Laura hesitated before she spoke. "I usually stay away from the gate. I used to go down regularly, like going for the mail, but it's begun to depress me. The people and the guards and the cars, and the gate so easy for them to pass—I'd rather not, Michael."
"It doesn't bother me much," Michael said. "I like listening to them. But we don't have to go there."
He frowned for a moment. "I found a place a while ago. Maybe you know it. It's a wall." He glanced at her for any sign of recognition.
Laura shook her head. "I don't think I know it."
"It's right at the edge of the cemetery. A low brick wall."
"No," Laura said. "I'm a stranger here."
"Come on, then," Michael said eagerly. "It's not too far—as if that makes any difference. Come on and I'll show you. It's very nice. Looks out over the whole city— all of Yorkchester, anyway. It's a wonderful view."
"I'd like that," Laura said.
"We have to go back where the road forks," Michael said as they walked. "Then it's a straight gravel road with a big hothouse at the end of it. We turn right at the hothouse, and there it is."
"What on earth do they have a hothouse for?"
"You know that fungus-like ivy they have on most of the graves?" Laura nodded. "That's where they raise it. They raise some flowers too, in case you come unarmed."
He turned his head to look down at her. "I was thinking about flowers on graves. Isn't it the hell of a barbaric custom? Look at it logically. It wastes perfectly good flowers. They lie there and wither. Nobody should do that with flowers. And it doesn't mean anything to the dead."
"Yes it does," Laura said. "I like it when Marian and Carl leave flowers for me."
"Why? Does it make you feel that somebody remembers you?"
"No, it isn't that."
"Because they don't, you know, after a while. It becomes automatic, something done, like going to church."
"It isn't that," Laura said. "Oh, I suppose it is, a little, but I like flowers. I liked them when I was alive, and I like them now. They please me."
"They please me too, but there's nothing personal in it. Flowers on anybody else's grave please me as much as flowers on my own. I like flowers as flowers, not as symbols of loss. I know I'm generalizing and oversimplifying and, in general, talking like a college sophomore, but I'm also dead, and gestures toward the honoring of my body don't interest me these days. I'd just as soon they'd buried me with my bow and arrows and killed a horse over my grave. A dead horse on my grave would be fine. Distinctive. Be the first in your gang to get one."
"I saw a boy this morning—" Laura began, but Michael rode right over her.
"And my wife," he said delightedly. "Let them bury my wife with me. There's a useful gift to the departing warrior. Never mind the bloody flowers. Skip the bow and arrows and drag that damn horse away. I want my wife. Just drop her in with me and pat down the earth with a shovel. If you hear noises, it'll be us singing the duet from Aida." He grinned at Laura. "There's a personal gift. What do I want with flowers?"
"Your wife is beautiful," Laura said.
He wants to talk about her, she thought. He'd rather forget her altogether, but if he can't do that he'll talk to keep from thinking. I don't mind. I don't think I mind.
"Isn't she, though?" Michael said. There was a touch of grimness in his tone. "In many ways the ranking bitch of the Western world, but, by God, I loved to walk down the street with her. I have to admit that. We used to walk along with our arms around each other's waists—" He broke off the sentence and looked so long at Laura that she became a little nervous and was relieved when he spoke again.
"That's the nicest way of walking I know. Something secure and affectionate about it. Solid."
"I know," Laura said, thinking, I really do know, but I'll bet you don't believe it.
"Anyway," Michael said, "we were walking like that once and we saw ourselves reflected in a store window. I laughed, and she wanted to know why, and I said, 'I was just wondering, What's that bum doing with that good-looking broad?'"
"What did she say?" Laura asked.
"She said, 'I was just thinking the same thing.' We went on walking." Michael sighed. "I wish she hadn't murdered me. We got along well sometimes."
He began to whistle again as they walked along. The sound was high, so high that it would have been inaudible to a human ear. The tune was wailing and mournful, almost flagrantly so, and the total effect was of a heartbroken piccolo being parted forever from its bagpipe lover. But Michael seemed proud of it, and he whistled it contentedly all the way to the gravel path, and when he stopped it was to ask, "She really looked good?"
"Yes," Laura said. "She looked graceful. That's the only word that seems to fit."
"Graceful," Michael said thoughtfully. "It is a good word. Sums her up, in a way. She did everything gracefully."
"There are people like that," Laura said. "People who never look clumsy, no matter what they do. Everything is done just right, everything is said right. If they seemed conscious of it you'd feel better, because you could call them affected and say, 'Well, thank God I'm not like that.' But with these people it's completely natural, like a cat stretching."
She felt that she was stumbling and straining for words, but the sudden curiosity with which Michael was looking at her drove her on. It was like running downhill, arms spread wide, hoping not to fall but expecting it momentarily. She wanted Michael to understand.
"Sometimes you walk along the street and you see someone coming, somebody you know. He hasn't seen you yet, but you know he'll wave and smile and say something as soon as he sees you. And all at once, in the moment before he sees you, you think, I'm going to foul this up. I don't quite know how, but I'm going to. I can hardly wait to see how I do it. Will I stop and stick out my hand when he expects me to wave and pass by, and will we stand there, a little island of embarrassment in the middle of the street, with people jostling us and our hands sticky? Will I let go of his hand before he is ready to let go of mine, or will it be the other way around? What will I say when he calls, 'How's it going?' Will I just grunt like an idiot, or will I stop and tell him? Am I brave enough to walk on and pretend I don't see him? What terrible thing is going to happen in the next five seconds? . . . So you wait five seconds and find out."
That was pretty good, she thought. I never said it that way when I was alive. And he's looking at me and thinking about it. Maybe it was worth saying.
Two white butterflies danced across the path with the rambling abandon of ribbons in the wind. They spun around each other, like a double star, broke apart, and fled away down the gravel path, one close behind the other.
"Anyway, that doesn't ever happen to the graceful people," she said. "I don't know why, but it doesn't. Maybe it's due to a gene or a lack of one."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Michael said, and she gasped with shock. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself! I never do. That's one of the things I learned very early—it's useless to feel sorry for yourself, and it's ugly besides. I haven't pitied myself in years."
"All right," Michael. "Keep up the good work."
His calm amusement angered her. "And I don't hang on to things—life or people or objects or anything. I told you that once. I let things go. It might do you a lot of good."
"Maybe," Michael said. "That's where we differ. What I love I hang on to. With both hands, and my teeth, if I can get a good grip."
"Even if it doesn't love you?" Laura demanded.
"Even then. Especially then. Anybody can love something that loves you back. The other way takes a certain amount of effort."