48
PARTISAN REVIEW
(Over where? I once asked my mother boldly. Over
where?
Where?-
You'll see over where , my mother said, slapping my face .
Her breath came quick and hard; her own cheeks were burning.)
And do you know that children's bones are buried in The
Wall? - in the foundation of The Wall? Children of exceptional
beauty or talent-children who were orphans , or in some way
unprotected - too high-spirited for their own good and for the good
of the community. On dark wet nights when the wind blows from
The Wall you can hear their querulous chatter.
Of course these are silly tales, in which none of us believe .
In
our district we have eradicated superstition . The Wall is The Wall
and (so we believe) it is made of ordinary material.
It
is
not
haunted :
its great strength has nothing to do with children's corpses.
Sometimes, late at night, you can hear their faint high voices .
Where are we, what year is it , what has happened ... ?
But no: there are no voices: there are no spirits . The Wall is only
(only!)
The Wall .
One of the voices is my brother's voice .
Do you hear him, I asked my parents, but they did not hear a
thing. Only the wind, the wind. Rain drumming on the roof, on the
windows. Streaming down the windowpanes .
I burrowed beneath the bedclothes to the foot of the bed and lay
very still. My thumb and then two fingers stuck in my mouth . The
wind , the wind from The Wall, rain drumming on the roof all night,
his voice, his crying for help, I could see him dragging himself on the
stubbled grass and his uplifted face glistening with blood : and the
half circle of witnesses . For there are always witnesses - silent
witnesses - along the many miles of The Wall.
Toward morning, when the wind died down, I fell asleep. And
did not dream at all .
It
is only a coincidence , but according to reliable sources the
next Day of Grace will fall
on my eighteenth birthday.
Which is to say , at
the very end of the interminable month of August.
The Wall: which stretches out forever. Mesmerizing and boring
and beautiful, so beautiful! You can't know. You can't know unless
you crouch here with me in my secret place , my hiding place , in a
stand of scrub birch hundreds of yards from the nearest house.
