The Fall of Light

by Niall Williams

  “Tell me,” she said.

  He did not think he should at first. At first he thought it risked her in some obscure way. He thought fortune and misfortune so close to each other that there was the thinnest sliver between them and the slightest error could bring the latter.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I would like to hear you tell me about them. I will place them around my dark.”

  And so he did. He looked up high into the sky at Cassiopeia and told her its form and then took her down through the sky to the Bears Minor and Major and over to Castor and Pollux, too. These he named and she sat attentive and did not tilt her head but seemed to be gazing nonetheless upon a panorama of inner stars.

  “You love them so, don’t you?” she said one night when already such mapping of the dark had become their custom.

  “I do. They are so pure,” he said to her. “They are like something perfect. From the time of Adam. And I cannot look at them without thinking of you. Thinking of the days we met and the nights we went out roaming and you told me stories of them.”

  She did not say any more. She held his arm. They sat there.

  “I will think of them now as the boys,” she said.

  The night was still. A moon gibbous and bare hung overhead.

  Francis’s voice answered softly: “Yes.”

  Five days later Michael McMahon came up to the tower and brought with him a letter that had been left in the town of Kilrush he said for he didn’t know how long. It had lain in dirt in a corner, for none had wanted to bring it over. It was the letter from Tom Foley to Teige. The old man read it aloud. He finished by saying the name Tom. Then he said it again. Tom. Then he started the letter from the beginning and read it over once more.

  “We must send a letter to him,” Emer said. “And when Teige writes to us we will tell him where he is. And when the twins come back we will tell them, too.”

  That night when they sat for their stellar vigil the air had turned cold, and Emer Foley asked him then to take her to the telescope. He led her there and laid her down alongside him and he blew on the eyepiece and cleared webwork and dust. She placed her head upon his chest over his heart.

  “Now,” she said, “I will tell you about my stars.”

  13

  And Teige and Elizabeth arrived off the coast of Canada just before ice forced the closure of the ports along the Saint Lawrence River. They arrived after a long journey in which Elizabeth had suffered sickness and woke from fitful sleeps crying out in fright. Her face grew paler and her cheekbones more prominent. Teige served her food and drink and brought to her what comforts he could find. He urged her to come on deck and take exercise, but she had a horror of her fellow passengers. They were walking dirt and disease, she told him, and she would not move from the narrow bed. When he came to her and tried again to have her walk with him when briefly the ship found calm blue waters, she shouted at him:

  “I don’t need exercise! I’m not one of your horses!”

  For the remainder of that grey voyage then she lay belowdecks. She turned her face in her pillow and was like a rag twisted. Her eyes took on a haunted look. The farther the distance travelled, the deeper she fell in despair. She berated Teige for clumsiness and smacked away the plate when she saw his thumb above it against the pork. She despised how he befriended others of the passengers and found in his very appearance faults she had not noticed before. Sometimes after she had screamed at him, then she calmed and sobbed and opened her arms to him and asked for forgiveness and said it was the wretched sea. It was the wretched boat, it wasn’t her at all. He was not to mind.

  And for the most part, he tried not to. He tried to imagine the life ahead of them. When he walked on the windy deck or held to the rails in the sheets of rain, he looked at the blank horizon and tried to be emptied of his fears. He lifted his face to the weather. He sought in his mind the image of the island and his father and his mother there. Long hours while Elizabeth lay below he thought of them and thought of his brothers gone and wondered where in the vastness of the world was Tomas. He stood and held on in that swaying ocean that was like a watery bridge between the old life and the new. He stood until his loneliness weakened him. Then he came down the steps and along the passage to where Elizabeth lay and he took off his coat and knelt beside her and caressed the top of her head. He lowered his forehead then to her until it rested against her shoulder and he could stay so a long time and she would not move and no word would pass between them.

  For reasons not explained to its passengers, the Mary Anne did not arrive in Halifax but came about Cape Sable and docked at Saint John, New Brunswick. When Teige and Elizabeth disembarked they gave their names as Foley and were man and wife. Elizabeth told the officer they met that their luggage had been sent ahead of them. They walked off down the gangway in the chill air of late autumn in a place where the air was pungent with fish and gulls made raucous sounds overhead. Fishermen, bearded high onto their cheeks, worked with crates and barrels wherein the silvered catch slapped in spasm. Some spoke, but not in words that Teige understood. Elizabeth laid her hand upon his arm.

  “This way,” she said, indicating that they should not follow the clump of their fellow passengers, those freckle-faced Galwegians who moved like some slow, lumpish porridge all together up the street.

  There were men in peaked caps and others in suits of black that studied the arrivals there. There were some that called out offers of lodging and food and more still that cried out sailings on ships bound for Boston and points south. Past these Elizabeth guided Teige and past those too who stared wide-eyed upon her beauty and followed her with their heads. They went along a street of mud upon a walk of loose boards. The heel of Elizabeth’s shoe caught and she slipped and cursed and stamped at the plank.

