The ferryman shared his stew with us. I put the rabbit pielet on the table, too. Not as a fee, just for eating. We ate off gold-rimmed china. Our spoons had handles made of horn. We drank from crystal goblets. After supper he relit his splendid wooden pipe.
I asked if he remembered who it came from.
“Old fellow in a wagon, every speck and inch of it carved equally fine.”
“I know him!” After a journey whose every part had seemed so separate, I was giddy to make a connection. “Or no—I never met him. He died. But I was there when they were digging his grave. I’ve been inside that wagon. I met his family.” I went on telling him about it. I could hear myself talking quite fast, my mouth full of the tunnel and the musician and Ottla and Varda and the children bathing and the donkeys and dogs and chickens and eggs.
“Aye,” said the ferryman, wholly unimpressed. “They cross every spring. Go to sell their wares.” That was true of the bulk of his passengers, he said. Most made the crossing in order either to buy or to sell at the market. “Not all,” he added. “Others cross for other reasons.”
“What other reasons?”
He drew on his pipe, let the smoke trickle out the side of his mouth. “For some, Tewanfrough’s a destination. For some, it’s a point of departure. For others, it’s a place for meeting up. Which,” he said, perhaps addressing it more to himself than to me, “are you?”
I was not sure how to answer.
I told him about the Captain and Genoveva. Described what they looked like, asked if he’d taken them across.
“Might’ve. Can’t remember every passenger.”
How could anyone forget a man who wept to hear music that was not there?
How could anyone forget a man who answered a bugle no one could hear?
How could anyone forget a man whose journey was so immense, he would die if he couldn’t find what he needed along the way?