Northern Lights. Tim O’Brien

      ‘Priceless.’

      Again she pouted, and the road bumped across the rusted railroad tracks, straightened and descended through a tunnel of white pine that opened into the town. Sometimes he got pleasure out of making her worry. ‘Priceless,’ he muttered just for that purpose. On the right, an enamel sign said: SAWMILL LANDING. It gave the population as 781, which had been about right until 1947 when the last lumber company had left town, taking thirty families with it.

      The road made a sharp turn and became Mainstreet. Perry parked in front of the bank.

      Church bells were ringing as they walked to the drugstore.

      Except for two dogs, one sniffing at the other, the streets were as dry and motionless as a postcard. Sunday morning. Sunday morning, four dozen cars parked about the stone church, Jud Harmor’s pickup in front of the town hall, Sunday morning, paint peeling, pine rotting, the forest growing into vacant lots and abandoned lawns, fallen timbers, Sunday morning and even inside the drugstore everything was quiet.

      Grace found a Sunday paper and they sat at the counter. A Coca-Cola clock showed eight minutes to eleven.

      Perry kept his head down. He rambled through the comics and Sunday morning headlines. Grace read the Living section. A wall of mirrors faced them, running from one end of the long counter to the other, plastered with ads for ice cream and Pepsi and Bromo Seltzer, reflecting the rows of toothpaste and stationery and mouthwash and Kleenex, reflecting like a long mercantile mural, reflecting Grace who was gazing at him placid and soft-eyed, featureless as warm milk. He looked away. He looked away and continued through the newspaper until Herb Wolff swung behind the counter.

      Without asking, Wolff poured coffee and put the cups down and wrote out a bill.

      ‘Coffee?’ he said.

      ‘Thanks, Herb.’

      ‘No problem.’ He waited to be paid. Then he rang up thirty cents on his cash register, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down beside Grace. ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘so … what’s up?’

      ‘Not much. How’s your pa?’

      Wolff shrugged.

      ‘That’s good.’

      ‘Keeps holding in there,’ Wolff said. ‘So. What’s up? He had a deep voice that never stopped surprising Perry.

      ‘Nothing, Herb. What about you?’

      They sat without talking. For hours at a time, people sat in Wolff’s drugstore without talking. Stirring coffee and looking at themselves in the long mirrors, listening to Wolff’s cash register, watching Mainstreet, asking folks who came in: ‘What’s new? What’s up?’

      Wolff rearranged a pair of salt and pepper shakers. ‘So. Not in church today.’

      ‘Not today, I guess.’

      ‘So what’s up then?’

      ‘Nothing. We’re here to meet the bus.’

      Wolff raised his eyebrows, waiting for more, then he sighed. ‘Relatives, I guess.’

      That’s about it, Herb. When the devil do we get some rain?’

      ‘I reckon next week. That’s what everyone’s saying.’ He paused a moment as if trying to frame a difficult question, then very slowly he said, ‘Relatives, I reckon.’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘That’s what I thought.’ Again he raised his eyebrows. He was dressed in a starched lab coat. It didn’t seem to Perry that he’d changed at all since high school. Wolff was one of the Germans. There were Swedes and Finns and Germans, and Wolff was pure German – impeccable and stiffly manicured, greedy eyes, a bristling crewcut and a voice that rose like deep magic from his sunken little torso. Wolff was proud of the voice. Back in high school, when it finally changed, it saved him from an adolescence of constant scorn, pity, practical jokes and half-serious innuendo about his malehood. He now loaded the voice with authority, successfully straining out most of the German accent, always speaking slowly and only after long and apparently tormenting thought. ‘A relative,’ he said.

      ‘That’s about it. You got any more of this coffee, Herb?’

      ‘Right.’ He sighed, giving up. Wolff refilled their cups and wrote out a new bill and they sat quietly and listened while the Coca-Cola clock ticked. ‘I reckon you know Jud Harmor’s got cancer,’ he said.

      ‘I’ve heard that.’

      ‘It’s true.’

      ‘Did Jud tell you?’

      Wolff shook his head. ‘Nope, but I heard it. I hear it’s bad, too.’

      ‘He’s tough.’

      ‘He’s old.’ Wolff was playing again with the salt and pepper shakers. ‘He ought to step down from being mayor if he’s got cancer like I hear he’s got. I don’t say he has to quit. I say he should quit. It’s for the better.’

      ‘I guess it is.’

      When the Coca-Cola clock showed two minutes after eleven, Wolff got behind the counter and began making coffee for the church crowd. He still had the disjointed swagger that Perry remembered from high school, a sailor’s roll that joined with his deep voice to defy everything else about him.

      ‘Anacin and aspirin and all that stuff,’ Wolff was saying, talking to Grace like a teacher. ‘It’s made in these big vats, you know, and all it really amounts to is plain acid. And you know what acids are. Dangerous. You got to be careful.’

      ‘Why sell it?’ asked Grace.

      ‘Oh. Well, it is a medicine. That’s all I’m saying, honey. Aspirin is medicine and people forget that. I’m just saying you got to be careful because it’s not sugar. Not candy. Aspirin is a very potent medicine. Aspirin isn’t sugar. Sugar is organic, see? Sugar’s got carbons in it, but aspirin’s plain acid and acid is something you got to be careful of, see?’

      Grace nodded. Then Wolff nodded. He straightened his lab coat and checked his watch against the Coca-Cola clock. ‘So,’ he said crisply, ‘bus gets in at eleven twenty. Who’s this relative anyhow?’

      Grace laughed. ‘It’s no big secret, Herb. It’s Harvey. We just thought it would be best not to …’

      ‘Harvey?’

      Grace smiled.

      ‘Harvey!’ Wolff wailed. He held his hands to his mouth like a girl. His voice sailed up an octave. ‘Harvey? Well this is … Harvey!’

      ‘It’s no secret,’ Grace said. ‘We thought he’d just want to get off the bus without any fuss.’

      ‘Geez,’ Wolff moaned. ‘Well, this is something. Harvey? Geeeezzzz. You should’ve told somebody. For Pete’s sakes. Harvey. Well, how is he?’ Wolff looked about the store. ‘For Pete’s sakes! You should’ve told us. He’s coming on the bus? Geez, I got to get some people here.’

      ‘I don’t think he wants that,’ Perry said. He decided to cut Wolff off fast. ‘Let’s just let it be a nice easy thing.’

      ‘We got to!’ Wolff wailed. ‘He’s coming home, isn’t he? Geez. I got to make some phone calls.’ He yanked his lab coat down, dusting it and hustling for the phone.

      ‘Herb. Forget it, will you?’

      ‘The whole town’s in church.’ Wolff banged the phone down and went out into the street and came back. ‘Geez, this is … I can’t believe any of this. Harvey. I just can’t believe it. He’s coming home. I mean, we got to get some people out for him, don’t we? How is he? I mean, how’s the eye and everything?’

      ‘He’s fine,’ Grace smiled. ‘We talked to him on the phone and he sounded cheerful and