Open the door for these men, she said.
Chamlay and Furber filed out, immediately putting their hats on their heads and drawing deep shuddering breaths. The door shut behind them with Amos coughing.
The air had a nip now though the snow had ceased and flakes were melting on the ground. The sky seemed, if possible, even nearer. Through the bare trees they could see the calm Ohio. Chamlay stood some moments in the yard, Furber quietly beside him until he took to shivering. Then they rode off. Now and then a crisp breeze felt its way through the woods from the river. They left the path and had gone a little on the road when Chamlay sighed. His face had cooled and the determination of his body eased. He spoke out of deep thought, as though alone. Did you ever see, he began, breaking his question suddenly as Furber turned to study him. No, Furber finally answered when he thought he understood, I never did; though he lied, since he knew one other time he had.
7
When Omensetter shook the door with pounding, the Reverend Furber shouted no, and drove his fists together. It was six in the evening, he was in his nightshirt yet, his voice was hoarse, and his eyes were badly puffed. All day he'd thrashed about and wept and yelled at Pike. Now he sat in the dark, mooning dimly, cursing his tears and knotting his bedclothes. The room was cold. The coals in the grate had thick covers of ash, and moisture had frozen on the windows. He'd risen early, in the grip of a dream, and stumbled to the vestry where Flack had begun his sweeping. You've been telling people things about me, he'd said bluntly. The colored man had clung to his broom while Furber cruelly accused him. You know all about me. You've given me away. Moments later, Furber had tried to drown himself in a basin. Of course it was an act, another futile gesture, and he'd flung the basin the length of the hall — carrying it carefully from his room first, so as not to wet his belongings. Back on his bed he hammered the wall, wailing and weeping. It was true that the day had passed quite quickly, yet he didn't think he'd snoozed. He'd been in a genuine delirium, then, and he took some comfort from the momentousness of that conclusion. Out he was hardly prepared for the pounding which suddenly assailed him — pounding not his own — from without, not within — repeated, thunderous, imperative. The lummox is here, he thought, and he drove his fists at one another so viciously his knuckles skinned.
I must see you, Omensetter said.
Furber almost laughed.
There's no light, no fire. I'm sitting in the dark.
He needn't have answered. Omensetter had no way of knowing he was there — unless Flack had given him away again. He was immediately ashamed. Flack came by his color honestly. The little Ngero would never have betrayed him. It was inconceivable. He had cared for the church when Rush was its master, and he had suffered without complaint through its terrible plague-time under Furber the Furious, Jethro the Pretender, always serving loyally and with equal love, Furber felt certain, though each day, lately, he had seemed to shrink a little, and to go about his work still more invisibly. During all this time, Furber had actually learned nothing about him; he had never taken the slightest trouble for him or shown the least real interest. The fellow had remained a servant, a Negro, a mystery. And why shouldn't he be a mystery? No one is simple, he was about to say, yet how would he know? What had the watchman seen on his rounds? Surfaces. Scatters. He'd kept everything at a word's length, and it was words he saw when he saw her — tight, and white, and shining; it was words he felt when his anger burned him, when he shook and wailed and struck about wildly. Out of the world he could safely take just the ravelings: the color of the bruise on his toe, for instance, or the isolated croak of a frog which surprises the afternoon, or the vision of an intense green slope where a ball coasts under a wicket. Though mankind was his hobby — so he'd often said — he knew nothing of men. Negro seemed more properly the name of a patent medicine, just as mankind, despite his study, was only a compound joke to him. Furber ached, for a change, from the blow he had struck the friend of his church, but there was no help for it now, and he would not bandage either wound by begging for forgiveness. In one way Gilean was more punished than Egypt, he thought, since Egypt was never visited by a plague of lies.
I have to see you, Omensetter said.
What can I do now, Furber thought, pushing himself to the edge of the bed. I'm not all dressed, he said.
He was worn out, defeated. His head buzzed. His feelings were shredded, and he was shaking badly — out and in. He knew he must look a sight. The last few days he had grown increasingly careless. He had refused to shave. He had howled for Pike and got no answer. Incredulous, he had walked around his clock in the garden. Sunday would come soon. There'd be no sermon. He watched the snow whistle through the gate and sink in the Ohio. Since he was done for in Gilean— done for everywhere in that case — Furber wondered why Omensetter could not leave him alone.
What do you want?
I want to speak to you, but I can't shout through this door.
It's late.
I know it's late. There's time enough, though. It's important.
I haven't had my dinner.
Omensetter rattled the knob.
All his speeches… his beautiful barriers of words… He thrust a paper spill through the ashes and the room rolled in its flare. After these sounds, would the door come down? The bolt rattled at Omensetter's urging and Furber's hand shook. Wrinkles appeared in the wallpaper; the walls themselves seemed to waver; corners of the room crumpled; the ceiling swooped; there were bats on his pillow. It took a certain sort to undertake such banging — just the sort of loud muscling oaf he was. If he let him in… then there he'd be, filling the door, huge, breathing heavily, the edges of his fists red, lips wet, body rocking, every bit as real as — as what? the bats on his pillow? the chasm yawning by his bed? the hungry holes in the wall? As the lamp lit, the room grew; its objects steadied. Furber dropped a smoking fragment of paper. He gently mooed and blew upon his fingers. The comedy is finished. The floor was icy.
Coming — take it gently — coming, coming…
Hoo. Relief and fright at silence. To mortify the flesh, Furber heeled the ash, then sought his slippers. There was no harm done. He needed a nightcap to go with his nightgown. Then he thought he knew how he felt like someone facing execution.
Coming…
It was true. He was too exhausted to contain any greater emotion. A night's grief, a night's waiting, and now the warden with his keys. Furber's head ached. Yes, his eyes were surely swollen. Pale, the prisoner from his cot… The gray wet wall of the garden.. forlorn ivy… dripping trees… Then scorn for the hankie blinding. Lift fist forward — defiant to the last. Cry death to truth and long live liars.
Bangedy bang.
You were in bed.
Omensetter gave him a sheepish grin and slapped snow from his shoulders.
That's what I said.
Then it's good I pounded.
Omensetter's hair was in a desperate tangle. His face was pale from exhaustion and filthy from the woods. Furred with a week's beard, it was deeply creased and there were lines of windburn across the cheeks. His clothing was badly picked and burred, pulled out and twisted on him, and he struck at his body repeatedly with his hands.
Furber retreated to a chair.
I've found him, Omensetter said.
Have a seat, said Furber weakly.
Omensetter advanced, buffeting his ears. I've found him.
You've—
Right. Boy. Yes I have. Ever seen weather so bad so early?
Henry?
Right. Whew. I haven't been in — I haven't been in to work much — what with hunting him.