Now And Forever Part 9

"You," he said. "Not the weather, not the genetics, you, dear Nef," he paused, "are my fountain of youth."

"Let me make you young again," she said.

And sealed his mouth with hers.

CHAPTER 28.

He slept and he dreamed.

He was on the train, going east, and then suddenly he was in Chicago, and even more suddenly, he was in front of the Art Inst.i.tute and was going up the stairs and through the corridors to stand before the great Sunday in the Park painting.

A woman was standing by the painting and she turned and it was his fiancee.

As he watched, she grew older, aging before his eyes, and she said to him, "You've changed."

He said, "No, I haven't changed at all."

"Your face is different. You've come to say goodbye."

"No, just to see how you are," he said.

"No, you've come to say goodbye."

And as he watched, she grew even older and he felt very small, standing in front of the painting and trying to think of something to say.

Quite suddenly she was gone.

He walked out of the building and there at the bottom of the stairs were seven or eight of his friends.

As he watched, they grew older and they said the same things that she had said.

"You've come to say goodbye."

"No," he insisted. "No, I haven't done that."

Then he turned and ran back into the building, a young man suddenly old among old paintings.

And then he awoke.

CHAPTER 29.

He sat for a long while listening to the wind howl in the chimney and the rain funnels outside.

The old house creaked down into a deep swell of night then backed up and over, out of sight of land and light.

Rats practiced graffiti on the walls and spiders played harps so high that only the hairs inside his ears heard and quivered.

How much loss, how much gain? he wondered. How much leave, and how much remain?

What to decide? he thought.

All right, he called into himself. What? Which?

Not a stir of dark in his head. Not an echo.

Just a whisper: Sleep.

And he slept again and put out the light behind his eyes.

He heard a locomotive whistle across his dreams.

The train was gliding, rushing in the night, taking the curves under the moon, hitting the long straight-aways, tossing dust, scattering sparks, laying out echoes, and he was atilt and adream and somehow the familiar words came back in his head: One kiss and all time's your dominion One touch and no death can be cold.

One night puts off graveyard opinion One hour and you'll never grow old.

Drink deep of the wine of forever Drink long of eternity's stuff Where everyman's learned and clever, And two billion loves not enough.

He cried out in his dream. No! And then again, Oh G.o.d, yes.

And some final few words spelled his dreams: Somewhere a band is playing, Playing the strangest tunes, Of sunflower seeds and sailors, Who tide with the strangest moons.

He was waking now. His mouth sighed: Somewhere a band is playing Listen, O, listen, that tune?

Learn it and you'll dance on forever In June and yet June and more...June.

The train was not far off now. It was rounding some hills. The sun was rising and he knew he had changed his mind.

He looked out at a sunrise that was b.l.o.o.d.y, a town filled with farewell light, and a weather that was so strange he would not forget it for a thousand days.

He saw his face in the bathroom mirror as he shaved, and the eyes looked immensely sad.

He came down to breakfast and sat before the mound of hotcakes and did not eat.

Nef, across from him, saw what he had seen in the mirror and sat back in her chair.

"Have you been thinking?" she asked.

He took a deep breath. Up to this very moment he didn't know what would come from his mouth.

"Stay," she said, before he could speak.

"I wish that I could."

"Stay."

And here she reached and took his hand.

And it was a warm hand and his own was cold. She seemed a G.o.ddess, bending to reach into his tomb and help him out.

"Please."

"Oh G.o.d," he cried. "Oh Christ, let me be!" He wept inside. "You don't understand. I'm not made to not grow old."

"How can you know?"

"Each of us knows. I was born to live and die at seventy. Then I will really be filled up. The fire of life, the good stuff, goes straight up the chimney. The sins, the sadness, whatever, stays like soot on the chimney walls. One can gather only so much darkness. I've collected too much. How do you knock the soot off the walls inside your soul?"

"With a chimney sweep," she said. "Let me sweep and knock those walls until you laugh. I can, if you let me."

"I won't allow it."

"No," she said, quietly. "I don't suppose you can. Oh, G.o.d, I might cry now. But I won't. Goodbye."

"I'm not going yet."

"But I am. I can't watch you go. Come back someday."

"Do you think I'll never come back?"

She nodded, eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's so hard. I don't know if I'm ready to live a hundred and thirty years. I wonder if anyone is or can be. It's just," he said, "it sounds so...lonely. Leaving everyone behind. Coming to the day when the last friend goes into the graveyard."

"You'll make new friends."

"Yes, but there are no friends like the old ones. You can't replace them."

"No. You can't."

She looked at the door.

"If you go, and you do decide to come back, to try and find us, don't wait too long."

"Or it won't work? I know. I'll be too old. Must I decide before I'm...fifty?"

"Just come back to us," she said.

And suddenly her chair was empty.

CHAPTER 30.

At the train station, there were sunflowers out on the track. Someone had been there ahead of him and if it was Elias Culpepper, he never knew.

The train stopped this time, and he got on and as he bought a ticket from the conductor he asked, "Do you remember me?"

The man looked at his face intently, scowled, and looked again and said, "Can't say I do."

And the train gathered steam and chugged away from the station and Summerton, Arizona, was left behind.

CHAPTER 31.

The train flew across flat corn lands, over the horizon, by the lake and to the great turbulent city next to the lake, and he was running up the steps of the museum and walking among paintings to sit before the endlessly intriguing Seurat, where the Sunday strollers stood still in an eternal park.

Now beside him sat Laura, glancing back and forth from the green park to him, stunned and questioning.

At last she said, "What have you done to your face?"

"My face?" he said.

"It's changed," she said.

"I didn't change it."

"What is it, then?"

"Things. Things changed it."

"Can you change it back?"

"I'll try."

And then, as in the dream, but now in reality, he walked down the steps of the museum and all of his friends were waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

There were Tom and Pete and Will and Sam and all the rest and they said, "Let's go out for a long dinner."