We'll Always Have Paris: Stories Read online

  They climbed into the police car. He held the dog to one side, the phonograph on his lap. He cranked it and started it. The phonograph was playing ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’ as the car drove away.

  On either side of the Manger that night it was quiet at one A.M. and it was quiet at two A.M. and it was quiet at three A.M. and it was such a loud quietness at four A.M. that everyone blinked, sat up in bed, and listened

  The Visit

  Ray Bradbury

  October 20, 1984

  9:45–10:07

  (On reading about a young actor’s death and his heart placed in another man’s body last night.)

  She had called and there was to be a visit.

  At first the young man had been reluctant, had said no, no thanks, he was sorry, he understood, but no.

  But then when he heard her silence on the other end of the telephone, no sound at all, but the kind of grief which keeps to itself, he had waited a long while and then said, yes, all right, come over, but, please, don’t stay too long. This is a strange situation and I don’t know how to handle it.

  Nor did she. Going to the young man’s apartment, she wondered what she would say and how she would react, and what he would say. She was terribly afraid of doing something so emotional that he would have to push her out of the apartment and slam the door.

  For she didn’t know this young man at all. He was a total and complete stranger. They had never met and only yesterday she had found his name at last, after a desperate search through friends at a local hospital. And now, before it was too late, she simply had to visit a totally unknown person for the most peculiar reasons in all her life or, for that matter, in the lives of all mothers in the world since civilization began.

  ‘Please wait.’

  She gave the cabdriver a twenty-dollar bill to ensure his being there should she come out sooner than she expected, and stood at the entrance to the apartment building for a long moment before she took a deep breath, opened the door, went in, and took the elevator up to the third floor.

  She shut her eyes outside his door, and took another deep breath and knocked. There was no answer. With sudden panic, she knocked very hard. This time, at last, the door opened.

  The young man, somewhere between twenty and twenty-four, looked timidly out at her and said, ‘You’re Mrs Hadley?’

  ‘You don’t look like him at all,’ she heard herself say. ‘I mean—’ She caught herself and flushed and almost turned to go away.

  ‘You didn’t really expect me to, did you?’

  He opened the door wider and stepped aside. There was coffee waiting on a small table in the center of the apartment.

  ‘No, no, silly. I didn’t know what I was saying.’

  ‘Sit down, please. I’m William Robinson. Bill to you, I guess. Black or white?’

  ‘Black.’ And she watched him pour.

  ‘How did you find me?’ he said, handing the cup over.

  She took it with trembling fingers. ‘I know some people at the hospital. They did some checking.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I kept at them. You see, I’m going away to live in France for a year, maybe more. This was my last chance to visit my–I mean—’

  She lapsed into silence and stared into the coffee cup.

  ‘So they put two and two together, even though the files were supposed to be locked?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It all came together. The night my son died was the same night you were brought into the hospital for a heart transplant. It had to be you. There was no other operation like that that night or that week. I knew that when you left the hospital, my son, his heart anyway’–she had difficulty saying it–‘went with you.’ She put down the coffee cup.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said.

  ‘Not really, I don’t. It’s all so strange and sad and terrible and at the same time, I don’t know, God’s gift. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘To me it does. I’m alive because of the gift.’

  Now it was his turn to fall silent, pour himself coffee, stir it and drink.

  ‘When you leave here,’ said the young man, ‘where will you go?’

  ‘Go?’ said the woman uncertainly.

  ‘I mean—’ The young man winced with his own lack of ease. The words simply would not come. ‘I mean, have you other visits to make? Are there other—’

  ‘I see.’ The woman nodded several times, took hold of herself with a motion of her body, looking at her hands in her lap, and at last shrugged. ‘Yes, there are others. My son, his vision was given to someone in Oregon. There is someone else in Tucson—’

  ‘You don’t have to continue,’ said the young man. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘No, no. It is all so strange, so ridiculous. It is all so new. Just a few years ago, nothing like this could have happened. Now we’re in a new time. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Sometimes I start one and then do the other. I wake up confused. I often wonder if he is confused. But that’s even sillier. He is nowhere.’

  ‘He is somewhere,’ said the young man. ‘He is here. And I’m alive because he is here at this very moment.’ The woman’s eyes grew very bright, but no tears fell.

  ‘Yes. Thank you for that.’

  ‘No, I thank him, and you for allowing me to live.’

  The woman jumped up suddenly, as if propelled by an emotion stronger than she knew. She looked around for the perfectly obvious door and seemed not to see it.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I—’ she said.

  ‘You just got here!’

  ‘This is stupid!’ she cried. ‘Embarrassing. I’m putting too much of a burden on you, on myself. I’m going now before it all gets so ludicrous I go mad—’

  ‘Stay,’ said the young man.

  Obedient to the command, she almost sat down.

  ‘Finish your coffee.’

