Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Five: The April Visit

He returned to the coastal village in April.

He had been waiting for April since October — since the girl's presentation, the coastal vocabulary, the April alive in pieces. He had attended the October grey-green and the November concentrating gleam and the January flat grey in Joseph's letter and the March sea remembering motion. He had not attended in April. He had been waiting for it since the first visit, the attending held in reserve, the month deferred until it arrived.

He drove on a Wednesday in the second week of April. The inland road was already in its spring condition — the hedges returning, the fields in their April green, the light of the longer day beginning to accumulate. He drove the hundred and forty kilometres and thought about the April alive in pieces and arrived at the lane before nine.

He stood in the lane and looked at the sea.

The April sea was not the March sea. The March sea had been remembering motion — the January flat lifting, the surface answering the wind in patches, the first pieces of the alive beginning. The April sea was in full motion. Not the October grey-green chop — not the Atlantic restlessness of the autumn — but the April motion, the spring sea, the surface moving with a different quality than the October movement. October moved with weight. April moved with light.

He wrote in the pocket notebook: April — the sea moving with light, not weight. The October movement is the Atlantic asserting itself. The April movement is the sea opening. The surface is alive in every part — not the patches of the March alive in pieces but everywhere alive, the full surface in its spring condition.

He thought about the girl's vocabulary. April is alive in pieces. He looked at the sea and thought: it is not in pieces now. April is past the pieces. The pieces were the March — the first patches of alive returning to the January flat. In April the pieces arrived and multiplied and joined. April is fully alive.

He wrote: I misread the vocabulary. April alive in pieces means the April light on the moving surface — the light broken by the movement into pieces of brightness. Not the motion itself in pieces but the light in pieces on the full motion. The sea is alive and the light on it is in pieces because the surface is moving. The alive in pieces is the light, not the sea.

He stood in the lane for a long time. He stood with this correction in his mind — the reread vocabulary, the alive in pieces understood rightly — and looked at the April sea and saw it correctly for the first time. The sea in full April motion and the April light broken across the moving surface into thousands of pieces of brightness, the light alive in pieces because the sea was alive in full.

He thought: the section must know this.

He thought about the east window and the April light coming through the hundred and forty centimetre opening at forty centimetres from the floor. He thought about the April alive in pieces entering the wide east window — the thousands of pieces of brightness, the light broken by the moving surface, the everywhere-alive entering the classroom in its April condition. He thought about the sea children at their tables with the April light in pieces on the east wall of the corrected classroom, the brightness moving because the sea moved, the light alive in the room because the sea was alive beyond the glass.

He thought: the wide east window receives this. The full width receives the full alive.

He walked to the school. Joseph was teaching. He stood in the corridor and looked through the glass panel at the east wall — the high existing window, the sill too high, the sky above it. He looked at the east wall above the sill and saw the April light in pieces on the classroom ceiling — the light finding its way above the sill and breaking across the ceiling in the April motion, the alive in pieces arriving even through the wrong window, even at the wrong height, the light insisting on entry.

He thought: even the wrong window cannot keep the April light out entirely.

He thought about the corrected window — the sill at forty centimetres, the width a hundred and forty centimetres. He thought about the April alive in pieces entering the corrected window and moving across the limestone floor of the corrected classroom — the brightness on the floor at the level of the attending body, the light alive at the children's feet and on their tables and on the east wall at the height where they could see it without raising their eyes from their work.

He thought: the correction gives April to the floor.

After the lesson he told Joseph what he had understood in the lane. He said: alive in pieces is the light on the moving surface. Not the sea in pieces — the light in pieces on the full sea. I had been reading it as the sea. It is the light.

Joseph was quiet for the teacher's moment. Then he said: ask her.

The girl was called back from the corridor. She stood in the classroom doorway — ten years old now, the April term, the coastal child who had given the practice its vocabulary. She looked at Daniel with the direct look of the child who has been asked to answer for something she said and is trying to remember exactly what she said.

Daniel said: April is alive in pieces. Is it the sea that is in pieces or the light?

She did not hesitate. She said: the light. The sea is all alive. The light is in pieces because the sea is moving.

He thought: she has always known this precisely.

He thought about the precision of the child's knowledge — the exact vocabulary, the distinction maintained without difficulty, the light and the sea kept correctly separate. He thought about his four months of thinking about the April alive in pieces and arriving at the correct reading in the lane on a Wednesday morning, and he thought about the girl having always held the correct reading without effort because she was in it every April and had been since she was old enough to notice.

He said to Joseph, after the girl had gone: she had attended for six April. She knows the light and the sea precisely because she has been in them six times.

Joseph said: seven. She was three the first April she noticed. She told me once.

He thought about the girl noticing at three. He thought about the seven Aprils of the alive in pieces — the light in pieces on the full April sea, attended to seven times, the body holding the precise vocabulary of each year's attending. He thought about the practice and its four months arriving at what the girl had known for seven years.

He wrote in the pocket notebook before he drove home: April coastal visit. The April alive in pieces: the light in pieces on the full sea, not the sea in pieces. Correction to the vocabulary — the light broken by the moving surface into thousands of pieces of brightness. The section receives this: the wide east window gives the April light in pieces to the floor. Seven of the girls attending. The practice arrives in four months at what she has known in seven years. The children are the practice's most patient teachers.

He drove the hundred and forty kilometres home with the April light in pieces in the peripheral and was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Five