door. «They were waiting for me.»

  «They?»

  «You know. The ones who never borrowed books, never read. They. Them. Those.»

  She looked and remembered. «Ah, yes. The bullies. Why did they chase you?»

  «Because they knew I loved books and didn't much care for them.»

  «It's a wonder you survived. I used to watch you getting, reading hunchbacked, late afternoons. You looked so lonely.»

  «No. I had these. Company.»

  «Here's more.»

  She put down Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, and Treasure Island.

  «Oh,» he said, «and dear and strange Mr. Poe. How I loved his Red Death.»

  «You took it so often I told you to keep it on permanent loan unless someone else asked. Someone did, six months later, and when you brought it in I could see it was a terrible blow. A few days later I let you have Poe for another year. I don't recall, did you ever-?»

  «It's out in California. Shall I-«

  «No, no. Please. Well, here are your books. Let me bring others.»

  She came out not carrying many books but one at a time, as if each one were, indeed, special.

  She began to make a circle inside the other Stonehenge circle and as she placed the books, in lonely splendor, he said their names and then the names of the authors who had written them and then the names of those who had sat across from him so many years ago and read the books quietly or sometimes whispered the finest parts aloud, so beautifully that no one said Quiet or Silence or even Shh!

  She placed the first book and there was a wild field of broom and a wind blowing a young woman across that field as it began to snow and someone, far away, called «Kathy» and as the snows fell he saw a girl he had walked to school in the sixth grade seated across the table, her eyes fixed to the windblown field and the snow and the lost woman in another time of winter.

  A second book was set in place and a black and beauteous horse raced across a summer field of green and on that horse was another girl, who hid behind the book and dared to pass him notes when he was twelve.

  And then there was the far ghost with a snow-maiden face whose hair was a long golden harp played by the summer airs; she who was always sailing to Byzantium where Emperors were drowsed by golden birds that sang in clockwork cages at sunset and dawn. She who always skirted the outer rim of school and went to swim in the deep lake ten thousand afternoons ago and never came out, so was never found, but suddenly now she made landfall here in the green-shaded light and opened Yeats to at last sail home from Byzantium.

  And on her right: John Huff, whose name came clearer than the rest, who claimed to have climbed every tree in town and fallen from none, who had raced through watermelon patches treading melons, never touching earth, to knock down rainfalls of chestnuts with one blow, who yodeled at your sun-up window and wrote the same Mark Twain book report in four different grades before the teachers caught on, at which he said, vanishing, «Just call me Huck.»

  And to his right, the pale son of the town hotel owner who looked as if he had gone sleepless forever, who swore every empty house was haunted and took you there to prove it, with a juicy tongue, compressed nose, and throat gargling that sounded the long October demise, the terrible and unutterable fall of the House of Usher.

  And next to him was yet another girl.

  And next to her …

  And just beyond …

  Miss Adams placed a final book and he recalled the fair creature, long ago, when such things were left unsaid, glancing up at him one day when he was an unknowing twelve and she was a wise thirteen to quietly say: «I am Beauty. And you, are you the Beast?»

  Now, late in time, he wanted to answer that small and wondrous ghost: «No. He hides in the stacks and when the clock strikes three, will prowl forth to drink.»

  And it was finished, all the books were placed, the outer ring of his selves and the inner ring of remembered faces, deathless, with summer and autumn names.

  He sat for a long moment and then another long moment and then, one by one, reached for and took
all of the books that had been his, and still were, and opened them and read and shut them and took another until he reached the end of the outer circle and then went to touch and turn and find the raft on the river, the field of broom where the storms lived, and the pasture with the black and beauteous horse and its lovely rider. Behind him, he heard the lady librarian quietly back away to leave him with words .

  A long while later he sat back, rubbed his yes, and looked around at the fortress, the encirclement, the Roman encampment of books, and nodded, his eyes wet.

  «Yes.»

  He heard her move behind him.

  «Yes, what?»

  «What you said, Thomas Wolfe, the title of that book of his. Wrong. Everything's here. Nothing's changed.»

  «Nothing will as long as I can help it,,, she said.

  «Don't ever go away.»

  «I won't if you'll come back more often.»

