come times ”
Again the woman snapped a word at him, setting a tureen on the table, the shadow of her arm falling across his face and remaining there: but we had already looked away. The long wind rushed past the stone eaves; the candle flame stood steady as a sharpened pencil in the still sound of the wind.
We heard her filling the bowls, yet she still stood for a time, the priest’s face in the shadow of her arm; she seemed to be holding us all so until the moment whatever it was had passed. She went out. Don and I began to eat. We did not look toward him. When he spoke at last, it was in a tone of level, polite uninterest. “You have come far, signori?”
“From Milano,” we both said.
“Before that, Firenze,” Don said. The priest’s head was bent over his bowl. He ate rapidly. Without looking up he gestured toward the loaf. I pushed it along to him. He broke the end off and went on eating.
“Ah,” he said. “Firenze. That is a city. More what do you say? spiritual than our Milano.” He ate hurriedly, without finesse. His robe was turned back over a flannel undershirt, the sleeves were. His spoon clattered; at once the woman entered with a platter of broccoli. She removed the bowls. He reached his hand. She handed him the carafe and he filled the glasses without looking up and lifted his with a brief phrase. But he had only feinted to drink; he was watching my face when I looked at him. I looked away; I heard him clattering at the dish and Don was looking at me too.
Then the woman’s shoulder came between us and the priest.
“There come times…” he said. He clattered at the dish.
When the woman spoke to him in that shrill, rapid patois he thrust his chair back and for an instant we saw his driven eyes across her arm. “There come times…” he said, raising his voice. Then she drowned the rest of it, getting completely between us and Don and I stopped looking and heard them leave the room. The steps ceased. Then we could hear only the wind.
“It was the burial service,” Don said. Don was a Catholic. “That grace was.”
“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes. It was the burial service. He got mixed up.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s it. What do we do now?” Our packs lay in the corner. Two packs can look as human, as utterly human and spent, as two shoes. We were watching the door when the woman entered. But she wasn’t going to stop. She didn’t look at us.
“What shall we do now, signora?” Don said.
“Eat.” She did not stop. Then we could hear the wind again.
“Have some wine,” Don said. He raised the carafe, then he held it poised above my glass, and we listened. The voice was beyond the wall, maybe two walls, in a sustained rush of indistinguishable words. He was not talking to anyone there: you could tell that. In whatever place he was, he was alone: you could tell that. Or maybe it was the wind. Maybe in any natural exaggerated situation: wind, rain, drouth, man is always alone. It went on for longer than a minute while Don held the carafe above my glass. Then he poured. We began to eat. The voice was muffled and sustained, like a machine might have been making it.
“If it were just summer,” I said.
“Have some wine.” He poured. We held our poised glasses.
It sounded just like a machine. You could tell that he was alone. Anybody could have. “That’s the trouble,” Don said.
“Because there’s not anybody there. Not anybody in the house.”
“The woman.”
“So are we.” He looked at me.
“Oh,” I said.
“Sure. What better chance could she have wanted, have asked for? He was in here at least five minutes. And he just back from the army after three years. The first day he is home, and then afternoon and then twilight and then darkness. You saw her there. Didn’t you see her up there?”
“He locked the door. You know he locked it.”
“This house belongs to God: you can’t have a lock on it. You didn’t know that.”
“That’s right. I forgot you’re a Catholic. You know things. You know a lot, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t know anything. I no spika too. I love Italy too.” The woman entered. She didn’t bring anything this time. She came to the table and stood there, her gaunt face above the candle, looking down at us.
“Look, then,” she said. “Will you go away?”
“Go away?” Don said. “Not stop here tonight?” She looked down at us, her hand lying on the table. “Where could we stop? Who would take us in? One cannot sleep on the mountain in October, signora.”
“Yes,” she said. She was not looking at us now. Through the walls we listened to the voice and to the wind.
“What is this, anyway?” Don said. “What goes on here, signora?”
She looked at him gravely, speculatively, as if he were a child. “You are seeing the hand of God, signorino,” she said.
“Pray God that you are too young to remember it.” Then she was gone. And after a while the voice ceased, cut short off like a thread. And then there was just the wind.
“As soon as we get out of the wind, it won’t be so bad,” I said.
“Have some wine.” Don raised the carafe. It was less than half full.
“We’d better not drink any more.”
“No.” He filled the glasses. We drank. Then we stopped.
It began again, abruptly, in full stride, as though silence were the thread this time. We drank. “We might as well finish the broccoli, too.”
“I don’t want any more.”
“Have some wine then.”
“You’ve already had more than I have.”
“All right.” He filled my glass. I drank it. “Now, have some wine.”
“We ought not to drink it all.”
He raised the carafe. “Two more glasses left. No use in leaving that.”
“There aren’t two glasses left.”
“Bet you a lira.”
“All right. But let me pour.”
“All right.” He gave me the carafe. I filled my glass and reached toward his. “Listen,” he said. For about a minute now the voice had been rising and falling, like a wheel running down. This time it didn’t rise again; there was only the long sound of the wind left. “Pour it,” Don said. I poured.
The wine mounted three quarters. It began to dribble away.
“Tilt it up.” I did so. A single drop hung for a moment, then fell into the glass. “Owe you a lira,” Don said.
The coins rang loud in the slotted box. When he took it up from the table and shook it, it made no sound. He took the coins from his pocket and dropped them through the slot.
He shook it again. “Doesn’t sound like quite enough. Cough up.” I dropped some coins through the slot; he shook the box again. “Sounds all right now.” He looked at me across the table, his empty glass bottom-up before him. “How about a little wine?”
When we rose I took my pack from the corner. It was on the bottom. I had to tumble Don’s aside. He watched me.
“What are you going to do with that?” he said. “Take it out for a walk?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Past the cold invisible eaves the long wind steadily sighed. Upon the candle the flame stood like the balanced feather on the long white nose of a clown.
The hall was dark; there was no sound in it. There was nothing in it save the cold smell of sunless plaster and silence and the smell of living, of where people have, and will have, lived. We carried our packs low and close against our legs like we had stolen them. We went on to the door and opened it, entering the black wind again. It had scoured the sky clear and clean, hollowing it out of the last of light, the last of twilight. We were halfway to the gate when we saw him.
