“Just like that? You came here with him instead of going home?” Caitlin not only believed this, she was enchanted. She believes fully in chance encounters, splendid accidents, and loving someone so much right off the bat you can learn to live with their glaring faults. I was more astonished that Miep had come with him yet said openly what a bore he was. Was that how you sealed the bond of love at first sight? Yes, let’s fly off together, darling, I love you madly and’ll try to get used to how boring you are.

“Yes. After Ian told me about his dreams, I asked if I could come. It was necessary for me.”

I said to McGann, “Must have been some kind of powerful dream you had.” He looked plain, pleasant, and capable but only in a small way—like an efficient postman who delivers your mail early, or the salesman in a liquor store who can rattle off the names of thirty different brands of beer. I assumed he was a good travel agent, up on his prices and brochures, and a man who could choose a good vacation for someone who didn’t have much money. But he wasn’t impressive and he talked forever. What kind of dream had he had to convince this attractive and nicely mysterious Dutchwoman to drop everything and accompany him to Sardinia?

“It wasn’t much really. I dreamed I was working in an office, not where I do work—some other place—but nowhere special. A man walked in I’d known a long time ago who had died. He died of cancer maybe five years before. I saw him and knew for sure that he had come back from the dead to see me. His name was Larry Birmingham. I never really liked this fellow. He was loud and much too sure of himself. But there he was in my dream. I looked up from my desk and said, ‘Larry. It’s you! You’re back from the dead!’ He was very calm and said yes, he’d come to see me. I asked if I could ask him questions about it. About Death that is, of course. He smiled, a little too amusedly I realize now, and said yes. About this time in the dream, I think I knew I was dreaming. You know how that happens? But I thought, Go on, see what you can find out. So I asked him questions. What is Death like? Should we be afraid? Is it anything like we expect?… That sort of thing. He answered, but many of the answers were vague and confusing. I’d ask again and he’d answer in a different way, which at first I thought was clearer, but in the end it wasn’t—he had only stated the muddle differently. It wasn’t much help, I’ll tell you.”

“Did you learn anything?”

Ian looked at Miep. Despite her aloofness and his dialogue ten miles long, it was obvious that there was great closeness and regard between these two remarkably dissimilar people. It was a look of love to be sure, but a great deal more than that. More, a look that clearly said there were things they knew about each other already that went to the locus of their beings. Whether they’d known each other a short week or twenty years, the look contained everything we all hope for in our lives with others. She nodded her approval, but after another moment he said, gently, “I… I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

“Oh, Ian—” She reached across the table and touched her hand to his face. Imagine a beam light going directly across that table, excluding everything but those two. That’s what both Caitlin and I felt, watching them. What was most surprising to me was that it was the first time Miep had talked of or shown real feeling for her man. Now, there was suddenly so much feeling that it was embarrassing.

“Ian, you’re right. I’m sorry. You’re so right.” She slipped back into her chair but continued looking at him. He turned to me and said, “I’m sorry to be rude, but you’ll understand why I can’t tell you anything when I’m finished.

“Excuse me, but before I go on—it’s hard for me to tell this, so I’m going to have another drink. Would anyone like a refill?”

None of us did, so he got up and went to the bar. The table was silent while he was gone. Miep never stopped looking at him. Caitlin and I didn’t know where to look until he returned.

“Right-o. Tanked up and ready to go. You know what I was just thinking, up there at the bar? That I once drove through Austria and got a case of the giggles when I passed a sign for the town of Mooskirchen. I remember so well thinking to myself that a bonkers translation of that would be Moose Church. Then I thought, Well, why the hell not—people worship all kinds of things on this earth. Why couldn’t there be a church to moose? Or rather, a religion to them. You know?

“I’m rattling on here, aren’t I? It’s because this is a terribly difficult story for me to tell. The funny thing is, when I’m finished you’ll think I’m just as bonkers as my imagined worshippers at the Moose Church, eh, Miep? Won’t they think I don’t have all my bulbs screwed in?”

“If they understand, they will know you are a hero.”

“Yes, well, folks, don’t take Miep too seriously. She’s quiet but very emotional about things sometimes. Let me go on and you can judge for yourself whether I’m crazy or, ha-ha, a hero.

“The morning after that first dream, I walked to the bathroom and started taking my pajamas off so I could wash up. I was shocked when I saw—”

“Don’t tell them, Ian, show them! Show them so they will see for themselves!”

Slowly, shyly, he began to pull his T-shirt over his head. Caitlin saw it first and gasped. When I saw, I guess I gasped too. From his left shoulder down to above his left nipple was a monstrously deep scar. It looked exactly like what my father had down the middle of his chest after open heart surgery. One giant scar wide and obscenely shiny pink. His body’s way of saying it would never forgive him for hurting it like that.

“Oh, Ian, what happened?” Sweet Caitlin, the heart of the world, involuntarily reached out to touch him, comfort him. Realizing what she was doing, she pulled her hand back, but the look of sympathy framed her face.

“Nothing happened, Caitlin. I have never been hurt in my life. Never been in the hospital, never had an operation. I asked Death some questions, and when I woke the next morning this was here.” He didn’t wait for us to examine the scar more closely. The shirt was quickly over his head and down.

“I’m telling you, Ian, maybe it is a kind of gift.”

“It’s no gift, Miep, if it hurts terribly and I can’t move my left arm well anymore! The same with my foot and my hand.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ian closed his eyes and tried once to continue but couldn’t. Instead, he rocked back and forth, his eyes closed.

Miep spoke. “The night before we met, he had another dream and the same thing happened. This Larry came back and Ian asked him more questions about Death. But this time the answers were clearer, although not all of them. He woke up and he says he had begun to understand things that he didn’t before. He believes that’s why the scar on the inside of his hand is smaller—the more he understands of the dream, the more it leaves him alone. A few nights ago he had another, but he woke with a big cut on his leg. Much bigger than the one on his hand.”

Ian spoke again, but his voice was less. Softer and… deflated. “It will tell you anything you want to know, but you have to understand it. If you don’t… it does this to you so you’ll be careful with your questions. The trouble is, once you’ve started, you can’t stop asking. In the middle of my second dream I told Birmingham I wanted to stop; I was afraid. He said I couldn’t.

“The ultimate game of Twenty Questions, eh? Thank God Miep’s here. Thank God she believed me! See, it makes me so much weaker. Maybe that’s the worst part. After the dreams there are the scars, but even worse than that is I’m much weaker and can’t do anything about it. I can barely get out of the bed. Most of the time I’m better as the day goes on… but I know it’s getting worse. And one day I won’t… I know if Miep weren’t here… Thank God for you, Miep.”