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.Henry understood that, without Joseph having to tell him so.Henry also understood that Joseph had killed him.He knew this because Joseph was starting to sweat and moan again, but also because this was the way students, and perhaps all people everywhere, confessed: they told you one thing that seemed big enough but that was only in preparation for the truly large confession to come.Henry kept his arms crossed, kept frowning, waited.“I killed him,” Joseph said.“I’m sorry,” Henry said.Although that wasn’t quite right.“Thank you,” Henry said.Although that wasn’t quite right, either.What do you say when, after four years of running and wondering and hiding, you learn the name of the person who’d tried to kill you and also that that person is dead? Henry tried to picture a cartoon that would do justice to the feeling.But he couldn’t.The part of him that could think of cartoons that would do justice to anything was gone.Perhaps it had never existed.Certainly, Ilsa had thought so.He was sure Locs had thought so, too.“Are you working for Locs?” Henry asked.And when he did so, Joseph straightened up somewhat.“Well.,” he said, and then he scooted forward in his chair, and that’s when Henry recognized him.The scooting, the headphones, the sweatshirt, the air guitar, the Stevie who was not Stevie Wonder.Joseph had been the man on the bus that had brought Henry to Broomeville.Although Joseph’s hair had been much longer back then.“You got a haircut,” Henry said, and Joseph nodded, ruefully ruffled the back of his head.“He doesn’t feel like me.”“Who?”“The guy with this haircut.”“Why did you get it cut?”“Capo made me,” Joseph said.“Capo?” Henry said, and then he thought Joseph was actually going to put his hands over his mouth, but he didn’t.“Listen,” Joseph said, “about Locs.” But then he stopped, head cocked, as though he’d heard something.Joseph got up, opened the office door, stuck his head out into the hallway, looked one way, then the other.Then he stuck his head back in, turned to Henry.He looked different now.His eyes were big.“Someone was out there,” he said.“Who?”“Jenny.”“Jenny Tallent?”“Yes,” Joseph said.He looked down, thinking, thinking.“Now, Jenny’s a good girl,” he said, more to himself than to Henry.In any case, that uttered sentence seemed to decide something for Joseph: he took his gun out of his holster, put it on Henry’s desk, pushed it toward Henry.Henry didn’t touch it.Just a few weeks ago, Henry and Ellen had watched a movie in which a police detective had placed his gun on a table, pushed it toward the criminal sitting across the table.“Go ahead, take it,” the detective had told the criminal, and when the criminal had tried to go ahead and take it, the detective had shot him with his other gun.“Go ahead, take it,” Joseph said.“But it’s your gun,” Henry said.“I don’t even want it anymore,” Joseph said.Quickly, quickly, Joseph picked up the gun he’d just given Henry and showed him how to use it.Then he put it back on the desk.“Got that?” Joseph said.Henry nodded.It wasn’t hard.Any idiot could do it.Not that he was going to.“I’m not going to use that gun.”“But you might have to.”“Why?”“Oh, I can think of lots of reasons,” Joseph said.And with that, he got up and left the room, and also left the door open.Henry was suddenly highly conscious of a gun sitting on his desk where anyone could see it.He was also conscious of really not wanting to touch the gun.He picked up the note, then used it to pick up the gun, then deposited both in his coat pocket.Henry closed his office door behind him and walked toward the auditorium.It was three thirty when he arrived.The band concert was almost over.The band was playing its last song.Henry recognized it right away.It was that famously plaintive rock-and-roll song about swimming in a bowl with fish and wishing people were there.Henry looked for and then spotted Ellen, sitting next to Matty near the front of the auditorium.I’m here, he wanted to shout but didn’t.Ellen didn’t seem to be looking for him anyway.She was looking at the stage.Henry looked, too, and saw Kurt stand up and begin playing a mournful solo on his trumpet.It really was beautiful, and suddenly Henry was trying hard not to cry.Schoolchildren’s band concerts do strange things to the adults in the audience.Don’t cry, Henry told himself.And then, to Søren: I’m sorry you’re dead, but I’m glad I’m not.I’m glad that’s all over.And to Ellen: I’m going to marry you tomorrow.And then to Kurt: I’m sorry I thought you were the person who wrote the note.I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.And then came the chorus, and all of a sudden, many people in the audience were singing it.Henry could see that Ellen and Matty were singing it, and he started singing it, too: “How I wish, how I wish you were here,” he sang, and then he really did start crying.Harder than he’d ever cried before.But why? Everyone that mattered to Henry was here.There wasn’t anyone to miss.Was there? Who was here? Who was not here?58Out in the country north of Broomeville there was a winding two-lane road that, briefly, when it crossed the Otanga River, turned into a one-lane wooden bridge.There were older wooden bridges in the state of New York, but this was the oldest one that still allowed automobiles to cross.Schoolchildren were often bused to the site to appreciate the bridge’s historical significance and also its sturdy architectural features.And on the other side of that bridge was an ice cream stand.It, like so many of its kind, had picnic tables overlooking the river, encouraging people to enjoy watery nature while eating their soft-serve.Ellen and Kurt were doing that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]