But her look was enough. He would take that with him, and count himself content; just the somber sweetness of her as a token, like coins in his eyes to pay his passage with.
“Goodbye,” he said, and walked, his gait uneven, to the door. She went ahead of him and opened the door, then led him down the stairs. A child was crying in one of the adjacent rooms, the whooping wail of a baby that knows no one will come. On the front step Breer thanked Sharon again, and they parted. He watched her run off home.
For his part, he was not certain-at least not consciously-of where he was going to go now, or why. But once down the steps and onto the pavement his legs took him in a direction he had never been before, and he didn’t become lost, though he soon made his way into unfamiliar territory. Somebody called him. Him, and his machete and his blurred, gray face. He went as quickly as anatomy allowed like a man summoned by history.
70
Whitehead was not afraid to die; he was only afraid that in dying he might discover that he had not lived enough. That had been his concern as he faced Mamoulian in the hallway of the penthouse suite, and it still tormented him as they sat in the lounge, with the buzz of the highway at their backs.
“No more running, Joe,” Mamoulian said.
Whitehead said nothing. He collected a large bowl of Halifax’s prime strawberries from the corner of the room, then returned to his chair. Running his expert fingers across the fruit in the bowl, he selected a particularly appetizing strawberry and began to nibble at it.
The European watched him, betraying no clue to his thoughts. The chase was done with; now, before the end, he hoped they’d be able to talk over old times for a while. But he didn’t know where to begin.
“Tell me,” Whitehead said, seeking the meat of the fruit right up to the hull, “did you bring a pack with you?” Mamoulian stared at him. “Cards, not dogs,” the old man quipped.
“Of course,” the European answered, “always.”
“And do these fine boys play?” He gestured to Chad and Tom, who stood by the window.
“We came for the Deluge,” Chad said.
A frown nicked the old man’s brow. “What have you been telling them?” he asked the European.
“It’s all their own doing,” Mamoulian replied.
“The world’s coming to an end,” Chad said, combing his hair with obsessive care and staring out at the highway, his back to the two old men. “Didn’t you know?”
“Is that so?” said Whitehead.
“The unrighteous will be swept away.”
The old man put down his bowl of strawberries. “And who will judge?” he asked.
Chad let his coiffure be. “God in heaven,” he said.
“Can’t we play for it?” Whitehead responded. Chad turned to look at the questioner, puzzled; but the inquiry was not for him, but for the European.
“No,” Mamoulian replied.
“For old times’ sake,” Whitehead pressed. “Just a game.”
“Your gamesmanship would impress me, Pilgrim, if it weren’t so obviously a delaying tactic.”
“You won’t play, then?”
Mamoulian’s eyes flickered. He almost smiled as he said: “Yes. Of course I’ll play.”
“There’s a table next door, in the bedroom. Do you want to send one of your bum-boys through to fetch it?”
“Not bum-boys.”
“Too old for that, are you?”
“God-fearing men, both of them. Which is more than can be said of you.”
“That was always my problem,” Whitehead said, conceding the barb with a grin. This was like the old days: the exchange of ironies, the sweet-sour repartee, the knowledge, shared every moment they were together, that the words disguised a depth of feeling that would shame a poet.
“Would you fetch the table?” Mamoulian asked Chad. He didn’t move. He had become too interested in the struggle of wills between these two men. Much of its significance was lost on him, but the tension in the room was unmistakable. Something awesome was on the horizon. Maybe a wave; maybe not.
“You go,” he told Tom; he was unwilling to take his eyes off the combatants for a single instant. Tom, happy to have something to take his mind off his doubts, obliged.