  She remained standing, but picked up her coffee cup with shaking hands. The soft rattle of the cup was the only sound for a time as she slaked the coffee with some unquenchable thirst. Then she put the empty cup down and said: ‘I really must go. I feel faint. I feel I might fall down. I am so embarrassed with myself, with coming here. God bless you, young man, and may you have a long life.’

  She started toward the door, but he stood in her way.

  ‘Do what you came to do,’ he said.

  ‘What, what?’

  ‘You know. You know very well. I won’t mind it. Do it.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Go on,’ he said gently, and shut his eyes, his hands at his side, waiting.

  She stared into his face and then at his chest, where under his shirt there seemed the gentlest stirring.

  ‘Now,’ he said quietly.

  She almost moved.

  ‘Now,’ he said, for a final time.

  She took one step forward. She turned her head and quietly moved her right ear down and then again down, inch by inch, until it touched the young man’s chest.

  She might have cried out, but did not. She might have exclaimed something, but did not. Her eyes were also shut now and she was listening. Her lips moved, saying something, perhaps a name, over and over, almost to the rhythm of the pulse she heard under the shirt, under the flesh, within the body of the patient young man.

  The heart was beating there.

  She listened.

  The heart beat with a steady and regular sound.

  She listened for a long while. Her breath slowly drained out of her, as color came into her cheeks.

  She listened.

  The heart beat.

  Then she raised her head, looked at the young man’s face for a final time, and very swiftly touched her lips to his cheek, turned, and hurried across the room, with no thanks, for none was needed. At the door she did not even turn around but opened it and went out and closed the door softly.

  The
young man waited for a long moment. His right hand came up and slid across his shirt, across his chest to feel what lay underneath. His eyes were still shut and his face emotionless.

  Then he turned and sat down without looking where he sat and picked up his coffee cup to finish his coffee.

  The strong pulse, the great vibration of the life within his chest, traveled along his arm and into the cup and caused it to pulse in a steady rhythm, unending, as he placed it against his lips, and drank the coffee as if it were a medicine, a gift, that would refill the cup again and again through more days than he could possibly guess or see. He drained the cup.

  Only then did he open his eyes and see that the room was empty.

  The Twilight Greens

  It was getting late, but he thought there was just enough sunlight left that he could play a quick nine holes before he had to stop.

  But even as he drove toward the golf course twilight came. A high fog had drifted in from the ocean, erasing the light.

  He was about to turn away when something caught his eye.

  Gazing out at the far meadows, he saw a half dozen or so golfers playing in the shadowed fields.

  The players were not in foursomes, but walked singly, carrying their clubs across the grass, moving under the trees.

  How strange, he thought. And, instead of leaving, he drove into the lot behind the clubhouse and got out.

  Something made him go stand and watch a few men at the driving range, clubbing the golf balls to send them sailing out into the twilight.

  But still those lone strollers far out on the fairway made him immensely curious; there was a certain melancholy to the scene.

  Almost without thinking, he picked up his bag and carried his golf clubs out to the first tee, where three old men stood as if waiting for him.

  Old men, he thought. Well no, not exactly old, but he was only thirty and they were well on into turning gray.

  When he arrived they gazed at his suntanned face and his sharp clear eyes.

  One of the aging men said hello.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said the young man, though he wondered why he asked it that way.

  He studied the fields and the single golfers moving away in the shadows.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, nodding toward the fairway, ‘you’d think they’d be heading in. In ten minutes they won’t be able to see.’

  ‘They’ll see, all right,’ said one of the older men. ‘Fact is, we’re going out. We like the late hour, it’s a chance to be alone and think about things. So we’ll start off in a group and then go our separate ways.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a thing to do,’ said the young man.

  ‘So it is,’ said the other. ‘But we have our reasons. Come along if you want, but when we’re out about a hundred yards, you’ll most likely find yourself alone.’

  The young man thought about it and nodded.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ he said.

  One by one they stepped up to the tee and swung their clubs and watched the white golf balls vanish into the half dark.

  They walked out into the last light, quietly.

  The old man walked with the young man, occasionally glancing over at him. The other two men only looked ahead and said nothing. When they stopped the young man gasped. The old man said, ‘What?’

  The young man exclaimed, ‘My God, I found it! How come, in this lousy light, I somehow knew where it would be?’

  ‘Those things happen,’ said the old man. ‘You could call it fate, or luck, or Zen. I call it simple, pure need. Go ahead.’

  The young man looked down at his golf ball lying on the grass and stepped back quietly.

  ‘No, the others first,’ he said.

  The other two men had also found their white golf balls lying in the grass and now took turns. One swung and hit and walked off alone. The other swung and hit and then he, too, vanished in the twilight.

  The young man watched them going their separate ways.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I’ve never played in a foursome like this.’

  ‘It’s really not a foursome,’ said the old man. ‘You might call it a variation. They’ll go on and we’ll all meet again at the nineteenth green. Your turn.’

  The young man hit and the ball sailed off into the purple-gray sky. He could almost hear it hit the grass a hundred yards out.

