Trouble trucks nastyARRIVAL IN PARIS At some time past midnight, he decided to head over to the lot to check up on the buses. Eventually, the space would be used for more trailers. But for now, the new fence was all that separated the place from the park on one side and the uncultivated desert on the other. It used to be that kids would set up a basketball hoop out there. Phil had known the family that owned the hoop, and they’d left a few years back, taking the thing with them. In the time between the basketball and the VWs, the only objects that ended up on the gravel were either dumped and abandoned, or led there by the wind. My uncle didn’t tell Jim and Phil outright, but he was glad to have the VW buses; he liked the idea of the lot being put to some good use. I hear Arnbjartur’s clogs clacking, and he shouts up the stairs: Aren’t you coming back down? Duncan finished tying the splints around Buchanan’s arm with strips torn from pallets and looked up. Every man in the stable was watching him, many wearing grins. Something had shifted. The company had acted as one. Duncan nodded at Murdo and Tanaqua, and they retrieved the items he had stolen from the dinghy. “No,” I said. “I’m notthat sentimental.” I’d like to take a walk up to the grove, I say. Anyone want to come along? There’s no wind outside. It sounded to me like someone pounding on the door. However, before Haintl could comment on this, Sponer quickly said goodbye and left. She always treated Berkeley and Oakland as neighborhoods in San Francisco, and I’d stopped correcting her a long time ago. My gut tells me nothing, J?i. I have no feeling about it. There’s a bridge ahead, says Edda. You should stop on it and wait. He began with a Highland lament, playing from the shadows. The men and women closest to him hesitated, then ceased all movement as they heard the notes, raising their heads high, eyes questing toward the heavens as if some Highland god were calling down. When the men wrestling on the far side of the yard did not react, the sergeant bellowed and they paused, then helped each other up as they too heard the pipes. A shock for me to die? You’re funny, dear. On page three was a stamped photograph of the dead man, jejune like all passport photos; a fairly young man with slicked-back hair, signed underneath: Jack Mortimer. The swinging became faster, and the punches kept pace. Duncan closed his eyes, clenching his jaw, until suddenly he realized they had stopped. He opened his eyes to see that the Welshman had returned, and was standing on the stool beside Duncan.“They never told you, did they?” Duncan said. “Only you haven’t done it! Sure, you wanted to do it, but it didn’t quite work out, did it?” We concluded from what Mom said that it had been an ugly twist of fate that it wasn’t either Sibbi or I who disappeared in place of Unnar. He was the most beautiful, most noble child that had ever been born in Iceland, a champion, sage, and clairvoyant, a son of Gunnar and Nj?l. After some time he realized that Marie was no longer speaking. He looked at her and saw tears in her eyes. I’m like most people in how I compare my misery with the misery of others. “Deb?”. |