Carl thought about himself and all the things that had happened to him. He thought about the early years of his life, when they had lived in the East where it was cold and the land was snow-covered in the winter. He thought of his mother working all day. He had been very much alone as a child, alone with his things, his stamps and books and thoughts.
Carl turned and walked back past the neon signs of the stores, back toward the campus. The campus was dark. All the buildings were silent and deserted, except the library. The university library was still open.
He thought of camp. The time he had gone away to summer camp. The redwoods. As he walked through the campus he thought of the stream, the silent trees, the cold water and bright sun. The campus was like that, dark and empty with trees rising up around him on all sides.
Carl came to the library building and stopped. The great marble building was ablaze with lights. Did he want to go inside? He walked around it. Grass was under his feet, moist green grass. He could see it in the light from the library windows. A group of college kids passed, girls and boys, laughing and talking together. After a time a silent couple came along, a boy and girl walking quietly together, holding hands in the darkness.
Carl thought of high school. The debate team. The Youth Socialist League. The speech he had made for socialism that time the principal was there.
His thoughts returned to camp. How wonderful it had been, before he got sick. He had never gone back. His mother had not let him. Now she was dead, killed in a street accident. His life had been much happier since her death. She had been so thin and hard. Pushing him all the time. Making him do things.
Now he was leaving the country. Going away to work in Asia. How long would he be gone? He did not know. A year, perhaps. Maybe many years. What would it be like? He did not know that, either. He did not know where he was going. He scarcely knew where he had come from. His past was dark, in shadow. A vague gloomy memory of sounds and shapes and smells. The redwoods. Grass at night. Neon signs. Snow. A slow moving creek. His old room full of stamps and microscope slides and pictures.
Carl went inside the library. The marble halls were bright with yellow light. He climbed the stairs to the main reading room. He did not have a card, but he could use the reference books.
For a while he sat in the reference room, reading the Cambridge Ancient History series. He read about Greece. The familiar passages, the wars, the battles. Alcibiades. Cleon. Pericles. He found the part about Thermopylae and his heart warmed. The brave Spartans....
He found somebody he knew, a friend studying for an exam. With his friend’s card he took out Xenephon’s Anabasis and sat reading it. The snow. All the hills.... They reminded him of his own life. That was what he retained of his life, the memory of snow and of streets, trees, silent water.
Carl closed the book and dropped it into the return slot. It was growing late. The library would be closing in a little while.
He left the building, walking down the great while halls, down the stairs, outside into the warm darkness. He took a deep breath of the night air. The air was sweet, heavy with the odor of flowers. There was a huge purple bush by the door. The air was full of its smell.
He walked down the path, away from the building. One by one the library lights winked off behind him. Other young men and women walked with him, some behind, some in front. They were quiet. A faint wind had come up. The wind rustled around Carl, carrying sounds to him. Snatches of conversation. The noise of footsteps. Men and women walking through the darkness away from the library.
He crossed a small bridge. His shoes echoed against the boards. A level grass meadow sloped away. Beyond it the neon signs of town glinted, red and yellow, deep orange and violet. A restaurant. A theater. A real estate place. A loan office. A café.
He stood at the end of the bridge, looking out across the grass at the black buildings and neon signs rising up against the sky. People passed him, students going home, books and papers under their arms.
Soon he would leave. Soon he would be a long way off. Maybe he would never come back. Maybe he would never stand in this spot again, see these trees, the grass, the outlines of the buildings. Far off a car honked. Cars and busses. Traffic moving through the town. People on the sidewalks. In the cafés. The theaters.
More students passed him. Carl pulled himself upright. He crossed onto the grass. Ahead of him a girl cut across the grass, walking quickly and silently. For a moment she was outlined against the night sky. Slim, slim and supple. With long hair. In the darkness her hair was black. He could see her face, the line of her jaw, her nose, her forehead.
His heart jumped. He hurried, walking quickly up behind her. Vague memories pulsed through him. A slim girl, dark, with long black hair. He hurried, trembling a little, staying behind her.
The girl came to the edge of the grass, stepping down onto the sidewalk. She crossed the street. Carl crossed after her. She passed under a neon sign.
It was not the girl with the dark hair. In the light this girl’s hair was brown.
Carl slowed down. After a while he turned off to the right. It was time to go home. He had to get up early the next morning. The ship was sailing at eight o’clock.
The girl disappeared, lost from sight, into the night darkness. Carl walked back to his room, his hands deep in his pockets.
Carl shook himself, standing up. He was stiff. How long had he been sitting and thinking about himself? Down below him the Company grounds stretched out, bringing him back to the present. What a bad thing to do, sitting in the bright morning sunlight, going over his youth, again and again!
He was glad he had finished with it, got it all behind him. It was an unfortunate youth, a time of doubt and not knowing. A time of groping in ignorance. He looked up at the sun. What time was it? The sun had moved almost to the top of the sky. He had been sitting a long time.
Carl stretched, throwing out his big arms and opening his mouth. He made a great bellowing sound, twisting around, stamping his foot several times. Then he began to pick his way back down the slope again, solemn and full of thoughts, going over what he had been thinking of, all his memories, the little dead bird, the strangeness of his childhood.
Preoccupied with these thoughts he wandered at last to the artificial lake in the center of the Company property. He stopped by the lawn a moment and then crossed and entered the row of fir trees. He was about to come out on the edge of the water when he heard a sound. It was splashing, something in the lake, leaping around, throwing water in all directions.
Carl made his way quickly to the edge of the lake, his heart beating rapidly. Someone was in the water. The sun shone down, reflecting on the surface of the water with a brilliant glare of light. He shaded his eyes. The person in the water was thrashing around. He saw the glistening of a pale golden body, limbs slender and round. It was Barbara. She was in the water with nothing on, playing by herself. He started to back away, his face red.
But then he stopped and stood quietly by the trees. Could he be seen? Probably not. The mathematical chance was very slight. A curious boldness had come over him. He had been pondering the mysteries of life, the secrets of the dark universe, ever since early morning. Wasn’t this part of the universe? Wasn’t this one of the hidden realities, held back, usually concealed from sight, an esoteric scene viewed only by a few? And if he were careful she wouldn’t see him.