street asleep with bottles by their heads… It was almost night now, freezing cold, and they should have been indoors. So should I, though I didn't pay much heed to it till the sky turned really dark. I managed to find a few faint stars up there, but not a great many – nothing like out here. And then the streetlights all came on, up and down the blocks without a sound. They made everything seem even darker, and the stars were blotted out. That's the time I felt the loneliest, I think. I found myself looking into every window I passed and wishing I could join the folks inside, black as they were. It seemed so warm and light in there, especially from out on the street with the homeless ones and half-starved dogs and frozen-looking cats.'
Idly he glanced down at Bwada, who was curled beside his chair, preoccupied with licking one fat grey forepaw, toes spread and gleaming nails extended. In the sudden silence she paused a moment and looked up, then turned her attention back to the paw.
'You'd think she was just a sweet-tempered old lady,' said Deborah, 'but it's all play-acting. I saw the way she tore open Joram's hand.'
'Twas nothing,' Sarr said quickly, noticing Carol's look of uneasiness. 'She meant no harm, nor Brother Joram either. A misunderstanding, that's all it was. A clash of spirits.' Still, the city was momentarily forgotten, and the deep-rooted old affection he'd been feeling – almost a reflex now, whenever he thought of the cat – was pierced by the memory of that bellow of pain, the small grey shadow fleeing toward the woods, his own stammered apologies and the other man's furious, accusing glare as he yanked back his hand and watched the upturned palm fill quietly with blood.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
How right Jeremiah had been! How eternally mysterious the world was, and all the beings in it…
He realized, with a start, that Carol was asking him something about the city and that his head had begun to throb uncomfortably. The drink was wearing off.
'There's not much more to tell,' he said, 'not that much I actually remember. I recall a fight outside a barroom, with one man spitting teeth, and some children throwing dice against a playground wall, but what sticks out more is the line of police cars I saw parked along one lonely street with the lights out and the motors running, and the men in their uniforms sitting together inside, talking and laughing as if they were waiting for something. After I was past them I stopped to look back, and I saw one of them come out of a building and another going in. And farther up the block a boy about my own age, sitting on his stoop, made an angry face at me-1 guess he supposed I was one of the police – and asked me if I'd gone and had myself a piece. That's just the way he put it. He pointed to the building I'd passed and said there was a fourteen-year-old girl in there, living in the basement. Her mother'd run off to Puerto Rico, and this afternoon they'd put her father in jail, and now the girl was all alone and the police were taking turns with her.'
He fell silent for a moment, surprised by the vividness of his own memory and wondering what impression it had made on Carol. Somewhere inside him, where his thoughts were darkest, he felt the first unwelcome stirrings of a reawakened lust, but fought them down.
Carol had stopped eating and was frowning in his direction. 'I can't believe a thing like that could happen around Christmastime. It's just too sick! Where were all the decent people hiding?'
'They must have been inside,' he said. 'I only saw the ones left out in the cold. And everyone was crazy, and no one seemed to care. Everyone was talking to himself, or singing like a drunk, or making odd gestures in the air, or shouting his lungs out at things I couldn't see. I remember a huge black man, big as a bear, who stumbled past me carrying on a conversation with himself in two different voices. And then behind him came this skinny old white man, the only one I saw up there, tagging after him like someone in a clowns' parade, laughing and pointing and making the madman sign, as if to tell the world, See, this man is crazy!' Sarr twirled his finger beside his head. 'I think the second man was as far gone as the first.
'And everything was ugly, and everything was crazy and corrupt. I kept telling myself that the whole city wasn't like this, couldn't be like this, but it's still the only part I really remember. I hadn't eaten all day, nothing but a little bitty candy bar, and I was high – dizzy, almost – by the time I reached the river at the top of the island. There was another stretch of woods up there, and a field for sports. It was as far north as I could go, so I turned around and started walking back. I could never do a thing like that today – all those miles on an empty belly, without a thought of sleep – but I was younger, then, and inclined to extremes.'
