So there they are, with nothing applying to them and no worries, very secret and hidden under the earth in the cistern waters. They touch their hands and lips and when they come into a cross-street outlet of the cistern, the tide rushes them together. Then, later . . .” she disengaged her hands . . . “maybe they travel together, hand in hand, bobbling and floating, down all the streets, doing little crazy upright dances when they’re caught in sudden swirls.” She whirled her hands about, a drenching of rain spatted the window. “And they go down to the sea, all across the town, past cross drain and cross drain, street and street.
Genesee Avenue, Crenshaw, Edmond Place, Washington, Motor City, Ocean Side and then the ocean. They go anywhere the water wants them, all over the earth, and come back later to the cistern inlet and float back up under the town, under a dozen tobacco shops and four dozen liquor stores, and six dozen groceries and ten theaters, a rail junction, Highway 101, under the walking feet of thirty thousand people who don’t even know or think of the cistern.”
Anna’s voice drifted and dreamed and grew quiet again.
“And then—the day passes and the thunder goes away up on the street. The rain stops. The rain season’s over. The tunnels drip and stop. The tide goes down.” She seemed disappointed, sad it was over. “The river runs out to the ocean. The man and woman feel the water leave them slowly to the floor. They settle.” She lowered her hands in little bobblings to her lap, watching them fixedly, longingly. “Their feet lose the life the water has given them from outside. Now the water lays them down, side by side, and drains away, and the tunnels are drying. And there they lie. Up above, in the world, the sun comes out. There they lie, in the darkness, sleeping, until the next time. Until the next rain.”
Her hands were now upon her lap, palms up and open. “Nice man, nice woman,” she murmured. She bowed her head over them and shut her eyes tight.
Suddenly Anna sat up and glared at her sister. “Do you know who the man is?” she shouted, bitterly.
Juliet did not reply; she had watched, stricken, for the past five minutes while this thing went on. Her mouth was twisted and pale. Anna almost screamed:
“The man is Frank, that’s who he is! And I’m the woman!”
“Anna!”
“Yes, it’s Frank, down there!”
“But Frank’s been gone for years, and certainly not down there, Anna!”
Now, Anna was talking to nobody, and to everybody, to Juliet, to the window, the wall, the street. “Poor Frank,” she cried. “I know that’s where he went. He couldn’t stay anywhere in the world. His mother spoiled him for all the world! So he saw the cistern and saw how secret and fine it was. Oh, poor Frank. And poor Anna, poor me, with only a sister. Oh, Julie, why didn’t I hold on to Frank when he was here? Why didn’t I fight to win him from his mother?”
“Stop it, this minute, do you hear, this minute!”
Anna slumped down into the corner, by the window, one hand up on it, and wept silently. A few minutes later she heard her sister say, “Are you finished?”
“What?”
“If you’re done, come help me finish this, I’ll be forever at it.”
Anna raised her head and glided over to her sister. “What do you want me to do?” she sighed.
“This and this,” said Juliet, showing her.
“All right,” said Anna, and took it and sat by the window looking at the rain, moving her hands with the needle and thread, but watching how dark the street was now, and the room, and how hard it was to see the round metal top of the cistern now—there were just little midnight gleams and glitters out there in the black black late afternoon. Lightning crackled over the sky in a web.
Half an hour passed. Juliet drowsed in her chair across the room, removed her glasses, placed them down with her work and for a moment rested her head back and dozed. Perhaps thirty seconds later she heard the front door open violently, heard the wind come in, heard the footsteps run down the walk, turn, and hurry along the black street.
“What?” asked Juliet, sitting up, fumbling for her glasses. “Who’s there? Anna, did someone come in the door?” She stared at the empty window seat where Anna had been. “Anna!” she cried. She sprang up and ran out into the hall.
The front door stood open, rain fell through it in a fine mist.
“She’s only gone out for a moment,” said Juliet, standing there, trying to peer into the wet blackness. “She’ll be right back. Won’t you be right back, Anna dear? Anna, answer me, you will be right back, won’t you, sister?”
Outside, the cistern lid rose and slammed down.
