A Fine and Private Place

by Peter S. Beagle

  "I better go," Mrs. Klapper said at last. "He's not going to wait forever, whoever's locking the gate. I got to get home, anyway."

  "I'll walk part of the way with you," Mr. Rebeck said.

  She did not answer, and they began to walk toward Central Avenue. Sometimes their shoulders touched.

  "You think somebody'll get nervous, they only see one person leave instead of two?"

  Mr. Rebeck shook his head. "No. Walters has gone home, and one of the night men has taken over. No one will notice anything."

  "You sure know the routine around here. Like a bank robber."

  "I have to."

  Out on Central Avenue, Mr. Rebeck could feel the heat of the pavement through his thin shoes. He walked with Mrs. Klapper past the frozen fountains of the willow trees and heard, far and very faintly, the guffaw of the pickup's engine. Mrs. Klapper carried the gray raincoat over her arm.

  "Rebeck," she said. She took a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry I made such a big deal about it, about where you live and everything."

  "Forget it," Mr. Rebeck said. "Let's forget it. It was nothing." He did not want her to apologize.

  "Never mind forget it. What am I, God, a policeman, I can tell you, 'Live here, don't live here'? You live where you want to, it's a free country. You want to live here, it makes you happy, live here. Nobody should tell you where to live. Not me, not anybody. You live where you want to."

  "It's just that I feel comfortable here," Mr. Rebeck said. "I never felt that way anywhere else."

  "I'm sure it's a very nice place," Mrs. Klapper said. "In the spring and summer, anyway. In the winter—well, what place is nice in the winter?" She looked directly at him. "Only I still worry about you getting wet. You catch a cold here, with no doctor, no drugstore, the next thing you know you're flat on your back. That's why I thought maybe it would be a good idea if I brought the raincoat."

  "I couldn't have taken it," Mr. Rebeck said.

  "I know, it was Morris's coat, you don't want anything that belonged to Morris. All right, don't take it. Why fight over a raincoat? God forbid anybody should think you look like Morris, it's the end of the world."

  "Not anybody. You. I said it the wrong way, and I sounded too heroic about it, but I won't be Morris for you." It was growing a little cooler, he thought. Was tomorrow August? How fast the summer was going.

  "If you want to give me a raincoat," he said slowly, "give me one of my own."

  Mrs. Klapper stopped walking. "I don't know your size!" she protested happily. The look in her eyes delighted him and frightened him at the same time.

  "I'm smaller than Morris," Mr. Rebeck said. "Come on, before they lock us in."

  "Wonderful, you're smaller than Morris. So now I know." Mrs. Klapper began to walk again. "You think I'm a magician, I can look at you and boom, I know what size raincoat you take. Maybe I always carry around with me a measuring tape, it might come in handy? Rebeck, excuse me, about some things you know from nothing."

  She was smiling now. It seemed a long time since he had last seen her smile. He felt that he had come to another Crossroads and passed it without even recognizing it as a Crossroads. If he turned around, he could probably see it dwindling behind him, perhaps even run back to it if he began to run now. Once it was out of sight it would be too late; he would never be able to find it.

  "I'd better go back," he said. "We'll be at the gate soon."

  "Wait a minute. At least let me make a guess what size you take. Stand up straight a little." She looked him over quickly and shrugged. "So I'll get you one that fits like your skin, you'll be sorry you didn't take Morris's coat. Good-by, Rebeck. Don't step on the ring."

  She started down the road alone.

  Then she stopped and turned back to him. He had not moved.

  "Listen, I'll tell you something." She was not smiling. "Remember you asked how come I was late, and I gave you a big deal about the subway and how I had to go back to get the raincoat?" Mr. Rebeck nodded.

  "Well, it wasn't like that. I was walking to get to the subway, and I met this woman, I know her from around. I said, 'Hello, how you doing?' She said 'Fine, how come we don't see you around no more?' So I said, 'I been busy,' and she just looked at me and said, 'Busy with what— monkey business?' Rebeck, the way she said it, how she waved her finger and went like this with the eyes. 'Monkey business,' she said, 'I know how it is.' Rebeck, I went home and I lay on the bed for an hour and I said I'm not going out there. No more. What am I, crazy? So I lay like that for an hour, and then I got the raincoat and came out. So that's why I was late."

