The October Country

“Don’t these people ever get lonely?”

“They’re used to it this way.”

“Don’t they get afraid, then?”

“They have a religion for that.”

“I wish I had a religion.”

“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking,” he said. “Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

“Tonight,” she said, faintly. “I’d like nothing more than to have no more room for new ideas, to stop thinking, to believe in one thing so much it leaves me no time to be afraid.”

“You’re not afraid,” he said.

“If I had a religion,” she said, ignoring him, “I’d have a lever with which to lift myself. But I haven’t a lever now and I don’t know how to lift myself.”

“Oh, for God’s—” he mumbled to himself, sitting down.

“I used to have a religion,” she said.

“Baptist.”

“No, that was when I was twelve. I got over that. I mean—later.”

“You never told me.”

“You should have known,” she said.

“What religion? Plaster saints in the sacristy? Any special special saint you liked to tell your beads to?”

“Yes.”

“And did he answer your prayers?”

“For a little while. Lately, no, never. Never any more. Not for years now. But I keep praying.”

“Which saint is this?”

“Saint Joseph.”

“Saint Joseph.” He got up and poured himself a glass of water from the glass pitcher, and it was a lonely trickling sound in the room. “My name.”

“Coincidence,” she said.

They looked at one another for a few moments.

He looked away. “Plaster saints,” he said, drinking the water down.

After a while she said, “Joseph?” He said, “Yes?” and she said, “Come hold my hand, will you?” “Women,” he sighed. He came and held her hand. After a minute she drew her hand away, hid it under the blanket, leaving his hand empty behind. With her eyes closed she trembled the words, “Never mind. It’s not as nice as I can imagine it. It’s really nice the way I can make you hold my hand in my mind.” “Gods,” he said, and went into the bathroom. She turned off the light. Only the small crack of light under the bathroom door showed. She listened to her heart. It beat one hundred and fifty times a minute, steadily, and the little whining tremor was still in her marrow, as if each bone of her body had a blue-bottle fly imprisoned in it, hovering, buzzing, shaking, quivering deep, deep, deep. Her eyes reversed into herself, to watch the secret heart of herself pounding itself to pieces against the side of her chest.

Water ran in the bathroom. She heard him washing his teeth.

“Joseph!”

“Yes,” he said, behind the shut door.

“Come here.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to promise me something, please, oh, please.”

“What is it?”

“Open the door, first.”

“What is it?” he demanded, behind the closed door.

“Promise me,” she said, and stopped.

“Promise you what?” he asked, after a long pause.

“Promise me,” she said, and couldn’t go on. She lay there. He said nothing. She heard the watch and her heart pounding together. A lantern creaked on the hotel exterior. “Promise me, if anything—happens,” she heard herself say, muffled and paralyzed, as if she were on one of the surrounding hills talking at him from the distance, “—if anything happens to me, you won’t let me be buried here in the graveyard over those terrible catacombs!”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said, behind the door.

“Promise me?” she said, eyes wide in the dark.

“Of all the foolish things to talk about.”

“Promise, please promise?”

“You’ll be all right in the morning,” he said.

“Promise so I can sleep. I can sleep if only you’d say you wouldn’t let me be put there. I don’t want to be put there.”

“Honestly,” he said, out of patience.

“Please,” she said.

“Why should I promise anything so ridiculous?” he said. “You’ll be fine tomorrow. And besides, if you died, you’d look very pretty in the catacomb standing between Mr. Grimace and Mr. Gape, with a sprig of morning-glory in your hair.” And he laughed sincerely.

Silence. She lay there in the dark.

“Don’t you think you’ll look pretty there?” he asked, laughingly, behind the door.

She said nothing in the dark room.