Sail of Stone

40

These streets. The first time he was here. The bus from the sea had been late and he had walked south from the station and it was night, one of the warm ones.

He had turned around several times but no one had been following him.

He was someone else.

The street looked like it had then. It smelled like it had then, a smell that had been heavy not long ago.

Was it the same room? It was the same view. Guest rooms changed places. People came and went. Wars came and went. There was a picture of Jesus on the wall, and there had been that time too, the first time. He had fallen to his knees and tried to say something to Jesus. He hadn’t gotten an answer. He knew why.

Jesus!

The woman had looked at him, studied him. He had handed over his letter.

It was time.

Jesus had answered. No. It was someone else.

He wandered back and forth across the bridges. Waited. He tried to listen, to wait again. At a pub in a nice hotel he had looked at his hands when the bartender looked at them.

He had looked as though he knew. His hands around the rope.

Around the neck.

He received his ale and watched it clear up.

The sea had been crazy that night, it had been c-r-a-z-y. They had all been crazy. Crazy.

It wasn’t just the money. Or the women.

Or God.

On the last night he took the bus to the southern point of the sea.

He wandered up in the mountains.

He found a place that could be a peaceful place. If the wind were right. If the light would just disappear.

In the evening he waited. Someone had lit a bonfire on the beach. He saw the faces like flecks. Someone was banging on a guitar, a ragged sound that floated out on the water. He thought he saw a movement out there.

At night he cried. He tried to write a new letter, in the old language. He tried to sort his memories into different piles, far away from one another. Before it became day, he planned to take out some of those damn piles and throw them on the fire and let them burn up. He heard his thoughts, the strong words he’d never articulated but was thinking now.

Words were nothing compared to actions. Words could hurt, but not like that, never like that.

There was one memory he kept at bay.

He had said that it didn’t concern him: This doesn’t have to do with you.

It was a good day.

Stay on land, he had said. Stay here.

I don’t want to. Why should I do that?

Stay.

No.

Stay.

But…

You’re not going on board. You’re not going on board. You’re not coming along.

It hadn’t ended up that way.

The car was green like the algae he’d held in his hand three days earlier.

Jesus! Take me away from here!