"We should go to her, should we not?" I said. "And why would we do that?" he asked patiently. "Because she's crying. She's sad. Listen to the voices. Someone is being unkind to her-"
"No, only trying to give her medicine that she needs-" "I want to tell her that Esther didn't suffer, that I was there, and Esther's spirit went up so light it was like air itself in the Pathway of Heaven. I want to tell her."
He pondered this. The voices died down somewhat. I couldn't hear the woman crying anymore.
"Heed my advice," he said, reaching out for me and taking a firm grip of my arm. "Come into my parlor first and talk to me. Your words won't mean anything to her anyway."
I didn't like this. But I knew we must talk, he and I.
"Still, later at your leisure," I said, "I want to see her and comfort her. I want to-"
No words. No human cunning, suddenly, nothing but the crashing realization that I was on my own. Why in the name of Heaven had I been allowed to return with the full strength of a man? Or strength even greater.
Gregory studied me.
In a thinly lighted anteroom, I saw two women clothed in white. A man's voice rose husky and angry behind a door.
"The casket," said Gregory, pointing to the golden box in my arms. "Don't let her see such a thing. It would alarm her. Come with me first."
"Yes, it's a strange thing, this," I said, looking at the casket, at the gold flaking from it.
Dimness. Grief. The light changed just a fraction. Go away from me, all doubt, and worry, and fear of failure, I said in a whisper in a tongue that he could not possibly understand.
There came the familiar reek of boiling liquid, of a golden mist rising. You know why. But I didn't. I turned and shut my eyes, and then looked again down the hallway, to the far window open to the night sky.
"Look at that," I said. I had only a vague point in mind, something to do with the raiment of Heaven being as beautiful as the marble that surrounded us, the archways above us, the pilasters flanking every door. "The stars beyond, look," I said again, "the stars."
All was quiet in the house. He watched me, studying me, listening to my every breath.
"Yes, the stars," he said dreamily, with seeming respect.
His quick dark eyes broadened and there came his smile again, loving and tender.
"We'll talk to her later, I promise you," he said. He grasped my arm firmly and pointed. "But come now to my study, come now and let's talk together. It's time, is it not?"
"I wish I knew," I said in a half murmur. "She's still crying, isn't she?"
"She'll cry till she dies," he said. His shoulders were heavy with sorrow. His whole soul ached with it. I let him lead me down the hall. I wanted to know things from him. I wanted to know everything.
I didn't respond.
19
We made our way down this corridor, Gregory leading boldly, letting his feet ring on the marble, and I coming behind him, dazzled by the peach-colored silk panels affixed to the walls. The floor itself was this same lovely nourishing color.
We passed numerous doors, and one of them to our right lay open. It was her room. She was in there.
I came to a halt and peered in, rudely, but the sight which struck me amazed me.
It was a lavish bedchamber, done wildly in crimson with festoons of red silk coming from its ceilings down over the pillars of the bed. The floor was again marble and this time snow white.
But this in itself was not as remarkable as the sight of a woman- the woman who had been crying-sitting on a low couch, her gown airy and shimmering and as red as the trappings of the room. She had jet-black hair, like the hair of Esther, like my hair for that matter- and the same immense eyes of Esther with near glistening whites to them. But her hair was stranded through and through with silver; it seemed almost decorated by greater age. It spilled down behind her back. Nurses in white surrounded her. One moved quickly to shut the door.
But she looked up, saw me. Her face was drawn and sallow and wet with tears. But she was not old. She'd been very young when she'd given birth to Esther. At once she sat up.
The door was shut, the lock turned. I heard her call out:
"Gregory!"
He walked on, reaching back for my hand, his own warm and smooth and leading me alongside him.
Others whispered behind other doors. There were wires in the walls that carried whispers. I couldn't hear the woman crying.
We entered the main room, a grand demilune of splendid detail with a lofty half dome of a ceiling. A row of floor-length windows, each cut into twelve different panes of glass, ran across the street side of it, which was flat, and behind us doors of the same frame punctuated the half circle at equal intervals.
It was more than magnificent.
But the view of the night caught me with all its timeless sweetness. Across a deep dark divide I saw towers, patterned with lights set in rows of incredible regularity, but then I came to realize that all of these buildings had these straight rows of windows, that this age was very mathematically precise.
My head was swimming. Information was pouring in on me.
I saw that the room faced not a dark river, as I had supposed, but a broad dark park. I could smell the trees. I looked down and was amazed to see how truly far we were above the earth, from the tiny crowd still clogging the little thoroughfare and the mounted policemen moving awkwardly like trapped cavalry amid a battle. A swarm of ants.
I turned around.
The doors behind us, in the curved wall, were closed now. I couldn't even tell which door had been our door. I was distracted and obsessed suddenly with the brief glimpse of the weeping mother.
But I cleared this for the present.
In the very center of the half circle wall stood a hearth, monstrous, made of the usual white marble and cold and grand as an altar. Lions were carved into this hearth, and a shelf stood above it and above that a huge mirror which caught the reflection of the windows.
Indeed reflections bounced about all around me. The twelve-paned doors of the rear wall were mirrored, rather than glassed! What an illusion it was. We were drifting in this palace, and comforted by the city as if it had taken us in its arms.
A great heap of wood stood ready in the hearth, as if it were cruel winter, which it was not.
All the doors, both real and mirrored, were double doors with gracefully twisted handles of plated gold, and fancy curving frames for their narrow and shining panes of mirror or glass.
I turned around and around, absorbing everything, drawing out of each item every inference that I could, and no doubt drawing as always upon sources of knowledge inexplicable to me. I was startled by each new object. Then I knew what it was. Statues from China, a Grecian urn very familiar to me and comforting, and lavish glass vases of flowers-these things stood on pedestals.