Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball

the hall, turning left, opening the door to the passage, going along the passage, up the ladder, and finding then his drawing discarded. It was terrible, terrible.

    And then he would be at the aperture, listening and watching. James looked towards where the fourth window should have been. There was no way to know if the man was there now watching him.

    I will walk about in the halls and see what comes of it, he thought.

 

    An afternoon and wind in fields. He knelt in the middle of a path.

    Something or someone had set off the trap. The metal teeth were closed tight. James tested its action, opening it with all his strength, cocking it, laying it again on the ground, and shoving a long stick through to the trigger.

    SNAP! The stick was snapped clean through.

    James set the trap once more, satisfied with its workings, between an oak and a sycamore, in a little drop of land.

    —They won't see that, he said. Not though they're standing over it. Not till they're in it.

    And the little boy danced off chuckling and stomping along the road and looked back twice from the crest of each increasing hill.

 

    —To speak of observation, and observation holes, I was watching you through the argot, said Grieve. What were you doing in the kitchens last night?

    —I was looking for a bit of chocolate and a bowl of milk, said James.

    —Not on your life, said Grieve. You can't lie to me.

    —All right, said James. I was looking for the egg room.

    —The egg room! said Grieve, exclaiming. The egg room, the egg room!

    —But what were you, said James, doing in the room beneath the argot?

    —It's a cemetery, said Grieve. We call it Mount Auburn. My brother is there in a fold of grass. I covered him with thirty-nine stones but one went missing. Where could it be?

    James drew from his pocket a book, drew from the book a pressed flower, and shook from the flower a bit of stone shaped like a crescent moon.

    —Here it is, he said. I found it in the passage by the cellar.

    They were both silent. Grieve took the stone.

    —You mustn't go there again, she said. You might meet me there, and then we would be through.

    A dark name like a walking stick broken in anger.

    —When I am out on the wind, said Grieve, I wear four arms and the trails of my dress consume me.

    —Before you say any more, said James, say no more.

    And so no more was said.

 

    The fact of the matter, James decided, was that a theory was not a good theory because it was right or wrong. A theory was good for entirely other reasons. Because it presumed to be right? Presumed to be wrong? A theory could be very good that presumed to be wrong. And certainly there were theories that presumed only to be helpful in small ways. So many theories are peculiar to their centuries, and never get a second go around the merry-go-round.

    My theory, James thought, is that SAMEDI decided long ago to do whatever it is he is going to do and that nothing can stop it. The trigger has already been pulled, the knife set in motion, somewhere far from here. And though we here may be affected by it, we can do nothing to alter it, nothing to stop it.

    James felt very much that this was a correct theory. Of course, it was not a useful theory.

    What theory would be useful? James thought for a moment.

    A useful theory, ah—that Grieve's father was not Samedi, and that everyone in the house was delightful because this was the beginning of a new and unexplainable life.

 

    It was late in the morning when James woke. Grieve was still there. She was reading from the newspaper.

    —You won't believe it, she said. This wacko has sent another suicide.

    There was an odd tone to her voice.

    —What? asked James carefully.

    —This madman, said Grieve, this Samedi. It just means Saturday in French; what kind of name is that? Anyway, he's sent men to suicide in the capital, one every day this week.

    —What does the note say? James asked.

    —It's the same thing every day, said Grieve.