  Just then, from below the town, not so very far off, a train whistle blew. She said:

  «Is that yours?»

  «No, but the one soon after,» he said and got up and moved around the small monuments that stood very tall and one by one, shut the covers, his lips moving to sound the old titles and the old, dear names.

  «Do we have to put them back on the shelves?» he said. She looked at him and at the double circle and after a long moment said, «Tomorrow will do. Why?»

  «Maybe,» he said, «during the night, because of the color of those lamps, green, the jungle, maybe those creatures you mentioned will come out and turn the pages with their breath. And maybe-«

  «What else?»

  «Maybe my friends, who've hid in the stacks all these years, will come out, too.',

  «They're already here,» she said quietly.

  «Yes.» He nodded. «They are.»

  And still he could not move.

  She backed off across the room without making any sound, and when she reached her desk she called back, the last call of the night.

  «Closing time. Closing time, children.»

  And turned the lights quickly off and then on and then halfway between; a library twilight.

  He moved from the table with the double circle of books and came to her and said, «I Can go now.»

  «Yes,» she said. «William Henry Spaulding. You can.» They walked together as she turned out the lights, turned out the lights, one by one. She helped him into his coat and

  then, hardly thinking to do so, he took her hand and kissed her fingers.

  It was so abrupt, she almost laughed, but then she said, «Remember what Edith Whanon said when Henry James did what you just did?»

  «What?»

  'The flavor starts at the elbow.'

  They broke into laughter together and he turned and went down the marble steps toward the stained-glass entry. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up at her and said:

  «Tonight, when you're going to sleep, remember what I called you when I was twelve, and say it out loud.»

  «I don't remember,» she said.

  «Yes, you do.»

  Below the town, a train whistle blew again.

  He opened the front door, stepped out, and he was gone. Her hand on the last light switch, looking in at the double circle of books on the far table, she thought: What was it he called me?

  «Oh, yes,» she said a moment later.

  And switched off the light.

  Free Dirt

  1996 year

  The cemetery was in the center of the city. On four sides it was bounded by gliding streetcars on glistening blue tracks and cars with exhaust fumes and sound. But, once inside the wall, the world was lost. For half a mile in four directions the cemetery raised midnight trees and headstones that grew from the earth, like pale mushrooms, moist and cold. A gravel path led back into darkness and within the gate stood a Gothic Victorian house with six gables and a cupola. The front-porch light showed an old man there alone, not smoking, not reading, not moving, silent. If you took a deep breath he smelled of the sea, of urine, of papyrus, of kindling, of ivory, and of teak. His false teeth moved his mouth automatically when it wanted to talk. His tiny yellow seed eyes twitched and his poke-hole nostrils thinned as a stranger crunched up the gravel path and set foot on the porch step.

  «Good evening!» said the stranger, a young man, perhaps twenty.

  The old man nodded, but his hands lay quietly on his knees «I saw that sign out front,» the stranger went on. «FREE DIRT, it said.»

  The old man almost nodded.

  The stranger tried a smile. «Crazy, but that sign caught my eye.

  There was a glass fan over the front door. A light shone through this glass fan, colored blue, red, yellow, and touched the old man's face. It seemed not to bother him.

  «I wondered, free dirt? Never struck me you'd have much left over. When you dig a hole and put the coffin in and refill the hole, you haven't much dirt left, have you? I should think…»

  The old man leaned forward. It was so unexpected that the stranger pulled his foot off the bottom step.

  «You want some?» said the old man.

  «Why, no, no, I was just curious. Signs like that make you curious.»

  «Set down,» said the old man.

  «Thanks.» The young man sat uneasily on the steps. «You know how it is, you walk around and never think how it is to own a graveyard.»

  «And?» said the old man.

  «I mean, like how much time it takes to dig graves.»

  The old man leaned back in his chair. «On a cool day:

  two hours. Hot day, four. Very hot day, six. Very cold day, not cold so it freezes, but real cold, a man can dig a grave in one hour so he can head in for hot chocolate, brandy in the chocolate. Then again, you get a good man on a hot day, he's no better than a bad man in the cold. Might take eight hours to open up, but here's easy-digging soil here. All loam, no rocks.»

