Machine Dreams

hadn’t felt for many nights. She turned off the motor of the warm Nash and tilted the seat back. Bulky in her soft coat, she pulled her knees up nearly to her chest and lay her face on her open palm. She was looking at the stone as she fell asleep.
    Mother and one of the other women were lifting her out of the car and onto the road. Nearly noon and the day was stifling. The women wore long-sleeved dresses and hats with veils; the palms of their white gloves were damp with sweat. Oh, there was such a crowd, like at church. People were dressed in their best clothes and moved along the dusty road in silence. Far ahead, pickaxes pounded rhythmically on the stone cellar walls of an isolated house. The other two women went on ahead, walking quickly; Mother walked with Jean and held her hand to keep herfrom stumbling. She couldn’t walk as fast as the grown-ups, and flies buzzed around her face; the air droned strangely with flies. The dirt road seemed long. People from nearby towns had been arriving for hours, and the road was solidly lined on both sides with shiny cars. High black doors above the dusty running boards glimmered in the heat. The chrome bumpers shone, one nearly against the other; between them, Jean glimpsed the overgrown fields. Mother smoothed Jean’s hair and they neared the crowd. Ladies passed them, walking back toward the paved road; they held handkerchieves to their noses and walked along wordlessly, unhurried.
    Now the axes rang out.
    People stood so close that Jean could see very little, but a wide pit had been dug along the stone house so that one side of the foundation was exposed; workmen had chopped big holes right through it. Stone and mortar lay round about the pit and there were several stretchers. One stretcher was covered with a sheet. An old man bent down and said into Jean’s face, “Not a pretty sight, little girl, but history is made here today.” “Imagine,” a woman’s voice intoned, “his own wife, his own children.” Jean felt her mother’s arms around her then and was lifted up into the warmth of an embrace. “Never you mind, Jeannie. Now we’ll go.” They had to walk along the very edge of the pit to turn back, out of the crowd, and there was a terrible cold rising from the dark earth where the workmen stood. The cold followed Jean and her mother, even in the bright light of the sun. “When suffering seems reasonless,” her mother’s voice said clearly, “people come together and want to understand.” Jean felt herself lowered to the dusty road. The dust was cloudy and yellow under her shoes. “We’ll wait in the car for the others. Now, hold my hand.” They walked on and the cold grew colder, so cold the light went out. Jean knew her mother was near but could feel nothing, her fingers were so terribly cold. She woke touching the slick leather seats of the Nash and found herself in darkness. She was chilled to the bone. Dear God, the party—how long had she been asleep?
    The keys were still in the ignition and she started the car, then looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes, and the interior of the Nash was like an icebox. What a strange dream. What had sheremembered? She pulled on her warm mittens and pressed their wool to her face. No matter. She remembered clearly her mother’s voice and the sensation of being lifted up. The heater of the Nash clicked and the fan hummed; Jean put the car in reverse and backed up in the dark; then she turned on the headlights and saw that a fleecy snow was falling. Wet, heavy snow. She must go back right away. Mitch might be sleeping but Gladys would have gotten home and started supper: Jean’s job. She didn’t let herself look again at the gravestone but simply drove, turning out of the cemetery onto the asphalt road that ran past the concrete company and back to town. From the hill here she could see the lights of Bellington, glowing behind the snow. She recognized in the silent lights something more than home and felt calm … as though her brief, deep sleep had been a journey to some lost place still existing alongside this one. This one began a new year, but the other played in the mind, repeatedly, selectively.
    Jean passed the Parkette, a drive-in restaurant closed for New Year’s, and slowed to cross the railroad tracks. The Nash lurched, bumping over uneven ties. Mitch had never been one for talking. He was good-looking and older; he’d seemed quiet and dependable. He’d been back from the service nearly two