Verses for the Dead

35

He sat on the floor of the darkened house, the images from the old thirty-two-inch Trinitron throwing jerky patterns on the bare walls. The commercials on the screen unspooled in antic pantomime — he’d managed to mute the sound with the remote, but beyond that he was unable to move. He felt paralyzed.

It was just chance he’d stumbled upon the program. And there was that FBI man — strange, black-clad, but pale as death itself — standing in front of the camera, talking to him. To him.

I know you’re there, watching and listening.

He stared at the screen in such astonishment he could hardly focus on it. No one had ever spoken to him like that. Even when he was very young, in the good times before the Journey, he did not remember such talk, such sympathy, such kindly understanding.

I know you’ve had a terrible life; that you haven’t had the guidance we all need to tell right from wrong.

But he did know right from wrong. He did. After all, it was because he knew that he was Atoning. That was the point of the preparation, and the Action. How could this man understand him... yet not understand that?

While it’s my job to stop you, I want you to know one thing: I’m not your enemy.

Suddenly, regaining control of his limbs, he hurled the remote control at the screen. It bounced off in pieces and fell to the floor. He looked around for a moment in confusion and misery — at the dust heaped in the corners, the peeling wallpaper, the front door with its two cracked panes, the owl-patterned outside light with its busted bulb... and then suddenly he burst out crying. He had not cried in a dozen years but now he wailed, falling prostrate to the floor, writhing back and forth, grinding his teeth and pounding his fists against the old wooden planks, shrieking as if somehow sound alone could wrench the demons from him, roll back the years, undo the terrible, unspeakable Journey.

But the demons remained, and eventually the shrieks subsided: first to weeping, then racking sobs, then — at last — nothing. He lay on the floor, body aching, spent.

While it’s my job to stop you, I’m not your enemy.

He let the emotion drain from him, breathing now without hurry, letting his humbleness renew itself, bit by bit, in the darkness of the room. He ran through his senses, one by one, ending with sound. All was quiet, save for the background hum that never fully went away.

The weakness he had just demonstrated was as expected. Despite that weakness, he knew his duty and he still had the power to make things right.

Now he had something new to prepare for.

It’s my job to stop you.

It’s my job to stop you.

Slowly, slowly, he rose from the floor. He felt the ground firm beneath his feet, and his resolve did not waver. He glanced around the shadowy room, lit only by the muted television.

That man, clad in black like a judge, reaching out to him like that: Who was he? Was he really just an FBI agent? Or an avenging angel — or the Grand Inquisitor?

He did not know. What he did know was that there was still crucial work to be done — and so much depended on him.

Now he strode with purpose toward the only furniture in the room: a scuffed card table and a single folding chair. He sat down, pulling the seat up to the table. On the black vinyl tabletop lay three bundles of soft felt cloth.

He stared at the bundles as his heart returned to its normal rhythm. Reaching for the left-hand bundle, he opened it, revealing an old carborundum — silicon carbide — whetstone; a tin of theatrical makeup in matte black; and a battered can of light-grade mineral oil. The stone, which was of a quality no longer available, had two different sides: four thousand grit and eight thousand grit. Since he never let his friends get dull, there was no need for a rougher stone.

Now he moved to the other two bundles, which he opened far more carefully. Archy slept in the first; Mehitabel in the second. He did not want to wake them too rudely.

Just seeing them in the warm, flickering glow of the television helped remind him of his tragic obligations. So much depends...

Taking hold of the sharpening stone, he placed it before him, finer-side down, then lubricated the four-thousand-grit side with a few drops of oil. He knew water was now more commonly used, but old ways — like old friends — were what he preferred. With two fingers, he rubbed the oil into the stone until it gave off a dull shine. He wiped his fingers carefully on the leg of his black jeans for sixty seconds. Only then did he pick up Mehitabel; place her blade at a precise fifteen-degree angle against the stone; and then — almost reluctantly, without joy — begin to hone her in long, deliberate strokes.