Episode 68 · A Place to Go

— V —

The train was three hours late.

The young man sat on the bench at the end of the platform, his backpack between his feet and his transfer paper folded in his pocket. It had rained all morning. Under the roof, water fell through a crack in the same place, beside a trash can, and no one had moved the can to catch it.

At the unit he would have known what to do at that hour. Someone would have whistled, someone would have called a number, and he would have stood with the others. On the platform no one called him.

He took out the paper and unfolded it. He had read it six times in the truck. The destination was written at the top in large letters. Lower down, in a narrow box, was the reason for the transfer.

Requires reassignment.

It did not say what he had done. It said nothing about the boy in the small building, or about the kid, who had hauled him out by the collar until the counting voice in him died down. The paper gave him a destination. At the end of it someone would find him a bed and something to do.

He folded it again.

On the bench opposite, a woman was trying to tie the string around a box with one hand. Her other arm rested in a sling knotted behind her neck. The box was too big for her lap; each time she pulled the string, it slid toward her knees.

The young man watched her good hand. Her fingers were swollen with cold. She caught the end of the string in her teeth, pulled, lost the box and stopped it with her elbow before it fell.

He stood up.

— I’ll hold the box for you.

She looked up at him. Her eyes went to his uniform, to the backpack, then to his left hand. The sleeve covered the cord, but when he reached out the cuff had slid back and left two knots in plain sight.

He pulled the sleeve down over them.

— Just while you tie it.

She made room. He propped the box against his knee, and she passed the string underneath, slowly, stopping twice to rest her fingers. She did not ask him to tie the knot. He did not offer.

— Thank you, she said.

She took the box back. He sat down on his bench and watched the water falling beside the trash can.

While he held the box, the voices had not come closer. He had watched the woman, ready to catch the box if it slipped, and that had been enough. Now he felt them again beneath his thoughts, too quiet to make out, too close to forget.

A boy came out of the station with two cups of tea. He sat beside the woman, gave her one and asked whether she had managed. She pointed at the tied box and looked across at the young man. The boy nodded to him. The young man nodded back.

When she wanted to drink, the boy took the box without breaking off what he was saying.

The young man no longer had anything to hold.

He walked to the end of the platform. Beyond the tracks the ground sloped down to some low sheds. A door was banging in the wind. From there he could see the loose hinge: the top one held, the bottom one was tearing out, wood and all. It should have been fixed before it fell on someone.

At the unit the kid would have seen it too. He would have said it was none of their business, then come over to hold the door while the young man looked for a tool. He always argued first.

When the train came in, the woman and the boy got into another car. The young man watched them only long enough to be sure the boy had a good grip on the box. Then he got on too.

He found an empty compartment and put his backpack in the rack. After a moment he took it down and set it beside him. Two changes of clothes, a shaving kit and the metal cup he had used for three years. He had taken nothing else.

The train started. In the window, the shed door had come open again and was striking its frame with every gust.

He took out the paper to read the name of his station. He knew it already. He only wanted something in front of him, written by a person, in an order he could follow.

❦

The ambulance doors closed on Tesa and Maxim. Before they did, Maxim leaned out.

— I’ll call when they’ve set it.

Soles watched the ambulance until it turned at the top of the road. Only then did he notice how hard he was holding his jacket under his arm. He loosened his fingers. The leather around the blade stayed stuck to his wet shirt.

— They’ll close the garden, Varren said.

He had come up beside Soles without a sound, the foil blanket held at his throat with two fingers, as if he were a little ashamed of it.

— It’s flooded, Soles said.

— I didn’t only mean today.

Beyond the fence the water pushed an upturned table against the terrace steps. On the path Soles had walked so many times with the wheelbarrow, the gravel had vanished. Only the tops of the hedge showed.

A firefighter called out near the bank. The water had dropped enough to show the edge of a second arch, under two large blocks set one on the other. The investigator went down and asked that the blocks stay where they were until they were photographed. The lawyer followed him, talking about stabilizing the bank.

Krista was standing by the iron rail. Soles saw her take her hand off it and flex her fingers, frowning, as if they hurt. Where it had rested, the paint was pressed flat in four short lines. She put the hand in her coat pocket.

— The originals are at the hall, she said when Soles reached her. If I give them officially, the committee will know.

— It already knows you have them.

— Knowing is one thing. Seeing my signature on them is another.

She took out her phone to check the time. It was dry, inside a sealed freezer bag.

— Mine’s dead, Soles said.

— I wasn’t losing another one.

Soles did not tell her she could wait. The papers about the garden were hers. So was the choice.

— I’ll come to the hall too.

— Sit down first. You’ve been holding your ribs since you came out.

He sat on a dry stone a little above the water. It was one of the blocks his father’s crane had set. Beneath it the old arch ran on into the dark, past where the morning light could reach.

Soles laid his palm on the stone. It was cold.