  Central Avenue makes a very wide curve just before it reaches the gate. Mr. Rebeck was able to watch Mrs. Klapper down the road, through the iron gate, and onto the street. He saw her stop to let a car pass her, and then she crossed the street and he could not see her after that. There were a lot of people on the street, and it was not easy to pick out one hat among them all, even if it was shaped like a crescent moon.

  Chapter 11

  It rained all night. Michael and Laura walked through it, watching the rain come down so hard that it bounced when it hit the ground. Toward morning the rain began to let up, and by the time they came to the wall that overlooked the city it had become a heavy mist that sat on the trees and would not be moved by sunrise. Mid-August rain is like that in New York.

  "This is nice," Michael said. He stretched, which was, of course, not at all necessary, but it was one of the motions of humanity he remembered very clearly.

  "Even though we've done it before?" Laura asked. She sat on the wall beside him.

  "Even so. Some things bear more repetition than others. Mornings like this. Grapes. I don't think I could ever have gotten tired of grapes. I used to hoard them. All kinds—green, red, purple, black. Some men can't pass a pool hall without going in. I couldn't pass fruit stores."

  "I was that way about bananas," Laura said. "But I wasn't really faithful about it. I'd eat a bunch in a day and then crawl under the sink and be quietly sick. That would cure me for two weeks or so, and then I'd be back on the banana boat. Grapes a little, but bananas most of all."

  "Grapes," Michael said firmly. "But you see what I mean. I like this. I like us sitting here and talking, watching the mist burn off and the trucks in the streets. I suppose in a hundred years or a thousand years, I'll be weary unto death with it."

  "It won't take that long," Laura said. "A month. Maybe a couple of months."

  "All right. I know it. What are you trying to prove? Right now I like watching the morning come. Sandy and I used to do that a lot. We'd sit up all night playing cards and listening to records, and then, just before morning, we'd go out and walk until the sun came up. We'd have breakfast wherever we were and go home and sleep till three or four in the afternoon. Then we'd go through the same routine again, and we never got tired of it."

  Laura looked down the hillside as she spoke. "Sometimes I wish Sandra would restrain herself from feather-footing her way into everything we talk about. If I sound petty and malicious, it's because I am."

  "I was sorry as soon as I'd mentioned her," Michael said. "I know how it sounds. The most boring thing in the world is another man's girl."

  "It isn't that," Laura said a little crossly. "You have a perfect right to talk about her. Every beautiful thing you can remember comes in handy after death. Only—" A plane from La Guardia Airport was thundering tinnily over the city, and she used it as an excuse to leave the sentence incomplete until it was out of sight. Then, still looking away from him, she said, "Only, I wish you'd decide whether you love her or hate her."

  "I don't love her," Michael answered. "But all the pleasant things I remember seem to be tied up with her, one way or the other. Not because she was Sandra, but because the good moments were better for someone else's being there. This sounds like women's-magazine philosophy, but some things aren't any good unless they're shared. Sitting up all night would be pointless if somebody you loved wasn't sitting up with you, picking out
music to play and helping you kill the bourbon. Walking by yourself in the rain is for college kids who think loneliness makes poets. You know what I mean."

  "I know what you mean," Laura said.

  "All right. Let it go. The point is made. You know, the raven was right about birds. They do sing just before rain. I was listening."

  Michael looked sideways at her. "What's the matter, Laura? Did I say something wrong?"

  "Nothing," Laura said. "Nothing's wrong. When you mentioned Sandra, I started thinking about the trial. It must be over now."

  "Now? What are you talking about? It's not for a week yet."

  Laura smiled for the first time. "What day is today?"

  "Good God, I don't know. It's still summer, but some of the leaves are turning brown already. Is it August?"

  "It's August seventeenth," Laura said. "The trial was two days ago. I know because Mr. Rebeck told me. The raven's been following it in the newspapers, the way you asked him to."

