okay

 So we did not see him until we were in the house. Until then he had

been only a shabby shapeless figure, on the small size, scuttling

through the blowing dusk at the head of the funeral, and a voice. It

was as though neither of them was any part of the other: the figure

in blowing black, and the voice beating up the still air above the

candles, detached and dispassionate, tireless and spent and forlorn.

There was something precipitate about the way he entered, like a

diver taking a full breath in the act of diving. He did not look at us

and he was already speaking, greeting us and excusing his tardiness

in one breath, in a low rapid voice. Still, without having ceased to

speak or having looked at us, he motioned toward the other chairs

and seated himself and bowed his head over his plate and began a

Latin grace without a break in his voice; again his voice seemed to

rush slow and effortless just above the sound of the wind, like in the

church. It went on for some time; so that after a while I raised my

head. Don was watching me, his eyebrows arched a little; we looked

toward the priest and saw his hands writhing slowly on either side

of his plate. Then the woman spoke a sharp word behind me; I had

not heard her enter: a gaunt woman, not tall, with a pale,

mahogany-colored face that might have been any age between

twenty-five and sixty. The priest stopped. He looked at us for the

first time, out of weak, rushing eyes. They were brown and irisless,

like those of an old dog. Looking at us, it was as though he had

driven them up with whips and held them so, in cringing and

rushing desperation. “I forget,” he said. “There come times—” Again

the woman snapped a word at him, setting a tureen on the table, the

shadow of her arm falling across his face and remaining there: but

we had already looked away. The long wind rushed past the stone

eaves; the candle flame stood steady as a sharpened pencil in the

still sound of the wind. We heard her filling the bowls, yet she still

stood for a time, the priest’s face in the shadow of her arm; she

seemed to be holding us all so until the moment—whatever it was—

had passed. She went out. Don and I began to eat. We did not look

toward him. When he spoke at last, it was in a tone of level, polite

uninterest. “You have come far, signori?”

“From Milano,” we both said.

“Before that, Firenze,” Don said. The priest’s head was bent over

his bowl. He ate rapidly. Without looking up he gestured toward the

loaf. I pushed it along to him. He broke the end off and went on

eating.

“Ah,” he said. “Firenze. That is a city. More—what do you say?—

spirituel than our Milano.” He ate hurriedly, without finesse. His

robe was turned back over a flannel undershirt, the sleeves were.

His spoon clattered; at once the woman entered with a platter of

broccoli. She removed the bowls. He reached his hand. She handed

him the carafe and he filled the glasses without looking up and

lifted his with a brief phrase. But he had only feinted to drink; he

was watching my face when I looked at him. I looked away; I heard

him clattering at the dish and Don was looking at me too. Then the

woman’s shoulder came between us and the priest. “There come

times—” he said. He clattered at the dish. When the woman spoke

to him in that shrill, rapid patois he thrust his chair back and for an

instant we saw his driven eyes across her arm. “There come times

—” he said, raising his voice. Then she drowned the rest of it,

getting completely between us, and Don and I stopped looking and

heard them leave the room. The steps ceased. Then we could hear

only the wind.

“It was the burial service,” Don said. Don was a Catholic. “That

grace was.”

“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. It was the burial service. He got mixed up.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s it. What do we do now?” Our packs lay in

the corner. Two packs can look as human, as utterly human and

spent, as two shoes. We were watching the door when the woman

entered. But she wasn’t going to stop. She didn’t look at us.

“What shall we do now, signora?” Don said.

“Eat.” She did not stop. Then we could hear the wind again.

“Have some wine,” Don said. He raised the carafe, then he held it

poised above my glass, and we listened. The voice was beyond the

wall, maybe two walls, in a sustained rush of indistinguishable

words. He was not talking to anyone there: you could tell that. In

whatever place he was, he was alone: you could tell that. Or maybe

it was the wind. Maybe in any natural exaggerated situation—wind,

rain, drouth—man is always alone. It went on for longer than a

minute while Don held the carafe above my glass. Then he poured.

We began to eat. The voice was muffled and sustained, like a

machine might have been making it.

“If it were just summer,” I said.

“Have some wine.” He poured. We held our poised glasses. It

sounded just like a machine. You could tell that he was alone.

Anybody could have. “That’s the trouble,” Don said. “Because

there’s not anybody there. Not anybody in the house.”

