Maria relaxed her hand and Daniel immediately hid behind Zhenya’s back. This left Maria almost disconsolate.
Quite a few people had already gathered in the graveyard. Maria smelled a faint odor of horses and even of gunpowder. The people holding lanterns appeared to be going to a temple fair. How could they exude such smells? Zhenya and Daniel vanished into the dark. Lisa said she was going into the army to find someone. She had Maria take her place on the grave mound to avoid missing anything. She walked away as she was speaking.
Now Maria sat alone by herself on the mound. Some small animal pushed underneath her foot. Oh, it was her African cat! The brown striped one. In the dim light she discovered that the cat’s claws were dripping. It was injured, with its right front paw almost cut off. It was unable to transmit electricity. Maria grew extremely anxious. She wanted to bring the cat back home to treat its wound, but she could not break her promise to Lisa. She waited helplessly for Lisa to appear. People were rushing around the graveyard; everywhere there were points of light. Another of Maria’s neighbors passed her, carrying a lantern. Maria called out to the old woman to stop:
“Karen, can you help me find Lisa? It’s urgent.”
“Ha, it’s Joe’s wife here.” Karen’s elderly face smiled. “How can you have time to sit here? It’s urgent for all of us, it’s life and death. We come to the last opportunity, the time is now!”
She raised the lantern to size up Maria’s face. Maria felt the old woman’s eyes like a hawk’s on her. She cowered in fear. And even though it was injured the cat struggled out of her arms. Maria was annoyed and gave the cat a slap. The cat didn’t move after that.
“Just give it up,” Karen’s mouth shriveled. “Who can find anyone on a night like this?”
The old woman walked far away, her back hunched. Maria saw seven or eight women curiously surrounding her to get a look. Probably her speaking with Karen had drawn them over.
“This is Joe’s wife? Oh my!”
“Poor Joe, gone and not returning.”
“He’s not stupid. He can figure things out for himself, that usurer.”
“He is a real pangolin!”
The women, heads close together, mouths to ears, dispersed again like a swarm of wasps.
A premonition grew in Maria’s heart. She felt that something had happened to Joe. What was it? Perhaps he would return home soon? Did he have a grave here too? Just at this moment, Lisa returned. She carried a yellow lantern on a pole. Far away there were joyful shouts:
“Maria! Maria, dear! Joe’s come back! Listen, listen!”
Lisa’s head and Maria’s were close together. They listened carefully. All the neighboring people were surely saying “Joe, Joe, Joe. .” Casting her eyes into the distance, Maria saw them squatting one by one on the grave mounds, placing their lanterns on the tombstones. The graveyard seemed vast and limitless. Lisa said that each one squatted on the grave of his or her “beloved.”
“I want to go back home, my cat is hurt,” Maria said.
Maria passed through the grave mounds hugging the cat. She still heard people saying “Joe, Joe, Joe. .” Warmth sprang from the desolate depths of her heart. She smelled a faint odor of tobacco and the rusty smell from the cables of the iron bridge.
“The forms of the long march are many and varied,” Lisa said, sitting in Maria’s flower garden.
Maria saw that Lisa’s spirits were roused, and she thought of the events of the night. She was distracted.
“Daniel! Daniel! Don’t trample your father’s books!” she stood and shouted.
Daniel’s voice carried down the stairs, muffled. His throat seemed to be squeezed by something. The study windows quivered. Maria sat back down in her chair, disappointed, and continued talking with Lisa about Daniel’s days at middle school. As they spoke a three-legged African cat jumped onto her knee. “Is this happiness or suffering? Is this happiness or suffering?. .” she repeated. The cat trembled nervously on her knee.
“There was a yellow butterfly,” she finally recalled. “At noon, Daniel came back from school. All around it was very quiet. But why did Joe return home at that time? I was staring at a yellow butterfly, my mind brimming with good fortune. Joe opened his mouth wide and called to me, but he couldn’t make a sound. He pointed to the blood running down on Daniel’s forehead. He looked crazed. The yellow butterfly spun in circles and stopped on the top of the stove. See, Lisa, having a son is such a troublesome business.”
While she was speaking, another cat, the yellow-and-white one, came over. Lisa felt her calf tingle, like an electric shock.
“So could the long march take place here?” Maria asked, hesitating.
“Of course. Daniel has already begun.”
That night Maria went to the study because she couldn’t sleep. Although she hadn’t turned on the light, she could see that Joe’s bookcases had turned into a dark forest of books. The books had grown large, one book set next to another vertically on the floor, the pages of the books opening and closing. She couldn’t feel the wall of the room, and so she didn’t know where the light was. Her voice was a little ghastly as she shouted: “Joe? Are you there?” Then she stopped shouting. She felt that Joe was nearby, sitting behind a book, beside a little stream. He had taken off his shoes and stretched his bare feet into the black water. Maria thought, Joe would not leave her again. How good. In the house built on the foundations made by her ancestors, she, Daniel, and Joe, this family, were starting their own long march. They were going to bring back to life those long-ago stories. This would be a fine thing! But she feared her husband’s body was forever disappearing from their home. Daniel, because he couldn’t find his father, was losing his way. It was Daniel who had pushed down all the bookcases. Was he also sitting behind a book now?
“Mother, I’m here.”
“Daniel, what do you think of this?”
“I’m truly happy, Mother. Soon we will reach the end of the bridge. Do you hear the roaring of the river?”
Maria couldn’t see Daniel, but she knew he was nearby. This mutual searching and pursuing in the nighttime sent a warm current through Maria’s heart. After so many years, she experienced for the first time the way blood kept relatives together. Maria touched the enormous book pages with a shaking finger. She touched one after another of the letters protruding from the pages, and those letters jumped slightly, giving off electricity. Suddenly she comprehended the book’s meaning. The book told of an ancient, deserted beach. Someone climbed onto the bank from the sea. Sea birds cried ominously in the air. “That man is Joe,” Maria spoke quietly. Then her finger touched the word “Joe.” “Joe, is it you?” she asked.
“Of course it’s Father. Why don’t you believe it?” Daniel spoke in the dark. “Touch it again, everything is inside that book.”
Next Maria touched the description having to do with her African cats. The book didn’t tell of her cats in the present, but rather of long ago when they were still in Africa. They had just been born then, and were two little kittens. The sun of the African continent irritated their eyes so they could not open them. But why did the light-brown cat have only three legs? It had lost its leg later, in the graveyard.
“It always had only three legs. You just hadn’t noticed,” Daniel spoke again.
“Daniel, can’t you come over here?”
“I can’t, Mother.”
Maria touched the surface of another book. This book had an illustration of small snakes. Her hand kept touching them, and the snakes began to slither. Maria feared the desire inside her body and circled around behind the book, her back to its spine. She thought, over several decades of uninterrupted reading, her Joe had created this forest. And he hadn’t removed her from it. Once she entered, she blended into this place. In the su su rustling sound made by the pages, a world of writing appeared in her mind. She realized that for many years everything she’d woven was this writing. So familiar, so pleasing — was this happiness? She began to walk from one book to another. Dry leaves made noise under her feet; her feet touched a few small stones; she even heard the song of a nightingale. It was inside the pages of the largest book, singing and then pausing.