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away into the hitherand-thither-going people; he blinked. Is this how Bob Arctor felt? he asked
himself. Must have. There she was, stable and as if forever; then nothing. Vanished like fire or air,
an element of the earth back into the earth. To mix with the everyone-else people that never ceased to
be. Poured out among them. The evaporated girl, he thought. Of transformation. That comes and goes
as she will. And no one, nothing, can hold on to her.
I seek to net the wind, he thought. And so had Arctor. Vain, he thought, to try to place your hands
firmly on one of the federal drug-abuse agents. They are furtive. Shadows which melt away when their
job dictates. As if they were never really there in the first place. Arctor, he thought, was in love with a
phantom of authority, a kind of hologram, through which a normal man could walk, and emerge on the
far side, alone. Without ever having gotten a good grip on it on the girl itself.
God s M.O., he reflected, is to transmute evil into good. If He is active here, He is doing that
now, although our eyes can t perceive it; the process lies hidden beneath the surface of reality, and
emerges only later. To, perhaps, our waiting heirs. Paltry people who will not know the dreadful war
we ve gone through, and the losses we took, unless in some footnote in a minor history book they
catch a notion. Some brief mention. With no list of the fallen.
There should be a monument somewhere, he thought, listing those who died in this. And, worse,
those who didn t die. Who have to live on, past death. Like Bob Arctor. The saddest of all.
I get the idea Donna is a mercenary, he thought. Not on salary. And they are the most wraithlike.
They disappear forever. New names, new locations. You ask yourself, where is she now? And the
answer is
Nowhere. Because she was not there in the first place.
Reseating himself at the wooden table, Mike Westaway finished eating his burger and drinking
his Coke. Since it was better than what they were served at New-Path. Even if the burger had been
made from groundup cows anuses.
To call Donna back, to seek to find her or possess her . . . I seek what Bob Arctor sought, so
maybe he is better off now, this way. The tragedy in his life already existed. To love an atmospheric
spirit. That was the real sorrow. Hopelessness itself. Nowhere on the printed page, nowhere in the
annals of man, would her name appear: no local habitation, no name. There are girls like that, he
thought, and those you love the most, the ones where there is no hope because it has eluded you at the
very moment you close your hands around it.
So maybe we saved him from something worse, Westaway concluded. And, while accomplishing
that, put what remained of him to use. To good and valuable use.
If we turn out lucky.
Do you know any stories? Thelma asked one day.
I know the story about the wolf, Bruce said.
The wolf and the grandmother?
No, he said. The black-and-white wolf. It was up in a tree, and again and again it dropped
down on the farmer s animals. Finally one time the farmer got all his sons and all his sons friends
and they stood around waiting for the black-and-white wolf in the tree to drop down. At last the wolf
dropped down on a mangy-looking brown animal, and there in his black-and-white coat he was shot by
all of them.
Oh, Thelma said. That s too bad.
But they saved the hide, he continued. They skinned the great black-and-white wolf that
dropped from the tree and preserved his beautiful hide, so that those to follow, those who came later
on, could see what he had been like and could marvel at him, at his strength and size. And future
generations talked about him and related many stories of his prowess and majesty, and wept for his
passing.
Why did they shoot him?
They had to, he said. You must do that with wolves like that.
Do you know any other stories? Better ones?
No, he said, that s the only story I know. He sat remembering how the wolf had enjoyed his
great springing ability, his leaping down again and again in his fine body, but now that body was gone,
shot down. And for meager animals to be slaughtered and eaten anyhow. Animals with no strength that
never sprang, that took no pride in their bodies. But anyhow, on the good side, those animals trudged
on. And the black-and-white wolf had never complained; he had said nothing even when they shot
him. His claws had still been deep in his prey. For nothing. Except that that was his fashion and he
liked to do it. It was his only way. His only style by which to live. All he knew. And they got him.
Here s the wolf! Thelma exclaimed, leaping about clumsily. Voob, voob! She grabbed at
things and missed, and he saw with dismay that something was wrong with her. He saw for the first
time, distressed and wondering how it could happen, that she was impaired.
He said, You are not the wolf.
But even so, as she groped and hobbled, she stumbled; even so, he realized, the impairment
continued. He wondered how it could be that . . .
Ich unglücksel get Atlas! Eine Welt,
Die ganze Welt der Schmerzen muss ich tragen,
Ich trage Unerträgliches, und brechen
Will mir das Herz im Leibe.
. . . such sadness could exist. He walked away. Behind him she still played. She tripped and fell.
How must that feel? he wondered.
***
He roamed along the corridor, searching for the vacuum cleaner. They had informed him that he
must carefully vacuum the big playroom where the children spent most of the day.
Down the hall to the right. A person pointed. Earl.
Thanks, Earl, he said.
When he arrived at a closed door he started to knock, and then instead he opened it.
Inside the room an old woman stood holding three rubber balls, which she juggled. She turned
toward him, her gray stringy hair falling on her shoulders, grinning at him with virtually no teeth. She
wore white bobby socks and tennis shoes. Sunken eyes, he saw; sunken eyes, grinning, empty mouth.
Can you do this? she wheezed, and threw all three balls up into the air. They fell back, hitting
her, bouncing down to the floor. She stooped over, spitting and laughing.
I can t do that, he said, standing there dismayed.
I can. The thin old creature, her arms cracking as she moved, raised the balls, squinted, tried to
get it right.
Another person appeared at the door beside Bruce and stood with him, also watching.
How long has she been practicing? Bruce said.
Quite a while. The person called, Try again. You re getting close!
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