“The woman.”

“So are we.” He looked at me.

“Oh,” I said.

“Sure. What better chance could she have wanted, have asked

for? He was in here at least five minutes. And he just back from the

army after three years. The first day he is home, and then afternoon

and then twilight and then darkness. You saw her there. Didn’t you

see her up there?”

“He locked the door. You know he locked it.”

“This house belongs to God: you cant have a lock on it. You didn’t

know that.”

“That’s right. I forgot you’re a Catholic. You know things. You

know a lot, dont you?”

“No. I dont know anything. I no spika too. I love Italy too.” The

woman entered. She didn’t bring anything this time. She came to

the table and stood there, her gaunt face above the candle, looking

down at us.

“Look, then,” she said. “Will you go away?”

“Go away?” Don said. “Not stop here tonight?” She looked down

at us, her hand lying on the table. “Where could we stop? Who

would take us in? One cannot sleep on the mountain in October,

signora.”

“Yes,” she said. She was not looking at us now. Through the walls

we listened to the voice and to the wind.

“What is this, anyway?” Don said. “What goes on here, signora?”

She looked at him gravely, speculatively, as if he were a child.

“You are seeing the hand of God, signorino,” she said. “Pray God

that you are too young to remember it.” Then she was gone. And

after a while the voice ceased, cut short off like a thread. And then

there was just the wind.

“As soon as we get out of the wind, it wont be so bad,” I said.

“Have some wine.” Don raised the carafe. It was less than half

full.

“We’d better not drink any more.”

“No.” He filled the glasses. We drank. Then we stopped. It began

again, abruptly, in full stride, as though silence were the thread this

time. We drank. “We might as well finish the broccoli, too.”

“I dont want any more.”

“Have some wine then.”

“You’ve already had more than I have.”

“All right.” He filled my glass. I drank it. “Now, have some wine.”

“We ought not to drink it all.”

He raised the carafe. “Two more glasses left. No use in leaving

that.”

“There aren’t two glasses left.”

“Bet you a lira.”

“All right. But let me pour.”

“All right.” He gave me the carafe. I filled my glass and reached

toward his. “Listen,” he said. For about a minute now the voice had

been rising and falling, like a wheel running down. This time it

didn’t rise again; there was only the long sound of the wind left.

“Pour it,” Don said. I poured. The wine mounted three quarters. It

began to dribble away. “Tilt it up.” I did so. A single drop hung for a

moment, then fell into the glass. “Owe you a lira,” Don said.

The coins rang loud in the slotted box. When he took it up from

the table and shook it, it made no sound. He took the coins from his

pocket and dropped them through the slot. He shook it again.

“Doesn’t sound like quite enough. Cough up.” I dropped some coins

through the slot; he shook the box again. “Sounds all right now.” He

looked at me across the table, his empty glass bottom-up before

him. “How about a little wine?”

When we rose I took my pack from the corner. It was on the

bottom. I had to tumble Don’s aside. He watched me. “What are you

going to do with that?” he said. “Take it out for a walk?”

“I dont know,” I said. Past the cold invisible eaves the long wind

steadily sighed. Upon the candle the flame stood like the balanced

feather on the long white nose of a clown.

The hall was dark; there was no sound in it. There was nothing in

it save the cold smell of sunless plaster and silence and the smell of

living, of where people have, and will have, lived. We carried our

packs low and close against our legs like we had stolen them. We

went on to the door and opened it, entering the black wind again. It

had scoured the sky clear and clean, hollowing it out of the last of

light, the last of twilight. We were halfway to the gate when we saw

him. He was walking swiftly back and forth beside the wall. His

head was bare, his robes ballooning about him. When he saw us he

did not stop. He didn’t hurry, either. He just turned and went back

beside the wall and turned again, walking fast. We waited at the

gate. We thanked him for the food, he motionless in his whipping

robes, his head bent and averted a little, as a deaf man listens. When

Don knelt at his feet he started back as though Don had offered to

strike him. Then I felt like a Catholic too and I knelt too and he

made the sign hurriedly above us, upon the black-and-green wind

and dusk, like he would have made it in water. When we passed out

the gate and looked back we could still see, against the sky and the

blank and lightless house, his head rushing back and forth like a

midget running along the top of the wall.