Into the Night

I must remember, and remember, and remember that, by the hour, she told herself. By the hour and by the day and by the week; yes, even by the year, if it should become necessary. Until I have at least partly undone this terrible thing that I’ve done to her. This thing that, try as I will, can never again be wholly undone.

After a while she took off her clothes, as Starr would have, here, in this, her room. She went over and selected a night robe from the things the landlady had left on the bed. Maybe it was the very one Starr had worn for her last sleep, on her last night on earth. But then she saw that it couldn’t very well be for it was freshly laundered and even mended a little in one place where it had frayed — unless the landlady had done that after her death (and why should she?).

She put it on and went and stood before the glass in it.

“Starr,” she breathed, to the figure she saw in it. “Starr. I can see you now. And that’s a form of living on.”

She put out the light, moved over a chair, and sat down by the window, looking out. It was evening in the city, and evening in the sky. Below there were a thousand stars, above there were just as many. But the ones below were like human lives, just there for a night and then gone. The ones above were like human hopes and dreams, they glowed on there forever. And if one life failed and went out, then another came along and took up the hope, the dream, glowing there immutably above, glowing there forever.

As I am doing now, she thought. As I am doing now.

And peering at them, until they seemed to be reflected in the strained width, the glistening anxiety, of her eyes, she breathed softly, supplicatingly to them: You must have seen her sitting at this same window before me. You must have heard the heartbeats of her hopes and aspirations, clearly in the stillness of the night. Do you know what they were? Do you?

You open a valise — and a life comes back into view. A life that was already done with, locked up and put away. And as you spread it all about you in the room, on the bed, on the seats of chairs, wherever there is room, somehow you feel a little frightened at what you are doing, feel you have no right to do this. It’s like trying to turn back the laws of nature and of God. Force a minor, two-by-four resurrection on something that was already at rest. You’d better watch out, you keep telling yourself; you’d better be careful.

A photograph of a man, torn in half, the diagonal edge ragged, exposing the grain of the paper beneath the silver coating. His face showing in close-up, but only from one cheek down. Who was he? What was he to her? Where was he now?

Smiling at her. Smiling at the lens that had taken him, but it must have been she behind that lens that day, for it was a special sort of smile that you don’t give just to the lens of a camera. Warmer than that, closer than that; saying, You’re over there and I’m over here. But you were over here with me a moment ago, and you’ll be back again a moment from now. We won’t be apart any longer than that; we weren’t meant to be; we won’t let ourselves be.

“To my darling Starr, Vick.”

Who are you, Vick?

Don’t you even miss her? Don’t you even know she’s gone? The moment’s over, don’t you even wonder why she doesn’t come across there, back to where you are?

Keep on smiling, Vick. Keep on smiling forever that way. You’re smiling at empty space now, and you don’t know it. You have no eyes any longer and cannot see. She’s gone from behind the lens of the camera. You remain, but she is gone. Gone and she’ll never come back. Would you keep on smiling if you knew that?

In some quiet place — it looked as if it had been taken in some quiet place — she could almost hear the girl’s clear silvery voice ring out again.

“Stand still now, Vick. Move back a little. No, just a little; that’s enough. Now smile for me. That’s it.”

Smile forever, Vick. As long as the glossy paper lasts.

You can stop smiling now, Vick, she’s not there anymore. You’re smiling at vacant space, Vick. There’s a hole in the world, behind the camera where she was.

She propped the partial photo up and sat looking at it.

The sun was going down outside and the room was getting dark.

A patch of light lingered to the end, right there where she had the photo. Playing it up, making it stand out; making the image on it seem luminous.

Tell me, Vick, she pleaded. Tell me while you still can.

The light contracted, swirled to a closing pinpoint, went out; like an iris-out on a motion-picture screen.

The photo was dark now, blended into the surrounding darkness of the room.

The train rushed from night into oncoming day, as though it were speeding from the heart of an hours-long tunnel on toward its steadily brightening mouth, coming nearer, ever nearer, far down along the track. Then suddenly it was all light outside, the scoured-aluminum color of first daybreak.