The October Country

by Raymond Douglas Bradbury

He put the lights out.

  She could not speak to him for she knew no words that he knew and he said nothing to her that she understood, and she walked to her bed and slipped into it and he lay with his back to her in his bed and he was like one of these brown-baked people of this faraway town upon the moon, and the real earth was off somewhere where it would take a star-flight to reach it. If only he could speak with her and she to him tonight, how good the night might be, and how easy to breathe and how lax the vessels of blood in her ankles and in her wrists and the under-arms, but there was no speaking and the night was ten thousand tickings and ten thousand twistings of the blankets, and the pillow was like a tiny white warm stove under-cheek, and the blackness of the room was a mosquito netting draped all about so that a turn entangled her in it. If only there was one word, one word between them. But there was no word and the veins did not rest easy in the wrists and the heart was a bellows forever blowing upon a little coal of fear, forever illumining and making it into a cherry light, again, pulse, and again, an ingrown light which her inner eyes stared upon with unwanting fascination. The lungs did not rest but were exercised as if she were a drowned person and she herself performing artificial respiration to keep the last life going. And all of these things were lubricated by the sweat of her glowing body, and she was glued fast between the heavy blankets like something pressed, smashed, redolently moist between the white pages of a heavy book.

  And as she lay this way the long hours of midnight came when again she was a child. She lay, now and again thumping her heart in tambourine hysteria, then, quieting, the slow sad thoughts of bronze childhood when everything was sun on green trees and sun on water and sun on blond child hair. Faces flowed by on merry-go-rounds of memory, a face rushing to meet her, facing her, and away to the right; another, whirling in from the left, a quick fragment of lost conversation, and out to the right. Around and round. Oh, the night was very long. She consoled herself by thinking of the car starting tomorrow, the throttling sound and the power sound and the road moving under, and she smiled in the dark with pleasure. But then, suppose the car did not start? She crumpled in the dark, like a burning, withering paper. All the folds and corners of her clenched in about her and tick tick tick went the wristwatch, tick tick tick and another tick to wither on.

  Morning. She looked at her husband lying straight and easy on his bed. She let her hand laze down at the cool space between the beds. All night her hand had hung in that cold empty interval between. Once she had put her hand out toward him, stretching, but the space was just a little too long, she couldn't reach him. She had snapped her hand back, hoping he hadn't heard the movement of her silent reaching.

  There he lay now. His eyes gently closed, the lashes softly interlocked like clasped fingers. Breathing so quietly you could scarce see his ribs move. As usual, by this time of morning, he had worked out of his pajamas. His naked chest was revealed from the waist up. The rest of him lay under cover. His head lay on the pillow, in thoughtful profile.

  There was a beard stubble on his chin.

  The morning light showed the white of her eyes. They were the only things in the room in motion, in slow starts and stops, tracing the anatomy of the man across from her.

  Each little hair was perfect on the chin and cheeks. A tiny hole of sunlight from the window-shade lay on his chin and picked out, like the spikes of a music-box cylinder, each little hair on his face.

  His wrists on either side of him had little curly black hairs, each perfect, each separate and shiny and glittering.

  The hair on his head was intact, strand by dark strand, down to the roots. The ears were beautifully carved. The teeth were intact behind the lips.

  "Joseph!" she screamed.

  "Joseph!" she screamed again, flailing up in terror.

  Bong! Bong! Bong! went the bell thunder across the street, from the great tiled cathedral!

  Pigeons rose in a papery white whirl, like so many magazines fluttered past the window! The pigeons circled the plaza, spiraling up. Bong! went the bells! Honk went a taxi horn! Far away down an alley a music box played "Cielito Lindo."

  All these faded into the dripping of the faucet in the bath sink.

  Joseph opened his eyes.

  His wife sat on her bed, staring at him.

  "I thought-" he said. He blinked. "No." He shut his eyes and shook his head. "Just the bells." A sigh. "What time is it?"

  "I don't know. Yes, I do. Eight o'clock."

  "Good God," he murmured, turning over. "We can sleep three more hours."

