"Both, I think," Michael said. "Faust gave in and Christ didn't, that's all. The devil couldn't meet Christ's price, and so Christ went uncorrupted. There are honest people in the world, but only because the devil considers their asking prices ridiculous."
Laura laughed. "Now you sound a little like that man who was with your wife."
"What man?" Michael asked sharply.
"I don't know his name. I think he's her lawyer."
"Oh," Michael said slowly.
After a moment he said, "Excuse me for snapping at you."
"I didn't notice," Laura said. She looked out at the city again. "Anyway, this isn't exactly all the world. It's only Yorkchester."
"It's all we've got. Hell, it's more than we've got. If the devil offered it to me right now—" He left the sentence unfinished.
"Michael," Laura said suddenly.
"Uh-huh?"
She began to tell him about the statue of the boy she had seen in the morning. She told it carefully, putting in every detail she could remember, including the statue's book and the things the man had said as he stood there. When she came to the parts where she had threatened the boy and told him that nobody would come to see him, she faltered a little and looked away from Michael, but she told him everything that she remembered. He listened quietly, never smiling or interrupting her.
"I don't know why I did it," she finished. "Every time I think about it I get more and more ashamed of myself. I never did that sort of thing while I was alive, Michael, no matter what I felt. Why should I do it now? What did I think I was gaining from it?"
Michael shrugged. "I don't know, Laura. I don't know you well enough. Maybe you just got tired of being sweet and shy. This happens. It's a bastardly role to play. It doesn't matter. You didn't hurt him."
Deliberately and openly he changed the subject by pointing a third time toward Yorkchester. "Do you like it? Are you glad I brought you here?"
"Yes," Laura said quickly, glad for the opportunity to stop talking about the boy. "I love sitting and looking at it. I could sit here all day."
"I have. You should see it at night. Like a birthday cake."
"I love the sounds. Probably because the cemetery's so quiet. I find myself going in search of noises."
"Tell me some," Michael said. "What do you hear?"
"People talking," Laura began, "and traffic, and airplanes overhead—" She stopped and turned to him. "Why do you ask me? Can't you hear them yourself?"
Michael shook his head. "Not a sound. Never, since I died."
"I don't understand," Laura said slowly. "You can hear me, can't you?"
"Loud and clear. I hear whoever I'm talking to, and I hear whatever sounds you can hear in a cemetery. But I can't hear a thing from that damn city."
He smiled wryly at her puzzlement. "All the sounds we hear are sounds we remember. We know how talk and trains and running water should sound, and if we're a little off in remembering, a little sharp or flat, nobody notices. But I just don't remember how Yorkchester sounded, all in all. I didn't pay very much attention, I think."
"I'm sorry—" Laura said awkwardly.
"Never mind being sorry. You and I waste entirely too much effort apologizing to each other. Just tell me some of the sounds you hear. I'll listen."
Laura hesitated. "I don't really know where to begin. There's a pile driver working over by that new building."
"What does it sound like?" When she did not speak, he added, "It's all right. Tell me what it sounds like to you."
"Like a heartbeat," Laura said. "Very heavy and regular. A slow, slamming heartbeat."
"Uh-huh. What about subway trains? Can you tell me about those?"
"Not right now," Laura said. "I'll tell you as soon as one comes. I can tell you about buses in the meantime."
"All right," Michael said. "Fine. Tell me how buses sound."
So Laura told him about buses, and they sat on the wall all that summer day, listening to the city and the trains.
Chapter 9
Somewhere between two and three in the morning, Mr. Rebeck gave up the struggle. "This is not going to work," he said. He stood up, barefooted, in a swirl of blankets and cushions and went to the open door of the mausoleum to consider the matter.
I am not going to get any sleep tonight, he said to himself. For all I know, I may have evolved beyond the need for sleep. Perhaps I will never sleep again. Well, that may not be too bad. I can spend my nights working on the very hard chess problems, the ones I have never been able to solve, and maybe I can teach myself a little about astronomy. I could start right now.
But he did not move. He leaned in the doorway, shivering pleasantly at the touch of cold iron against his skin.
The night air was warm, even a trifle humid, but whenever it threatened to become stagnant a breeze disturbed it, as small bugs skitter away the dignity of a still pond. The sky was dark but completely cloudless. Tomorrow would be a very hot day, with the kind of heat that lasts long after sundown, betraying the night. The days following it would probably be hot too; late July in New York is the time when the hot days run in packs.
The trouble is, Mr. Rebeck thought, that if I haven't worked out these chess problems in nineteen years of days, I don't see what difference the nights will make. If I had it in me to find the answers, I would have found them long ago. And the same applies to knowing about the stars. I could never be an astronomer. I haven't got the brains. I am a druggist who has read a few books. I haven't taught myself anything here. I have just remembered a few things that bored me when I lived in a different world and changed my clothes every day. Forget it, Jonathan, and go back to sleep. And before you go to sleep, pray that no well-meaning god ever makes you immortal.
He turned and went back into the mausoleum, but he did not lie down to sleep. Instead he groped in a sock-cluttered corner and drew forth his old red and black bathrobe and a pair of battered bedroom slippers. He put them both on and went outside again, closing the iron door behind him.
I'll go down to the gate, he thought, just for the sake of the walk. Maybe it will tire me out and make me sleep when I get back. Besides, I can get a drink from the water fountain in the lavatory.
So he knotted the belt of his bathrobe around his thin waist and walked through the grass until he felt the loose gravel of Central Avenue rolling under his slippers. Then he set off down the long road, trying out of habit to make as little noise as possible. There was no moon to light the way, but Mr. Rebeck padded along the road with the brisk air of a man who knew what he was doing and would have rejected the moon as an impertinence. He felt it himself. How wonderful it is to feel competent, he thought. Every man should know something in the world as well as I know this road. It fits my feet. I could walk it drunk and blindfolded and never lose my way. But I wish somebody could see me. I wish I could show somebody how well I can walk this road in the middle of the night. . . . And that, of course, made him think of Mrs. Klapper. He would have, anyway, but it was more fun to let her gradually creep into whatever he was thinking. It felt more natural.
Mrs. Klapper thought he was crazy. She told him so every time she saw him. Any man who would live in a cemetery, she told him, was not only crazy but guilty of extremely bad taste. What a place for visitors to have to come! How did he get his mail? What did he do in the winter? Could he at least take a bath once in a while? How did he eat? The latter question almost led to Mr. Rebeck's complete undoing. He had begun to tell her about the raven when he realized that Mrs. Klapper's credulity had been stretched as far as it would go and would snap at the slightest mention of a profane black bird bringing him food. He quickly changed the raven to a very old friend, a childhood companion who kept him supplied with food out of respect for the lost youth they had shared. He told it very well and wished it were true.