The Encounter

The wind is at the edge of the gathering. The wind has been there for several pages of Elihu's last speech, working at the dust where the dust meets the air, lifting a few grains and setting them down again, lifting a few more. The friends have not seen it. Elihu has not seen it. Job has not seen it. The wind has been doing what a wind does at the start of a thing — gathering itself at the perimeter, testing the cloth and the hair and the corners of the robes, deciding when to come. The wind is going to come now.

Eliphaz has his hands open in his lap. The hands have been open since Eliphaz finished his third speech, the speech that ran out of him before the speech was supposed to be over. The hands have been open the way the hands of a man who has stopped speaking sit. Not relaxed. Empty. The fingers have curled a fraction, as the fingers of a man's hand will curl when the hand has been still for a long time, and the curl has stayed. The wind moves the small hairs on the back of Eliphaz's right hand. Eliphaz does not look down.

Bildad's face has been lowered for a chapter and a half. Bildad's chin is two fingers above his collar bone. Bildad's beard has settled into the cloth at his throat. The beard has been there long enough that the cloth at the throat has darkened in a small oval where the oil of the beard has worked into the weave. The wind catches the corner of Bildad's robe at his right shoulder. The corner lifts. The corner sets back down. Bildad does not move.

Zophar's mouth is open. The mouth has been open a fraction of an inch since the place in the second cycle where Zophar tried to begin his third speech and the speech did not come. The mouth has stayed open the way a mouth stays open when the body has forgotten the mouth is open. A small line of dryness has formed at the corner of the lower lip where the air has been working at it. The wind enters Zophar's mouth. Zophar does not close it.

Elihu is the one who sees the wind first. Elihu's hand has been in the air for a sentence and a half. The hand was making the gesture young men make when they are explaining the storm — the hand turned palm-up, the fingers spread, the wrist bent slightly back. The gesture was supposed to deliver the next sentence about the lightning. The next sentence has not been delivered. The wind moves Elihu's robe at the chest. Elihu's hand stays where it is, palm up, fingers spread. The mouth that was about to deliver the lightning closes.

Job is the only one whose body changes. Job's head, which has been lowered into his hands for the long silence that has run from the close of his oath through the six chapters of Elihu, lifts a fraction. The lifting is small. The lifting is the lifting of a man who has heard a thing his body recognized before his mind has named it. Job's hands stay across his thighs. Job's eyes do not open all the way. The head has lifted enough.