  "You've got to get up!" she cried.

  "Nobody's up. They won't be to work at the garage until ten, you know that, you can't rush these people; keep quiet now."

  "But you've got to get up," she said.

  He half-turned. Sunlight prickled black hairs into bronze on his upper lip. "Why? Why, in Christ's name, do I have to get up?"

  "You need a shave!" she almost screamed.

  He moaned. "So I have to get up and lather myself at eight in the morning because I need a shave."

  "Well, you do need one."

  "I'm not shaving again till we reach Texas."

  "You can't go around looking like a tramp!"

  "I can and will. I've shaved every morning for thirty god-damn mornings and put on a tie and had a crease in my pants. From now on, no pants, no ties, no shaving, no nothing."

  He yanked the covers over his ears so violently that he pulled the blankets off one of his naked legs.

  The leg hung upon the rim of the bed, warm white in the sunlight, each little black hair-perfect.

  Her eyes widened, focused, stared upon it.

  She put her hand over her mouth, tight.

  He went in and out of the hotel all day. He did not shave. He walked along the plaza tiles below. He walked so slowly she wanted to throw a lightning bolt out of the window and hit him. He paused and talked to the hotel manager below, under a drum-cut tree, shifting his shoes on the pale blue plaza tiles. He looked at birds on trees and saw how the State Theatre statues were dressed in fresh morning gilt, and stood on the corner, watching the traffic carefully. There was no traffic! He was standing there on purpose, taking his time, not looking back at her. Why didn't he run, lope down the alley, down the hill to the garage, pound on the doors, threaten the mechanics, lift them by their pants, shove them into the car motor! He stood instead, watching the ridiculous traffic pass. A hobbled swine, a man on a bike, a 1927 Ford, and three half-nude children. Go, go, go, she screamed silently, and almost smashed the window.

  He sauntered across the street. He went around the corner. All the way down to the garage he'd stop at windows, read signs, look at pictures, handle pottery. Maybe he'd stop in for a beer. God, yes, a beer.

  She walked in the plaza, took the sun, hunted for more magazines. She cleaned her fingernails, burnished them, took a bath, walked again in the plaza, ate very little, and returned to the room to feed upon her magazines.

  She did not lie down. She was afraid to. Each time she did she fell into a half-dream, half-drowse in which all her childhood was revealed in a helpless melancholy. Old friends, children she hadn't seen or thought of in twenty years filled her mind. And she thought of things she wanted to do and had never done. She had meant to call Lila Holdridge for the past eight years since college, but somehow she never had. What friends they had been! Dear Lila! She thought, when lying down, of all the books, the fine new and old books, she had meant to buy and might never buy now and read. How she loved books and the smell of books. She thought of a thousand old sad things. She'd wanted to own the Oz books all her life, yet had never bought them. Why not? while yet there was life! The first thing she'd do would be to buy them when she got back to New York! And she'd call Lila immediately! And she'd see Bert and Jimmy and Helen and Louise, and go back to Illinois and walk around in her childhood place and see the things to be seen there. If she got back to the States. If. Her heart beat painfully in her, paused, held on to itself, and beat again
. If she ever got back.

  She lay listening to her heart, critically.

  Thud and a thud and a thud. Pause. Thud and a thud and a thud. Pause.

  What if it should stop while she was listening?

  There!

  Silence inside her.

  "Joseph!"

  She leaped up. She grabbed at her breasts as if to squeeze, to pump to start the silent heart again!

  It opened in her, closed, rattled and beat nervously, twenty rapid, shot-like times!

  She sank on to the bed. What if it should stop again and not start? What would she think? What would there be to do? She'd die of fright, that's what. A joke; it was very humorous. Die of fright if you heard your heart stop. She would have to listen to it, keep it beating. She wanted to go home and see Lila and buy the books and dance again and walk in Central Park and-listen- Thud and a thud and a thud. Pause.

  Joseph knocked on the door. Joseph knocked on the door and the car was not repaired and there would be another night; and Joseph did not shave and each little hair was perfect on his chin, and the magazine shops were closed and there were no more magazines, and they ate supper, a little bit anyway for her, and he went out in the evening to walk in the town.

