Monotonous wagons drawn by long-eared beasts crawled past. Negroes humped with sleep, portentous upon each wagon and in the wagon bed itself sat other Negroes upon chairs: a pagan catafalque under the afternoon.
Rigid, as though carved in Egypt ten thousand years ago. Slow dust rising veiled their passing, like Time; the necks of mules limber as rubber hose swayed their heads from side to side, looking behind them always. But the mules were asleep also. ‘Ketch me sleep, he kill me. But I got mule blood in me: when he sleep, I sleep; when he wake, I wake.’
In the study where Donald sat, his father wrote steadily on tomorrow’s sermon. The afternoon slept without.
The Town:
War Hero Returns. . . .
His face . . . the way that girl goes on with that Farr boy. . . .
Young Robert Saunders:
I just want to see his scar. . . .
Cecily:
And now I’m not a good woman any more. Oh, well, it had to be sometime, I guess. . . .
George Farr:
Yes! Yes! She was a virgin! But if she won’t see me it means somebody else. Her body in another’s arms. . . . Why must you? Why must you? What do you want? Tell me: I will do anything, anything. . . .
Margaret Powers:
Can nothing at all move me again? Nothing to desire? Nothing to stir me, to move me, save pity? . . .
Gilligan:
Margaret, tell me what you want. I will do it. Tell me, Margaret. . . .
The rector wrote, ‘The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.’
Donald Mahon, knowing Time as only something which was taking from him a world he did not particularly mind losing, stared out a window into green and motionless leaves: a motionless blur.
The afternoon dreamed on towards sunset. Niggers and mules. . . . At last Gilligan broke the silence.
‘That old fat one is going to send her car to take him riding.’
Mrs Powers made no reply.
3
San Francisco, Cal.
5 April 1919
Dear Margaret,
Well I am at home again I got here this afternoon. As soon as I got away from mother I am sitting down to write to you. Home seems pretty good after you have been doing a pretty risky thing like lots of them cracked up at. It’s boreing all these girls how they go on over a flying man if you ever experienced it isn’t it. There was a couple of janes on the train I met.
Well anyway they saw my hat band and they gave me the eye they were society girls they said but I am not so dumb any way they were nice kids and they might of been society girls. Anyway I got there phone numbers and I am going to give them a call. Just kidding them see there is only one woman for me Margaret you know it.
Well we rode on into San Francisco talking and laughing in there stateroom so I am going to take the best looking of them out this week I made a date with her except she wants me to bring a fellow for her friend so I guess I will poor kids they probably haven’t had much fun dureing the war like a man can have dureing the war. But I am just kidding them Margaret you mustnt be jealous like I am not jealous over Lieut Mahon. Well mother is dragging me out to tea I had rather I had be shot than go except she insists. Give my reguards to Joe.
With love
Julian
Mrs Powers and Gilligan met the specialist from Atlanta at the station. In the cab he listened to her attentively.
‘But, my dear madam,’ he objected when she had finished, ‘you are asking me to commit an ethical violation.’
‘But, surely, Doctor, it isn’t a violation of professional ethics to let his father believe as he wishes to believe, is it?’
‘No, it is a violation of my personal ethics.’
‘Then, you tell me and let me tell his father.’
‘Yes, I will do that. But pardon me, may I ask what exactly is your relation to him?’
‘We are to be married,’ she answered, looking at him steadily.
‘Oho. Then that is quite all right. I will promise not to say anything before his father that can disturb him.’
He kept his promise. After lunch he joined her where she sat on the shaded quiet veranda. She put aside her embroidery frame and he took a chair, puffing furiously at his cigar until it burned evenly.
‘What is he waiting for?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Waiting for?’ she repeated.
He flashed her a keen grey glance. ‘There is no ultimate hope for him, you know.’
‘For his sight, you mean?’
‘That’s practically gone now. I mean for him.’
‘I know. That’s what Mr Gilligan said two weeks ago.’
