Tours of the Black Clock Read Online Free Page B

it a bit, smiling at whatever she was thinking, and only nodded. She turned back to the water and the conversation seemed over; he settled his gaze back onto the island before him. He felt oddly moved and forsaken until he heard her say, And you? Have you come far? The water was lapping over the edge of the boat; he wasn’t paying attention to his speed, and the other passengers were glaring at him. He said, I’ve sailed fifteen years between two points less than a mile from each other. The fog came in. They were swallowed up to the blithe indifference of tourists studying their itineraries. Only the girl looked around; she said, I always feel a little lost when I can’t see the stars. The hair on her arms stood on end in the chill but she didn’t appear to notice. I don’t think, he said, I’ve ever seen the stars from this boat: maybe a patch of them. Do you know the stars? he asked. Yes, she said, I know them. Are you an astronomer? he said; they both laughed. The boat continued and the fog fell behind them and the island was there then. In the last few minutes he almost could think of nothing else to say until he said, perhaps more seriously than he meant to, But why have you come here? It was something he’d never asked anyone on his boat; but then she was the first person who, in that moment when the rest of the earth disappeared, noticed. And for a second it was almost as though she hadn’t heard him; and he wasn’t about to repeat it. The island approached and he brushed past her to dock the boat, when she answered, To bury something. She stepped ashore and he called out, to her alone among all the others, Boat leaves in two and a half hours.

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    B UT SHE DIDN’T RETURN in two and a half hours. He waited for her as the others straggled back; he looked for her in the distance. She didn’t come. Occasionally this happened, since there was another boat later that evening. After ten minutes passed he took his other passengers back to the mainland; he realized only later that he’d forgotten to collect the fares.

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    O N THE LAST RUN of the day, he was searching the edge of the island for her as soon as it came within sight. But she wasn’t there; patiently he sat on deck staring at the island, rather than away from it, the noise of the nightcrowd coming from town. At this point in his life he’d become too locked in with the rhythms of resignation and instinct to think profoundly upon the impact of this girl. He contemplated the frequency of destiny she transmitted and what its exact nature might be; he mused that she might be his daughter, or his future wife. But he didn’t muse on such things for long. He knew by now these frequencies were unnamable, in a century that tried to name everything that was particularly unfathomable. Time passed and the rest of the tourists found their way back; of course they were always drunker on the evening run. He kept looking for her. There wasn’t any doubt she’d appear; there was no other way off the island, after all, and there was nothing to do other than leave it. In fifteen years there hadn’t been a single instance when someone stayed, or had been left behind. So there just wasn’t any doubt she’d appear. But when they were all back, and waiting to leave, and she still wasn’t there, he delayed five, ten, fifteen minutes. “The buses are waiting for us,” someone said, “when are we going back?” We’ll go back when I say we go back, he said. Twenty minutes passed. The passengers became incensed. When he couldn’t delay any longer, he took them back without her. After returning everyone to mainland, he did what he’d never done before—sailed back to the island and spent the night there, on the boat.

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    H E HAD THIS IDEA she’d be there every time he opened his eyes. He had this idea she’d be there at sunrise, cold and frightened from her night on the island. But she wasn’t there at sunrise and she wasn’t there when he opened his eyes; and