  She sat once more in the chair and slow erections of hair rose as if a magnet were passed over her neck. She was very weak and could not move from the chair, and she had no body, she was only a heart-beat, a huge pulsation of warmth and ache between four walls of the room. Her eyes were hot and pregnant, swollen with child of terror behind the bellied, tautened lips.

  Deeply inside herself, she felt the first little cog slip. Another night, another night, another night, she thought. And this will be longer than the last. The first little cog slipped, the pendulum missed a stroke. Followed by the second and third interrelated cogs. The cogs interlocked, a small with a little larger one, the little larger one with a bit larger one, the bit larger one with a large one, the large one with a huge one, the huge one with an immense one, the immense one with a titanic one…

  A red ganglion, no bigger than a scarlet thread, snapped and quivered; a nerve, no greater than a red linen fiber twisted. Deep in her one little mech was gone and the entire machine, imbalanced, was about to steadily shake itself to bits.

  She didn't fight it. She let it quake and terrorize her and knock the sweat off her brow and jolt down her spine and flood her mouth with horrible wine. She felt as if a broken gyro tilted now this way, now that and blundered and trembled and whined in her. The color fell from her face like light leaving a clicked-off bulb, the crystal cheeks of the bulb vessel showing veins and filaments all colorless…

  Joseph was in the room, he had come in, but she didn't even hear him. He was in the room but it made no difference, he changed nothing with his coming. He was getting ready for bed and said nothing as he moved about and she said nothing but fell into the bed while he moved around in a smoke-filled space beyond her and once he spoke but she didn't hear him.

  She timed it. Every five minutes she looked at her watch and the watch shook and time shook and the five fingers were fifteen moving, reassembling into five. The shaking never stopped. She called for water. She turned and turned upon the bed. The wind blew outside, cocking the lights and spilling bursts of illumination that hit buildings glancing sidelong blows, causing windows to glitter like opened eyes and shut swiftly as the light tilted in yet another direction. Downstairs, all was quiet after the dinner, no sounds came up into their silent room. He handed her a water glass.

  "I'm cold Joseph," she said, lying deep in folds of cover.

  "You're all right," he said.

  "No, I'm not. I'm not well. I'm afraid."

  "There's nothing to be afraid of."

  "I want to get on the train for the United States."

  "There's a train in Leon, but none here," he said, lighting a new cigarette.

  "Let's drive there."

  "In these taxis, with these drivers, and leave our car here?"

  "Yes. I want to go."

  "You'll be all right in the morning."

  "I know I won't be. I'm not well."

  He said, "It would cost hundreds of dollars to have the car shipped home."

  "I don't care. I have two hundred dollars in the bank home. I'll pay for it. But, please, let's go home."

  "When the sun shines tomorrow you'll feel better, it's just that the sun's gone now."

  "Yes, the sun's gone and the wind's blowing," she whispered, closing her eyes, turning her head, listening. "Oh, what a lonely wind. Mexico 's a strange land. All the jungles and deserts and lonely stretches, and here and there a little town, like this, with a few lights burning you could put out with a snap of your fingers…"

  "It's pretty big country," he said.

  "Don't these people ever get lonely?"

  "They're used to it this way."

  "Don't they get afraid, then?"

  "They have a religion for that."

  "I wish I had a religion."

  "The minute you get a religion you stop thinking," he said. "Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas."

  "Tonight," she said, faintly. "I'd like nothing more than to have no more room for new ideas, to stop thinking, to believe in one thing so much it leaves me no time to be afraid."

  "You're not afraid," he said.

  "If I had a religion," she said, ignoring him, "I'd have a lever with which to lift myself. But I haven't a lever now and I don't know how to lift myself."

  "Oh, for God's-" he mumbled to himself, sitting down.

  "I used to have a religion," she said.

  "Baptist."

  "No, that was when I was twelve. I got over that. I mean-later."

  "You never told me."

  "You should have known," she said.

