Lancelot

floor but on the bedtable, shedding a small cone of rayed light.
    Troy Dana was lying prone on the far edge of the bed, naked, his face buried in the pillow.
    Raine was standing at the window, even though the shutters were closed and locked. Lightning made yellow stripes through the slots. She wore a short hip-length nightgown—shift?—which left her legs bare. Her legs were short but well developed. She looked like a fourteen-year-old girl who had spent twelve years dancing.
    Appearing silently beside her. I thought to startle her, but she turned to me as if I had always been there.
    â€œIsn’t it beautiful?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe hurricane.”
    â€œYes.” All one could see through the shutters were the heaving and whitened oaks.
    â€œLook at that faggot. Passed out. OD’d. In this lovely hurricane.”
    â€œWill he be all right?”
    â€œOh sure, unfortunately.”
    I saw too that she was drunk with something not alcohol. Her face was close under mine and her breath had a sweet chemical smell. Her voice was not slurred but low and bell-like. Her eyes winked gold in the lightning. The only sign of intoxication was her incapacity for surprise. Whatever happened was the occasion of a mild disconnected wonder, my appearing—or General Beauregard appearing.
    â€œYou didn’t know that I went for you?”
    â€œWhat?” I said, cocking my ear away from the storm.
    â€œYou know, like going for somebody.”
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œYou’re so dumb! And with all that going on—” She waved vaguely toward the hall (by no means drunk or even swaying, but mainly flat and unsurprised: for her one thing was more or less like any other, and could be spoken of in her low bell-like voice).
    She put her hands on my belt buckle, grabbed it with her fingers stuck inside, and gave me an odd little jostle.
    â€œCouldn’t you tell?”
    â€œTell what?” I gazed into her gold eyes.
    Her mild gold gaze drifted indifferently from me to Troy to the hurricane.
    â€œMy God, isn’t that something.” Through the shutters I could see a big white socket where a limb had been ripped off one of the oaks. “Does it turn you on?”
    â€œTo what?”
    â€œMe,” she said like a drowsy little temple bell. She put her arms around my waist, locked her hands, and squeezed me with surprising strength. “You’re a big mother.”
    I pulled her up to me. She was like a child, but broader, a broad child.
    â€œLet’s lie down,” she said, tugging fretfully at my buckle. “I’m sleepy.”
    â€œGo on,” I said absently. I remembered something I had to do. “I remember something I have to do.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked from the bed.
    â€œI don’t like this light,” I said, picking up the Ray-O-Vac, which was shooting out weak white rays. The kerosene lamp was on the floor.
    â€œOh, a coal oil lamp!” Lying in bed, she clapped her hands slowly and without noise. “But hurry up.”
    Before lighting it, I checked the air-conditioning register. It was set high in the wall. My hand could reach it but I couldn’t feel the gas. The cheek is more sensitive. I sat in the corner opposite the register and removed the glass chimney of the lamp and took out a match. I gazed up into the dimness of the fourteen-foot ceiling. Cold air falls. Methane rises. I struck the match. Nothing happened. I lit the wick and replaced the glass chimney and switched off the Ray-O-Vac. The soft yellow light opened like a flower and filled the room.
    Raine’s lips formed a word. She beckoned to me.
    Time passed but it was hard to tell how slow or fast. I was standing by the bed looking down at her. She beckoned and said something. I dropped to one knee beside the bed to hear her. The pillow mashed her lips sideways like a child’s.
    Something occurred to me. Do you think it could be true that in our heart of hearts we always know what is going to happen to us? Not only does a person dying in a hospital know perfectly well he is going to die even though he may not know what he knows. Not only that but even a passenger on an airplane that is about to blow up somehow knows in a part of his being what is going to happen.
    Anyhow she knew. That is, she knew something.
    She was talking about her childhood. The kerosene lamp reminded her of growing up in West Virginia. Her father