Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“What I don’t understand,” Pablo said, “is how come when you got all that money you’re gonna throw it away.”

“If you lived long enough, you might understand,” Naftali said. “But you won’t.” He settled back beside the bolster; his hand, holding the pistol, rested at his side. “Know what Nietzsche tells us? He tells us that the thought of suicide helps bring a man through many a long hard night. Well, I’m grateful to Nietzsche for that observation — but, danke schön, no more nights.”

Another breeze licked at the wind chime.

“All that bread, man — that could buy you a couple of good ones.”

“You can buy lots of fancy nights. But you can’t buy morning. Try sometime and buy yourself a short night for money, you’ll see what I mean.”

Talking was the thing, Pablo thought. “I couldn’t be that negative,” he said. “The way I see it, if money don’t mean nothing then nothing does.”

“I know the value of everything,” Naftali said. “I’ve stolen it all and I’ve sold it all.”

“Life is life. You just don’t blow it off. Not me.”

“A little cinder in the wind, Pablo — that’s what you are. You’re telling me — who set such store on my survival — that life is life?”

“It’s me gonna be alive in the morning,” Pablo said. He hoped it had not been rash of him.

“What for?”

“What for? Well … to keep it rolling, I guess.”

“To keep it rolling,” Naftali repeated. “To make the world go round. Maybe it goes better without you — what about that?”

Pablo watched him warily. The man seemed balanced on the edge of consciousness but his falcon’s gaze was still sharp enough.

“I never thought of it that way,” Pablo said.

“Try it.”

“Are you gonna let me go?” Pablo asked.

“I had three wives,” Naftali said. “Each one was an idealist. All went to prison. And I, a thief, a murderer, have never seen the inside of a prison.”

“You been lucky.”

“Why should I let you go?” Naftali demanded. He pulled himself upright in a sudden spasm of passion. “What are you worth? Explain yourself.”

“Everybody’s worth something,” Pablo said. “I mean — everybody’s life got some meaning to it. You know — there’s a reason for people.”

“No kidding? A reason for you? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Pablo confessed. “I ain’t found out yet. But I know there is one.”

“But you’re vicious and stupid, are you not?”

“No!” Pablo said hotly. He was shocked and enraged. “Of course not!”

Naftali’s eyes went out of focus for a moment. His gaze wandered. Pablo tensed.

“I could have put an end to everything with this,” the old man said, lifting his pistol. “But I thought — no. I want to go slow. I want to remember. Can you believe it? I wanted to remember everything.”

“I believe it,” Pablo said. He felt himself under Naftali’s cold scrutiny again.

“You’re a very stupid young man,” Naftali told him. “I tell you this for your own good because you need to know it.”

“Can I have a drink?” Pablo asked. Naftali let him come forward and take the bottle off the bed.

“When you’re dead in some gutter for a dime, what happens to your son? It was you with the son, yes?”

“Yeah,” Pablo said. “It was me.”

“What happens to him? He becomes a thief like his father? Or what?”

Pablo put the brandy back on Naftali’s bed.

“You really give a shit?”

“Tell me.”

“He won’t be nothing like me,” Pablo said. “He’ll be the total opposite of me.”

Naftali turned toward the breeze again. The wind chime sounded.

“You won’t get to sniff that wind where you’re going,” Pablo told him.

“I leave you the wind,” Naftali said.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Of what should I be scared? Of devils?”

Pablo was impressed.

“You got a real heavy rep around this ocean, Naftali. I guess you know that.”

“I got a heavy rep all over,” Naftali agreed. “For my avarice and my readiness to kill.”

“Listen,” Pablo hastened to say, “I appreciate your bein’ easy about this. I wouldn’t blame you if …” Naftali’s smile stopped him. A hard, bad smile, he thought. A dead smile. He froze in his chair.

“Revenge is not enough,” Naftali said. “I know.” The smile faded and the hardness left his eyes. “Not revenge. Not money. Liquor. Opium. Women. All the things we like, Pablo, you and me. They’re not enough.”

“Easy for you to say, pal. You’ve had all those things.”

“Not enough.”

“Well, hell. What’s enough then?”

“I am not the man to ask, young sir. I can only tell you what is not.”

Pablo began to rise from the chair but Naftali raised the gun and waved him back down. He took more Nembutal, then brandy, and rolled the bottle to Pablo.

“Drink.”

Pablo had another pull and eased back in the chair.

“Trains,” Naftali and softly. Pablo saw with embarrassment that he was crying.

“I sure did come to rip you off, Naftali. Sorry I picked tonight.”

“Thank your lucky stars you picked tonight,” Naftali said. He kept the gun pointed at Pablo; his left hand was groping under the bolster. It came up a clenched fist.

“If you’re asked — tell them I’m dead. Tell them you saw me. That there’s no mistake.”

Pablo nodded. Naftali extended his closed left hand and opened it under Pablo’s eyes. In the colorless palm was a small bright stone; it took Pablo a few seconds to realize that the stone was a diamond.

“Take it,” Naftali said. His voice was empty of intonation, running down. Pablo looked at the stone, then at Naftali.

“You’re giving me this?”

“I’m giving. Take it.”

It was the biggest diamond Pablo had ever seen, although he had not seen many. It appeared to be five times the size of the one in his wife’s wedding ring and he had still been paying for that one when he went over the hill.

“Goddamn,” he said.

“I don’t want them to get it here,” Naftali said.

“Goddamn,” Pablo said. “You’re all right, boss, no shit.”

“And,” Naftali said softly, “I don’t want you searching my room afterwards. It has … bad associations for me.”

Smiling like a child, Pablo feasted his eyes on the diamond.

“Since I was young,” Naftali told him, “I haven’t given anything to anyone. Now there’s no one but you and it costs me nothing. So take it, thief. Give it to the son you talk about and tell him …” He broke off in a massive yawn that seemed to exhaust him. “Or keep it and lie. Do what your nature compels.”

“What do you want me to tell him, boss?”

“There is a creature in another dimension whose jewelry is dead worlds. When this creature requires more of them it plants the seed of life on a tiny planet. After a while there are people and then nothing — a patina.”

“You want me to tell him that?”

The pistol fell from Naftali’s hand. At the sound Pablo jumped up in alarm.

“The thief always comes,” Naftali said. “Weren’t you told by your mother?”

“Not by my mother, no.”

“Yes,” Naftali said. “Always.”

The old man’s eyes began to roll backward in their sockets. He said something too faintly for Pablo to hear.

“ Es ist eine schöne …” Naftali whispered. “Ach. Trains.”

Pablo leaned against the brass frame of the bed and bent down to hear.

“Brain coral,” Naftali whispered to him. “It’s only the outer coral of the brain …”

Tabor took the brandy bottle and sat down on the edge of the bed. He dropped Naftali’s diamond into the breast pocket of his shirt.