Mrs. Klapper looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?"
"Well, it's the way you're going. There isn't any other entrance that way." Please God there isn't.
Mrs. Klapper nodded. She took a few steps away, stopped, and looked back at him. "So if you're coming," she said, "come."
His mood compounded of equal parts of fright and exhilaration, Mr. Rebeck got to his feet. He looked over at Michael a little appealingly.
"Don't let me stop you," Michael said. "Go dance your life away. Toil not, nor neither spin. I shall sit here and meditate." He waved a hand in the direction of Mrs. Klapper. "Just vanish. I always do."
So Mr. Rebeck took a few steps and found himself at Mrs. Klapper's side.
Michael watched them walk off down the winding path that led to Central Avenue. He felt a little sorry for Mrs. Klapper, sorrier for Mr. Rebeck, and sorriest of all for himself. Immersed in this feeling, he wandered contentedly around the little clearing, soaking in the feeling through what he remembered of his pores, letting himself become logy with sorrow.
A small blackhead erupted in the noon sky. Michael watched it spiral down toward him with a certain lazy interest, until, against the withered sun, he recognized the raven. He had grown used to the bird's regular visits and he enjoyed talking to him. The raven's mocking humor reminded him vaguely of a man whose name he no longer remembered, but with whom he had played cards.
The raven made two gliding passes at the clearing, missed both times, and finally let himself drop ungracefully to the grass. "Damn place ought to have a runway," he grumbled. He carried a small precooked beef tongue in his claws.
"Salutations, bird," Michael hailed him.
The raven ignored him. "Where's Rebeck?"
"Our mutual friend," Michael said, "has gone off with a lady."
"I thought that was him," the raven said. He dropped the beef tongue on the grass. "Tell him I'll bring some milk tonight, if I can get it." He peered at Michael. "What's biting you?"
"I'm desolate," Michael said, "and so should you be. We've been deserted. You're flesh and I'm air, but we are now united in mutual grief, maudlin sorrow, Weltschmerz, and bloody damn lonesomeness. I hail you again, winged and lonesome brother."
"Speak for yourself," the raven answered amiably. "I've had my breakfast."
Mr. Rebeck and Mrs. Klapper walked along the road, past the frozen fountains of the willow trees, and Mrs. Klapper talked about the place where she lived, and about the old woman who sat in front of her house on warm days, and about her niece, who was beautiful, and her butcher, who gave you bad meat unless you were a friend of his, and about her husband, who had died. They stopped sometimes to look at the high, empty houses and to admire the angels and children that watched over them, and the swords and sphinxes that guarded them. Then they walked on again, and Mr. Rebeck spoke once in a while, but for the most part he listened to Mrs. Klapper and took pleasure in her words.
He wondered why this should be, why the things this woman was saying should delight him so, particularly when he barely understood them. He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who missed it. No one really wants to know how his neighbor is feeling, but he asks him anyway, because it is polite, and because he knows that his neighbor certainly will not tell him how he feels. What this woman and I say to each other is not important. It is the simple making of sounds that pleases us.
Mrs. Klapper was talking about a little boy who lived on her block. "Eleven years old," she said, "and every time I meet him with his mother, he's written a new poem. And always she says to him, 'Herbie, tell Mrs. Klapper your new poem.' She hits him until he says the poem. Eleven years old he is, last March."
"Are the poems any good?" Mr. Rebeck asked.
"What do I know from poems, I should give an opinion? They're all about death and burying people, always. This from a boy eleven years old. I feel like telling her, 'Look, keep him away from me with the obituary column. He writes a poem about a bird, about a dog, bring him around.' But I never tell her. Why should I hurt the boy's feelings? I see them coming, I cross the street."
She said, "Look, here we are already," and Mr. Rebeck looked up to see the black gate.
The gate was of cast iron, set into turreted pillars of sand-colored concrete. Dark green ivy covered it, twined a little thicker than ivy generally grows, and cast-iron snakes with patient eyes pushed their resigned way through the ivy. It was topped with a row of blunt spikes, and it stood open. Mr. Rebeck could see the street outside.
"Here we are already," Mrs. Klapper marveled. "Such a short walk when you're talking to someone."
"Yes," Mr. Rebeck said.
The gate had held up well over nineteen years, he thought, much better than he himself had. The black paint had cracked in several places, and the rusted metal showed through. But it was a strong gate still. He had shaken it one night and rasped his hands on the mouths of rust, but the bars had not shivered, nor the lock rattled. That had been—how long ago? Twelve years, fifteen. All he remembered was that he had wanted to get out of the cemetery, and the gate had been locked, because it was late at night. He had shaken at the gate all night long, and cut his hands badly. But when the morning came, and the gate was opened, he did not go out. He hid in the lavatory and ran cold water on his bleeding hands. Then he went back to his mausoleum and slept.
"Well," Mrs. Klapper said. "You take the subway?"
He mumbled something affirmative, thinking, I should never have come with her. How can I tell her that I cannot pass the gate, that I live in this place? She would not believe me. She would think I was joking, or mad. I made a mistake when I asked to walk with her. I don't know why I did it.
"So come on," Mrs. Klapper said. She tapped her foot and smiled at him. "What are you waiting for? The subway should come to you?"
Yes. That would be a fine idea. If it did, I would get on it. We would go underground, and I would never see the gate, or know that I had left the cemetery until we climbed up a flight of stairs cut out of the ground, and people were all around us. I could manage that, if the subway came to me. And if I were with someone.
Looking at his thin wrist, he had an idea. He crooked his left arm in front of him and said, "Why, I've lost my watch."
"What's this?" Mrs. Klapper asked. "You lost something?"
"My wrist watch." He tried to smile ruefully, but only one corner of his mouth moved, and that twitched like something cut and in pain. "I know I had it on when I came in, and now it's gone. I must have dropped it somewhere."
Mrs. Klapper was properly sympathetic. "What a thing to happen. Was it very valuable, your watch?"
"No," he said, determined not to make this too much of a lie. "But I've had it a long time, and I was very fond of it. It kept good time."
"Tell the man there," Mrs. Klapper suggested, pointing toward the caretaker's office. "Give him your address, he'll let you know when he finds it."
Mr. Rebeck shook his had. "I'd better go back and look for it. Somebody might pick it up. Or it might rain."
"Ai, you'll go hunting all over the cemetery, it'll take hours. You'll break your back. You want I should come with you?"
Say no. Say no, or you'll have to lie to her again. And you're a terrible liar, and nineteen years out of practice.