said, so gaunt. My God, gaunt: how I hate that word. Gaunt and jackal and hubris. Seepage and—what are the other words I hate?
She had begun to do this recently: familiarly allude to odd, supposedly long-held predilections or positions that had never previously been mentioned. Or existed, as far as the man knew. So he ignored her nonsensical question by asking her what the book was about.
For a moment she said nothing, just watched her reflection hurtling along the dark scrim of pines. About? she finally said. In what sense do you mean?
He did not answer, because he did not like to indulge her contrariness.
After a moment she said, It’s about the war.
Which war?
One of the World Wars, she said. The first, I think. They’re in trenches.
And?
And? War is awful. It’s bad enough I’m stuck reading it; don’t make me talk about it too.
Okay, he said. I’m sorry.
She looked at him, her audacity suddenly collapsed. No, she said. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sorry. I’m just on edge, you know—about everything.
I understand, he said. I’m on edge too.
About everything?
No, he said. Not everything. Just, you know—how this all will go.
Or not go, she said.
They had both fallen asleep and were simultaneously awoken by a peculiar sensation: stillness. The train had stopped. Outside the carriage window they could see, through the veil of fog that their breaths had condensed upon the glass, a platform and a building. There was no one about and no sound but the tickling sifts of snow gusting against the window. The man thought of the warm molecules of their breath, trapped against the cold glass of the windows, a union outside of, independent of, them.
This must be it, she said. Wasn’t it the first stop?
Yes, he said.
Then this is it, she said.
I don’t see any sign, he said.
No. She rubbed a messy circle on the window, but nothing helpful was revealed, just more of the wooden platform, on which a single lamp separated a conical swath of snow from the huge surrounding darkness.
This must be it, he said. He stood up and opened the carriage door.
Don’t go, she said.
But this must be it, he said.
It can’t be, she said. It’s not a real station. There’s no town, nothing. It must be a way station.
A way station?
Yes, she said. A pause, not a stop.
He stepped out onto the platform, disturbing the perfect blanket of snow. He felt like a barbarian. But once its perfection had been defiled he knew he must continue, for a hairline crack on a beautiful piece of china is more upsetting than the same piece of china shattered on the floor. So he ran about in ever-widening circles, kicking up the snow about him as messily as he could, and drew near enough to the building at the platform’s edge to see, in a sort of echo of faded paint, the name of the town that was their destination.
He suddenly felt foolish and stopped his cavorting, and in the ensuing stillness he became aware of some frightening engagement in the darkness behind him. The train. He turned to see it slowly moving, so slowly that for a moment he thought it must be the darkness moving behind it, but then he knew it was the train, for he could see his wife leaning forward, looking out of the still-opened door, her white face silently surprised, and for a second it felt like death to him, like how one must let one’s beloved depart this world, gliding silently slack-faced into the snow-dark.
But then a sense of emergency successfully obliterated that vision, and he called out to the woman and ran toward and then alongside the hastening train, and she was up and throwing their bags out the open door as if it were all part of a well-rehearsed drill, and just before the place where the platform ended she leaped into his arms.
The train clacked into the darkness, the door of their carriage still flung open, like a dislocated wing.
For a moment he held her closer and tighter than he had held her in a long time. Then they unclasped and went to fetch their bags, which appeared artfully arranged, dark rocks on the snowy Zen expanse of the platform. Then they stood for a moment and looked about them at the darkness.
This can’t be it, she said.
He pointed to the letters on the station wall.
I know, she said, but this can’t be it. There’s nothing—
Let me look around front, he said. Perhaps there’s something