Our Souls at Night

  ALSO BY KENT HARUF

  West of Last Chance

  (with photographer Peter Brown)

  Benediction

  Eventide

  Plainsong

  Where You Once Belonged

  The Tie That Binds

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2015 by Kent Haruf

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haruf, Kent.

  Our souls at night / Kent Haruf.—First Edition.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-87589-6 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-101-87590-2 (eBook)

  I. Title

  PS3558.A716097 2015 813’.54—dc23 2014045500

  eBook ISBN 9781101875902

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph by Gareth Manden/Glasshouse

  Cover design by Carol Devine Carson

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Kent Haruf

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  For Cathy

  1

  And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters. It was an evening in May just before full dark.

  They lived a block apart on Cedar Street in the oldest part of town with elm trees and hackberry and a single maple grown up along the curb and green lawns running back from the sidewalk to the two-story houses. It had been warm in the day but it had turned off cool now in the evening. She went along the sidewalk under the trees and turned in at Louis’s house.

  When Louis came to the door she said, Could I come in and talk to you about something?

  They sat down in the living room. Can I get you something to drink? Some tea?

  No thank you. I might not be here long enough to drink it. She looked around. Your house looks nice.

  Diane always kept a nice house. I’ve tried a little bit.

  It still looks nice, she said. I haven’t been in here for years.

  She looked out the windows at the side yard where the night was settling in and out into the kitchen where there was a light shining over the sink and counters. It all looked clean and orderly. He was watching her. She was a good-looking woman, he had always thought so. She’d had dark hair when she was younger, but it was white now and cut short. She was still shapely, only a little heavy at the waist and hips.

  You probably wonder what I’m doing here, she said.

  Well, I didn’t think you came over to tell me my house looks nice.

  No. I want to suggest something to you.

  Oh?

  Yes. A kind of proposal.

  Okay.

  Not marriage, she said.

  I didn’t think that either.

  But it’s a kind of marriage-like question. But I don’t know if I can now. I’m getting cold feet. She laughed a little. That’s sort of like marriage, isn’t it.

  What is?

  Cold feet.

  It can be.

  Yes. Well, I’m just going to say it.

  I’m listening, Louis said.

  I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.

  What? How do you mean?

  I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.

  He stared at her, watching her, curious now, cautious.

  You don’t say anything. Have I taken your breath away? she said.

  I guess you have.

  I’m not talking about sex.

  I wondered.

  No, not sex. I’m not looking at it that way. I think I’ve lost any sexual impulse a long time ago. I’m talking about getting through the night. And lying warm in bed, companionably. Lying down in bed together and you staying the night. The nights are the worst. Don’t you think?

  Yes. I think so.

  I end up taking pills to go to sleep and reading too late and then I feel groggy the next day. No use at all to myself or anybody else.

  I’ve had that myself.

  But I think I could sleep again if there were someone else in bed with me. Someone nice. The closeness of that. Talking in the night, in the dark. She waited. What do you think?

  I don’t know. When would you want to start?

  Whenever you want to. If, she said, you want to. This week.

  Let me think about it.

  All right. But I want you to call me on the day you’re coming if that happens. So I’ll know to expect you.

  All right.

  I’ll be waiting to hear from you.

  What if I snore?

  Then you’ll snore, or you’ll learn to quit.

  He laughed. That would be a first.

  She stood and went out and walked back home, and he stood at the door watching her, this medium-sized seventy-year-old woman with white hair walking away under the trees in the patches of light thrown out by the corner street lamp. What in the hell, he said. Now don’t get ahead of yourself.

  2

  The next day Louis went to the barber on Main Street and had his hair cut short and neat, a kind of buzz cut, and asked the barber if he still shaved people and the barber said he did, so he got a shave too. Then he went home and called Addie and said, I’d like to come over tonight if that’s still all right.

  Yes, it is, she said. I’m glad.

  He ate a light supper, just a sandwich and a glass of milk, he didn’t want to feel heavy and laden in her bed, and then he took a long hot shower and scrubbed himself thoroughly. He trimmed his fingernails and toenails and at dark he went out the back door and walked up the back alley carrying a paper sack with his pajamas and toothbrush inside. It was dark in the alley and his feet made a rasping noise in the gravel. A light was showing in the house across the alley and he could see the woman in profile there at the sink in the kitchen. He went on into Addie Moore’s backyard past the garage and the garden an
d knocked on the back door. He waited quite a while. A car drove by on the street out front, its headlights shining. He could hear the high school kids over on Main Street honking their horns at one another. Then the porch light came on above his head and the door opened.

