Lydia Davis: The End of the Story

But first I have to ask myself a question that has been nagging at me: Have I gotten even that particular incident right? Did I look at the expression on the face of the man in the bookstore and sense that the man saw me as a vagrant, and did I later articulate to myself what that impression had been? Or was it only later that I searched for that man’s face in my memory and looked at it and then at the position of his body, motionless or nearly motionless and slightly stooped behind the counter as his face conveyed puzzlement; that I either took the face out of my memory or returned in my memory to stand in front of that man’s face and study it? I know that I must have read more on that face later than I did immediately, because later I had more information — for instance, that he had felt enough compassion to bring me a cup of tea, and that therefore behind his expression of puzzlement he was feeling compassion or was about to feel compassion.

I think one reason the cup of tea in the bookstore seems like the end of the story even though the story went on afterward is that I did stop searching for him at that point. Although I still thought, from time to time, that I might see him around the next corner, and although I went on receiving news of him, I never again tried to get in touch with him by phone or by mail.

Another reason, maybe even more important, is that this cup of tea, prepared for me by a stranger to give me some relief from my exhaustion, was not only a gesture of kindness, from a person who could not know what my trouble was, but also a ceremonial act, as though the offer of a cup of tea became a ceremonial act as soon as there was a reason for ceremony, even if the tea was cheap and bitter, with a paper tab hanging over the side of the mug. And since all along there had been too many ends to the story, and since they did not end anything, but only continued something, something not formed into any story, I needed an act of ceremony to end the story.