Say no. Say no, or you'll have to lie to her again. And you're a terrible liar, and nineteen years out of practice.

"Don't bother," he said. "It's not worth it. I think I know where I dropped it. It's a very long walk."

"Well, I hope you find it," Mrs. Klapper said. "Get the man to help you if you can't find it by yourself."

They shook hands.

"It was very nice talking to you," Mr. Rebeck said. "I'm sorry we can't continue it."

Mrs. Klapper shrugged. "So maybe we'll meet again. You come around here a lot?"

"Yes. I like walking here."

"Me too. Anyway, I come to see Morris sometimes. So maybe we'll run into each other."

"Maybe," Mr. Rebeck said. "Good-by."

"Good-by. I hope you find your watch."

He did not wait to see her walk away. Instead, he turned quickly from her and walked back up the wide road, looking at the ground as a man would if he had lost something small and valued. Only when he reached the top of the hill did he turn and look back. She was gone by then.

I hate lying and saying good-by, he thought, because I am not very good at either.

Chapter 4

The three people who had not left the cemetery stood over the grave. One of the men was less paunchy than the other. The woman's nails were broad and curved, the color of old milk.

"She was such a good girl," the woman said hoarsely. The men nodded.

"Not exactly," said Laura Durand. She sat on the grass next to Michael and looked at the three people. "I was just tired."

" 'Good' is the only word for her," said the younger man. He had a clear, precise voice. "The only word that really fitted her."

"All my life," said Laura, nodding.

"So young," the woman said. She swayed a little, and the old man put his arm around her.

"I was twenty-nine," Laura said, "pushing fifty. I told people I was thirty-three because it saved questions about why I liked books."

"And so pretty," the younger man said in his typewriter voice. "So alive, so vital."

"Oh, Gary," Laura murmured a little sadly. She turned to Michael. "I looked like an elementary-school teacher."

Gary patted the woman on the shoulder a good deal and craned his neck to look at his wrist watch.

"He wants to go back to the bookstore," Laura explained. "He gets nervous if he's away from it too long. Two years ago he had appendicitis, and they operated right on the Social Sciences counter."

"We were more than mother and daughter," the woman keened. "We were friends. Isn't that so, Carl?" The old man tightened his grip on her shoulders.

"Yes, Mother," Laura said softly. "Friendship's better than nothing." She half rose, then relaxed again. "Can I speak to them?" Michael shook his head.

"She was a wonderful worker." That was Gary again. "Efficient. Always there when I needed her. I don't know how I'm going to get along without her now."

"You'll manage, Gary," Laura said. "The world's full of me." She glanced at Michael. "I had a crush on him for a while, the kind of crush you get when you get fed up with square dancing at the YWCA. He never knew, and it went away gradually, like athlete's foot."

The old man spoke for the first time. His voice was low and slightly accented. "It is time to go, Marian."

"I don't want to leave her." The mother was weeping now, quietly and steadily. Gary took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and gave it to her.

"Gary always has a handkerchief," Laura said, smiling, "Matches, too."

"We had better go," Gary said, making a vague motion to the old man over the woman's bent head. "They probably close up soon."

"I don't want to go." Michael watched the tears slipping from under the handkerchief with a kind of greediness. He had not seen anyone cry for a long while.

"Marian—" the old man said again.

"Wait a little. Please wait a little."

"Go away!" Laura was suddenly on her feet, her arms pressed tightly against her sides. "Go away, damn it!" It looked to Michael as if she might cry herself, but he knew better. He remained seated, his legs crossed, and thought that she had nice hair.

The people were going away now. The woman was still crying. Gary and the old Carl flanked her, walking slowly and staring straight ahead. They looked, Michael thought, as if they had just seen a play they hadn't cared for, whose author was sure to ask their opinion the next morning. He watched them walk, observing through death-honed eyes the way their feet slid and scuffed through the scattered gravel; watching Carl put his hands in his pockets and take them out a few seconds later, over and over again; frowning with Gary when a pebble got into his shoe. The pebble felt very real against a hastily summoned up instep-memory as he watched the younger man shake his foot in a sidewise pawing motion. And he sighed with Gary when the pebble finally lodged under the arch of his foot.

Laura cried out suddenly and started to run after them. Her hands were stretched in front of her, as if she were about to fall, and she ran constrictedly and without grace.

"It's no good," Michael called after her. "You can't touch them"—but she had stopped already and was walking very quickly back toward him. Her hands were opening and shutting slowly, but she was quite calm.

"I don't know why I did that," she said, sitting next to him again. "I knew it was useless."

"Don't admit it," Michael said sharply. "Never admit it." Laura looked a little puzzled. "I don't mind." She looked around her. "Are these foothills of Heaven? I'm sure I'll go to Heaven. I've been dull enough."

"This is the Yorkchester Cemetery," Michael answered, "and Heaven and Hell are only for the living."

"A pity." Laura tried to pluck a blade of grass, and Michael winced for her when her fingers went through it. She showed no emotion, except for closing her hands and pressing them into her lap.

Michael vaguely remembered a very old book, its binding hanging in strings. He associated a quotation with it and felt a disproportionate pleasure in doing so. "'Into Paradise,'" he said slowly, "'go those aged priests and those old cripples, and the maimed, who all day long and all night cough before the altars. With them I have nought to do.'"

Laura looked up, smiling, and snapped her fingers silently. "'But in hell will I go,'" she quoted triumphantly. "'For to hell go the fair clerks and the fair knights . . . there go the fair and courteous ladies—'" She frowned and shook her head slightly. "I forget . . ."

"'There go the fair and courteous ladies,'" Michael picked up, "'who have friends, two or three, together with their wedded lords. And there pass the gold and silver, the ermine and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels, and the happy of the world.'"

Laura finished the last line with him. "I read that," she said, "when I was seventeen or eighteen and terribly sad. Where did you read it?"

"My wife liked it. She used to quote it all the time."

Laura was silent for a moment. "Funny. I know that by heart, and yet when I tried to remember it just now I felt it slipping out of my mind, squirming when I reached for it as if it were something wild I'd captured."

"Hang on to it as tightly as you can," Michael said, "as long as you can."

"I never hang on to things," Laura answered. "I'm in favor of setting things free." She rose and walked slowly over to her grave. "Don't I get a stone?" she asked. "I thought everybody got a headstone."

"I haven't got one either," Michael said. "I think it comes later. The ground has to get used to you."

"My stone will be small and very plain. Marian believes in simplicity. Just my name and my two big moments: 'Laura Durand. 1929-1958.' And a line of poetry." She hesitated and then smiled. "'Hail to thee, blithe spirit.' I'd bet on it."