  «I'm curious about winter.»

  «In blizzards we got a icebox mausoleum to stash the dead, undelivered mail, until spring and a whole month of shovels and spades.»

  «Seeding and planting time, eh?» The stranger laughed.

  «You might say that.»

  «Don't you dig in winter anyhow? For special funerals? Special dead?»

  «Some yards got a hose-shovel contraption. Pump hot water through the blade; shape a grave quick, like placer mining, even with the ground an ice-pond. We don't cotton to that. Use picks and shovels.»

  The young man hesitated. «Does it bother you?»

  «You mean, I get scared ever?»

  «Well . . . yes.»

  The old man at last took out and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, tamped it with a callused thumb, lit it, let out a small stream of smoke.

  «No,» he said at last.

  The young man's shoulders sank. «Disappointed?» said the old man. «I thought maybe once .

  «Oh, when you're young, maybe. One time …»

  «Then there was a time!» The young man shifted up a step. The old man glanced at him sharply, then resumed smoking. «One time.» He stared at the marbled hills and the dark trees. «My grandpa owned this yard. I was born here. A gravedigger's son learns to ignore things.»

  The old man took a number of deep puffs and said:

  «I was just eighteen, folks off on vacation, me left to tend things, alone, mow the lawn, dig holes and such. Alone, four graves to dig in October and a cold came hard off the lake, frost on the graves, tombstones like snow, ground froze solid.

  «One night I walked out. No moon. Hard grass underfoot, could see my breath, hands in my pockets, walking, listening.»

  The old man exhaled frail ghosts from his thin nostrils. «Then I heard this sound, deep under. I froze. It was a voice, screaming. Someone woke up buried, heard me walk by, cried out. I just stood. They screamed and screamed. Earth banged. On a cold night, ground's like porcelain, rings, you see?

  «Well-« The old man shut his eyes to remember. «I stood like the wind off the lake stopped my blood. A
joke? I searched around and thought, Imagination! No, it was underfoot, sharp, clear. A woman's voice. I knew all the gravestones.» The old man's eyelids trembled. «Could recite them alphabetical, year, month, day. Name any year, and I'll tell. How about 1899? Jake Smith departed. And 1923? Betty Dallman lost. And 1933? P. H. Moran! Name a month. August? August last year, buried Henrietta Wells. August 1918? Grandma Hanlon, whole family! Influenza! Name a day, August fourth? Smith, Burke, Shelby carried off. Williamson? He's on that hill, pink marble. Douglas? By the creek …»

  «The story,» the young man urged.

  «Eh?»

  «The story you were telling.»

  «Oh, the voice below? Well, I knew all the stones. Standing there, I guessed that voice out of the ground was Henrietta Fremwell, fine girl, twenty-four years, played piano at the Elite Theatre. Tall, graceful, blond. How did I know her voice? I stood where there was only men's graves. Hers was the only woman's. I ran to put my ear on her stone. Yes! Her voice, way down, screaming!

  «'Miss Fremwell!' I shouted.

  «'Miss Fremwell,' I yelled again.

  «Deep down I heard her, only weeping now. Maybe she heard me, maybe not. She just cried. I ran downhill so fast I tripped and split my head on a stone, got up, screamed myself! Got to the tool shed, all blood, dragged out the tools, and just stood there in the moonlight with one shovel. The ground was ice solid, solid. I fell back against a tree. It would take three minutes to get back to her grave, and eight hours of cold night to dig to her box. The ground was like glass. A coffin is a coffin; only so much space for air. Henrietta Fremwell had been buried two days before the freeze, been asleep all that time, using up air, and it rained just before the cold spell and the earth over her, soaked with rainwater now, froze. I'd have to dig maybe eight hours. And the way she cried, there wasn't another hour of air left.»

  The old man's pipe had gone out. He rocked in his chair, back and forth, back and forth, silently.

  «But,» said the young man, «what did you do?»

  «Nothing,» said the old man.

  «Nothing!?»

  «Nothing I could do. That ground was solid. Six men couldn't have dug that grave. No hot water near. And she might've been screaming hours before I heard, so . .