  "Did I ask him? I don't even remember that. I'm losing all track of time, Laura. I thought I'd keep that a while longer."

  Alarm clocks were going off in the city now. One after another, sometimes two or three together, they drove their small silver knives into the body of the great dream that sprawled naked on the housetops. Sensual, amiable, and defenseless as it was, it would still take a little while to die.

  "Does it make any difference?" Laura asked. "What's time to us? What's five o'clock to the dead? We've got no pressing appointments."

  "No difference. But it's part of being human, and so I hate to lose it. Didn't I tell you I hung on to things?"

  "I remember," Laura said. She looked up at the overcast sky for a sign of the raven. "Anyway," she said, "we ought to know about the trial today."

  "I don't care about the trial," Michael said. "It might have meant something to me if they'd tried her when I was newly dead and full of revenge. Now I don't much care. I don't even remember her as well as I used to. She's becoming a stranger who did something to a stranger. I don't wish her any harm. Let's leave it at that. Don't talk about the trial, Laura."

  Behind them a tree branch shook like a wet dog and sent its load of rain splashing to the ground. Michael and Laura turned and saw a couple coming past the hothouse and toward the wall.

  "Company," Michael said. "And so early."

  They were very young, Laura thought. Twenty or twenty-one, no more. The boy's hair was so wet it was almost maroon in color. He wore a raincoat but no rubbers, and the bottoms of his pants legs flapped shapelessly above his equally soaked socks as he walked. The girl also wore a raincoat, but the top button was missing and her wet white blouse clung to her small pointed breasts. She wore some sort of plastic kerchief over her hair, but the rain had seeped in, and what could be seen of her hair was limp and damp. They walked slowly, with their arms around each other's waists, faces turned to each other as they talked. Sometimes, without stopping, they kissed and then stumbled because they were not looking where they were going. Then they would laugh.

  "Let's get out of here," Michael said. "I don't want to eavesdrop on them. Let's go somewhere else."

  "Wait a little. How wet they are, and how happy."

  They heard the boy's voice then. "Sure it's crazy. Been a pretty night all around. Look at it this way. I bet you've had hundreds of guys taking you to movies and skating rinks and dances. How many guys ever took you to a graveyard before breakfast? This way you'll remember me."

  "A graveyard before breakfast," the girl said. "All night out in the rain and now a graveyard. You bet I'll remember you, mister." But she was laughing as she said it, and she hugged the boy's waist tightly.

  "Think of it like a park," the boy said. "Look at all the statues standing around. Look at all the trees. It's like Central Park."

  The girl looked up at him and shook her head, pantomiming exasperation. "A park. Some park. Wait till my mother gets hold of me." She made her voice shrill and old. " 'Where were you, Norma, all night and not a word? What kind of a way is that to treat your mother?' And I'll say, 'It's all right, Ma, it's all right, don't panic. Harry and I had a wonderful time. We went to a movie and when we came out it was raining, and so we walked all night. And in the morning Harry took me to the most wonderful graveyard. Ma, you should have been there. What a night.'" She sneezed.

  "God bless you," the boy said. "Honey, you all right? I don't want you getting sick because I'm crazy. I'll take you right home now, you don't feel good."

  "No, I'm all right," the girl said. "I'll take a hot shower when I get home. Only let's not stay too long, Harry."

  "A few minutes, that's all." The boy pointed toward the wall. "Come on, we'll sit down and catch our breath. Then we'll start back."

  As they came on together, Michael said urgently, "Laura, let's get out of here. I don't want to watch them. Neither do you."

  "Wait," Laura said. "Wait a little. I thought you were the one who spent all his time observing people."

  "Not couples. Never couples. I'm not obnoxiously brave, Laura."

  "I'm not brave at all," Laura said. But she remained on the wall, watching the boy and girl approach, and Michael stayed with her.

  When the couple reached the wall, the boy stooped and lifted the girl onto it. There was a good deal of puffing and giggling and flopping of wet garments involved. Once seated on the wall, the girl extended her hand daintily, and the boy took it and scrambled, panting, up the ladderlike mortar to sit beside her. He was completely out of breath and tried to conceal it by taking deep gasps of air and letting them out slowly. But the girl looked at him and began to laugh, and it was somehow different from laughing after kissing and stumbling.