  “We’re getting out of here tomorrow,” she said.

  They took a room in a boardinghouse run by a woman red-faced and large. She was Mrs. Flump. She wore an apron tied about her from neck to knee and within such lost all shape but was a great mound smelling variously of flour and carbolic. Her eyes were bright blue like things lit. She asked where they were bound.

  “We are not sure,” Teige said.

  “Boston,” Elizabeth replied. “Our trunks are sent ahead.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Flump.

  Their room was small but tidy. Elizabeth sniffed at the sheets and found them clean and then lay upon them in her dress. Teige undid her boots.

  “This is hell,” she said. “We are fallen into hell.” Her eyes stared at the ceiling boards where a web had recently been woven.

  “I will take you to a better place,” Teige said. “This is only tonight. We have just arrived. There is a huge country here. We will be happy.”

  “Oh God, Teige.” She held out her arms to him and he came to her and they held each other and kissed and waited for the fall of night while keeping mute their separate fears.

  In the morning Mrs. Flump gave them a breakfast of eggs, but these Elizabeth could not stomach and she retreated to her room at once.

  “Is she expecting?” Mrs. Flump asked Teige. “I often find those expecting can’t eat the eggs.”

  Teige’s face was blank, and Mrs. Flump saw his surprise and quickly added, “No, I suspect probably not. It’s probably just the long journey.”

  Still the thought remained with Teige, and when they left there and Mrs. Flump stood in her doorway and gave them a carbolic-scented napkin of her scones, he thought her eye studied Elizabeth for some further sign.

  “Good luck to ye,” she said. “I hope ye’ll be happy.”

  They returned to the dockside. Men watched them. Some with knives bent over fish barrels stopped and looked at the woman in the green dress. A wind blew her hair. She stood alone a time and waited while Teige made enquiries. Then he returned to her with another man who was thickly whiskered and stood very close to her while he told her of the schooner that would bring them to Boston. They sailed from there at noon. Some passe
ngers of origins various stood on the deck in frayed and sea-soiled finery and watched the coast pass. Trees dense and evergreen lay along the shore. Impenetrable forest seemed the landscape and to the eyes of those come from the distant continent the whole seemed country wild with as yet little mark of civilization. They imagined therein were the Indians they had heard of and that these were even then watching the ship with arrows in bows aimed as she moved down the coastline. The voyage was without incident. Cold wind made choppy the waters and slowed the progress of the schooner, but when she arrived in Boston none of the passengers cared. For they were cheered by the elegance of the buildings and the sight of the streets. Elizabeth too smiled and stood on the deck as the ship came in. She squeezed Teige’s arm, her face flushed and her eyes travelling over the thoroughfares. When they disembarked a man stepped over to them and speaking to both but looking at Elizabeth said he could tell they would be seeking fine accommodations and would they allow him to guide them to the best. He carried Elizabeth’s one bag. They went to a hotel finer than any Teige had ever seen. The man tipped his hat and stood and waited and Elizabeth gave him some money in their own currency and he thanked her and was gone. They took a room with flowered paper on the wall. Above the posts of the bed was a canopy of cream-colored linen. Their breakfast was brought on a tray of silver.

  They stayed there. In the daytime Elizabeth went out and bought new clothes and returned with these and tried them on before a standing mirror. Teige told her she was beautiful. He searched for signs that she might be pregnant but did not know what these were and if he found them or not.

  “We should think of moving on from here,” he said to her one evening after they had dined in the grand room where the chandeliers that had come from Milan glittered above them and let fall brilliant splinters of broken light.

  “Why should we?”

  “I have no work. We cannot stay here. We must be near the end of your money.”

  Her expression turned cold.

  “Money is vulgar, Teige. Please don’t speak of it.”

  “But—”

  “Please, Teige.”

  He looked at his plate.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You are so sweet. Always so sweet.”

  The following morning she went and bought him a white shirt and black suit. He tried them on in the room. When he stood before her she considered him a time and then told him to go to the barber’s and to buy new shoes. Then he would be perfect, she said. He did. In that same afternoon returning, he crossed the lobby of the hotel and caught in a gilt-framed mirror the image of himself and was almost another. He went around and came back to pass the mirror again. He looked then like none in his family ever had and was the copy of others who sat with newspapers in the leather chairs there. That evening Elizabeth was in light humour and sang as she dressed for dinner. Her hair was pinned above and about her neck she wore pearls he had never seen.

  “How long do you think we will stay here?” Teige asked her.

  “Until we find a house.”

  He said nothing. His heart sank. She came to him and touched his shoulder.

  “You can get a job soon. I asked today for you at the bank.”

  “I can’t work at the bank.”

  She turned her cheek as if it had been struck. “We’ll be late for dinner,” she said after a time.

