Tours of the Black Clock

13

HE HAD NO DESIGNS on her. He might have liked to put his hands on her hair and pull her gently into his chest, but he wasn’t likely to do even this. She was probably not more than fifteen years old; she could have been born the night he assumed this post on the river. At this time he’d taken on an appearance that frightened these girls; she wasn’t frightened. She stood alone watching into the water, the wet deck of the boat a dark mirror in which her blue dress shone. The ends of her hair stuck to the rail as she leaned across it; he touched her shoulder tentatively. I wouldn’t like you to fall in, he suggested to her. She looked at him as though he’d said something strong and startling. I used to lie to people, he went on, that the river was full of alligators. Piranha sometimes. She laughed, And they believed you? On this river, he smiled, they believe everything. He said, Have you come far? and she seemed to think about it a bit, smiling at whatever she was thinking, and only nodded. She turned back to the water and the conversation seemed over; he settled his gaze back onto the island before him. He felt oddly moved and forsaken until he heard her say, And you? Have you come far? The water was lapping over the edge of the boat; he wasn’t paying attention to his speed, and the other passengers were glaring at him. He said, I’ve sailed fifteen years between two points less than a mile from each other. The fog came in. They were swallowed up to the blithe indifference of tourists studying their itineraries. Only the girl looked around; she said, I always feel a little lost when I can’t see the stars. The hair on her arms stood on end in the chill but she didn’t appear to notice. I don’t think, he said, I’ve ever seen the stars from this boat: maybe a patch of them. Do you know the stars? he asked. Yes, she said, I know them. Are you an astronomer? he said; they both laughed. The boat continued and the fog fell behind them and the island was there then. In the last few minutes he almost could think of nothing else to say until he said, perhaps more seriously than he meant to, But why have you come here? It was something he’d never asked anyone on his boat; but then she was the first person who, in that moment when the rest of the earth disappeared, noticed. And for a second it was almost as though she hadn’t heard him; and he wasn’t about to repeat it. The island approached and he brushed past her to dock the boat, when she answered, To bury something. She stepped ashore and he called out, to her alone among all the others, Boat leaves in two and a half hours.