68 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER30, 2019
arrived with. I suddenly had a terrific
headache. This was always the signal
for the door in my head—and I expe-
rienced it quite specifically as a door, a
big red one—to open and allow the
river horse to come in. He lived in a
poem, but before that he had languished
in a zoo. I push the poem from my
mind as soon as I can, but it’s never soon
enough. When it wants in, it enters.
The river horse. The baby river horse.
“Oh, I know that one,” the dog
said. “Craig Arnold. It ends with an
infant being...the innocent...the
ingenious...”
“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking.
“...whose first step came only just
in time to allow him to climb, all by
himself...”
“Yes, yes,” I said, sobbing.
“... the steep steps to the guillotine.”
I had to lie down. I staggered to a
bedroom and closed my eyes. When I
resurfaced, hours later, I saw that the
dog had managed to start a fire. It wasn’t
cold enough for a fire, but it was pleas-
ant all the same.
I was amazed that he was able to
build a fire.
“There are those fatwood starters,”
he said. “They come in a box.”
“But even so,” I said.
“Now that it’s stopped raining we
could use the fire pit outside. I inves-
tigated it earlier. It’s big, isn’t it? And
those slabs of limestone around it. There
are little faces in them, aren’t there?”
“Oh, I hope not,” I said sincerely.
“They seem to be screaming.”
“I mustn’t scream,” I said.
“Well, everything does at some
point. I remember when I died—just
the ways I died—over and over again.
It was awful. No sense of plenitude or
peace. Each time, I struggled. Didn’t
do a lick of good. I died. Each time, I
would ask, ‘But is there nothing that
can be done?’ And there was only si-
lence. I so wanted to get behind this
endless end business. There’s so much
there. But the resistance to its being
realized is great. I was determined to
break through. So I employed an aman-
uensis to assist in my anamnesis.”
“Philip? Your memories of other
lives?”
He gazed at me.
“Words can be so weird, can’t they!”
I said, my excitement somewhat dis-
placed. “The inversion or addition of
a letter or two creates a whole differ-
ent meaning. It would be so easy to
confuse the two if there was a test or
something!”
I was a small and earnest child again,
a child saving money to buy the water-
colors of a capuchin.
“Amanuensis and anamnesis,” I added.
“There are tests and there are tests,”
the dog said.
“Where is Philip?” I asked.
“Gone. Swept away. And all the sto-
ries of my lives with him. He believed
he had them all, but he did not. Hun-
dreds and hundreds of hours’ worth, but
far from all. Still, gone again. Indeci-
pherable. Ruined. Lost.”
I supposed that this was the end of
my position as the assistant to the
director.
“He left when he thought I was sleep-
ing. But I was not sleeping. I ran after
him. I saw it all. Swept away.”
“Did he record what you told him
or did he write it down?”
“I’m not a fan of electronic devices,”
the dog said.
“I think Philip was deaf.”
“Deaf ?”
“Quite deaf, I think.”
“So he was writing down what he
imagined I was saying rather than...”
“Possibly,” I said.
The dog began worrying the hole
in the beach towel again. It hadn’t
become any larger, which I thoughtshowed considerable skill on his part.
We were silent, watching the fire.
Finally, he spoke. “Sometimes I
exhibit quite poor judgment.”
“The selection process here is a
mystery.”
“I thought all the while that it was
my work they found worthy.”
“I’m sure it was. Is.”
“The river of indifference flows
through the country of forgetfulness.
That’s the way it’s always been. It need
not be that way forever. That is what
I have addressed and must continue
to address.”
The fire was burning beautifully. He
certainly knew how to make a fire.
I loved him.
“We must leave,” I said sensibly. “We
mustn’t stay. We would have to explain
so much.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “We begin again.
We are forever being taken from our
home and expected to thrive in some
other place. Sometimes it is possible.
More often it is not.”
His coat was darker and more gleam-
ing than I’d previously thought.
“What would you call your color
anyway?” I asked. “How would you like
me to describe it?”
“Devil’s-food cake,” he said.
“That’s good. That’s perfect.”
“I think so,” he said. ♦THE WRITER’S VOICE PODCAST
Joy Williams reads “The Fellow.”ONFRIENDSHIP
Lately, remembering anything involves an ability
to forget something else. Watching the news,
I writhe and moan; my mind is not itself.
Lying next to a begonia from which black ants come and go,
I drink a vodka. Night falls. This seems a balm
for wounds that are not visible in the gaudy daylight.
Sometimes a friend cooks dinner; our lives commingle.
In loneliness, I fear me, but in society I’m like a soldier
kneeling on soft mats. Everything seems possible,
as when I hear birds that awaken at 4 a.m. or see
a veil upon a face. Beware, the heart is lean red meat.
The mind feeds on this. I carry on my shoulder
a bow and arrow for protection. I believe whatever
I do next will surpass what I have done.—Henri Cole