  They went down the carpeted stairs and entered the dining room, she upon his arm with her head erect and her pearls shining like defiance. They ate roast beef and potatoes with gravy and were served a bottle of wine courtesy of a man at another table. They said almost nothing. As if they had come into a country of extreme civility wherein all discourse was predicated upon polite formulae, Elizabeth addressed him in dulcet tone over such matters as the passing of the salt and the pouring of the wine. But nothing more. She sat and was the liveliest woman in the room. When the meal was ended, the man who had gifted the wine came to their table and asked them if they were coming in to hear the piano played. He was French with a name Teige did not catch.

  “Oh, yes,” Elizabeth said, “thank you. We would love to.”

  They sat with the man, whose hair was black and sleek and cuffs linked with studs bejewelled. He asked what plans they had and Elizabeth told him they were as yet undecided but that Teige would probably take a job he had been offered at the bank. The Frenchman looked at Teige and smiled. He said it was a good job. Men get rich in banks, he said. He bought them champagne to drink a toast to their beginning. When Teige asked him what business he was in, he said he was in the business of seeing opportunity. He accented the last word so such that Teige was unsure at first of his meaning. There is much opportunity in this country, he said. More than in France. France is old and tired now. Elizabeth agreed.

  “Very old and tired,” she said, and giggled and touched her fingers to her mouth where the champagne had left a fizz.

  The Frenchman smiled.

  “We should go to our room,” Teige said.

  “It is early,” said the Frenchman.

  “Yes, it is early,” Elizabeth scolded.

  They stayed on. The piano music was played and ended and the umber light of that room dimmed further until all were but shadows slumped here and there. At a moment without warning, Elizabeth’s head suddenly rolled and she swayed sideways and the Frenchman caught and held her. He sat her upright once more and removed his arm. Teige lifted her to her feet and she staggered and said small nonsense and the Frenchman offered to help but was declined. He stood to wish them good night. They went then, tilting, wavering, going over and back in staggered progress and were like a thing of sails traversing into dangerous waters.

  14

  The Frenchman’s card arrived with their breakfast. Elizabeth could not eat. She moaned and put her head beneath the pillows. The tray was placed outside the door. Teige rose and went out about the city in the black suit. He went to the bank she had mentioned and entered and stood beneath the high-domed roof and watched for some moments the business transacted there. His chest pounded. He watched those men, bald, bespectacled, as they bent over papers, collars pinched beneath their chins. Light suffused through high windows and lit dust motes as they swirled and fell. The air was arid. Across the marbled floor a guard came and asked him if he needed assistance. He turned and went outside then and stood on the steps and tried to catch his breath. He had felt as if his life had been taken away, as if it were a document of sorts he guarded in his chest and the instant he walked inside the bank it had been withdrawn to be kept by another. He stood and watched the sky where clouds moved brisk in the wind. There were signs of the coming winter. He stood and did nothing and considered, and then he crossed down the street to the railroad station and bought two tickets for the afternoon train. Then he went back to the hotel and asked at the desk for their bill. When it came he saw the figure and did not know how they could pay it. He went upstairs and woke Elizabeth.

  “Come on, you have to wake now. We have to go.”

  She shook her head with its tousled hair. It was as if she were being asked for a dance.

  “Yes,” he said. “Elizabeth, how much money have you got?”

  She opened her eyes to look at him. “What?”

  “How much money have you got? We have to pay, or give them something if we can’t. We have to take a train this afternoon.”

  The urgency of his tone roused her.

  “What are you saying?”

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “Yes, we can.”

  “No. We have to go.” He began to gather her things that were too many now for her bag.

  “Stop it. Leave my things.” She sprang from the bed and was beside him, pulling back her dress. “How dare you,” she said. She struck at him with her hand. It landed on his cheek and he stepped back and raised his two hands as if to still the angry air.

  “I cannot work at the bank, Elizabeth. I have to go into the country. I have to work on land with horses. This is what I can
do, you know that. We can have a good house, for our child.” He gestured right-handed to her midriff.

  “What?”

  “Are you—”

  She shouted, “No! No, no, stop!” She turned back to the bed and threw herself upon it and wept.

  Teige stood and felt the life go out of him. He put down the bag. He took off his jacket and he sat beside her on the bed and he stroked her hair. When at last she turned her wet face to him, she said: “Can we stay?”

  And he answered her, “All right.”

  15

  So they did not take the train that afternoon, and Teige went down and told them at the desk of the hotel that there had been a mistake and the man there smiled and was most gracious and said how delighted they all were. The first snow flurries blew. The fire in the lobby was loaded high with logs and the scent of woodsmoke hung thickly. Elizabeth bought a coat of fur. It was made, she told Teige, from wild bears that ran about in the rest of that country. Imagine. She told him to get one for himself, but he declined. He sat in the hotel room and despaired. He went out to the outskirts of the city where the land opened and the treed skyline told of the wilderness beyond. He found a blacksmith’s yard and stables and passed some time of the day examining the horses there. He surprised the smith with knowledge of hooves and offered to help, and showed such skill as belied his fine clothes. He went there several times thereafter. When he returned to the hotel he was again in his black jacket, but his skin smelled of horses.