John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

“It’s a question,” Clumly said.

“God bless you, so it is!”

The minister stood up and began to pace slowly, with exaggeratedly long steps, back and forth in front of the bench. “A man, say, who, with the best intentions, has so thoroughly thrown himself into his work that he’s forgotten what worries may be torturing his wife. A man who, by his very diligence, has begun to set people around him to talking and fretting against him, people who might, potentially … Hypothetical, of course. But possible, barely. I suspect I should make myself his demon.”

Clumly stood watching him. “Maybe you should.”

He stopped pacing. “It’s difficult to know, isn’t it. By what right? I ask myself. All very well for the prophet to tell David, ‘Thou art the man.’ He had God’s voice buzzing there in his ear. But the voice of reason is not necessarily the voice of God, is it?”

Abruptly, surprising himself, Clumly said, “What are you getting at?”

Again he smiled whitely. “Conversation,” he said. “You’ve no idea how starved a man … one thinking man … hard to express.”

Clumly said, “Well, it’s getting dark.” Then: “Would you care to have supper with us? I assume Esther—”

“No thank you,” he said. He seemed alarmed.

Clumly smiled, puzzled. “Whatever you like.”

They studied each other in the reflected red of the sunset. Abruptly, the minister shook Clumly’s hand, then put his hat on, ready to leave. “You’ll excuse me to your wife, I hope. I really must run.”

“Certainly, yes.”

The minister nodded and smiled one last time, funereal, and started across the grass to the side of the house.

“You had a nice talk with Reverend Willby?” Esther said.

“Very interesting, yes.”

“He’s such a kind man,” she said.

“Mmm. Interesting.” He looked up briefly, watching her chase her stew around the plate with her bread. Like all blind faces, her face had a look of unspeakable weariness, despair. “This past couple weeks has been hard on you,” he said.

“Oh, don’t think about me.”

“Well, it won’t last forever,” he said cheerfully, though he didn’t feel cheerful.

“I hope not,” she said.

He drew his Sanka toward him and sucked at the edge.

She reached for her teacup.

“To the left,” he said.

She found it and leaned forward, raising the cup to her lips.

Clumly said, “Any interesting mail?”

She lowered the cup a little. “I’m sorry. I forgot to look.”

“That’s not like you,” he said.

She laughed, glass eyes staring, and he was distressed.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked. It came out a little sharp.

She said nothing for a moment, her face fallen to despair again. “You’re right, it’s not like me to forget the mail. I’ll go get it.”

“No no, I’ll do it.” He got up.

There was nothing. An electric bill, a second notice from the water company, a letter from Esther’s younger sister. “There’s a letter from your sister,” he said. “Shall I read it to you?”

She said nothing, and he read it in an interested voice. Halfway through he realized she wasn’t listening — in fact she was talking to herself. He went on with the letter. When it was over and she’d made no response, he said, “Aren’t you feeling well, Esther?”

She smiled. “Just tired.”

“We’ll get us a good night’s sleep,” he said.

She got up to clear the dishes and, after a moment’s thought, Clumly got up too. He patted her shoulder. “I’ll help with the dishes,” he said.

“No, don’t bother. Please. No trouble at all. Really.”

He stood in the kitchen doorway rubbing his nose. What was wrong? But he knew, yes, now that he thought about it. The Sunlight Man again. She was worried, that was all it was. She’d picked it up from him. He would have to be careful. Tomorrow he’d bring her flowers.

Later, in the bathroom, looking at the braille Today’s, he had a sudden suspicion that the copies were old; she’d allowed her subscription to run out. The image of the minister’s smile came back to him, and then the black, narrow back hurrying across the yard to the side of the house.

Just as he was crawling into bed his usual nighttime fears came over him more powerfully than ever. He was absolutely certain that there was someone in the house. So certain, in fact, that he drew his trousers on over his pajamas and got into his slippers and bathrobe and went downstairs to investigate. She lay sleeping like a log, as far as Clumly could tell as he left. He stood in the darkness of the livingroom, listening with all his ears, but there was nothing. He looked out at the lawn. There too, nothing. And yet the crawling of his skin was not to be denied. Something was very wrong. Where?

Miller had talked with the Mayor this afternoon. About what? They might have sat there for hours in the Mayor’s office, swapping stories, perhaps, and then slipping back to business. One could guess pretty well what business it was. Then finally they’d have parted, and after his laughter at his own last joke, the Mayor would have returned to his office, abruptly sober, grim, and would have gotten his suitcoat from the closet next to Wittaker’s office. … If only there was some way of knowing how much time a man still had! But forget it. Drive as fast as possible down the road to the Sunlight Man, the rest would take care of itself, more or less. He would go back to his bed.

But the sky was very light, the night air warm, the street completely deserted beyond the window out of which Clumly stood peering. What was happening over on Ellicott Avenue now, at the Mayor’s house? The hunger to be sure grew into an ache in his abdomen, and sweat prickled on his chest. He remembered with revulsion the Sunlight Man’s words in one of the examinations: “I have thoughts of spying on my boss, listening outside his window.” The man was a devil! He knew your desires before you knew them yourself, or maybe it was that he created them. The devil. Insane, the whole business insane. He’d go up to his bed. Lord yes.

But he’d been wrong, it came to him. The street was not deserted. Directly in front of his house, in the dappled shadows under the maple trees, by the sidewalk, there was a car — not hidden, though not out in the glare of the streetlamp either — impossible to miss except by a trick of one’s vision. It was not the car of anyone he knew, but he knew in the back of his neck that he’d seen it before. After a moment it came to him. It was the car he’d seen parked down the block on Ross Street, when he’d gone with Boyle to the Woodworths’. He drew back from the window and collected his thoughts. “All right then,” he said aloud, and he walked quickly to the clothespress where his hat and pistol hung. He fastened the belt around the outside of his bathrobe and started back for the front door. Just as he was passing it, the telephone rang. He jumped. He let it ring again — he stood with his head cocked, looking at it — and then, full of dread, he lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said.

“Good evening.”

He could not recognize the voice. After a moment:

“This is a friend of yours. You’ll realize who in a moment. We have things to talk over. Problems. I should like to arrange—”

“You!” Clumly whispered. He felt again throughout his body the half-superstitious alarm he’d felt in the waiting room at the hospital as the man held out toward him his own wallet, his whistle, the bullets, the keys. …

“That’s right. Your friend. I should like to arrange a meeting.”

“Where are you?”

“Always the wrong questions.” For an instant the voice itself was recognizable, but then it was once more a voice he had never heard before, not a disguised voice, he would have sworn, but the voice of some other man. The Sunlight Man said, “We have problems, both of us, which we must reason out. Your world is tumbling around your ears, and as for me—”