leave, or because she was sorry to part from her friends new and old. She embraced everyone with the same fervor—that is, all of us as well as the Rawul and Rani and whatever followers were within reach. Grandfather stood a little to one side, as though it were nothing to do with him. I thought he still didn’t look well, almost frail in spite of his heavy build; it seemed to me that his clothes had grown too large for him, but perhaps this had been so for a long time and I hadn’t noticed it before. The Rawul tried to make a little farewell speech, but with Grandfather remaining grim and withdrawn, it died, and the Rawul was left standing there, smiling and patting one of his hands on the other. While Sonya was still kissing and embracing, Grandfather went down the steps of the porch and settled in the back of the car. He beckoned to me from there, and when I came to the car window, he asked “Where’s Michael?”
It was embarrassing, but I had to tell him Michael wasn’t there. He had driven with Crishi to the printers to collect a new set of Fourth World literature. If he had known that Grandfather was leaving that morning, he might have postponed his errand; but, as I said, Grandfather left in a hurry—wanting to get to the Island, or just wanting to get away.
“Tell him—” Grandfather began to say to me, and then stopped. His eyes swept up the porch steps, where the Rawul stood smiling with the Rani beside him and some followers behind them. Whatever it was Grandfather had wanted me to tell Michael, he changed his mind and said instead, “Why don’t you come to the Island, both of you; come and be with us. I want to see you,” he added and stopped looking grim for the first time that morning. He had his hand on the car window and I took it and held it in mine. He smiled at that, and seemed completely to forget about the Rawul and his party standing there. “See that you come now,” he said. “Bring Michael; and soon.” I said “I’ll tell him.” “Not just tell him: make him. Make him come home.” I couldn’t say anything to that; I couldn’t promise. I didn’t think Michael would want to go to the Island and I didn’t think I myself wanted to either. I too felt that we had work to do here, that we had begun to undertake something.
But Grandfather didn’t want to know about this. He withdrew his hand from mine and called to Sonya. Before they drove off, he said again, “I want to see you there soon”—but he seemed to have lost interest in me almost as much as in the others standing on the porch. I guess he was just looking forward to being on the Island and doing his work there, writing his book to sum up all his life and what he had done in it.
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