"What if I just left with Angelo tonight?" Celeste asked.
"Then you just leave for good," Minna said.
"Put Angelo on a bus!" Flynn bellowed.
"I don't want to go there alone!" Angelo cried. "I don't know anybody," he added meekly.
It was quiet again, and this time Flynn evaded Celeste's eyes. Celeste looked down at her knees, then she touched Angelo's damp head.
"I'll take you right now," Celeste told him slowly.
"We'll be there together," Angelo said, rapidly nodding his head. "You can show me around."
"It'll be nicer that way," Celeste told him. "We'll just do that."
"I should say good-bye to Mrs. Elwood," Angelo said.
"Why don't we just send her a postcard when we get there?" Celeste suggested.
"Yeah," Angelo said. "And we can send one to Flynn and to Minna. What kind of postcard do you want, Flynn?"
"Maybe one of the water and cliffs," he answered gently.
"Cliffs, huh?" Angelo asked Celeste. "Sure," she said.
"What kind do you want, Minna?" Angelo asked, but she had turned away from them. She was stooping to pick up the flowers from the floor.
"Anything you'd like to send," she told him.
"Then let's get ready," Celeste said.
"Do you want to go out the other door?" Flynn asked. "To get some air." He opened the door which led to the campus yard. It had stopped raining. The grass was shiny and smelled very lush.
When they were gone, when Flynn had shut the door behind them, Minna said, "Well, it's going to be busy with just the two of us, but I guess we'll get on."
"Sure we'll get on," Flynn told her. Then he added, "I think that was a pretty stinking thing to do."
"I am sorry, Flynn," she said -- a thin, breaking voice -- and then she saw the tureens of soup, the trays of potato salad. God, she thought, have they been waiting out there all this time? But when she peeked into the dining hall, gingerly leaning on the door, she saw that everyone was gone. Mrs. Elwood must have shooed them all away.
"There's no one out there," she told Flynn.
"Just look at all this food," he said.
Before the news, before the movie. Minna sits in her room, waiting for it to be finally dark. A soft, gray light falls over the driveway and over the elms, and Minna listens for sounds from Celeste's room -- she watches for Celeste's car in the driveway. They must have gone by now, she thinks. They probably loaded the car somewhere else; Celeste would think of that. It is dusky in Minna's room; the faint light of early evening touches what few bright articles are placed on Minna's desk and bedside table, on the chest of drawers and television, on the coffee table. Most striking are the uneaten, unopened cans of foreign food. The hors d'oeuvre fork throws a dull reflection of the evening light back to Minna at the window. Poor Molly, Minna thinks. How awful that she has to go on being here, in front of everyone. And suddenly she feels the same sympathy for herself. It is a more ephemeral pity, though, and she soon feels thankful that school is so nearly over.
The street lights go on, whole rows of them lining the campus, giving the same luster to the elms and lawn that Minna noticed a night ago -- a watery landscape, with canal, missing only Celeste. Minna moves from the window, turns on her desk lamp, mechanically hunts for a book. Then she sits deeply in the plush of her leather chair. She just sits, listening for nothing now, not reading, not even thinking. The toys of her weary mind seem lost.
A moth catches her eye. It has come from somewhere, somewhere safe, come to flutter wildly about the single light in the room. What on earth can it be that lures a moth out of the safety of darkness and into the peril of light? Its wings flap excitedly, it beats against the hot bulb of the lamp -- it surely must scorch itself. Clumsily, carelessly, it bangs into things in an aimless frenzy. Minna thinks for a moment of getting up and turning off the light, but she doesn't feel like sitting in the dark -- she doesn't feel like finding a newspaper to swat the moth. She sits, it grows darker, the buzz of the moth becomes soothing and pleasant. Minna dozes peacefully, briefly.
She wakes, startled, and thinks she is not awake -- only dreaming. Then she sees the persistent moth and she knows she is really awake. It is completely dark outside now and she hears the familiar, restless growl of a motorcycle. She gets up from her chair and from the window she sees it, the same one, fire-engine red. The cycle waits at the beginning of the driveway. Minna thinks, If he is coming for Molly he'll come into the dormitory. The cyclist glances around him, turns the throttle up and down, looks at his watch, jounces lightly on the seat. He has come for Celeste, Minna knows, and she watches him, aware that other windows around her are open, other eyes watching him. No one comes out of the dormitory; Minna hears whispers pass from window screen to window screen, like a bird looking for a place to get in or out. The motorcyclist turns the throttle up again, holds the throttle there a moment, then lets the engine fall to its wary idle. Nothing happens, the cyclist jounces more heavily on the seat, looks again at his watch. Minna wonders, Do the girls know that Celeste is gone? Of course, the girls know everything; some of them probably knew that the motorcyclist would be back tonight -- and not for Molly. But the cyclist is impatient now -- sensing, perhaps, that Celeste isn't coming. Minna wishes she could see his face, but it is too dark. Only the pale blond hair flashes at her window, the lustrous red gas tank of the motorcycle shimmers like water; and then the throttle turns up again, the rear wheel skids sideways in the gravel, squeaks on the street. The whispering window screens are now silent, listening for the first three gears. Each gear seems to reach a little further than the night before.
Now Minna is alone with the moth. She wonders whether the girls will come for the news, wonders what time it is. And if the girls come, will Molly come with them? Oh, Minna hopes not, at least not tonight. The moth soothes her again, she dozes or half-dozes to the drone. She has a final, alarming thought before she falls to a deeper sleep. What will she ever say to Mrs. Elwood? But the moth manages to calm even this. The happy, smudge-mouthed faces of her brother's children flood Minna's tiny room, and Angelo is somewhere among them. The motorcycle comes by once more, stops, snarls, goes madly on, ushered away to its dark journey by the titters at the wi
ndow screens. But Minna doesn't hear it this time. She sleeps--lulled by the whirring, furry music of the moth.
Weary Kingdom (1967)
AUTHOR'S NOTES