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of men like you, you brutal fool," the old man said. "I ought to hurt you."
The halberd whistled and Big Charlie had to jump.
Little Charlie raised himself up, squinting and rubbing his head. "Somebody
oughta whip that kid, he's a damn sonembitch."
Louie came running down the street, shouting and waving a large knife. "You
let them alone, Gilford Forbes! It's just their way."
"The hell, Louie, nobody drags women off like that, not in my sight. This is
the civilized world, and if you don't like that, you can damn well move to
South
Africa or someplace."
"Come on, Mother, it's time to go."
The tension between Louie and Gilford Forbes seemed ready to erupt into a
battle. Cindy was not sure what would happen if the spindly old man actually
began to use the halberd, which was obviously as sharp as a razor. She wasted
no
time following Kevin, who was already on his way back to Forbes's house.
Forbes backed up, marching like a spider, rather than turn away from the other
men.
The house was an old one, really no more than a cottage, with a wooden porch
populated by an ancient swing and choked in the tendrils of what in spring and
summer must be a laurel. Beyond the front door was a living room full of bulky
furniture, overstuffed chairs, a large and complicated Wurlitzer organ, and on
the walls prints of familiar Impressionists: Van Gogh's Starry Night, Renoir's
Bathers, and four or five others. They added an altogether incongruous note of
intense cheer to an otherwise drably comfortable scene.
"Please make yourself at home, Kevin's mother," Forbes said. He bowed. "The
altogether estimable mother of a most remarkable young boy." He smiled, his
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cadaverous face cracking into a grin so wide that it seemed about to cause his
lower jaw to disengage itself and flop down along his neck. "I am Gilford
Forbes, former don at Christ Church College, Oxford, former tutor at
Harvard alas, all very former. Presently Kevin and I are engaged in setting
ponderous poetry to light music and light poetry to ponderous music. An
interesting exercise, Pound's Cantos chanted to the tune of 'A Rock and Roll
Waltz' and the works of Rod McKuen intoned to Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.
Your screams did not fit, and I must apologize to you "
Kevin rushed forward and hugged her.
Gilford Forbes smiled a little nervously. Kevin glanced just sharply enough at
Cindy to communicate the message that he had kept his father a secret from
this man. The boy must already have told the old man some story some lie that
explained their presence here in Olana.
"A broken life," Kevin murmured sadly. His face was grave. Cindy saw again the
stoniness that more and more often appeared in his eyes.
She nodded. "That ends at Parma Lunch."
"You'll get back on your feet. You're young!" There was an extended silence
after the old man's remark. "It's cold," he added. "Would anyone care for
tea?"
Wordlessly, Kevin went with him into his tiny kitchen. "Where did you get this
Darjeeling?" she heard her son ask.
"In Toronto. I've also some scones. Your mother might like one."
"She hardly eats anything."
The man did not answer. Cindy sat in an old Morris chair. This was an
extraordinarily comfortable room. The wood stove crinkled softly, beads of
snow tapped against the window. Beyond it, in the darkening afternoon, the
sinister little town seemed about to settle into the woods that surrounded it.
Nothing moved in the street, no car, no pedestrian, not even a wandering dog.
Idly, Cindy picked up a magazine, a literary journal called Prometheus. Bob
had bought it from time to time, and the look of it brought back memories. She
glanced through it, impressed mainly by the beautiful printing and layout.
Then she saw a poem by Gilford Forbes.
The snow trumpets silently down, Hurrying the shadows in
The terrible land, Enforcing the migration of bones, This snow, laboring with
the force
Of dangerous old laws.
The fire shuffled again, and the snow pinged on the window. Cindy realized
that in this moment she had come face-to-face with the mystery. It stood
revealed before her, as if a door had at last opened but only into endless
night.
Tears collected in her eyes. She could not look again at the magazine. Instead
she pushed it to the floor with her knuckles and wiped her hands on her dress.
A
tiredness akin almost to death stole over her, dropping around her shoulders
like a cloak of cold chain. She bowed her head, aware only as her glance
passed over it of a tiny cross hanging on the wall, a priest's black cross.
"So you see," Gilford Forbes said, "I'm broken, too." He put her cup of tea
into her hands. On the saucer there was a scone cut in two and buttered, and
it looked awfully tempting. "Before you, woman of the broken life, stands a
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