  What are you doing back here? Addie said.

  I thought it would be less likely for people to see me.

  I don’t care about that. They’ll know. Someone will see. Come by the front door out on the front sidewalk. I made up my mind I’m not going to pay attention to what people think. I’ve done that too long—all my life. I’m not going to live that way anymore. The alley makes it seem we’re doing something wrong or something disgraceful, to be ashamed of.

  I’ve been a schoolteacher in a little town too long, he said. That’s what it is. But all right. I’ll come by the front door the next time. If there is a next time.

  Don’t you think there will be? she said. Is this just a one-night stand?

  I don’t know. Maybe. Minus the sex part of that, of course. I don’t know how this will go.

  Don’t you have any faith? she said.

  In you, I do. I can have faith in you. I see that already. But I’m not sure I can be equal to you.

  What are you talking about? How do you mean that?

  In courage, he said. Willingness to risk.

  Yes, but you’re here.

  That’s right. I am.

  Then you better come in. We don’t have to stand out here all night. Even if it isn’t something to be ashamed of.

  He followed her across the back porch into the kitchen.

  Let’s have a drink first, she said.

  That sounds like a good idea.

  Do you drink wine?

  A little.

  But you prefer beer?

  Yes.

  I’ll get beer for the next time. If there is a next time, she said.

  He didn’t know if she was kidding or not. If there is, he said.

  Do you prefer white or red wine?

  White, please.

  She got a bottle out of the refrigerator and poured them each half a glass and they sat down at the kitchen table. What’s in the paper sack? she said.

  Pajamas.

  That means you are ready to try this out for one time at least.

  Yes. That’s what it means.

  They drank the wine. Do you want some more?

  No, I don’t think so. Could we look around the house?

  You want me to show you the rooms and layout.

  I’d just like to know more about where I am physically.

  So you can sneak out if you need to, in the dark.

  Well no, I wasn’t thinking that.

  She stood and he followed her into the dining room and the living room. Then she led him upstairs to the three bedrooms, the big room at the front of the house overlooking the street was hers. This is where we always slept, she said. Gene had the bedroom at the back and we used the other room as an office.

  There was a bathroom down the hall and another one off the dining room downstairs. The bed in the room was king-sized with a light cotton spread over it.

  What do you think? she said.

  It’s a bigger house than I thought. More rooms.

  It’s been a good house for us. I’ve been here forty-four years.

  Two years after I moved back here with Diane.

  A long time ago.

  3

  I think I’ll just use the bathroom, she said.

  While she was out of the room he looked at the pictures on her dresser and the ones hanging on the walls. Family pictures with Carl on their wedding day, on the church steps somewhere. The two of them in the mountains beside a creek. A little black and white dog. He knew Carl a little bit, a decent man, pretty calm, he sold crop insurance and other kinds of insurance to people all over Holt County twenty years ago, had been elected mayor of the town for two terms. Louis never knew him well. He was glad now that he hadn’t. There were pictures of their son. Gene didn’t look like either of them. A tall thin boy, very serious. And two pictures of their daughter as a young girl.

  When she came back he said, I think I’ll use the bathroom too. He went in and used the toilet and washed his hands scrupulously and squeezed out a little dollop of her toothpaste and brushed his teeth and then took off his shoes and clothes and got into his pajamas. He folded his clothes over his shoes and left them in the corner behind the door and went back to the bedroom. She had gotten into a nightgown and was in bed now, the bedside lamp alight on her side and the ceiling light switched off and the window open a few inches. There was a cool soft breeze. He stood beside the bed. She folded back the sheet and blanket.

  Aren’t you getting in?

  I’m considering it.

  He got into bed, staying on his side, and pulled the blanket up and lay back. He didn’t say anything yet.

  What are you thinking? she said. You’re awfully quiet.

  How strange this is. How new it is to be here. How uncertain I feel, and sort of nervous. I don’t know what I’m thinking. A mess of things.

