John Gardner - October Light

She could remember well how hurt she’d been at first by Horace’s unwillingness to talk. She’d been jealous, in a way, and hadn’t been altogether wrong to be. It had come to a head as they were speaking one night — or rather she was speaking — about her sister-in-law, about Ariah’s cooking, actually, and about cooking in general, though what was in the back of her mind was an image of Horace wiping dishes, up at her brother’s house, some weeks before, joking with Ariah and little Richard. Horace was at work tonight on his map of next year’s flower garden; Sally, here in their own kitchen, did the dishes alone. Horace seemed to listen to her talk of Ariah without interest, speaking not a word. “My,” she’d finally said, “you’re certainly the quiet one tonight!” She’d put her fists on her hips, smiling hard, giving him no choice but to say something.

He went right on working with his map and colored pencils, and after a minute he said, “Are you aware that we have on this planet, or used to have, something like ten thousand languages — maybe more?”

“That’s a great many,” she’d said, studying him, putting up her guard.

He nodded. “Yes sir, it’s the last frontier.” He eyed his map, for a moment holding it away from him. “You’d think we’d all get together and try to speak one language, wouldn’t you? It would improve understanding, advance the cause of peace.” He glanced at her and grinned, pleased with himself, secretly remote.

She’d said nothing, still studying him, smelling a trap.

“Well, we never will,” he’d said, shaking his head, still grinning that private, insufferable grin that wasn’t meant to be understood — putting down the yellow pencil, picking up a blue one. “Children will continue to say ‘I and him,’ scold them all you like, and your brother will continue to say ‘Here I be.’ Peace and understanding—” He looked over her head, thoughtful. “That’s the dilemma of democracy.”

She hadn’t been fooled by his fancy talk, and in a sudden flash of hurt feelings and indignation she’d lashed out, still smiling: “Why don’t you just run away with her?”

He hadn’t pretended not to know who she meant. “I never said that’s what I want, Moogle.” (It was one of the pet names they’d called each other.)

“Everything she makes tastes of onions,” she said.

He shook his head, smiling, saying something in French. He knew she knew no French. After that he would say nothing, and gradually it came to her — it made her scalp prickle — what it was he’d meant: people had all those languages in order not to be understood. They were castle walls. She had cried that night, understanding that there were things about her that he did not want to know, and parts of himself he would hide from her, wall off, even if he spoke of them. She’d learned to accept it, though it was natural to be watchful and suspicious. It was at about that time that he’d begun to read aloud to her. What she thought of it she wasn’t quite sure, though she’d quickly grown used to it.

She pursed her lips, eyes narrowed again, then abruptly looked down at her book. After the gap of missing pages, it continued:

… him that he slid down awkwardly in his chair and couldn’t pull himself up.

“Doctor,” the officer said.

But he waved him away, gasping with laughter, and leaned forward to say more. He had a sense that he was speaking very rapidly, though as a matter of fact an omniscient observer could have told him he was not. “I survive, of course. My cleaning woman makes little remarks — I embarrass her, no doubt. Working for a lunatic crippled pervert soils her reputation. But I survive. I can’t help myself, you know. I tease people in uniforms the way monkeys climb trees, or chickens lay pigs.” (There was something wrong with that, he felt at once; but the more he thought about it the better he liked it.) He’d slid practically out of his chair by now, and realizing this, he felt sudden panic. The pot smell strengthened. Then the lights all went off.

He woke up in a white, white room. A man in a white coat looked over at him and nodded to show that all was white. The officer stood leaning on the studded white doorway, his face fixed in a wince.

“This happened to you before?” the man in white said.

Dr. Alkahest stretched his eyes open wider. Hours might have passed. Days.

“You seem to have fainted,” the man in white said.

“Ah,” he said, growing clearer. He tried to sit up, felt faint — sickish woozy — and lay back again. He seemed to be floating above the table. The officer came over from the door, and Dr. Alkahest suddenly remembered. He asked urgently, craftily, lifting his head, “Why do you suppose those people had their lights off?”

The officer glanced at the man in white, the ship’s doctor.

“The fishingboat,” Dr. Alkahest explained, irritated, his old heart racing, and at last the half-wit officer understood. He sucked in his breath, puffed his cheeks out, patted his belly. “Good question,” he said. He lowered his head, squinting. “I’ll tell you my theory,” he said. “My theory is they must’ve heard him go in. Splat! They shined their lights around, but the fog reflected it, you know, and they saw that the lights was more harm than good, so they switched ’em off. But no luck. Gone.”

“Ah,” Dr. Alkahest said, and closed his eyes. But he was still unsure how much they knew. “Why do you suppose they left so suddenly — while you were still talking to them on that—” he struggled for the word, but it refused to come. He waved his hand. “That horn.”

“You don’t know fishermen,” the officer said. He rolled his eyes heavenward and grinned.

Dr. Alkahest said nothing.

“Well,” the ship’s doctor said, “you get some sleep, that’s my advice, and when you wake up you’ll be as good as new.”

“Yes, good,” Dr. Alkahest said; but he looked up at the officer again. “What are the chances of that fellow’s surviving that drop?”

“The suicide? Zero!” He waved the idea away; his hand was like a soft brick. “Practically zero. The water’s like concrete when you hit it from that far up. And then there’s the current.” He laughed, only partly rueful. “Also, the fall takes the air out of you. You drown just like that.” He snapped his fingers. He sounded quite pleased. “A lot of them die of a heart attack before they even hit.”

Dr. Alkahest moved his head in a subtle nod, then closed his eyes. “What fishingboat was that, by the way?”

“I don’t know,” the officer said. “Just some boat, I guess.”

“You don’t know?” This time he did sit up. The room yawed and swung. Both the officer and the ship’s doctor looked at him as if he’d gone crazy and reached out to catch him.

The ship’s doctor put his arm around his shoulders. “Take it easy, there!”

“You didn’t ask?” Dr. Alkahest said.

The officer grinned (Stupid pig! Moron!) and said, “Too much going on, Doctor. They called us to come look for a body, you know. When you’re looking for a body, in weather like this …”

“You ought to have noticed,” Dr. Alkahest said. By pure chance, by the wildest of accidents, he had made the most important discovery of his life, and their squeezed-shut, piggish little brains had blooched it. He clenched his fist, understanding with a terrible shock how utterly alone he was: who among his medical friends could get him marijuana — not a piddling joint, a paltry pipeload, but a mountain of it, a load like the load they had in that boat, that could bring him back WHAMMO his youth? Some people might in their frosty superiority — spouting Boethius or Augustine or Carlyle — make light of his anguish. Some people might shrug off his insight as senility. But a man lives only once! He comes wriggling, howling with pain and terror into the chilly, indifferent world, and all too soon he goes trembling-like-a-leaf and howling, bawling, out. No trace of him remains, and no heaven snatches (let us face these things) the failing electrical impulses of his brain. Scoff ye who will! Dr. Alkahest thought, I’m a pitiful, miserable crippled old man without a friend in the world except my cleaning woman — who, God knows, hates my ass. Who scorns me and worse. Who ignores me! Now happiness is planted — behold! — within my reach! and, the very same instant, it’s kicked out of sight like a football! Laugh! Laugh on, ye stony distancers! Someday you too will be ridiculous and full of woe! Half my certain inalienable rights were shot away when I was nine years old. No wonder if I cling with all my might to what little remains!