Jesse Ball - The Village on Horseback - Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

— This one, he said, is for you. Good day.

Carr went straight home, and though it was early afternoon, shuttered the windows, lay down and was soon asleep.

A loud knocking at the door: THE WIFE OF THE JUDGE was standing in the hall.

Leon Carr?

She was wearing a thin wool dress with the same open tweed coat. Her cheeks were gaunt. Carr had never expected to see her. He had not arranged in his head any policy for how he would speak or act.

— I’m so sorry, said Carr. I’m sorry, I. .

She took his hand in hers and looked patiently into his face.

Carr felt almost like crying, so kindly did she treat him.

— I’m sorry, he said again. Come in and sit down.

Then it occurred to him that perhaps she might not want to come in.

— Is that all right? he asked. Would you rather stay out there?

— No, no, she said. Here.

She came into Carr’s room. She took off her coat and sat on the bed. She was staring at him and staring at him. Her dress was very thin, and he felt very much for her then. He felt he should not, but he did and he looked at her, there, seated on his bed.

— I don’t know what to say.

He tried to think of something kind to say. He felt that because Lubeck and Brennan and Harp were dead the guilt had not gone away but was concentrated all on him.

But she drew him down to the bed beside her and took his hand. She slid it along her side and up onto her breast. She leaned in.

Her face was along his neck. She kissed him softly.

— It’s all right, she murmured. It’s all right.

His hand was along her and on her. In a moment, she had pulled her dress off over her head. She was pulling on his pants. She was on top of him. Her hair shrouded the room, and her lips were at the corner of his mouth.

They lay together there, in the bed, smoking.

— I suppose I should tell you, she said. There was no miscarriage.

She got out of the bed and put her dress back on. Carr was sitting with his eyes closed.

What did you say? asked Carr.

— There was no miscarriage. It was just a reason for my husband to fight you. He felt the honor of young men isn’t what it used to be, and if there weren’t some serious reason, you wouldn’t bear up.

She put on her coat.

— I’m just telling you, she said, because you seem kind of nice, and I feel bad about the whole thing. If you like, you don’t have to fight him. You can just go. Don’t feel guilty, that’s all I’m saying.

— This is. .completely. . why didn’t you come sooner? Do you just let your husband. .? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Carr jumped up out of the bed and began to pace back and forth. She was by the door.

— Anyway, she said. Thanks for the good time. The whole situation made this rather intimate.

Carr looked at her helplessly.

— My friends are dead, he said.

— I’m sorry about that.

She opened the door and went out, leaving it open.

He went to the door.

— My friends are dead!

But the hallway was empty. Her footsteps sounded away down the stairs.

Now he was in the hall and she was gone.

They say that in a heavy storm one shouldn’t be beneath trees for fear of lightning. Also they say don’t go into an open field. This is very confusing, as, when I have on occasion been in a place of fields and trees during heavy rain and lightning, I become completely confused. At what point do I stay away from the trees? At what point from the fields? Do I dig a hole in the ground? Do I need to keep a little shovel with me for rain storms? In such a hole wouldn’t the rain collect and drown me? That’s not so much better and, in fact, would be much the same because I have heard that the bodies of people killed by lightning are bloated in a similar way to those found after a drowning.

Yes, Carr could not fix his mind particularly on anything. How senseless! What should Carr do? He felt very surely that he should go and shoot the Judge. Why had the Judge won the other duels? Because the others had felt guilty. They had let themselves die. Except for Harp, who was treacherous. Yes, he had been treacherous, because he had thought they had killed the Judge’s child, and yet he had still gone on as if they were in the right. What if I were to go to the Judge’s house and kill him in the night? Would that be the right thing? And now he had slept with the Judge’s wife. Ordinarily a rather bad business, it seemed not to count for anything now.

He would confront the Judge. He would go to the Judge’s house, confront him, and then tomorrow morning shoot him to death at the duel.

He felt very good about this resolution. He dressed, put on his coat and called for a cab to take him to the Judge’s house.

The Judge’s house was, as you might suppose, quite a fine affair. Already the cab was there. He hadn’t even remembered getting in. And then he got out.

He felt immediately dwarfed by the house. This is one of the techniques of the very-wealthy. They make anyone who comes to visit them feel by virtue of architecture that he or she is a supplicant. I am not a supplicant, thought Carr. I am the aggrieved. I accuse.

He went up the steps. A man was standing at the top wearing a very comprehensive servant costume. Perhaps the man was a servant.

— I’m here to see the Judge.

— He doesn’t know it, said the man.

— All the same, said Carr. I’ll have my way. I have to see him.

— What you must do, and what will happen: they’re not the same thing, said the man. It’s my job to see the Judge isn’t disturbed. All kinds of people come here after the Judge decides criminal cases. They feel they have been dealt with unfairly.

He pursed his lips, then continued.

— Unfairly, fairly. Who’s to say that? Why, the Judge. That’s why he’s a Judge. So, whatever it is that you’re here about, why don’t you just run along.

He returned to his initial pose.

— Listen, said Carr. I want to see the Judge. I’m going in through the door one way or another.

— Well, said the man. If you are going to go, I won’t stop you. But, I assure you, there are others more determined than I who are waiting inside.

Carr walked past the man and through the front doors of the house.

Inside, was a long entrance hall. A coatroom was on one side, with a man standing behind a counter. Before the doors that opened into the house, another man waited. Both wore the same servant-costume as the first man.

— Coat, said the first man.

Carr gave the man his coat. He felt like not doing it, but he did it anyway. In giving in to even one of these people’s demands, he felt he was giving up some initiative. Nonetheless, he gave up his coat.

— Hold on a second, said Carr.

The man brought the coat back and held it out to him.

Carr reached into one of the pockets and took something out.

The man smiled encouragingly at him in a rather nasty way. Carr sneered in return, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want his coat mistreated.

— I’ll be back for that.

— If you’re not, said the man, we’ll throw it away.

He held the coat mincingly in his fingers as though he preferred not to touch it.

Carr turned and walked to the next door.

— Not so fast, said the doorman, smirking meanwhile at the coatroom attendant.

— Not so fast, he said again.

Both broke into laughter.

— I need to see the Judge, said Carr.

— Don’t let me stop you, said the doorman.

Carr went to go through the door. He tried to turn the handle. The door was locked.

— The door is locked, he said.

Both men broke into fits of giggling.

— Do you have a key? he asked the doorman.