The Pariah Read Online Free PDF

faintest glistening red.
    ‘Everybody has to die sometime, that’s what I mean by that,’ she said. ‘But it’s the place you die, not the time, that makes the difference. There are spheres of influence; and sometimes you can die within them, and sometimes you can die without them.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I told her. ‘I don’t really understand what you’re saying.’
    ‘Suppose you died in Salem,’ the old woman smiled. ‘Salem is the root, heart, bowels, and belly. Salem is the witch’s boiling-pot. What do you believe those witch-trials were really all about? And why do you think they stopped so sudden? Have you known anybody show such remorse, so quick? Not I. I never did. Not as quick as that. The influence came, and then the influence fled; but there are days when I believe that it didn’t flee for good and all. It depends.’
    ‘Depends on what?’ I wanted to know.
    She smiled again, and winked, and said, ‘All kind of things.’ She raised her head to the sky, and revealed around her throat a neck-band that looked as if it were made of braided hair, fastened with silver and turquoise. ‘The weather, the price of goose fat. It depends.’
    I suddenly felt like a complete tourist. Here I was, letting some half-dotty woman string me along with stories about ‘spheres of influence’ and witches, and actually taking her seriously. She was probably going to offer to tell my fortune next, if the price was right.
    In Salem, where the local Chamber of Commerce enthusiastically exploits the witch-trials of 1692 as a major commercial attraction (‘Stop by for a Spell,’ they entreat you) it was hardly surprising that even the panhandlers should use witchcraft as a selling-angle.
    ‘Listen,’ I told the woman, ‘just have a good day, all right?’
    ‘You’re going?’ she asked me.
    ‘I’m going. It’s been nice talking to you. Very interesting.’
    ‘Interesting, but not believable?’
    ‘Oh, I believe you,’ I said. ‘The weather, the price of goose fat. By the way, what is the price of goose fat?’
    She ignored my facetious question and stood up, brushing the crumbs off her worn-out coat with a hand that was blue-veined like cheese. ‘You think that I’m begging for money?’ she demanded. ‘Is that it? You think I’m a beggar?’
    ‘Not at all. I just have to go, that’s all.’
    A passer-by stopped to watch us as if he could sense that an interesting confrontation was about to develop. Then two more stopped, one of them a woman, her curly hair turned into a strangely radiant halo by the winter sun.
    ‘I will tell you two things,’ the woman said, in a trembly voice. ‘I shouldn’t tell you either, but I will. You will have to decide for yourself if they are warnings or riddles or nothing but nonsense. You cannot be helped, you know; for the life we lead on this earth is a life without help.’
    I said nothing, but stood warily watching her, trying to work out if she was a simple lunatic or a not-so-simple con-artist.
    ‘The first thing is,’ she said, ‘you are not alone, the way you believe yourself to be, and you will never be alone, not for evermore, although you will pray to God sometimes to release you from your companionship. The second thing is, you must stay away from the place where no birds fly.’
    The passers-by, seeing that nothing particularly exciting was going to happen, began to disperse, and walk off their separate ways. The woman said, ‘You can walk me to Washington Square, if you care to. You are going that way?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. Then, ‘Come on, then.’
    She gathered up her bag and folded her red umbrella and then walked beside me to the west side of the common. The common was enclosed with decorative iron railings, which threw spoked shadows across the grass. It was still very cold, but there was a noticeable inkling of spring in the air, and a summer very different from last year.
    ‘I’m sorry that you thought I was talking nonsense,’ the