“Will you stop shouting, Breavman, or stand further back, I can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying.”
“Bertha, I said! I just saw Bertha! She’s in town!”
“Bertha who?”
“Oh, you wicked and careless fool. Bertha of our childhood, of The Tree, who mangled herself under our noses.”
“How does she look?”
“Her face is perfect, really Krantz, she was beautiful.”
“Where did you see her?”
“In a bus window.”
“Good-bye, Breavman.”
“Don’t hang up, Krantz. I swear it was really her. I won’t say she was smiling. It was an open, blonde face with no family lines, so you could make anything you want of it.”
“You go follow the bus, Breavman.”
“Oh, no, she saw me. I’ll just wait here till it comes round again. She moved her lips.”
“Good-bye, Breavman.”
“Krantz, this is a most pleasant telephone booth I’m living in today. Sherbrooke Street is a parade of everyone I ever knew. I’m going to loiter immoderately. They’ll all be delivered to me today, Bertha, Lisa. Nobody, not one name, not one limb will be taken away in the dustload.”
“Where did you dig up those old names?”
“I’m the keeper. I’m the sentimental dirty old man in front of a classroom of children.”
“Good-bye, Breavman, for real.”
It was a beautiful telephone box. It smelled of new spring paint and fresh nails. You could feel the sun through the wire-embedded glass. He was the guard, he was the sentry.
Bertha, who had fallen out of a tree for his sake! Bertha, who played “Greensleeves” sweeter than he ever could! Bertha, who fell with apples and twisted her limbs!
He dropped in another nickel and waited for the music.
“Krantz, she just came round again….”