Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

Author:Leif Enger [Enger, Leif]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780802146687
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 2018-10-02T07:00:00+00:00

10

IT WAS ACTUALLY NADINE WHO SHOWED UP. BJORN STAYED BEHIND to run the Empress. Tickets, popcorn, projection, the whole buffet—I missed the evening but it seems he thrived, even traipsing down front to introduce the picture for twenty paying customers. When someone called out, Where’s Virgil? Bjorn said, He went off the road again. They all roared and Bjorn said, No, really.

The Samaritan left when Nadine arrived. My left shoulder was dislocated, the arm dangling a foot below normal when I lurched up out of the grass. In the headlights my thrown shadow was more than half chimp. The sloped shoulder, the low-hanging knuckles—Nadine turned briskly away, I thought to spare herself the grotesquerie but really to spare my feelings. She helped me into the Wagoneer where I lowered my arm between the seats. The hand was palm-up and oddly distant. I moved the fingers and they waved back like homesick colonists. Nadine saw this and put her forehead against the steering wheel. She shook with laughter.

“I’m delighted this is great for you,” I said. It was nice to hear her laugh, though. In fact she had difficulty stopping—she’d straighten, clear her throat, check the rearview, set foot on clutch, then glimpse my faraway dismal gorilla hand and go to pieces again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting hold of herself. “That shoulder’s going to tighten up. It’ll be hard to set.”

She was right. I could feel the bereft socket deliberating, consolidating its losses.

Still, I wished she would laugh some more.

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“Because I am tired and stupid. I was hoping to avoid the ER.”

Switching on the dome light she looked me over critically. There lay my hand down by the stick shift. She said, “I might be able to reconcile that joint of yours.”

“Seriously.”

“No guarantees, but yes. Maybe. Bjorn dislocated his shoulder when he was twelve. We were out West and he fell off a horse. After that it started happening every few months. I got pretty good at popping it back in.”

“I’m game.”

We got out of the car. I sat on the front bumper with my back against the grill. The headlights were blinding so she put on the fog lamps instead. Bending at the waist she took hold of my left wrist and straightened my arm at the elbow, shifting it experimentally.

“Can I ask what you were doing, racing downhill on an antique ten-speed at dusk?”

I told her about Rune, the scarlet Citroën, Lucy Yellowjacket walking out of the gloom.

“You’re getting some language back,” she smiled. “Sounds like you felt uncomfortable up there. Got on your bike and rode away.”

“You’re never too old to repeat junior high.”

“And you hit, what, a pothole? Loose rock?”

I described the mink sliding out of the grass. Nadine sat beside me on the bumper. In the fog-lamp glow her years were visible. The shadowed crease between her brows, her scribed cheekbones, the faint veiny delta of her temple. Drawn is an adjective meaning careworn, but Nadine looked drawn in the verb

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