Samedi the Deafness (11 page)

He began to try all the ordinary ways of getting out of dreams, pinching, etc. These did not work.

There was a phone in the hall next to the long table.

I will call someone on the telephone, said James to himself, someone who knows me, and I will ask them whether or not I am asleep right now.

James went to the telephone. He called the house of his wife, and asked her if he was in bed at that moment asleep.

—I'll go and check, she said.

After a minute, she came back. Her voice sounded so warm and happy. He could tell that she was glad he had called.

—Yes, you're asleep. I wouldn't worry about it. The covers had come off your feet. I put them right, and laid an extra blanket across the bottom. I think you'll sleep really well now. And besides, I'll be coming to bed in a minute, and then I'll wake you anyway and I will not have any clothes on and neither will you. That will be nice.

—Yes, said James. That will be nice. I will look forward to that, then.

—Good-bye, said James's wife. I love you.

—Good-bye, said James.

He hung up the phone. The girl who was folding towels had stopped. She was looking at him curiously.

—Who were you talking to? she asked.

—I wasn't really talking to anyone, he said. The phone doesn't work. It's just a toy phone, made out of wood.

And it was true. The phone was made entirely out of wood.

James lifted it off the wall hook and set it on the table. The girl and he looked together then at the wooden phone.

—I wonder who made it, she said.

—And why, said James.

—It must have been a very long time ago, said the girl, before there were ever phones. This probably only resembles a phone by chance, and in fact, in tribal culture had an entirely different significance. Perhaps it was used to feather arrows or bring to term unwilling births.

—I should think so, said James.

Suddenly the ringing of a bell. The two froze where they stood.

David Graham came into the hall. He rang the bell again. Everyone stood quietly as they counted together to fifteen. Then Graham came up to James. He was smiling and his pants were soaking wet.

A Visit from Sermon

—We've been looking all over for you, James, he said. Sermon's coming. He'd like a word with you.

—Certainly, said James. When?

—It's unclear right now, said Graham. But be ready. Also, don't worry—you can tell him anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. He won't have to testify.

—I was going to ask you, said James. The police . . .

—Yes, said Graham. It's a bad business. A bad business. They keep coming around. I know it must worry you, but it really shouldn't. After all, he was just some drug dealer. Estrainger knew him, hated him. The whole building knew he was beating his wife. No one's sorry he's dead. But the police have to do their job, I suppose. Yes, it's good you're here. They won't find you here, you know. We'll keep them away.

He patted James on the shoulder.

—It's best today, I think, said Graham, that you zip around and explore the place. See what you can see. Get comfortable. Navigating can be a bit of a problem. You see, the hospital wing has some mechanized hallways that switch occasionally. But there's an hour-schedule for it all in the book. Have you read the book?

James confessed that he had not yet read the whole book.

—Well, do that as soon as you can. It'll really be worthwhile. And, of course, there are some people around here it wouldn't do to offend. No, not at all. Very sensitive. Yes, read up. Read up.

He walked away.

An Hour Passed

and James sat in an interior room with the shades drawn. An older man, apparently a permanent resident, was seated and playing rovnin.

Rovnin! It was so rare to find anyone who even knew the game, though of course in the sixteenth, the seventeenth, the eighteenth centuries, Swedes and Danes and Russians lived and died in its mad dictates.

FIRST:

a sort of stringed set of sticks with markers

a calling out of numbers

a switching between systems: base ten, base nine, base seven

the creation of “proxies,” fictional players who aid, abet, or at times foil one's own newmade schemes

There were books in James's childhood home on rovnin. His father had loved the game. James remembered the days they would spend in the cottage, playing at rovnin in the long hours, and roaming the fields and wood. He cleaned himself, preened himself in this memory as a bird might in a puddle. And as a bird, he had no notion of the true size of the world, or of its careening path through the larger sky beyond the sky.

