Now, late in time, he wanted to answer that small and wondrous ghost: «No. He hides in the stacks and when the clock strikes three, will prowl forth to drink.»
And it was finished, all the books were placed, the outer ring of his selves and the inner ring of remembered faces, deathless, with summer and autumn names.
He sat for a long moment and then another long moment and then, one by one, reached for and took all of the books that had been his, and still were, and opened them and read and shut them and took another until he reached the end of the outer circle and then went to touch and turn and find the raft on the river, the field of broom where the storms lived, and the pasture with the black and beauteous horse and its lovely rider. Behind him, he heard the lady librarian quietly back away to leave him with words .
A long while later he sat back, rubbed his yes, and looked around at the fortress, the encirclement, the Roman encampment of books, and nodded, his eyes wet.
«Yes.»
He heard her move behind him.
«Yes, what?»
«What you said, Thomas Wolfe, the title of that book of his. Wrong. Everything's here. Nothing's changed.»
«Nothing will as long as I can help it,,, she said.
«Don't ever go away.»
«I won't if you'll come back more often.»
Just then, from below the town, not so very far off, a train whistle blew. She said:
«Is that yours?»
«No, but the one soon after,» he said and got up and moved around the small monuments that stood very tall and one by one, shut the covers, his lips moving to sound the old titles and the old, dear names.
«Do we have to put them back on the shelves?» he said. She looked at him and at the double circle and after a long moment said, «Tomorrow will do. Why?»
«Maybe,» he said, «during the night, because of the color of those lamps, green, the jungle, maybe those creatures you mentioned will come out and turn the pages with their breath. And maybe-«
«What else?»
«Maybe my friends, who've hid in the stacks all these years, will come out, too.',
«They're already here,» she said quietly.
«Yes.» He nodded. «They are.»
And still he could not move.
She backed off across the room without making any sound, and when she reached her desk she called back, the last call of the night.
«Closing time. Closing time, children.»
And turned the lights quickly off and then on and then halfway between; a library twilight.
He moved from the table with the double circle of books and came to her and said, «I Can go now.»
«Yes,» she said. «William Henry Spaulding. You can.» They walked together as she turned out the lights, turned out the lights, one by one. She helped him into his coat and
then, hardly thinking to do so, he took her hand and kissed her fingers.
It was so abrupt, she almost laughed, but then she said, «Remember what Edith Whanon said when Henry James did what you just did?»
«What?»
'The flavor starts at the elbow.'
They broke into laughter together and he turned and went down the marble steps toward the stained-glass entry. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up at her and said:
«Tonight, when you're going to sleep, remember what I called you when I was twelve, and say it out loud.»
«I don't remember,» she said.
«Yes, you do.»
Below the town, a train whistle blew again.
He opened the front door, stepped out, and he was gone. Her hand on the last light switch, looking in at the double circle of books on the far table, she thought: What was it he called me?
«Oh, yes,» she said a moment later.
And switched off the light.
Free Dirt
1996 year
The cemetery was in the center of the city. On four sides it was bounded by gliding streetcars on glistening blue tracks and cars with exhaust fumes and sound. But, once inside the wall, the world was lost. For half a mile in four directions the cemetery raised midnight trees and headstones that grew from the earth, like pale mushrooms, moist and cold. A gravel path led back into darkness and within the gate stood a Gothic Victorian house with six gables and a cupola. The front-porch light showed an old man there alone, not smoking, not reading, not moving, silent. If you took a deep breath he smelled of the sea, of urine, of papyrus, of kindling, of ivory, and of teak. His false teeth moved his mouth automatically when it wanted to talk. His tiny yellow seed eyes twitched and his poke-hole nostrils thinned as a stranger crunched up the gravel path and set foot on the porch step.
«Good evening!» said the stranger, a young man, perhaps twenty.
The old man nodded, but his hands lay quietly on his knees «I saw that sign out front,» the stranger went on. «FREE DIRT, it said.»
The old man almost nodded.
The stranger tried a smile. «Crazy, but that sign caught my eye.
There was a glass fan over the front door. A light shone through this glass fan, colored blue, red, yellow, and touched the old man's face. It seemed not to bother him.
«I wondered, free dirt? Never struck me you'd have much left over. When you dig a hole and put the coffin in and refill the hole, you haven't much dirt left, have you? I should think…»
The old man leaned forward. It was so unexpected that the stranger pulled his foot off the bottom step.
«You want some?» said the old man.
«Why, no, no, I was just curious. Signs like that make you curious.»
«Set down,» said the old man.
«Thanks.» The young man sat uneasily on the steps. «You know how it is, you walk around and never think how it is to own a graveyard.»
«And?» said the old man.
«I mean, like how much time it takes to dig graves.»
The old man leaned back in his chair. «On a cool day:
two hours. Hot day, four. Very hot day, six. Very cold day, not cold so it freezes, but real cold, a man can dig a grave in one hour so he can head in for hot chocolate, brandy in the chocolate. Then again, you get a good man on a hot day, he's no better than a bad man in the cold. Might take eight hours to open up, but here's easy-digging soil here. All loam, no rocks.»
«I'm curious about winter.»
«In blizzards we got a icebox mausoleum to stash the dead, undelivered mail, until spring and a whole month of shovels and spades.»
«Seeding and planting time, eh?» The stranger laughed.
«You might say that.»
«Don't you dig in winter anyhow? For special funerals? Special dead?»
«Some yards got a hose-shovel contraption. Pump hot water through the blade; shape a grave quick, like placer mining, even with the ground an ice-pond. We don't cotton to that. Use picks and shovels.»
The young man hesitated. «Does it bother you?»
«You mean, I get scared ever?»
«Well . . . yes.»
The old man at last took out and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, tamped it with a callused thumb, lit it, let out a small stream of smoke.
«No,» he said at last.
The young man's shoulders sank. «Disappointed?» said the old man. «I thought maybe once .
«Oh, when you're young, maybe. One time …»
«Then there was a time!» The young man shifted up a step. The old man glanced at him sharply, then resumed smoking. «One time.» He stared at the marbled hills and the dark trees. «My grandpa owned this yard. I was born here. A gravedigger's son learns to ignore things.»