“He never answered my letters, though. I talked to his mother, and he’s married with two children. I like you better anyway.”
Her fingers had resumed explorations. I said, “Now, if you’re ready.”
And we did. I felt heavy and clumsy, and it was over far too quickly, yet if I were given what no man actually is, the opportunity to experience a bit of his life a second time, I think I might well choose those moments.
“Did you like that?”
“Yes, very much indeed. Thank you.”
“You’re pretty old for another one, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Wait a few minutes and we’ll see.”
“We could try some other way. I like you better than Larry. Have I said that?”
I said she had not, and that she had made me wonderfully happy by saying it.
“He’s married, but I never wrote him. I won’t lie to you much more.”
“In that case, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Or two? Perhaps three?”
“Go ahead.”
“You indicated that you had gone to a school, a boarding school apparently, where you were treated badly. Was it near here?”
“I don’t remember about that—I don’t think I said it.”
“We were talking about the inscription Dante reported. I believe it ended:
“I said I wouldn’t lie. It’s not very far, but I can’t give you the name of a town you’d know, or anything like that.”
“My second—”
“Don’t ask anything else about the school. I won’t tell you.”
“All right, I won’t. Someone gave your husband a hunting dog. Did your husband hunt deer? Or quail, perhaps?”
“Sometimes. I think you’re right. He’d rather have had a bird dog, but the man he helped didn’t raise them.”
I kissed her. “You’re in danger, and I think that you must know how much. I’ll help you all I can. I realize how very trite this will sound, but I would give my life to save you from going back to that school, if need be.”
“Kiss me again.” There was a new note in her voice, I thought, and it seemed to me that it was hope.
When we parted, she asked, “Are you going to drive me to St. Louis in the morning?”
“I’d gladly take you farther. To New York or Boston or even to San Francisco. It means ‘Saint Francis,’ you know.”
“You think you could again?”
At her touch, I knew the answer was yes; so did she.
Afterward she asked, “What was your last question?” and I told her I had no last question.
“You said one question; then it was two, then three. So what was the last one?”
“You needn’t answer.”
“All right, I won’t. What was it?”
“I was going to ask you in what year you and your husband graduated from high school.”
“You don’t mind?”
I sighed. “A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct.”
“Did you think that salesman was really a cop? I think you did. I did too, almost.”
“No or yes, depending upon what you mean by
“Would you rather I’d do this?”
“Yes,” I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being. “I would a thousand times rather have you do that.”
A
fter some gentle teasing about my age and inadequacies (the sort of thing that women always do, in my experience, as anticipatory vengeance for the contempt with which they expect to be treated when the sexual act is complete), we slept. In the morning, Eira wore her wedding band to breakfast, where I introduced her to the old woman as my wife, to the old man’s obvious relief. The demon sat opposite me at the table, wolfing down scrambled eggs, biscuits, and homemade sausage he did not require, and from time to time winking at me in an offensive manner that I did my best to tolerate.