  ‘Go on,’ said the old man.

  ‘No,’ said the young man. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll walk with you.’

  The old man nodded, positioned himself, and hit his golf ball into the dark. Then they walked on together in silence.

  At last the young man, staring ahead, trying to figure the beginning night, said, ‘I’ve never seen a game played this way. Who are those others and what are they doing here? For that matter, who are you? And finally, I wonder, what in hell am I doing here? I don’t fit.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said the old man. ‘But perhaps someday you will.’

  ‘Someday?’ said the young man. ‘If I don’t fit now, why not?’

  The old man kept walking, looking ahead, but not over at the younger man.

  ‘You’re much too young,’ he said. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty,’ said the young man.

  ‘That’s young. Wait until you’re fifty or sixty. Then maybe you’ll be ready to play the Twilight Greens.’

  ‘Is that what you call it, the Twilight Greens?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘Sometimes fellows like us go out and play really late, don’t come in till seven or eight o’clock; we have that need to just hit the ball and walk and hit again, then head in when we’re really tired.’

  ‘How do you know,’ said the young man, ‘when you’re ready to play the Twilight Greens?’

  ‘Well,’ said the old man, walking quietly, ‘we’re widowers. Not the usual kind. Everyone has heard of golf widows, women who are left at home when their husbands play golf all day Sunday, sometimes on Saturday, sometimes during the week; they get so caught up in it that they can’t quit. They become golfing machines and the wives wonder where in hell their husbands went. Well, in this case, we call ourselves the widowers; the wives are still at home, but the homes are cold, nobody lights a fire, meals are cooked, though not very often, and the beds are half empty. The widowers.’

  The young man said, ‘Widowers? I still don’t quite understand. Nobody’s dead, are they?’

  ‘No,’ the old man said. ‘When you say “golf widows,” it means women left at home when men go out to play golf. In this case, “widowers” means men who have in fact widowed themselves from their homes.’

  The young man mused for a moment and then said, ‘But there are people at home? There is a woman in each house, yes?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the old man. ‘They are there. They are there. But…’

  ‘But what?’ said the young man.

  ‘Well, look at it this way,’ said the old man, still walking quietly and looking off into the Twilight Greens. ‘For whatever reason, we come here at twilight, onto the fairway. Maybe because at home there is too little talk, or too much. Too much pillow talk, or too little. Too many children, or not enough children, or no children at all. All sorts of excuses. Too much money, not enough. Whatever the reason, all of a sudden these loners here have discovered that a good place to be as the sun goes down is out on the fairway, playing alone, hitting the ball, and following it into the fading light.’

  ‘I see,’ said the young man.

  ‘I’m not quite sure that you do.’

  ‘No,’ said the young man, ‘I do indeed, I do indeed. But I don’t think I’ll ever come back here again at twilight.’

  The old man looked at him and nodded.

  ‘No, I don’t think you will. Not for a while, anyway. Maybe in twenty or thirty years. You’ve got too good a suntan and you walk too quickly and you look like you’re all revved up. From now on you should arrive here at noon and play with a real foursome. You shouldn’t be out here, walking
on the Twilight Greens.’

  ‘I’ll never come back at night,’ said the young man. ‘It will never happen to me.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said the old man.

  ‘I’ll make sure of it,’ said the young man. ‘I think I’ve walked as far as I need to walk. I think that last hit put my ball too far out in the dark; I don’t think I want to find it.’

  ‘Well said,’ said the old man.

  And they walked back and the night was really gathering now and they couldn’t hear their footsteps in the grass.

  Behind them the lone strollers still moved, some in, some out, along the far greens.

  When they reached the clubhouse, the young man looked at the old, who seemed very old indeed, and the old man looked at the young, who looked very young indeed.

  ‘If you do come back,’ said the old man, ‘at twilight, that is, if you ever feel the need to play a round starting out with three others and winding up alone, there’s one thing I’ve got to warn you about.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said the young man.

  ‘There is one word you must never use when you converse with all those people who wander out along the evening grass prairie.’

  ‘And the word is?’ said the young man.

  ‘Marriage,’ whispered the old man.

  He shook the young man’s hand, took his bag of clubs, and walked away.

  Far out, on the Twilight Greens, it now was true dark, and you could not see the men who still played there.

  The young man with his suntanned face and clear, bright eyes turned, walked to his car, and drove away.

  The Murder

  ‘There are some people who would never commit a murder,’ said Mr Bentley.

  ‘Who, for instance?’ said Mr Hill.

  ‘Me, for instance, and lots more like me,’ said Mr Bentley.

  ‘Poppycock!’ said Mr Hill.

  ‘Poppycock?’

  ‘You heard what I said. Everybody’s capable of murder. Even you.’

  ‘I haven’t a motive in the world, I’m content with things, my wife is a good woman, I’ve got enough money, a good job, why should I commit murder?’ said Mr Bentley.