“If he finds out about it, no,” she said, rising. “Shall we get the tables in?”
They went down to the garden, carried the tables between them, one after the other, into the shed, stood for a while beneath the stairs, both looking out. Javan put his arm around her waist. The sunlight had left the trees now, the whole of the valley lay in shadow, but it still shone on the mountains on the other side and on the clouds in the sky above that looked as though they were on fire.
“Shall we turn in as well?” asked Javan.
“You go,” said Anna. “I’ll sit up a bit.”
“Are you worried about Rachel?” he asked. “She’ll manage.”
“I know,” she said. “Good night, then.”
She kissed his brow, he stroked her back a few times, and then he went in.
She waited until she heard he was upstairs, then went to fetch a shawl from the living room, wrapped it round her shoulders, and seated herself in the chair on the veranda.
For one brief moment she’d considered going up to the old ruin and sitting there, like she’d done when she was growing up and needed to be alone. Perhaps it was Rachel who’d given her the idea.
But it was more comfortable sitting here.
What strength must have filled her! To run half a mile just to be alone for a bit!
A movement in the forest on the other side of the horse pasture made her turn her head. She knew what it was and sat stock-still so as not to scare them. They only came if there was no one outside the house, or if those who were there had sat very still for a long time. Once she’d counted eight of them.
This time there were three.
Three roe deer that raised their heads and stared across the land for a while until, reassured, they lowered them and began to graze.
Then all three looked up suddenly, and then ran. Three bounds, and they were swallowed up by the forest.
It must be Rachel coming, she thought, and walked to the end of the veranda for a better view.
There. Her figure was unmistakable. Tall and slender-limbed, quite unlike any of the other women in the family. And as lovely as the day.
She still hadn’t seen her mother, who’d sat down the better to observe her undisturbed for a few more seconds.
She played with something in her hands as she went, glancing sometimes into the forest, sometimes out across the field. It looked as though she were talking to herself. Or singing.
Anna sat quite still and listened.
Yes, she was singing.
She must find them coarse, Anna had often thought, lovely as she was. It didn’t take more than a glance to unsettle her. But her sensitivity was more of a curse than a blessing. It drove her away from them, away from everyone.
At this period, anyway. Beauty was hers, she had that, susceptibility too, but not joy. She, who was the only one who had real cause to be joyful, lacked it.
She stopped singing when she spied her mother.
“Are you sitting there watching me?” she said, but didn’t wait for an answer, just walked right past and into the kitchen.
Anna’s first impulse was to go after her. Talk to her. Perhaps find out what she got up to on these evenings. No, perhaps not, that wasn’t important. What was important was to talk.
But she didn’t do it.
Rachel is someone I must learn to leave in peace, she thought.
Anna kept an extra eye on Lamech over the next few days. The incident at the funeral had made her uneasy, she was fearful that he had quietly begun to lose his reason, and that the delusion that had made him go up to the roof and round the house, while the guests sat and watched him, was just the first visible sign of a destructive power that had been at work inside him for a long time, rather like ants, she thought: when you discover them it’s already too late.
But she noticed nothing unusual. He came down a little after the others had got up, which was his habit now that he no longer worked, took plenty of time over his food, went out to the shed in the mornings and did some work on a cupboard he was making, came in for dinner, strolled up to the old mill by the river in the afternoons, and went early to bed. When she talked to him, she made sure she put in some references to her mother, but to judge from his reactions it was obvious that he was fully aware she was dead.
Everything was as it should be with him. He was thriving in his new, work-free existence, which had also begun to set its stamp on his physique: not that he was getting fat, he was still tall and slim, but he had developed a small potbelly, and his back, which had always been like a ramrod, had begun to stoop a bit in recent years. He’d released that viselike grip he’d had on himself all his life, and it was easy to see that letting himself go was doing him good.
Some weeks had passed, and the event at Obal’s funeral was, if not forgotten, at least not present in their thoughts, when it suddenly happened again.
The day’s work was over, it was early evening and Anna was in the orchard picking cherries with her father. Not in any organized way, they were just going to fill a couple of bowls to take indoors, tasting the fruit as they worked. It was one of Anna’s favorite occupations. The black, juicy fruits, the dizzying feeling of being whisked back to her childhood as the flavor spread in her mouth. The droning of the bees, the warm evening sun in her face, the old house resting on its grassy bank above them.
Her father’s lips were bluish black with cherry juice as he turned toward her.
“I saw a man on the roof when I arrived this morning,” he said. “Who was he?”
Anna shot him a quick glance.
His face betrayed no signs of anything being wrong. He was looking at her in the way one does when expecting an answer to a question that has just been asked. A certain absentminded anticipation in his eyes, his lips slightly parted.
She’d planned what to do if the thing recurred. It would be best not to resist, she’d decided, just go along with him. See where it led.
So she shrugged her shoulders and turned to the tree again.
“I’ve no idea,” she said.
“I’d better go up and take a look myself, then,” he said.
He fetched the ladder as before, climbed up onto the roof, looked around a bit, and finally leaned against the chimney looking out.
It cut her to the heart to see him standing there.
Suddenly it was as if he’d caught sight of something. He looked steadfastly down toward the grove of trees by the river.
She knew there was no one there but thought that perhaps someone was going down to bathe. Rachel or the twins or people from one of the neighboring farms.
From his movements, which all at once had become less inquisitive and more resolute, she realized that he’d made a decision about something. He climbed down, hung the ladder on the outhouse wall, came walking toward the house, stopped at the corner of it, and stared toward the old tree in the farmyard.
She followed his gaze. The place was empty.
When she looked up again, he’d set off for the gate to the horse pasture. She put down her bowl and followed him. She ran some of the way so that she was only a few yards behind him when he reached the river.
There he stopped and looked around.
He brought one hand up to his mouth.
“Come along, girls!” he sang. “Come along, girls!”
Even though she knew that the cows were grazing at the other end of the farm, she still looked around.
After a while Lamech turned and began to walk up toward the house again.
Anna, who’d taken a few paces to the side, and stood out of sight of the path, followed him. He’d got lost in his own memories, but no matter how sad it made her to see him like this, there was nothing she could say or do to help him. It was all happening inside him.
As she came out of the grove and saw her father go through the open gate ahead of her, her thoughts turned again to what he’d said. I saw a man on the roof when I arrived this morning.