Looks right through us. Watches TV and knows what people are going to say next. Not only gets it right but does their voices."
"She came here how long after Scott?"
"Maybe five years after. She does their voices with a trueness that's startling. That's our Karen."
Brita lay nearly flat in the long tub, hearing someone chopping wood just below the window. Steam rose up around her. First the crack of the ax, then the soft topple of split logs. She felt a small dim misery stealing through her and wasn't sure what it meant. If there was any day in her recent working life that might be called special, this was it. Not that she thought any longer of building a career. She had no career, only writers hunched in chairs from here to China. There was little income and only passing public mention of the scheme. Pictures of most of the writers would appear exactly nowhere, others in obscure journals and directories. She was the person who traveled compulsively to photograph the unknown, the untranslated, the inaccessible, the politically suspect, the hunted, the silenced. So it was a form of validation, a rosy endorsement, when a writer like Bill offered to pose for her. Then why this strange off-balance mood? She ran more hot water. She knew it was him down there, breathing hard, chanting with the effort. First the crack, then the soft topple. Keep a distance. He is on some rocking edge. The temperature of the bath was perfect now, almost too hot to bear. She felt sweat break out on her face and she moved more deeply in. Isn't this why picture-taking is so ceremonial? Steam hung in the room. The heat was profound, deep-going and dulling and close to stopping the heart. She knew he was strong, saw it in his hands and girth, that dockworker's density of body. She reached for a towel and wiped her face and after a while she stepped out of the tub and went to the window, using the towel to rub vapor off the glass at face level. How could she keep a distance if she'd already taken his picture? This was the partnership, the little misery. Bill was tossing split logs toward the corded wood set under a sagging canopy at the side of the house. The announcement of my dying. She had to rub away vapor several times, standing by the window looking down.
Bill raised his glass.
"This place feels like home tonight. There's a wholeness, isn't there? A sense of extension and completion. And we all know why. Here's to guests and what they mean to civilization."
He drank and coughed.
He said, "It's interesting how 'guest' and 'host' are words that intertwine. The etymologies are curious. Converging, mixing, reciprocating. Like the human groupings marked by the words. Guests bring ideas from outside."
Scott sat facing Brita and spoke to her even when his remarks were meant for Bill.
"I don't think she considers herself a guest in the true sense. She came to work."
"Damn strange work. Quixotic as hell. But I think I admire her."
"You admire her for doing work that often goes unseen. Work that describes a kind of mission, a dedication. Exactly what I've been urging you to do. Keep this book out of sight. Build on it. Use it to define an idea, a principle. "
"What principle?" Brita said.
"That the withheld work of art is the only eloquence left."
"This lamb is very nice," Bill said.
Karen came back from the kitchen with bread on a cutting board.
Scott looked at Brita.
"Art floats by all the time, part of the common bloat. But if he withholds the book. If he keeps the book in typescript and lets it take on heat and light. This is how he renews his claim to wide attention. Book and writer are now inseparable."
"Excuse me but it stinks," Brita said.
"He knows I'm right. What puts him on edge is not when I argue with him but when I agree with him. When I bring his little wishes dancing to the surface."
Bill kept a bottle of Irish whiskey flush against the right rear leg of his chair and he reached down for it now and refilled his wineglass.
He said, "We want to have a dinner with a theme. We're four of us tonight. Four is the first square. Foursquare. But we also have a roundness, a rounding-out. Three plus one. And it happens that we're halfway through April, or month number four."
"We were almost five," Scott said. "A woman tried to give me a baby yesterday. She took it out of her coat. A little thing only hours old."
He was staring at Brita.
"Why didn't you take it?" Karen said.
"Because I was on my way to meet Brita at a hotel where babies are not allowed. They have baby detectors at every door. They escort babies to the street."
"We could have found a place for it even if we didn't keep it ourselves. You should have taken it. How could you not take it?"
"People have always given away their babies. It's old stuff. I more or less suspect that I was given away. It explains so much," Scott said.
"My mother used to talk about God's compensation," Brita said. "When her heart began to fail, her rheumatism seemed to ease up. This was her idea of some almighty balance. I wonder about God's compensation for babies that are given away in the street or left in the garbage or thrown out the window."
Karen was talking to Scott about a road sign she'd seen on a walk that morning.
"Because I feel someone owes me something every time this happens," Brita said, "but who can it be if there is no God?"
Scott said, "Karen believes. Bill says he believes but we're not convinced."
"Our theme is four," Bill said. "In many ancient languages, God's name has four letters."
Brita poured more wine for herself and Scott.
"I don't like not believing. I'm not at peace with it. I take comfort when others believe."
"Karen thinks God is here. Like walkin' and talkin'."
"I want others to believe, you see. Many believers everywhere. I feel the enormous importance of this. When I was in Catania and saw hundreds of running men pulling a saint on a float through the streets, absolutely running. When I saw people crawl for miles on their knees in Mexico City on the Day of the Virgin, leaving blood on the basilica steps and then joining the crowd inside, the crush, so many people that there was no air. Always blood. The Day of Blood in Teheran. I need these people to believe for me. I cling to believers. Many, everywhere. Without them, the planet goes cold."
Bill spoke into his plate.
"Did I say how much I like this lamb?"
"Then eat it," Scott said.
"You're not eating it," Karen said.
"I thought I was supposed to look at it. You mean actually eat. As in the dictionary definition."
The dining room was small, with unmatched chairs around an oblong table, and there was a fire going in the old brick chimney corner.
"Do you want me to cut it for you?" Karen said.
Scott was still looking at Brita.
"If it's believers you want, Karen is your person. Unconditional belief. The messiah is here on earth."
"Because I feel someone owes me something every time this happens," Brita said, "but who can it be if there is no God?"
Scott said, "Karen believes. Bill says he believes but we're not convinced."
"Our theme is four," Bill said. "In many ancient languages, God's name has four letters."
Brita poured more wine for herself and Scott.
"I don't like not believing. I'm not at peace with it. I take comfort when others believe."
"Karen thinks God is here. Like walkin' and talkin'."
"I want others to believe, you see. Many believers everywhere. I feel the enormous importance of this. When I was in Catania and saw hundreds of running men pulling a saint on a float through the streets, absolutely running. When I saw people crawl for miles on their knees in Mexico City on the Day of the Virgin, leaving blood on the basilica steps and then joining the crowd inside, the crush, so many people that there was no air. Always blood. The Day of Blood in Teheran. I need these people to believe for me. I cling to believers. Many, everywhere. Without them, the planet goes cold."