226
PARTISAN REVIEW
steaming machinery blown to a shipwreck litter of boxes , bundles , and
lumpy bedrolls spilling pots of rice , collisions multiplying over our
heads, nothing to, do but go with the undertow. My friend Ray (a face
like Shakespeare's in the portrait, the golden earringed Spanish
buccaneer) vanishes into the second blast of steam.
I woke up in an empty car , the train moving , the mouth of the
hush around me again . Not that I'd been asleep, only semiconscious ,
catapulted from the exploding platform to this barren sanctuary no
one but an American in a delirium of panic would dare to enter
without a first-class ticket . Trying to put myself in touch with myself
again, I blew the grit off the lenses of my glasses , fingered the spot on
the leg ofmy pants (still wet) , and plucked my beard until it showered
pink icing flakes and yellow crumbs of interrupted pastry mixed with
cinders and ashes from all the wind and fire of the train's arrival. A jolt,
a collision , and I was slammed to the floor still fixed on the image of
myself exploring that little pocket of calm. Another kick from the old
cow, another split-second hush , another bomb of sound, jackals
howling over a nightmare of bagpipes-this must be it, the
juggernaut, the ball of fire . But the roof should have caved in by now. I
looked out the window. They were all there in the darkness , roaring
confusion , nothing visible but a black stew of forms , no faces , no
station, no lights except for fires at the horizon where a gleam was
unevenly defining the presence of the river.
For some reason, everyone had abandoned the train. I was sure
nobody was aboard but me and , possibly, hopefully , Ray. I shouted his
name and immediately ducked back from the square of light exposing
me to a suspicious multitude as silent now as it was invisible. I thought
my shout had silenced them . I waited for some boomerang of response,
my Saturday matinee brain flashing jungles, serpents and cannibal
acrobats . Nothing. Even the silence seemed to recede. I returned to the
window and called Ray again . My voice came back at me . They were all
gone, noiselessly transported, all but one .
He flies at me in fragments, first a gleam breaking quick as a
lizard's tongue from the slit ofwhite light on the horizon, coming with
a sound of regurgitation, the ragged morning gargle of India dredging
the gutters of the body, while I wait behind the bars at the window,
paralyzed in brightness , like a prowler caught by a searchlight. One
blue-violet hand , half a hand , reaches up , skin flaking like ash ,