  "What religion? Plaster saints in the sacristy? Any special saint you liked to tell your beads to?"

  "Yes."

  "And did he answer your prayers?"

  "For a little while. Lately, no, never. Never any more. Not for years now. But I keep praying."

  "Which saint is this?"

  " Saint Joseph."

  " Saint Joseph." He got up and poured himself a glass of water from the glass pitcher, and it was a lonely trickling sound in the room. "My name."

  "Coincidence," she said.

  They looked at one another for a few moments.

  He looked away. "Plaster saints," he said, drinking the water down.

  After a while she said, "Joseph?" He said, "Yes?" and she said, "Come hold my hand, will you?"

  "Women," he sighed. He came and held her hand. After a minute she drew her hand away, hid it under the blanket, leaving his hand empty behind. With her eyes closed she trembled the words, "Never mind. It's not as nice as I can imagine it. It's really nice the way I can make you hold my hand in my mind."

  "Gods," he said, and went into the bathroom. She turned off the light. Only the small crack of light under the bathroom door showed. She listened to her heart. It beat one hundred and fifty times a minute, steadily, and the little whining tremor was still in her marrow, as if each bone of her body had a blue-bottle fly imprisoned in it, hovering, buzzing, shaking, quivering deep, deep, deep. Her eyes reversed into herself, to watch the secret heart of herself pounding itself to pieces against the side of her chest.

  Water ran in the bathroom. She heard him washing his teeth.

  "Joseph!"

  "Yes," he said, behind the shut door.

  "Come here."

  "What do you want?"

  "I want you to promise me something, please, oh, please."

  "What is it?"

  "Open the door, first."

  "What is it?" he demanded, behind the closed door.

  "Promise me," she said, and stopped.

  "Promise you what?" he asked, after a long pause.

  "Promise me," she said, and couldn't go on. She lay there. He said nothing. She heard the watch and her heart pounding together. A la
ntern creaked on the hotel exterior. "Promise me, if anything-happens," she heard herself say, muffled and paralyzed, as if she were on one of the surrounding hills talking at him from the distance, "-if anything happens to me, you won't let me be buried here in the graveyard over those terrible catacombs!"

  "Don't be foolish," he said, behind the door.

  "Promise me?" she said, eyes wide in the dark.

  "Of all the foolish things to talk about."

  "Promise, please promise?"

  "You'll be all right in the morning," he said.

  "Promise so I can sleep. I can sleep if only you'd say you wouldn't let me be put there. I don't want to be put there."

  "Honestly," he said, out of patience.

  "Please," she said.

  "Why should I promise anything so ridiculous?" he said. "You'll be fine tomorrow. And besides, if you died, you'd look very pretty in the catacomb standing between Mr. Grimace and Mr. Gape, with a sprig of morning-glory in your hair." And he laughed sincerely.

  Silence. She lay there in the dark.

  "Don't you think you'll look pretty there?" he asked, laughingly, behind the door.

  She said nothing in the dark room.

  "Don't you?" he said.

  Somebody walked down below in the plaza, faintly, fading away.

  "Eh?" he asked her, brushing his teeth.

  She lay there, staring up at the ceiling, her breast rising and falling faster, faster, faster, the air going in and out, in and out her nostrils, a little trickle of blood coming from her clenched lips. Her eyes were very wide, her hands blindly constricted the bedclothes.

  "Eh?" he said again behind the door.

  She said nothing.

  "Sure," he talked to himself. "Pretty as hell," he murmured, under the flow of tap water. He rinsed his mouth. "Sure," he said.

  Nothing from her in the bed.

  "Women are funny," he said to himself in the mirror.

  She lay in the bed.

  "Sure," he said. He gargled with some antiseptic, spat it down the drain. "You'll be all right in the morning," he said.

  Not a word from her.

  "We'll get the car fixed."

  She didn't say anything.

  "Be morning before you know it." He was screwing caps on things now, putting freshener on his face. "And the car fixed tomorrow, maybe, at the very latest the next day. You won't mind another night here, will you?"