He looked past the others, past the sink and the curtains and the window screens, into the remembered darkness.
'The night I'd picked was very long, the longest of the year, and I began to wonder if I'd ever see another morning. Whenever I came to a cloud of steam I'd walk right through the center, hoping it would warm me up a little, but by this time my teeth were chattering so hard I thought they'd break like china, and the wind seemed to go right through my coat and gloves. I felt like I'd been walking forever past those eyes looking out at me from windows and doorways and alleys, those sad dark faces saying things to no one in particular.
'Finally, though, the sky began to brighten some, and when I was two or three miles to the south I realized that the streetlights had gone off. Things somehow looked a little better then, and for the first time I wondered if maybe I'd been too hard on everyone, too quick to judge.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Deborah give an almost imperceptible nod. 'I told myself that if the people I'd been among seemed godless, 'twas only because they'd never been taught the truth, and that just because a few of them acted crazy, it didn't mean they all were.
'And just then, as if to prove it, the steam parted and I saw a really distinguished-looking coffee-colored man walking toward me up the block. He was getting kind of old, I could see, but he stood erect and tall, and he had on a long grey winter dress coat with a scarf tucked in at the neck, and a fancy creased hat, and he was swinging a long black umbrella with a shiny wooden handle. The sun was just beginning to come up, and I finally remembered the day – 'twas Sunday morning – and I said to myself, 'See, here's a good sort of man, probably on his way to church. There are still a few decent people left in this city.' And then, as he got closer, I saw that he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were glassy and fixed on something just in front of him, and he was snarling to himself, words I wouldn't repeat even in anger.
'I knew right then exactly where I was, and where I'd been all night. I knew that the Almighty had vouchsafed me a vision. Those frozen streets, the sky without stars, the ground steaming under my feet… There are spots in the world where the hellfire peeps through, and I'd just had a tour of one.
'It was meant as a warning, of course. I put aside all thoughts of my money, made sure to keep the river on my right, and kept on moving south.
'Well, even the longest night's got to end eventually, that's one thing I've learned, and by the time the sun was up above the buildings and the day had gotten warmer I was halfway back to the bus station. I figured I was in the normal world again, I thought I'd put all that wickedness behind me, and so when I passed an open area with statues and iron gates and big Greek-looking buildings -Jeremy's old university, it turns out -1 decided it was finally time to sit down awhile and maybe put my feet up. I'd seen the river gleaming at the end of the cross streets, with a thin green park beside it sloping down toward the water, and there seemed to be plenty of benches I could rest on before heading back. By that time my wandering was beginning to catch up with me, and rest was what I craved.
'There were a surprising lot of old folks in the park that Sunday morning, walking dogs or just watching the river, and they all looked nice and peaceable and happy with the world. I knew I was among my own kind now. God's my witness, it was really a relief. A few of the benches were already pretty well filled, but way up ahead, past the others, I saw one that was empty except for a little old man sitting by himself, all bundled up in an overcoat and muffler, with just his little pink head peeking out like a baby's, and fuzzy white hair on the top. He had a brown paper bag on his lap, and I figured he was fixing to have lunch. But when I sat myself down at the opposite end, he pulled up the bag and stood, as if he hadn't wanted company. Well, that was all right with me; I was suddenly so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. I remember, though, how he stopped to look down at me as he walked past, and how his whole face lit up when he smiled. Reminded me of my grandfather, or maybe even my father in one of his better moods, just like after worship. I think I may have dropped off then, at least for a second or two, because when I opened my eyes he was still standing there, looking sort of concerned. But when he saw I was okay he just nodded and gave a sort of wink. Then he stuffed the bag into a trash can and strolled away, humming some peculiar little song.'
'I hate this part,' Deborah said abruptly. She got up and went to the stove for the last of the vegetables. . He ignored her. 'I can still see that wink, and the careless, almost contemptuous way he stuffed that bag in among the