‘M’m. Is Mr Gilligan a doctor?’
‘No. But it doesn’t take a doctor to see that, does it?’
‘Not necessarily. But I think Mr Gilligan rather overshot himself, making a public statement like that.’
She rocked gently. He veiled his head in smoke, watching the evenly burning ash at the cigar tip. She said:
‘You think that there is no hope for him, then?’
‘Frankly, I do.’ He tilted the ash carefully over the balustrade. ‘He is practically a dead man now. More than that, he should have been dead these three months were it not for the fact that he seems to be waiting for something. Something he has begun, but has not completed, something he has carried from his former life that he does not remember consciously. That is his only hold on life that I can see.’ He gave her another keen glance. ‘How does he regard you now? He remembers nothing of his life before he was injured.’
She met his sharp, kind gaze a moment, then she suddenly decided to tell him the truth. He watched her intently until she had finished.
‘So you are meddling with Providence, are you?’
‘Wouldn’t you have done the same?’ she defended herself.
‘I never speculate on what I would have done,’ he answered shortly. ‘There can be no If in my profession. I work in tissue and bone, not in circumstance.’
‘Well, it’s done now. I am in it too far to withdraw. So you think he may go at any time?’
‘You are asking me to speculate again. What I said was that he will go whenever that final spark somewhere in him is no longer fed. His body is already dead. Further than that I cannot say.’
‘An operation?’ she suggested.
‘He would not survive it. And in the second place, the human machine can only be patched and parts replaced up to a certain point. And all that has been done for him, or he would have never been released from any hospital.’
Afternoon drew on. They sat quietly talking while sunlight becoming lateral, broke through the screening leaves and sprinkled the porch with flecks of yellow, like mica in a stream. The same Negro in the same undershirt droned up and down the lawn with his mower, an occasional vehicle passed slumbrous and creaking behind twitching mules, or moving more swiftly, leaving a fretful odour of gasoline to die beneath the afternoon.
The rector joined them after a while.
‘Then there’s nothing to do except let him build himself up, eh, Doctor?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that is my advice. Attention, rest, and quiet, let him resume old habits. About his sight, though—’
The rector looked up slowly. ‘Yes, I realize his sight must go. But there are compensations. He is engaged to be married to a very charming lady. Don’t you think that will give him incentive to help himself?’
‘Yes, that should, if anything can.’
‘What do you think? Shall we hurry the marriage along?’
‘We — ll—’ the doctor hesitated: he was not exactly accustomed to giving advice on this subject.
Mrs Powers came to his rescue. ‘I think we had better not hurry him at all,’ she said quickly. ‘Let him accustom himself leisurely, you see. Don’t you think so, Doctor Baird?’
‘Yes, Reverend, you let Mrs Powers here advise you about that. I have every confidence in her judgement. You let her take charge of this thing. Women are always more capable than we are, you know.’
‘That’s quite true. We are already under measureless obligations to Mrs Powers.’
‘Nonsense. I have almost adopted Donald myself.’
The cab came at last and Gilligan appeared with the doctor’s things. They rose and Mrs Powers slipped her arm through the rector’s. She squeezed his arm and released him. As she and Gilligan, flanking the doctor, descended the steps the rector said again, timidly:
‘You are sure, Doctor, that there is nothing to be done immediately? We are naturally anxious, you know,’ he ended apologetically.
‘No, no,’ the doctor replied testily, ‘he can help himself more than we can help him.’
The rector stood watching until the cab turned the corner. Looking back, she could see him in the door staring after them. Then they turned a corner.
As the train drew into the station the doctor said, taking her hand:
‘You’ve let yourself in for something that is going to be unpleasant, young lady.’
She gave him a straight glance in return.
‘I’ll take the risk,’ she said, shaking his hand firmly.
‘Well, good-bye, then, and good luck.’
‘Good-bye, sir,’ she answered, ‘and thank you.’
He turned to Gilligan, offering his hand.
‘And the same to you, Doctor Gilligan,’ he