The rain whispered on the street and fell upon the closed lid all the rest of the night.
The Machineries of Joy
Father brian delayed going below to breakfast because he thought he heard Father Vittorini down there, laughing. Vittorini, as usual, was dining alone. So who was there to laugh with, or at?
Us, thought Father Brian, that’s who.
He listened again.
Across the hall Father Kelly too was hiding, or meditating, rather, in his room.
They never let Vittorini finish breakfast, no, they always managed to join him as he chewed his last bit of toast. Otherwise they could not have borne their guilt through the day.
Still, that was laughter, was it not, belowstairs? Father Vittorini had ferreted out something in the morning Times. Or, worse, had he stayed up half the night with the unholy ghost, that television set which stood in the entry like an unwelcome guest, one foot in whimsy, the other in the doldrums?
And, his mind bleached by the electronic beast, was Vittorini now planning some bright fine new devilment, the cogs wheeling in his soundless mind, seated and deliberately fasting, hoping to lure them down curious at the sound of his Italian humors?
“Ah, God.” Father Brian sighed and fingered the envelope he had prepared the previous night. He had tucked it in his coat as a protective measure should he decide to hand it to Pastor Sheldon. Would Father Vittorini detect it through the cloth with his quick dark X-ray vision?
Father Brian pressed his hand firmly along his lapel to squash any merest outline of his request for transferral to another parish.
“Here goes.”
And, breathing a prayer, Father Brian went downstairs.
“Ah, Father Brian!”
Vittorini looked up from his still full cereal bowl. The brute had not even so much as sugared his corn flakes yet.
Father Brian felt as if he had stepped into an empty elevator shaft.
Impulsively he put out a hand to save himself. It touched the top of the television set. The set was warm. He could not help saying, “Did you have a séance here last night?”
“I sat up with the set, yes.”
“Sat up is right!” snorted Father Brian. “One does sit up, doesn’t one, with the sick, or the dead? I used to be handy with the ouija board myself. There was more brains in that.” He turned from the electrical moron to survey Vittorini. “And did you hear far cries and banshee wails from, what is it? Canaveral?”
“They called off the shot at three A.M.”
“And you here now, looking daisy-fresh.” Father Brian advanced, shaking his head. “What’s true is not always what’s fair.”
Vittorini now vigorously doused his flakes with milk. “But you, Father Brian, you look as if you made the grand tour of Hell during the night.”
Fortunately, at this point Father Kelly entered. He froze when he too saw how little along Vittorini was with his fortifiers. He muttered to both priests, seated himself, and glanced over at the perturbed Father Brian.
“True, William, you look half gone. Insomnia?”
“A touch.”
Father Kelly eyed both men, his head to one side. “What goes on here? Did something happen while I was out last night?”
“We had a small discussion,” said Father Brian, toying with the dread flakes of corn.
“Small discussion!” said Father Vittorini. He might have laughed, but caught himself and said simply, “The Irish priest is worried by the Italian Pope.”
“Now, Father Vittorini,” said Kelly.
“Let him run on,” said Father Brian.
“Thank you for your permission,” said Vittorini, very politely and with a friendly nod. “Il Papa is a constant source of reverent irritation to at least some if not all of the Irish clergy. Why not a pope named Nolan? Why not a green instead of a red hat? Why not, for that matter, move Saint Peter’s Cathedral to Cork or Dublin, come the twenty-fifth century?”
“I hope nobody said that,” said Father Kelly.
“I am an angry man,” said Father Brian. “In my anger I might have inferred it.”
“Angry, why? And inferred for what reason?”
“Did you hear what he just said about the twenty-fifth century?” asked Father Brian. “Well, it’s when Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers fly in through the baptistery transom that yours truly hunts for the exits.”
Father Kelly sighed. “Ah, God, is it that joke again?”
Father Brian felt the blood burn his cheeks, but fought to send it back to cooler regions of his body.
“Joke? It’s off and beyond that. For a month now it’s Canaveral this and trajectories and astronauts that. You’d think it was Fourth of July, he’s up half each night with the rockets. I mean, now, what kind of
