The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [58]
“I know that,” Macon said.
“Maybe it was too spicy for her.”
“It was fine,” he said. “Could I have my crutches, please?”
She went off to get them, shaking her head.
He would have to locate a taxi. He’d made no arrangements for Rose to pick him up. Secretly, he’d been hoping to go home with Sarah. Now that hope seemed pathetic. He looked around the dining room and saw that most of the tables were filled, and that every person had someone else to eat with. Only Macon sat alone. He kept very erect and dignified but inside, he knew, he was crumbling. And when the waitress brought him his crutches and he stood to leave, it seemed appropriate that he had to walk nearly doubled, his chin sunk low on his chest and his elbows jutting out awkwardly like the wings of a baby bird. People stared at him as he passed. Some snickered. Was his foolishness so obvious? He passed the two churchy old ladies and one of them tugged at his sleeve. “Sir? Sir?”
He came to a stop.
“I suspect they may have given you my crutches,” she said.
He looked down at the crutches. They were, of course, not his. They were diminutive—hardly more than child-sized. Any other time he would have grasped the situation right off, but today it had somehow escaped him. Any other time he would have swung into action—called for the manager, pointed out the restaurant’s lack of concern for the handicapped. Today he only stood hanging his head, waiting for someone to help him.
nine
Back when Grandfather Leary’s mind first began to wander, no one had guessed what was happening. He was such an upright, firm old man. He was all sharp edges. Definite. “Listen,” he told Macon, “by June the twelfth I’ll need my passport from the safe deposit box. I’m setting sail for Lassaque.”
“Lassaque, Grandfather?”
“If I like it I may just stay there.”
“But where is Lassaque?”
“It’s an island off the coast of Bolivia.”
“Ah,” Macon said. And then, “Well, wait a minute . . .”
“It interests me because the Lassaquans have no written language. In fact if you bring any reading matter they confiscate it. They say it’s black magic.”
“But I don’t think Bolivia has a coast,” Macon said.
“They don’t even allow, say, a checkbook with your name on it. Before you go ashore you have to soak the label off your deodorant. You have to get your money changed into little colored wafers.”
“Grandfather, is this a joke?”
“A joke! Look it up if you don’t believe me.” Grandfather Leary checked his steel pocket watch, then wound it with an assured, back-and-forth motion. “An intriguing effect of their illiteracy,” he said, “is their reverence for the elderly. This is because the Lassaquans’ knowledge doesn’t come from books but from living; so they hang on every word from those who have lived the longest.”
“I see,” Macon said, for now he thought he did see. “ We hang on your words, too,” he said.
“That may be so,” his grandfather told him, “but I still intend to see Lassaque before it’s corrupted.”
Macon was silent a moment. Then he went over to the bookcase and selected a volume from his grandfather’s set of faded brown encyclopedias. “Give it here,” his grandfather said, holding out both hands. He took the book greedily and started riffling through the pages. A smell of mold floated up. “Laski,” he muttered, “Lassalle, Lassaw . . .” He lowered the book and frowned. “I don’t . . .” he said. He returned to the book. “Lassalle, Lassaw . . .”
He looked confused, almost frightened. His face all at once collapsed—a phenomenon that had startled Macon on several occasions lately. “I don’t understand,” he whispered to Macon. “I don’t understand.”
“Well,” Macon said, “maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was one of those dreams that seem real.”
“Macon, this was no dream. I know the place. I’ve bought my ticket. I’m sailing June the twelfth.”
Macon felt a strange coldness creeping down his back.
Then his grandfather became