The Crime of Julian Wells

After

He folds the map and puts it on the table beside his chair. Beyond the window, he sees the flat gray waters of the pond. The boat, its yellow paint long faded, rests beneath a weeping birch.

He rises, walks to the window, and looks out.

In the distance, a small breeze rustles the leaves of the birch and skirts along the green lawn and gently rocks the purple irises that grow beside the water. He has seen so many grasses, so many flowers. The lavender fields of France, the cloudberries of the Urals with their little orange petals, the feather grasses of the pampas swaying like dancers.

He will miss these things.

He considers the act, then its consequences.

He will make it clean.

There will be no fuss.

He turns and gives a final glance at the map. He has studied so many maps. He thinks of the water bearers of the world, almost always women, hauling their jerry jars to the river or the lake. His mind is like those jars, worn and dusty, scarred by use, but still able to hold its heavy store of memory.

And yet there is something he forgot.

He walks to the small desk in the corner, opens the notebook, and tears out the top sheet. He folds it carefully, without hurry, then sinks it deep into his pocket.

It is disturbance you must look for, the old trackers told him. Not prints. Not trails. But disturbance in the spear grass, a sense of reeds askew. Those will lead you to the one you seek.

He looks about the room for any hint of such disturbance, finds none, and with that assurance, walks to the door, then passes through it, and moves out onto the lawn. He feels the breeze whose movement he had sensed before, cool upon his face, a pressure on his shirt, a gentle movement in his hair.

He hears a bird call, glances up, and sees a gull as it crosses the lower sky. When was it he first saw the sunbirds of the Sudan, their sun-streaked, iridescent feathers?

He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter now.

He draws down his gaze and with a steady stride makes his way to the boat. It is heavy, and he has been weakened, though less by his final work than by this final decision.

But the decision has been made.

The boat is weighty but he pulls it into the water. What was the lightest he ever knew? Oh yes, it was made of bulrushes. And what was the other word for bulrushes? Oh yes, it was tule.

The boat rocks violently as he climbs in, but he rights himself, grabs an oar, and pushes out into the water.

How far to go?

The center of the pond. Far enough that he will appear small and indistinct in the distance so that she cannot tell what he is doing, nor get to him before he can complete the task.

Seventy feet from shore now. Perhaps eighty. He has not rowed in a long time. Even now his arms are aching. But that will be over soon. He knows that he has grown weak in the Russian wastes, but he is surprised by just how weak he is. Or has his secret always worked upon him like a withering disease?

One hundred feet out from shore.

Enough.

He takes the paper from his pocket, unfolds it, and reads what he has written.

“It’s your final dark conclusion, isn’t it?” I ask. “And it was going to be the first line of your next book.”

He turns to face me. His features bear the mark of life’s many cruel tricks.

“Because there is no answer to our zachem,” I add.

He nods.

“Write it,” I tell him softly. “Go home and write it.”

He remains silent, still.

“The world has plenty of noise, Julian, but not many voices.”

He watches me steadily.

“And because there are so few, each one matters.”

I lean toward him, hoping for more persuasive words. When none comes to me, I shrug. “That’s my argument. The simple fact that we need people who remind us of the darkness.”

His smile is slight and, like everything else, difficult to read, impossible to know.

“That is your job, Julian,” I add. “And you need to do it.”

With a curiously resolved movement, the renewal of some almost vanished strength, Julian returns the paper to his pocket and once again takes up the oars. I know, because I know him, that he is thinking of his book.

The wind touches the far trees. On the near bank, a dragonfly shoots over the still waters.

I follow the soft beat of the oars.

Second by second, the house grows nearer.

Even so, I cannot be sure that he will make it home.

For life, as Julian knew and his life and words and crime declared, is, at last, a Saturn Turn.