Death Kit Read Free Page B

the start of the journey, but instead of taking it up, plucked a handkerchief from his pocket, spat quietly at it; then remained quite still, looking into the handkerchief. The magazine didn’t slip off his lap even when the train tilted, swooped round a curve.
    The gray-haired woman was the first to speak, asking if anyone minded her opening the window. Not a bad day. Rather warm. Diddy the Good did it for her, dirtying the tips of his fingers. “Do not lean out of the window.” We exchanged comments about the improved service on this line since the new trains had been installed, and about the refinement of traveling, six together, in a compartment, rather than being lined up and paired off in an open coach. The man in the tweed suit said he’d heard that the railroad, long rumored to be virtually bankrupt, was pulling itself out of the red. Diddy felt his mind getting gluey, his palate becoming furred. Conversation is always a trap for those who love the truth, isn’t it? Yet common sense said Don’t fret, Don’t waste your integrity on a situation that isn’t serious. A hard rule. Who cares about the condition of the railroad, its innovations, its finances? Does anyone here really care? Oh, but have pity upon people, poor soft-tongued creatures who should be kissing flowers but find, instead, that toads are leaping out of their mouths. Though irritated by the man’s nervous way of speaking, Diddy has pity. Here’s a toad, too. (Now) that the trains were punctual, Diddy remarked, they-ought-to-be-washed-down-more-often. He grimaced at the streaked windowpane, the dusty ledge, the trampled cigarette butts on the floor. The gray-haired woman found Diddy a paper napkin in one of her bags—a food bag, then—that he could use to clean his hands. Diddy thought the woman looked unwashed. Probably not dirty at all, but soiled by age.
    The man in the tweed suit stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket, cleared his throat, picked up his magazine. We could read the cover (now). Philately Annual.
    â€œA collector, I assume.” We hadn’t seen the priest look up. The suave voice issued from a mouth that moved without rendering any more expressive the face surrounding it. A face such as psychoanalysts acquire early in their training. Veiled, nerveless, relatively immobile.
    â€œYes, I am. And a dealer, too.” The man in the tweed suit seemed to need to cough or to spit again.
    â€œHave you seen this issue?” said the priest. “Very rare, I believe.” From his vest pocket, the priest produced a pair of tweezers; then from another black pocket on the inside of his jacket, withdrew a walletlike case, opened it, lifted up a flap with his thumb and forefinger, and cautiously extracted a block of blue stamps with the tweezers.
    So the priest and the man in the tweed suit both turn out to be collectors of stamps, valuable paper miniatures of a country, a king, a building, a tree, a face; both took out and compared their latest acquisitions. At tweezers-length, the joys of common interests. Diddy, if he wanted to talk, was left to the gray-haired woman and, he hoped, to the pretty girl with whom she was traveling, silent so far. The woman needed little encouragement. She explained that she was accompanying the girl, her niece, who was going to have an eye operation at the renowned medical center upstate. Is the girl totally blind? Diddy wondered. Seemed rude to ask. The woman launched into a description of her niece’s prospective surgery, how much it will cost, its hazards, its chances of success. She insisted on using, but kept mispronouncing, words like “corneal” and “ophthalmic” and “choroid.” Diddy annoyed. He became restless when people spoke imprecisely, or didn’t get things right.
    â€œHester, isn’t that so? Isn’t that what the doctor said?”
    Thus far, the girl had refused to confirm anything. Perhaps she