The Bookman's Tale by Berry Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

turn of the record, two or three turns, then, “Well, you know you’re rather handsome yourself, Mr. Mate.”
    And little laughs back and forth, the music ending and the mate changing the record and filling two cups from the bowl, she dancing by herself while she waited, lifting a cup from him as she passed then holding out her arms, teasing him with, “They must teach dancing at your Navigation School.”
    â€œNo time for dancing.”
    â€œBut you are a beautiful dancer,” pushing back at his shoulder when he held her closer, lowering her eyes, offended but forgiving, falling back on some country-club chatter (“How often do you make this trip, Mr. Wagman?”— “Mr. Wagman” itself a slight push at his shoulder—and, “I suppose you are never seasick, Mr. Mate?”), which he ignored: “Would you like to see my School? I have pictures.” “Oh, yes I would.” “Come, I’ll show you.” “My cousin would like to see them too. Becky!” But Becky was listening to the Doctor. “Wait a minute for Becky.” “You change your mind, you do not want to see them.” “Oh, but I do—”
    â€œHe’s not in the office. But he’s expected. I’ll go talk to him, it isn’t far. Thomas, bring Mr. Ray something to wait with. Ten minutes, Edward, no more. Maybe twelve.” And off down the steps at a sure-footed run that brought back the sure-footed real estate woman, the two of them merging for an instant, both young, both persistent with purposes involving him—list a house, read a manuscript (not quite proposed yet but casting its shadow)—and he with an instinctive negative for each; that in the case of this one grew weaker as he waited: suppose her book was built somehow on “Gran Met” and “Almighty Master” and “Loas”, as her interest in all that suggested, wasn’t that reaching into the same metaphysical area as the Press’s best seller of a few years ago? If she had told it simply, with enough first-hand freshness, mightn’t it be edited into another Beyond the Grave? (Fiction, she called it, but there was usually less fiction in fiction than the author believed.)
    â€œBeyond the Grave” taking him back to the ship and the funeral service for the Captain’s aunt, the Captain reading through his wire-rimmed spectacles at the leeward end of the bridge, his passengers at the rail below, the thin pages of the Prayer Book fluttering in the light wind like captured birds: “ Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed ,” through his bull-horn, the ship hardly making steerageway, the sky hardly light enough to let him read but getting brighter every second as the sun pushed up, all of them at a seemly remove from the mate with the urn containing the ashes—inviting them all at dinner to the sunrise service, explaining that the old lady had asked to be buried at sea with her forebears but the authorities would not release the body except in the form of ashes after cremation. “ And we commit her body to the deep ,” signaling and pausing while the mate dipped into the urn with a wooden spoon from the galley and cast a spoonful of ashes south and west. “ In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection ” (signaling again) “ unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ ,” signaling again, and the mate casting another spoonful.
    And while the Captain waited, watching over his glasses, another. And then another, the Captain continuing, holding down the restless pages, the new sun horizontal against his cheek, “ At whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world ” (signaling) “ the sea shall give up her dead, and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in her ” (signaling again) “ shall be changed ,” pulling off his reading glasses to focus the mate better and