  "Look at you," she said. "You're all red and breathless."

  "You think you're such a featherweight?" the boy said, not without rancor. "Come on, we'll do it over and you carry me this time. Let's see how you look."

  "Score one for our side," Michael said to Laura. "I think I'm for him if it comes to shooting."

  But the boy reached an arm out, and the girl pushed herself against his side and drew the arm about her like a cloak. She giggled once and then kissed the boy's cheek quickly when he looked sourly at her and started to speak.

  "I wouldn't make fun of you if you were weak," she said, and the boy's arm tightened around her shoulders until she winced.

  They happened to be sitting almost exactly where Michael and Laura had chosen to sit, in the middle of the wall where the trees on both sides did not block their view of the city. To Mr. Rebeck or Campos, the two figures would have seemed outlined in cobweb by the remembered shapes of the ghosts who sat with them; as if Michael and Laura were only sheaths for the young swords that the boy and girl were. But to anyone else passing there would have been just the two young people sitting on the wall, the girl's wet face pressed against the side of the boy's neck.

  "I can see where you live from here," the boy said.

  The girl lifted her head from his shoulder. "Where, Harry? Where is it?"

  "Way over there, see—a block after the Coca-Cola sign. One thing I know, it's where you live."

  "I see it. I even see—my God, Harry, there's a light on in the bedroom! God, my mother must be having baby elephants. She'll kill me when I get in, she'll absolutely kill me."

  "I'll come up with you," the boy offered diffidently.

  "She'll kill you too," the girl warned.

  "I'll come up with you. Your mother doesn't scare me."

  "Oh, you're so brave," the girl said. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

  "Sleep your life away," the boy said. "Norma, look. The street lights are going out. Look at them."

  "This is nice. You can watch the whole city waking up." The girl was tracing the boy's mouth and nose with a forefinger. "The stores'll be opening soon." She sneezed again. "Harry, if I catch a cold you better catch one too. God help you if you don't."

  "Isn't that nice?" Michael said. "What's mine is yours. Love
is the sweetest thing."

  "The way they look at each other," Laura said. "As if one of them was going to vanish any minute, and they didn't know which one it would be."

  "Young lust. Don't tell me you've never seen it before?"

  "Of course I have," Laura said.

  "Take off your shoes," the boy was saying.

  The girl pulled away from him, frowning. "Why? What's the idea?"

  "Come on, take your shoes off," the boy said. "You're catching a cold."

  "I know I'm catching a cold. Is running around barefoot going to make it any better?"

  "Look, your feet are wet. Take off your shoes and socks and I'll dry your feet. Then you can wear my socks until we get home. How's that for thinking?"

  The girl began to laugh again. "Harry, you're crazy! What good'll that do, wearing your socks? They're just as wet as mine."

  "Oh," the boy said. "Yeah." He poked halfheartedly at his own shoes and socks. "All right, forget it. It was just an idea."

  "I mean, it's an awfully nice thing to do, Harry, but there wouldn't be any point to it. I'd just get wet again."

  "Yeah, I know," the boy said, still examining his feet. "I just liked the idea of you wearing something of mine."

  "That's sweet," The girl touched him lightly on the back of the neck, just where the hair begins. "Harry, that's very sweet."

  "Forget it. It was a stupid idea."

  "Well, look," the girl said. "Look, we could trade coats. Mine might be a little tight on you, but I guess we could manage it. You want to, Harry?"

  "No," the boy said. "I didn't mean it like that. Forget it, Norma."

  The girl smiled slowly and vaguely, as though she were trying to remember a dream. Her finger and thumb kept gently opening and closing on the back of the boy's neck. "Harry," she said huskily. "Harry, look at me."

  "That's it," Michael said. "That's the ballgame. Look into a girl's eyes, and you see everything you ever believed about yourself. And you can never see her ugly because that would mean that you also are ugly and untrue. Up the creek, up the creek. Look at the poor sucker."