Some kind of kook, said the woman.
It’s just a mistake, said the man. Don’t worry. We’ll call a taxi from here and go directly to the orphanage.
The woman nodded but said nothing. She sat with both feet planted firmly on the floor and her hands clutched in her lap. Her face was turned away from the man, toward the table in the center of the room. She watched the fish languidly revolve in the bowl. The man shifted closer to her along the settee and attempted to separate her clutched hands, but she said, Please don’t touch me, in an odd voice, deep and choked with pain or tension.
Just wait a moment, he said. Just wait until that woman comes back. There’s nothing we can do without her.
The woman keeled forward so her head was bowed above her lap. She put her hands on top of her head and seemed to want to pull her head closer to her body, roll herself up into something small and discardable.
The man tried to unwind her body but then remembered that she had told him not to touch her so he let her be.
Please, he said. Please try to collect yourself. Please, for my sake. I can’t—
You can’t what? the woman asked him. You can’t bear this? You can’t bear me?
No, said the man. Why do you always . . . no! Please, what do you want? Just tell me what you want.
Before the woman could answer they both suddenly became aware of another presence in the room, even though they had not heard the panel door slide open. They turned and saw a man standing midway between the door, which was closed, and their sofa. He looked rather young and was very tall and thin. Perhaps because his head was bald (or shaved), his skull and the bones and cartilage of his face seemed unnervingly apparent, as if his skin were one size too small and were being stretched to a preternatural smoothness by the bones beneath it. His eyes were dark and intense; his nose was aquiline verging on hawk-like, and his mouth was small, his lips very pale. He wore a black floor-length tunic that was tightly fitted above the waist, emphasizing the slenderness of his upper body. It buttoned diagonally across his chest, from the right shoulder to the left hip, with gold vermeil buttons.
Suddenly the parrot, which had been quietly sulking on one of its perches, fluttered its large wings and called out an ecstatic greeting. It leaped up and clutched itself against the bars of the cage and battered the air with its impotent wings.
Brother Emmanuel walked quickly toward the cage and touched the bird with a finger. Requiescat in pace, Artemis, he said, and the bird made another, deeper, less avian sound, almost like a sigh, and returned to its perch.
Brother Emmanuel then turned away from the cage and faced the two people on the sofa. He looked at them as if he was only now seeing them, and they both looked at him, and for a moment time suspended itself, and nothing moved, except for the fish circling the bowl and the tiny insistent flakes of snow falling gently outside every window. And the ticking gears in the gold clock.
The strange moment passed, and Brother Emmanuel said, I understand there has been a mistake.
Well, yes, said the man. Perhaps—
We are supposed to be at the orphanage, said the woman. This isn’t the orphanage. She said this accusingly, as if Brother Emmanuel had somehow suggested it was, or was trying to duplicitously pass it off as an orphanage.
No, said Brother Emmanuel. You are correct. This is not an orphanage. And yet you are here. Something has brought you here. I am Brother Emmanuel.
The taxi driver, the man said. I suppose he misunderstood. Could you perhaps call a taxi for us?
Of course, said Brother Emmanuel. If that is what you wish. But does it not occur to you that perhaps you are meant to be here? That no mistake was made?
No, said the man. That had not occurred to me.
And you? Brother Emmanuel looked at the woman.
She was watching the snow fall outside the window and seemed not to hear him.
Brother Emmanuel waited. He stood very still and looked intently at the woman. Finally, she turned away from the window and looked directly at him. A log in the fireplace collapsed and sent a shower of chittering sparks up the chimney. The sudden commotion in the fire made the man flinch, but neither Brother Emmanuel nor the woman seemed to notice it.
Am I meant to be here? the woman asked.
Brother Emmanuel said nothing.
What is it you do here? Or pretend to do?
Brother Emmanuel smiled almost imperceptibly. You’re very angry, aren’t you?
Of course I’m angry, said the woman. We are not where we are supposed to be. We have been taken to the wrong place. Either mistakenly or maliciously, I don’t know, and I don’t care. We are in the wrong place!
This is my home, said Brother Emmanuel. It is never the wrong place. No one comes here by accident, or is misplaced here. Remember that. One moment, and I will have my helpmate call you a taxi. It is not terribly far to the orphanage. You will be there in no time at all.
The man and the woman said nothing to each other in the taxi on their way to the orphanage. The sky was no longer night-dark, but it remained completely covered with low, densely opaque clouds. They sat close to the doors on either side of the car and left an expanse of seat empty between them, and both watched out their separate windows at the white fields passing by.
The taxi was driven by the same man who had brought them to Brother Emmanuel’s, but no one alluded to this prior journey they had made together. The taxi retraced its original route back into the town, through the narrow streets, past the hotel, and then crossed over a bridge that spanned a frozen river into countryside that mirrored that on the city’s opposite flank. They traveled about a mile in this direction and then the taxi pulled off the road and stopped in front of a two-story building that looked like a school. Its large windows were symmetrically arranged across its façade, which was covered in yellowish plaster that was, in several places, peeling away in large strips, revealing a wall of cinder blocks.
The driver turned around and said, Orphanage, and pointed at the building. The man leaned forward and gave money to the driver and then got out of the taxi, but the woman remained seated inside, so he walked around to the other side of the car and opened the door.
Let’s go, he said. We’re here.
The woman looked up at him and said, I’m a little afraid.
Afraid? he asked. Of what?
I don’t know, she said.
We’re finally here, the man said. It’s not the time to be afraid. It’s the time to be happy. Come, he said, and held out his hand.
She turned and looked at him. What if . . . she began, but then stopped.
What if what? the man asked.
She shook her head. Nothing, she said. She did not take his hand but lifted herself out of the car and stood beside him. The man shut the door of the car and the taxi drove away. They both stood and watched it disappear down the road, back toward the town, as if it were deserting them.
Well, said the man. Shall we go in? He held out his hand and the woman paused for a moment, regarding it, as if she was not sure what his presentation of it meant.
Take my hand, he said. Please.
She reached out her hand and grasped his, and then they walked up to the front doors of the building, on which was spelled out in those cheap adhesive letters that are bought one by one in a hardware store:
ST. BARNABAS ORPHANAGE
There did not appear to be a bell or a buzzer so the man rapped on the frosted glass panel of the door.