Jack (Gilead #4)(20)
He laughed.
“Don’t laugh!”
He said, “I apologize. That was terribly insensitive.”
They laughed.
She said, “I actually am full of rage. Wrath. I think I feel a little like God must feel the second before He just gives up and rains brimstone. I’ve heard people blame Him for that! I don’t blame Him. I can imagine the satisfaction. I have to wonder when that last exasperation will come and I burst into flames. Nothing in particular, everything in general, plus one more thing, maybe one very tiny thing. Whoosh.”
“Really?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
“Not a bit. You’ve actually scared me.”
“Don’t worry too much. All my life I’ve been a perfect Christian lady. It’s nothing I can help, I guess. Something to be grateful for, really. It makes my mother happy. I plan to keep on with it.”
They were quiet for a while, and then she said, “Sometimes I shut myself in my room and throw myself down on my bed and I just let it run through me. All that wrath. In every bone in my body. Then it seems to sort of wear itself out and I can go for a walk or something. But it never goes away.” And then she said, “You’re very quiet.”
“Yes. I’m just thinking of the major exasperations I’ve added to the list. I’ll spend the next month adding up the minor ones. The ones that seem minor to me. I’m no judge, of course.”
She said, “I don’t think of it as a list. It’s more like a mass, a weight. You know, when a cloud gets very heavy, and it begins to have its own life. It begins stirring inside itself, growling, making lightning. Maybe it was only one raindrop that changed it from a plain old gray cloud no one would ever notice. Just a handful of droplets would make the difference. Somebody’s breath rising up, somebody saying something mean, telling some vicious tale.” Her voice was very soft.
He said, “From now on I’m going to be so careful.”
“Bring me my book.”
“Oh, lady! I will do it as soon as humanly possible!”
She laughed. “I don’t really believe that. It doesn’t much matter. You’ve probably made a mess of it, anyway.” She turned her face away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you all that. I can’t talk about being mad without—being mad. But I’m all right now.”
“Well, I guess we have one thing in common.”
“What? What do we have in common?”
He was quiet. He had meant something so anodyne he was a little relieved at not having to go on. We are not as we appear. The Christian lady and the harmless man. The Prince of Darkness and the vial of divine wrath. There was some truth in it.
A night can seem endless, he thought. Insects going about their lives, very intent. Why all the chirping? His father saw him once with a mayonnaise jar with some grass in it and a caterpillar, holes punched in the lid in the approved style. He actually did plan to put water in, too, to watch for bubbles, since he had been wondering if caterpillars actually breathed. But he hadn’t made the experiment yet. His father stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking off at the trees. “The creatures do want their lives,” he remarked. “The ugliest little one of them. People don’t notice it sometimes, but it’s true.” Yes, it is. Such lives. All that purpose. Always on their way somewhere. You had to admire. Maybe a chirp meant “I exist!” and then “I exist!,” as if it could matter. But it must, since they all do it.
There wasn’t much wrong with her book. It shouldn’t have spent so much time in his pocket. They call it foxing, when a book gets that worn look. He’d almost thought of selling it once. Really he was just making conversation with the clerk in a bookstore, one day when he felt like talking to someone. He hadn’t really meant to sell it, and the clerk hadn’t come up with a decent price, which was fortunate, considering. For a while he thought he might wander past her doorstep sometime, so he had kept it with him. But after he got that cut, that scar, he knew he never would. Here she was, and he didn’t have a word to say to her.
Finally she said, “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about bugs.”
“The gangster? The bunny?”
“Insects. Did you ever watch a spider swim? They’re surprisingly good at it. I mean, I was surprised.”
She shook her head. “I guess I never noticed.” He thought, A spider isn’t an insect. He didn’t actually say that it was one, but that’s how it must have sounded. She said, “You’re the first person I ever spoke to about that. That rage. You’re the only one. You’ll probably be the last one, too.”
What is it people say? “Would you like to talk about it? You might feel better—”
“No, I wouldn’t. And I don’t. I’m sorry. It’s nothing to do with you. I suppose it’s just the night and the tombstones.” She stood up, and she began walking down the hill toward the lake. He watched her go until he could discern her, just. A gentle disturbance in the darkness, a warmer darkness where she was. That plum coat. She might be walking away from him, weary of him. He thought he might as well follow. What could it matter? At the first hint that he was not welcome, he would step away. Actually, it would be the second hint, if her walking away was the first. A little injury to his pride, no matter. But she must have heard his footsteps in the grass, because she paused till he was beside her, and she put her hand in the crook of his arm. They came to the edge of the water, shockingly cold and stony, and stood there together for a while, anyway, and then she said, “You have to be a little bit kind to yourself.”