They sat talking peacefully before dinner. He said she probably needed to get more sleep. She was waiting for the oven to heat, but had forgotten to turn it on.
At dinner, he pointed out that the soy sauce had also spotted the apples in the fruit bowl and the lamp over the dining table. He went on to remind her of the toilet seat she had broken. It was an expensive red Swedish toilet seat. The lid had slipped out of her hand and dropped, cracking the seat. He had immediately taken the whole thing off and replaced it with a green one.
He had also replaced the plastic sheeting over the door to the deck because it had shattered when she left the door open in the cold. Then for the second time she disengaged the connection of a wire over the bedroom door. As he stood on a chair fixing it, she asked him if she could hold the light for him, but he said No, just don’t slam the door anymore when you get mad.
The most recent thing was that she took a roll of photographs with no film in the camera, though this did not cost them any money or cause any damage, except for the baby’s weariness in its many poses and her regret for the lost pictures, so many of which she remembered clearly, the last being a shot of an oil barge with a tugboat coming up the creek through the first winter ice toward her where she stood at the window, beginning to realize there was no film in the camera.
Working Men
Now that we are living out here in the country the only people we see are working men who come to do jobs for us. They are independent and self-reliant, and they start work early in the day and they work hard without stopping. Last week it was Bill Bray, to install the washing machine. Next week it will be Jay Knickerbocker, to tear off the front of the porch. Today it is Tom Tatt. Tom Tatt is supposed to come disconnect some wires for us. Where is he? Early in the morning we stand in the kitchen together. Where is Tom Tatt? We walk outdoors. Here in the early sunshine is Tom Tatt. He has already finished the job, and is snubbing the cut ends of wire with little black snubs.
In a Northern Country
Magin was over seventy and not well. His right leg was lame and his lungs were weak. If his wife had been alive, she would not have let him go. As it was, his friends had told him to stay at home and wait for his brother Michael to come back. Yet he had never listened to anyone but his wife, and now he did not listen to anyone.
He was close to Silit, if the maps of the Trsk Land Office were correct. He had walked since early morning, very slowly, and his feet were sore. Just at noon, he came within sight of the town. His brother’s postcard had been sent from here. Karsovy, therefore, should be only a few miles to the north.
He set down his bag on the snow and rubbed his cramped fingers. He looked up at Silit: the street was lined by narrow houses with shuttered windows. Many of the roofs had fallen in and tumbled over the doorsills. Down by the well at the end of the street, under a couple of pine trees, he saw two old women knitting on a bench. He picked up his bag and walked to them and they stopped knitting to stare at him.
Until he shouted his question, they did not understand him. Then one of them opened her mouth and pointed wordlessly across the street.
In the shadow of the eaves, a man sat combing his brown beard with a broken comb. His eyes were on Magin. A roofless car was parked in the lane beside him.
Magin crossed the street. “Can you take me to Karsovy?” he asked in Trsk. The man stopped moving.
“There’s no such place,” he said.
“There must be,” said Magin. He pulled out the creased postcard from his brother and started to thrust it at the man.
“There is not. You are mistaken.”
Magin dropped his bag and shook his fist in the man’s face, crumpling the postcard. He would not argue. “I am not mistaken,” he shouted. His voice broke.
The man was startled. “Well,” he said, spitting on his palm and rubbing his boot with it, “I don’t often go there.”
Magin was trembling with anger and the blood at his temples throbbed. “How much?” he asked.
“I’ll take fifty,” the man said. Magin drew a purse from his back pocket and laid two coins on the man’s palm.
Magin picked up his bag and followed the man to the car. The man pulled himself up into the driver’s seat, looking straight ahead. Magin hoisted his bag onto the back seat and climbed in beside it. When he sat down, the springs gave way so far that he came to rest on something that felt like an iron rod. He did not move.
The engine turned over and the car jerked forward and threw Magin against the back of the seat. The car skidded into the snowy ruts of the road. Magin lurched from side to side as the trees veered at him around the bends of the road. Two doves flapped away as the car passed them
The driver’s hostility bewildered Magin. As an hour passed in the monotonous woods, he grew more and more uneasy. His search might be hopeless. There had been no word from his brother for weeks. And there was the question of how long he himself would last. “This is crazy,” he said to himself suddenly. “Here I am with one foot in the grave, in a north country winter, and I expect something to come of it. Mary would have laughed.” He pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his chin.
At last they reached Karsovy. As they drew up into a large clearing, Magin saw women in black crossing the drifts like shadows. Men crouched in front of their doorways.
Magin climbed down with his bag and rested against the car door. He looked up and saw that several people had gathered and were watching him. The women inched forward: their eyes flew from his face to his bag, but not a word passed their lips. Magin searched among the stony-faced men for the leader of the village, and the people became uneasy. They were puzzled by him.
“What?” said Magin to the driver, who had not moved from his seat. “What are they waiting for? Why are they staring at me? Why don’t they say anything?”
“Why should they say anything?” the driver said finally. “Anyway, you wouldn’t understand them. No one understands them. They don’t even know how to speak Trsk.” He smacked the wheel. “I brought another old man like you out this way. That was months ago and no one’s heard of him since.” He spat in the snow and glanced at the villagers with contempt. Before Magin could speak, he leaned on the horn, turned the car, and drove back into the woods.
Magin wondered what to do. One by one the villagers turned and went away, glancing back over their shoulders and stopping in mid-step to stare at him again. Two women stayed behind. One was old, thin, and shabbily dressed. The other was younger, and more muscular. The old one started forward, tightening her kerchief and opening her toothless mouth in a smile. The other one caught her by the sleeve.
“Ninininini,” the old one said, her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and her eyes glimmered from under the brow of her kerchief. She pulled away from the younger one and started forward again. The younger one cuffed her lightly on the shoulder and hissed at her. The old one turned and spat, and then walked away, her skirt trailing over the snow behind her.
The younger woman motioned to Magin to follow her. They turned up a small path, Magin favoring one leg. Under the trees he felt the cold close in on him like a vise. He coughed. His breath rattled in his throat.
The path wound among the stone huts. Heavily-furred dogs lay before many of the doors and growled as Magin and the woman went by. At the end of the path lay the woman’s hut. With one hand on the latch, she took a quick look back at Magin. Standing next to her, he caught a whiff of her fetid clothes. She opened the door and Magin followed her blindly. He was assaulted by the smell of unwashed linen. Slowly the air came in from the outside and he breathed more easily.