As It Is in Heaven by Niall Williams

Author:Niall Williams [Williams, Niall]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, FIC000000
ISBN: 9780759594746
Publisher: Warner
Published: 1999-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The Indian was younger than Stephen. He had come from the hospital to find the dying man because he could not forget how the old patient had told him of his son being in love, and because the tailor had mentioned Dr. Tim Magrath. He had come, too, for reasons he did not yet understand, some part of that submerged algebra of our actions that makes obtuse and elaborate relation between X, the absence of his own father in India, and Y, the man wanting to live a little longer for his son. He came into the front room, where the cloth was cut out and the sewing machine had been uncased, and when Philip Griffin told him that he was making a suit for Stephen, Hadja Bannerje made a small bow, acknowledging the act as something true and correct in the unclear workings of the world. He sat down and saw the chess game laid out on the side table.

For a few moments the tailor said nothing. He sat in the chair across the room with the suit on the ground between them. He lowered his head and ran his hand up over it, as if smoothing the ghosts of his vanished hair. He was fearful for a while that the Indian had come to tell him the tests had revealed something new, and only when the silence had settled like old spirits between them did he look across the space. Hadja Bannerje was waiting.

“You have not heard the news of Dr. Magrath,” said the Indian.

Philip felt a chill on the back of his neck. Here it was, calamity after all.

“He died this afternoon.”

When I should have, thought Philip Griffin, when I was fallen against the wall and it passed over. Oh God.

Silence clotted the air with the unsayable sorrow. Philip Griffin was painted in a stained wash of guilt and put his hands beneath his chin to keep his head from falling. He felt the old unworthiness of those who survive and the loss of the man who had helped him.

“I am sorry, to tell you,” said Hadja. “I remember you mentioned his name.”

“Yes.”

“It was heart failure. He was dead in his home.”

Tim Magrath's heart had failed so long before, thought the tailor. He held his head like an iron weight and breathed the short, shallow breaths of upset, until his visitor asked him could he make him a cup of tea.

“No. No, thank you.” A small emptiness, and then, lifting his spirit with weary effort into the lightweight world of politeness, Philip asked, “Would you like one?”

“No. Not for me, thank you very much, Mr. Griffin.”

“Right.”

The two men sat still in the late evening. The doctor was wearing a pale green raincoat, and with his arms folded and his face restful, he dwelt in such apparent ease that it did not seem necessary to speak.

It was some time before the tailor noticed him looking over at the chess game.

“Do you play?” Philip asked him.

“This is a vulnerable position.

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