Munro Wild Swans: Alice

Then he spoke. Not to her, exactly. To the air. “Ever see a flock of wild swans land on a lake in November?”

He did not offer her a pill. He offered her a story. He told her about a lake he knew, north of the city, where the swans stopped every autumn. He described the sound—a low, rustling thunder, like the sky tearing. He described the whiteness of their bodies against the dark water, so stark it was almost cruel.

By the time they reached the city, the sun had set. The train station was a cavern of yellow light and echoing footsteps. Mr. Ellison stood up, put on his hat, and looked at her. alice munro wild swans

They did not go to the lake. That is the truth of it. They went to a diner, and he bought her coffee and a slice of apple pie. He told her about his wife, who had arthritis and rarely left the house. He told her about his daughter, who had moved to Calgary and never wrote. He talked and talked, and Clara listened, and somewhere between the pie and the second cup of coffee, the wild swans became something else—a code for loneliness, for the desperate need to witness something beautiful before the dark closed in.

Clara startled. “What?”

Her name was Clara. She was seventeen, leaving the small town of Carstairs for the first time, bound for a typing course in the city. Her mother had packed her a egg salad sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a stern warning about men who offered to buy her a soda. Her father had given her a five-dollar bill and a handshake, as if she were already a stranger.

“I don’t know you,” she said.

Clara felt a strange, slippery thing happening inside her. It wasn’t desire—not exactly. It was curiosity, but a dangerous kind. The kind that makes you want to touch a hot stove just to see if it really burns.