Lily and the Lost Boy by Paula Fox Read Free Book Online

appeared to be made out of some faded, feltlike cloth. Perched forward on his massive head and thick gray curls was a stained fedora hat, its brim turned down. He gripped his pipe with reddened fingers. His eyes were closed. The notes softened as though he were whispering his song. As Lily reached her gate, Stella turned, smiled, and silently held out her hand. Lily took it in hers, feeling the warm, calloused palm against her own. She had been very much alone the last two hours. She realized now, comforted by Stella’s strong clasp, that she had been lonely too.
    She glanced through the gate to her house. They must all be sleeping hard inside, their dreams barely stirred by the sound of the pipe. She probably wouldn’t have heard the old piper either if she hadn’t been out on the path. They were foreigners, after all. You’d have to live a long time in a place to recognize something out of the ordinary when the ordinary itself was so mysterious.
    Stella pulled her gently along the path. The old man raised his head. Lily saw that his eyes were not shut but wide open and they were bluish white, the color of the midday sea. He was blind.
    At that moment he ceased playing. He put out his hands, seemed to feel the air, nodded to himself, then spread his fingers as though blessing the people now gathered close to him. He began to speak in a deep, husky voice, and as he went on, words following each other as surely and as rapidly as had the notes of his pipe, he sounded to Lily like someone who tells a story learned by heart and recited over and over again. No one interrupted him or said anything at all, but now and then Lily saw someone smile or nod as though in agreement. After he had spoken for five minutes or so, he stopped abruptly and began to move down the path. His feet seemed to know every stone of it as well as his voice had known his story. People made way for him, staring at him pensively as though thinking over what he had told them. A few minutes later Lily heard the pipe again coming from near the shrine of Dionysus.
    He was summoning another group of people, whose houses were near the shrine, Stella told Lily.
    â€œDid you understand what he said?” she asked Lily. The others had returned to their houses, and she and Stella were standing by the gate. “A few words,” Lily said. “That he slept on the ground and the night was black.”
    â€œYes,” Stella said, “but there was more.” And she told Lily that the piper had had too much retsina wine the night before in Panagia where he lived. When he got home, his old wife had flown into a rage. She’d pummeled him and kicked him and finally driven him out into the black night and barred the door against him. He had had to sleep on the ground. His bones would ache for a week. He had come down the mountain to tell everyone what a misery his wife was. Young men contemplating marriage, he had warned, must consider a young woman’s character. Was she merciful? Was she stronger than he was? Would she forgive him when he was old and weak?
    â€œShe has to forgive him often,” Stella said, grinning. “We have all heard his story before. By the time he has told it to all of Limena and walked back to Panagia, she will have a pot of soup waiting for him.”
    â€œDoesn’t she mind his telling everyone about her?”
    â€œWe all like to hear the story,” Stella said. “He always makes it different. No, she doesn’t mind. She knows that after each journey down the mountain, he will be sober for a good long time.”
    Lily pulled down the cord and released the latch on the gate. The front door was ajar. She tiptoed into the hall and went to Paul’s doorway. He was entirely covered by his blanket. By the small alarm clock on the floor next to his bed, she saw it was nearly six o’clock. She thought of all that had happened to her since she had left the kitchen in the dark of night. If