Again, the large bed was a bank of snow on a warm summer night. She lay on one side, looking up at the ceiling, and did not move. He sat on the far edge, saying nothing, and at last tilted over and lay his head on the pillow, and waited.
Finally Nef said, “It seems to me you’ve spent a lot of time in the town graveyard since you arrived. Looking for what?”
He scanned the empty ceiling and replied.
“It seems to me you’ve been down at that train station where hardly any trains arrive. Why?”
She did not turn, but said, “It seems both of us are looking for something but won’t or can’t say why or what.”
“So it seems.”
Another silence. Now, at last, she looked at him.
“Which of us is going to confess?”
“You go first.”
She laughed quietly.
“My truth is bigger and more incredible than yours.”
He joined her laughter but shook his head. “Oh, no, my truth is more terrible.”
She quickened and he felt her trembling.
“Don’t frighten me.”
“I don’t want to. But there it is. And if tell you, I’m afraid you’ll run and I won’t ever see you again.”
“Ever?” murmured Nef.
“Ever.”
“Then,” she said, “tell me what you can, but don’t make me afraid.”
But at that moment, far away in the night world, there was a single cry of a train, a locomotive, drawing near.
“Did you hear that? Is that the train that comes to take you away?”
There was a second cry of a whistle over the horizon.
“No,” he said, “maybe it’s the train that comes, God I hope not, with terrible news.”
Slowly she sat up on the edge of the bed, her eyes shut. “I have to know.”
“No,” he said. “Don’t go. Let me.”
“But first … ,” she murmured.
Her hand gently pulled him over to her side of the bed.