Hard Travel by Lesley Krueger

Author:Lesley Krueger [Krueger, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lesley Krueger
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A COUPLE OF hours later, Richard leaned his arms on the bathroom windowsill. The bathroom was the one room in the house that locked, and he had been there for some time, looking out into the back garden. Susan sat there playing with Jack. She had packed up, but she hadn’t left, not yet.

“I don’t know,” she’d said, standing in the hall beside her suitcase. “Maybe you should stay here for a while. Or we could share it, like roommates. I probably shouldn’t make you sell. What do I know about real estate? In another year, things could get hot around here. I mean, look at all the old people living on the street. They’ll either sell soon or die. Maybe we can wait it out for another year. That way, we can both end up with a stake. To start new lives.”

“There’s a new life here already,” Richard said, and Susan’s face went pallid with guilt. Not that it made him feel any better.

Now she was playing patty-cake with the baby on the grass. Beyond her, in the alley, a Great Dane trotted by. Kids rode their bicycles. Above them, a starling called. He had a song just like rattling marbles.

The safest thing was to watch the world go by. Not to think, just to watch the Amin family in the house next door to the south prepare some kind of festival. Richard was never sure how many people lived there. The three children and their parents, certainly, but he had also seen a number of young men go in and out the basement door, so perhaps they had boarders.

As he watched, one of the young men went into the garage and came out carrying a barbecue. Once he had set it up, he went back into the garage and came out carrying a bale of hay. Richard wondered if they were going to cook an Indian delicacy, since the feeling of festival continued. The people outside laughed as the young man piled hay on the barbecue and doused it with a can of fire starter. Someone put a match to it even as the young man poured, and Richard waited neutrally for the flames to rise toward the man in a long wicked line, and for their faces to go stupid with horror. But nothing happened, the fire simply roared. No one brought out any food, either. Richard leaned against the windowsill and watched.

The hay burnt quickly. It was not long before the first load was just embers and the men piled more hay on the barbecue. They repeated the process, fanning the flames with their open palms. Then they let the embers die and transferred them to a white sheet, which two of the men hoisted waist-high and held out taut between them.

For one still moment, the sheet looked exactly like a soiled piece of paper. Then one of the men began to beat the ashes with a stick. He beat until they were pulverized, then the two men let the sheet sink gently to the ground.

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