It never occurred to him to wonder how there could be so many people, so many shifting groups that he only saw once in so small a village. No matter how many such scenes played out, he didn’t wonder — for Henry had become a very particular sort of person. He had been groomed to be a person who did not ask questions. He had not been told to be that way, but all the same he had been led to it, and now that he was there, he felt a great comfort.
Yes, those are the sorts of things that would happen. Not those things, exactly, of course, but things like them. Many things just like them.
~ ~ ~
— HOW IS IT that you know when you have accomplished a conversation with another person in a good manner? asked the examiner slowly. Or, I should say, how do you think other people judge these conversations?
They were eating supper, pea soup with thick, crusty brown bread. The claimant had a piece of bread torn in half on his plate. The brown bread tore well and it felt good to do it.
— I think it is a success if we can both go away feeling that we were right to begin with. That we were right about how it would go when we met and talked, and that it went the way it was supposed to go.
— Who determines how it is supposed to go?
— No one does. But, if it doesn’t go that way, everyone can see it.
— And would that embarrass you?
— No, I don’t think so.
The claimant thought for a minute.
— I don’t think about other people judging it.
— Why?
— Because, you said, you said once, that it is a failure to think of people as being separate from the village. The people are the village. If I speak to them about something, I’m just trying to preserve the sense that already exists in the village. I do that by having a sensible conversation, such a conversation as could happen in the village. That is the whole of it.
The examiner clapped her hands together.
— One more thing, she asked. I want to do an exercise. I want you to tell me what it is like to walk down into the town. Could you do that for me? Imagine the most beautiful day imaginable, a day such as you have longed for. You wake up, and go downstairs. You leave the house. You go out into the street. Take it from there.
~ ~ ~
— I GO OUT into the street, said the claimant. The gate shuts behind me. I’m surrounded by houses that I know, good houses, all the right dimensions, all painted the way that I like. The road goes by, and I go along it, I find the fence and I walk beside the fence. We are on a hill and at the bottom of the hill, there are other sorts of buildings. I think about the things that I will see, and then I see them. There are shops, and people in the shops. Often the same people are in the shops, the same people buying things, the same people selling things, the same things being bought and sold. There is a shop where clothes are mended, a cafe where an old man sits by himself in front of a chessboard, and another old man is sitting down to join him. He doesn’t sit down. He stands there next to it. They both look at the board. There are benches farther on, and the people who sit in the benches vary by the hour. When I am there, it is usually early or it is late. When it is early, there are people there who I know, people I recognize from one set of places. When it is late, there are people I recognize from another set of places. The people go elsewhere and are replaced. Then, we come to a little square, and…
— Very good, said the examiner. That is enough for now. Let’s finish our supper.
She raised her glass.
— This is how people toast, she said.
~ ~ ~
THEN, A DAY CAME when the examiner was not there. He looked about the house for her, but he could not find her. On the kitchen table, there was a note. The note said:
++
Gone for two days. You will be perfectly all right until I return.
++
Henry fell into a small confusion, but passed over it lightly. It should be no concern for her to go away. He was prepared for that. In fact, he spent most of his days now on solitary tasks. There was food in the house, and if he wanted to, he could go out to eat. If he wanted company, he could find it outside. He could visit the home of one of his acquaintances, for instance.
At that thought, though, he did become concerned. He was not sure which of them he would go to, and what it would mean to do so. He had better not go visiting.
Although, he supposed, it didn’t much matter whether it was one or another home that he visited. He could imagine what the visits would consist of, and it wasn’t like anything at all would come of them. He didn’t need to be afraid of consequences. Whatever he chose would be fine. Even if the examiner were here, he might not tell her where he was going. So, why should it matter?
Slowly, slowly, in this new place, a measure was taking its course. He was stiffening into a new resolve — a stolid manner was gripping him. He was not blunted so much as immobile.
Many things will be said to me, and I will say many things. Such was his thought in the morning, and in the night he might think, many things were said to me, and I said many things. But what those things were — they were unreachable. They were like mouths yawning open a brief second and then closing, yawning in succession.
If he had once thought life was different from this — then he no longer suspected it might ever have been the case.
~ ~ ~
AND THE NEXT TIME she went away, it was for a week, and then, every so often, she would simply be gone with no notice, and he became comfortable even with that.
It came to pass that the exercises the examiner presented him with ceased to be rehearsed. She would not tell him ahead of time how they would go. He would simply travel out into the village and things would happen and he would respond. Sometimes things would go well, and sometimes they would go badly, but either way, it was always all right. He would talk about how they had gone with the examiner. Or sometimes, he would not. Sometimes it was okay for things merely to have happened. As the examiner said, events are just events. Nothing is any more important than anything else.
Once, he got into a heated argument with a loud woman who had knocked him with her umbrella. By the end of the argument, though, his good nature had won through, and they were both apologizing. They were standing in the rain, both drenched now, and apologizing for their behavior.
Once, he left his coat on a bench and the next day he saw someone else wearing it!
Once, he was asked to give a speech at a small gathering, and when he arrived — they had forgotten he had been invited at all.
These and other things he learned he could bear. His nature became seamless with that of the village. Others began to comment on it — what an example he now was setting. They said these things just loud enough for him to hear.
~ ~ ~