Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2

‘They do if they must,’ he said.

‘But why?’

‘Maybe we can find out, if we talk.’

‘About what, what?!’

‘About why you’re here. If we talk long enough, we may know. I know why I’m here, of course. I heard you crying.’

‘Oh, I’m so ashamed.’

‘Don’t be. Why are people ashamed of tears? I cry often. Then I start laughing. But the crying must come first. Go ahead.’

‘What a strange man you are.’

Her hand fell away from her hair. Her other hand moved away so her face was illuminated by a small and growing curiosity.

‘I thought I was the only one who knew about crying,’ she said.

‘Everyone thinks that. It’s one of those little secrets we keep from each other. Show me a serious man and I’ll show you a man who has never wept. Show me a madman and I’ll show you a man who dried his tears a long time ago. Go ahead.’

‘I think I’m done,’ she said.

‘Any time, start over.’

She burst out a tiny laugh. ‘Oh, you are strange. Who are you?’

‘We’ll come to that.’

She peered across the lawn at his hands, his face, his mouth, and then at his eyes.

‘Oh, I know you. But from where?!’

‘That would spoil it. You wouldn’t believe, anyway.’

‘I would!’

Now it was his turn to laugh quietly. ‘You’re very young.’

‘No, nineteen! Ancient!’

‘Girls, by the time they go from twelve to nineteen, are full of years, yes. I don’t know; but it must be so. Now, please, why are you out here in the middle of the night?’

‘I—’ She shut her eyes to think in on it. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘Yes?’

‘And I’m sad.’

‘It’s the waiting that makes you sad, yes?’

‘I think, no, yes, no.’

‘And you don’t quite know what you’re waiting for?’

‘Oh, I wish I could be sure. All of me’s waiting. I don’t know, all of me. I don’t understand. I’m impossible!’

‘No, you’re everyone that ever grew up too fast and wanted too much. I think girls, women, like you have slipped out at night since time began. If it wasn’t here in Green Town, it was in Cairo or Alexandria or Rome or Paris in summer, anywhere there was a private place and late hours and no one to see, so they just rose up and out, as if someone had called their name—’

‘I was called, yes! That’s it! Someone did call my name! It’s true. How did you know? Was it you!’

‘No. But someone we both know. You’ll know his name when you go back to bed tonight, wherever that is.’

‘Why, in that house, behind you,’ she said. ‘That’s my house. I was born in it.’

‘Well’ – he laughed—‘so was I.’

‘You? How can that be? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Anyway, you heard someone calling. You had to come out—’

‘I did. Many nights now. But, always, no one’s here. They must be there, or why would I hear them?’

‘One day there’ll be someone to fit the voice.’

‘Oh, don’t joke with me!’

‘I’m not. Believe. There will be. That’s what all those other women heard in other years and places, middle of summer, dead of winter, go out and risk cold, stand warm in snow banks, and listen and look for strange footprints on the midnight snow, and only an old dog trotting by, all smiles. Damn, damn.’

‘Oh, yes, damn, damn.’ And her smile showed for a moment, even as the moon came out of the clouds and went away. ‘Isn’t it silly?’

‘No. Men do the same. They take long walks when they’re sixteen, seventeen. They don’t stand on lawns, waiting, no. But, my God, how they walk! Miles and miles from midnight until dawn and come home exhausted and explode and die in bed.’

‘What a shame that those who stand and wait and those who walk all night can’t—’

‘Meet?’

‘Yes; don’t you think it’s a shame?’

‘They do, finally.’

‘Oh, no, I shall never meet anyone. I’m old and ugly and terrible and I don’t know how many nights I’ve heard that voice making me come here and there’s nothing and I just want to die.’

‘Oh, lovely young girl,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t die. The cavalry is on its way. You will be saved.’

There was such certainty in his voice that it made her glance up again, for she had been looking at her hands and her own soul in her hands.

‘You know, don’t you?’ she asked.