FIFTEEN

The train station where the man got off was as far as the ticket he could afford took him. He had no other reason for getting off the train here. He went into the waiting room. A young woman was lying on the bare boards of the floor, her eyes closed, her hair spread out from her thin face. Standing over her, the man asked, “Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes to look up at him, but said nothing.

“Can you get up?”

Her breathing made her small breasts rise and fall, but she otherwise remained motionless.

“Can I help you get up?”

Her eyes were large in that thin, pale face, and staring. She appeared to be trying to communicate something to the man by her staring alone, as if she were dumb as well as unable to move.

The man crouched beside her, and when he did, her stare became more intent, her breathing more convulsive in a body she could not move. Her shoes were worn, the skirt of her dress dusty and wrinkled, and her dress altogether too big for her.

“Can’t I help you?” the man asked.

He thought he saw her roll her head a little from side to side to let him know that he could do nothing for her.

A little wail rose from her when two men entered the station waiting room. She turned her head away from them and closed her eyes. The man stood back when the men came for her and, both reaching down at the same time, raised her to her feet. Her head lowered, her hair hanging over her face, she was held up between the men, and she staggered when they forced her to step forward, out of the waiting room.

The man would not try to imagine what had happened to her, or what would happen to her.

He waited, then left the station to walk along a road that led to a village. A group of people were gathered around the church, and he went toward them. They were looking up at the top of the church tower, where men, using a contraption of beams, pulleys, and ropes, were detaching the bell. As it was moved, the bell made a strange sound, like a low, moaning lament. The men swung the bell to the edge of the belfry, then out from the belfry into space, and they shouted to the people gathered below to move back before one of the men let the bell fall. It seemed to cry as it fell, and the sound it made when it hit the earth was like no other sound the man had ever heard.

He stood among the dispersing crowd. He didn’t know where now he could go and what he could do.