It was then he remembered Cecily

The girl Cecily. Her hair brushed back, wet from a swim. The dress over her arm as she stands naked on a past day as though crossing a stream. Take off your dress, Cecily, it is too fine and the stream will ruin it. Take it off and cross the stream. In the dimness of it he saw how lovely she had been, how young. He had held up the stem of some flower and she had followed him, saying nothing. Her voice now was lost to him. So many other voices he could conjure, even speak with. But Cecily's was lost there in the dimness of the water. Her body and the light gone trailing after.

Years of this, years of remembering Cecily. James had read somewhere that the truly fine and beautiful always die as children. They can't grow up. Something won't allow them.

About Rovnin

The man beat him the first time, easily, and laughed.

—Not very good, are you? he said.

—I don't get much chance to play, said James evenly.

—So that's your excuse, said the man, and laid the strings and rods back into their initial positions.

He leaned back in his chair and looked James up and down.

—It's not an easy game, he said finally. No one knows how to play it, anyway.

—I have some books, said James. I like to play through the old games.

—Old games are useless, said the man.

He spit into his hand and rubbed the top of his head.

—If you want, I can teach you to play well. It will take me one day. But it will cost you some money. James looked at the man warily.

—Do you think I'm some kind of fool? he asked. You're not that much better than me.

The man only laughed. Looking past James he called out,

—Next!

James turned to see who was there.

Obviously, no one was.

The man laughed again.

—Come back if you want, said the man. We'll play. But don't let the others see that you're so miserable at it. Though I don't, of course, not me, no, the others might think less of you.

I love, said James to himself, this idea of the doctor being pitted against death in a game of chess. The patient is between them, the night is long. Some village girl is standing near. She is concerned but cannot speak. Perhaps she cannot see death where he crouches beside the bed. But they are old enemies, death and the village doctor, met a thousand times. In the doctor's eye are the memories of the encounters he has won, and beside them, the encounters he has lost, larger in size, but unfocused. This is his strength, but also his weakness, for death is without memory, holding in a gray place the world's passing. It is a fallacy that death judges. He chooses, but does not judge. The doctor knows this. Delicately, he makes his move. The curtains blow in a sudden gust of wind. Death is gone from the room. The patient has been saved.

James went out to the porch. He sat down in a rocking chair. Out of the pocket of his suit, he took a small knife. He leaned down out of the rocking chair and cut a thin line in the wood of the porch all around his chair so that he was sitting then in a sort of circle, broken by the chinks between the planks. But serviceable still.

What do I know? asked James.

He had seen Samedi pruning the garden. As a mnemonist he had learned to trust his intuition. The gathering of facts created lattices of meaning that could not be known, but only trusted. He was sure of it. What was the disaster? Should James send an anonymous letter to the police, revealing his accusations? How could he even get off the grounds, though? Could he get off the grounds? Would they allow him? Perhaps he should test them on that point.

James stood up, brushed himself off, crossed the porch and proceeded down the driveway. As he went, he thought about something Grieve had mentioned that morning.

The Idea Was That

there were three types of people. The first were those who became immediately angry about what had just happened, and who then thereafter lessened in their anger. Any danger from such a person came in the moments after the first difficulty.

The second type seemed only slightly angry about what had happened. They might even say to you, Oh, don't worry about it. It's just fine. It's fine. But as time passes they become more and more angry. An hour after the incident, they are steaming. Two hours and they would murder you with their bare hands if they could. Their anger then enters into a long winter, hibernating, and when and if they can, they will do you unconscionable and incommensurate wrong.

The third type is not troubled much by what you did. Although it was in fact one of their favorite belongings, and although they realize precisely what it meant to them, precisely how sad it is that the object in question is gone, and also precisely how inconsiderate you must have been to have broken the thing in the first place, nonetheless they forgive you for it, and the matter is not spoken of again, save perhaps in soft and gentle jest.

At the foot of the driveway, a gate. The gate, locked. There was, however, an intercom.

James pressed the button.

—Hello, he said.

—This is the house, said a man's voice.

—I'd like the gate opened, said James. It's me, James Sim.

—Right, said the man. Hold on a moment.

A few seconds passed.

—Give me actually two minutes.

The line went dead.