"Why did it have to be Bill?"
"Had to be. Not the slightest doubt. How can a photographer ask a question like that? Doesn't his work, his life show on his face? Are there other people in that one small rural area who might possibly look as though they'd written those books? No, had to be him. Stocky, running his hand through his hair. Walking toward me. Making his way down the street. Becoming more familiar with every step. Had to be Bill and he was coming right at me and I seemed to need oxygen. Important parts of my body were closing down."
How he stepped up to Bill and told him who he was, the persistent letter-writer, and made an effort to speak slowly and clearly in complete sentences, feeling his mouth dry out and hearing the words come bouncing hollow off his tongue. Hearing the heart noise, a deep staccato in the chest that he'd heard only once before, climbing for hours in mountain country in extreme heat, the sound of blood driving through the aorta and jarring the heart. How he managed to say as Bill's eyes narrowed to rifleman's slits that he wondered if the writer had ever thought an assistant might be helpful, someone to handle the mail (he had experience), a quiet individual who would type and file, even prepare meals if there was no one doing this, a person who would try to ease the writer's beleaguerment (he drew a trace of grim amusement here). And then on instinct simply stopped and let Bill absorb the offer while he stood there looking earnest and dependable. Watching Bill's face begin to change. How the jaw muscles slackened and the eyes grew calm. A great man's face shows the beauty of his work.
Karen was in the bedroom looking at the gift Scott had brought back from the city. It was a reproduction of a pencil drawing called Mao II. She unrolled it on the bed and used objects in reach to hold down the corners. She studied the picture to see what was interesting about it or why Scott thought she might like it. The face of Mao Zedong. She liked that name all right. It was strange how a few lines with a pencil and there he is, some shading in, a scribbled neck and brows. It was by a famous painter whose name she could never remember but he was famous, he was dead, he had a white mask of a face and glowing white hair. Or maybe he was just supposed to be dead. Scott said he didn't seem dead because he never seemed real. Andy. That was it.
Scott was washing coffee cups. Bill came in and said, "What are you doing?"
Scott looked into the basin, running a sponge around the inside of a cup. "We could walk up to the mill. It's a nice enough day."
"You have to work," Scott said. "I've worked."
"It's early yet. Go back and work some more."
"I've put in some good time today."
"Bullshit. You were having your picture taken."
"But I caught up. Come on. We'll get the women and hike to the mill."
"Go back up."
"I don't want to go back up."
"Don't start. I'm not in the mood."
"We'll get the women," Bill said.
"It's early. You ruined your morning with picture-taking. Go back up and do your work." Scott held the sponge under warm water, rinsing out the soap. "We have three hours of light. Ample time to get there and back."
"I'm telling you for your own good. It's your idea to write this book forever. I'm only saying what I'm supposed to say."
"You know what you are?"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah."
"Yeah yeah," Bill said. "I don't think you did ten good minutes."
"Yeah yeah yeah."
"So go back up and sit down and do your work."
"We're wasting all this light."
"It's really very simple."
"It isn't simple. It's everything in the world that isn't simple wrapped up in one small bundle." Scott was finished at the sink but stayed there looking into the basin. "It's simple all right. It really is. You just go back up and sit down and do your work."
"The women would enjoy it."
"I'm only saying what we both know I'm supposed to say."
"I could go back up and just sit there. How would you know I was working?"
"I wouldn't, Bill."
"I could sit there tearing stamps from a twenty-five-dollar roll of stamps with the fucking flag on every stamp."
"As long as you're in the room. I want you in the room, seated."
"I'll tell you what you are," Bill said.
Scott reached for a towel and dried his hands but didn't turn around. He hung the towel on the plastic hook and waited.
Brita stood outside Bill's workroom, in the open doorway, looking in. After a moment she reached in and knocked softly on the door even though it was clear the room was empty. She stood motionless and waited. Then she took one step in, looking carefully at the ordinary things inside as if compelled to memorize the details of whatever had escaped the camera-the placement of objects and titles of reference works, the number of pencils in the marmalade jar. Gazing for history's sake, for the obsessive record of what is on the desk and who is in the snapshots, the oddments that seem so precious to our understanding of the man.
But all she wanted was a cigarette. She spotted the pack, crossed the room quickly and took one out. There were footsteps on the stairs. She found matches and lit up and when Bill appeared in the doorway she gestured with the cigarette and told him thanks.
"I thought you were probably gone," he said.
"Don't you know the rules? We wait for dark. Then we go on side roads and no roads to avoid route signs that might tell me where we are."
"Scott spent weeks on this."
"It takes twice the time, his way."
"I think you're supposed to appreciate the maze aspects."
"I'll try harder. But right now I'm keeping you from your work so we'll meet at early dinner if this is the plan."
Bill moved some papers from a bench near the window and then seemed to forget that he meant to sit there and stood holding the sheaf chest-high.
"I said things, didn't I?"
"About your work mostly."
"Hard up for sympathy. And I want to say things now but totally fail. I've forgotten how to talk in ordinary ways except to mumble at meals for the salt."
"They shouldn't give it to you."
"I'm sixty-three and it hurts."
"I'll never make it to sixty. I see something coming and I see it complete. Slow, wasting, horrible, deep in the body. It's something I've known for years."
"Fear has its own ego, hasn't it?"
"Do I sound awful?" she said.
"A little boastful maybe."
"What is it you want to say but can't?"
"I want to ask you to come back some time. Or tell me where you live. Or stay and talk."
"I have no trouble talking. But in this house it's not so easy. I think there's an intensity that makes certain subjects a little dangerous. And we don't have the camera between us. This changes everything, doesn't it? Scott said six-thirty."
"Then it must be true."
"He told me how he found you."
"I nearly stove in his head the first thirty seconds. He took over fast. Taught himself many wiles and skills. We talk and argue all the time. He gives me perspectives."
"And Karen."
"Scott says I invented her. But he's the one who snatched her out of the air. She scares me sometimes. She can scare me and delight me in the space of five words. She's smart about people.