  It is new, isn’t it, she said. It’s a good kind of new, I’d say. Would you?

  I would.

  What do you do before you sleep?

  Oh, I watch the ten o’clock news and come to bed and read till I’m asleep. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I’m too keyed up.

  I’m going to shut off the light, she said. We can still talk. She turned in the bed and he looked at her bare smooth shoulders and her bright hair under the light.

  Then it was dark with just the light from the street showing faintly in the room. They talked about trivial matters, getting acquainted a little, the minor routine events of town, the health of the old lady Ruth who lived in between their houses, the paving of Birch Street. Then they were quiet.

  After a while he said, Are you still awake?

  Yes.

  You asked what I was thinking. One thing I was thinking: I’m glad I didn’t know Carl very well.

  Why?

  I wouldn’t feel as good as I do being here, if I did.

  But I knew Diane pretty well.

  An hour later she was asleep and breathing quietly. He was still awake. He had been watching her. He could see her face in the dim light. They hadn’t touched once. At three in the morning he got up and went to the bathroom and came back and shut the window. A wind had come up.

  At daybreak he rose and got dressed in the bathroom and looked again at Addie Moore in bed. She was awake now. I’ll see you, he said.

  Will you?

  Yes.

  He went out and walked home on the sidewalk past the neighboring houses and went inside and made coffee and ate some toast and eggs and went out and worked in his garden for a couple of hours and returned to the kitchen and ate an early lunch and slept heavily for two hours in the afternoon.

  4

  When he woke that afternoon he realized he was sick. He got up and drank some water and felt hot. He thought for a while and then decided to call her. On the phone he said, I just got up from a nap and I don’t feel good, a pain in my stomach of some kind and also in my back. I’m sorry. I won’t be coming over tonight.

  I see, she said, and hung up.

  He called his doctor’s office and made an appointment for the next morning. He went to bed early and was sweaty in the night and couldn’t sleep and in the morning he didn’t feel like eating and at ten he went to see the doctor and was sent to the hospital for blood and urine tests. He waited there in the lobby until the lab had the results and then they admitted him with a urinary tract infection.

  They gave him antibiotics and he slept most of the afternoon and again was awake much of the night. In the morning he felt better and they told him he’d probably be released the next day. He ate breakfast and lunch and took a short nap and when he woke up around three she was sitting in the chair beside his bed. He looked at her.

  You weren’t kidding, she said.
>
  Did you think I was?

  I thought you were just saying you were sick. That you decided you didn’t want to be with me at night.

  I was afraid you were thinking that.

  I thought it wasn’t going to happen, she said.

  I’ve been thinking of you all yesterday and last night and all day today, he said.

  What were you thinking?

  How you’d misinterpret my call. And how I could explain that I still want to come at night and be together. How I was feeling more interested in this than I’d felt about anything for a long time.

  Why didn’t you call me then? To tell me?

  I thought it might even be worse, that it would sound all the more like I was making this up.

  I wish you’d tried.

  I should have. How did you find out I was in the hospital?

  I was talking to Ruth next door this morning and she said, Did you hear about Louis? I said, What about him? He’s in the hospital. What’s wrong with him? They say he’s got some kind of infection. Then I knew, she said.

  I’m not going to lie to you, he said.

  All right. Neither of us will. So will you come again?

  As soon as I feel well and am sure I’m over this. It’s good to see you, he said.

  Thank you. You look pretty ragged right now.

  I haven’t had time to put on my face yet.

  She laughed. I don’t care, she said. That’s not what I mean. I was just making a comment, an observation.

  Well, you look pretty good to me, he said.

  Did you call your daughter?

  I told her not to worry. That I’d be out in a day and this was nothing to be concerned about. She won’t have to take off work. I don’t need her to come see me now. She lives in Colorado Springs.

  I know.

  She’s a teacher like I was. Then he stopped talking. Do you want something to drink? I could call the nurse.

  No. I’m going home now.

  I’ll call you after I’m home again and feeling all right.

  Good, she said. I already bought some beer.

  She left and he watched her walk out of the room and he lay in the bed waiting to go back to sleep, but they brought his supper and he looked at the news while he ate and afterward shut off the TV and looked out the window and watched it turn dark outside out over the wide plain west of town.