The Crossings

by Deborah Larsen

  Sophie printed “How are you?” on a notecard; then she folded it, put it in the can and sent it.

  “I am fine,” came the reply. “But one of my guppies died.” And the chicken egg she was trying to hatch in the Pendleton blanket on top of the radiator in her bedroom was not hatching. She wanted to know if Sophie thought the little baby chicken inside was dead.

  Dead.

  There was that word. And worst of all was if what had died was small, as in the little baby chicken. A small dead thing, something that fit in a child-sized hand, was a terrible thing.

  The notion of death was shouldering its way into a joyous world of gravid guppies, eggs, striped blankets, warm radiators, and a tin can strung by two children across a sedate St. Paul street. Who wants to think about death.

  Sophie wrote back. “Let more hot water into that radiator before you give up.”

  Sophie and Charles had also loved collections. Some of his:

  Pebbles

  Wax seals

  Birds’ eggs

  Minerals

  She thought back to her own collections:

  Plaster of Paris small statues (made by Sophie)

  Rocks (polished by Sophie in an ancient, cranky rock polisher until her family complained of the noise)

  Pressed leaves and flowers

  Pencils: #2s, #4s, sharpened, unsharpened, yellow, orange, short, long: placed by Sophie in a blue Depression glass pitcher

  Sophie certainly did not have much money to spend on collections, but that was no matter. What she acquired that was free or inexpensive seemed like the wealth of nations.

  Some of the joys of collecting, Sophie thought, had to do with inquisitiveness and a desire for familiarity. The little polished rocks were there every morning on the white lace doily on her dresser, under the statue of the Virgin Mary. The rocks were friends; they were friendly. They were solid; they did not get up and walk off as Sophie would later discover some boyfriends did out of confusion about what to do next with a girl like her.

  The rocks had little personalities. The richness, the beauty of a collection lay in the objects’ differences from each other. Still, she had not known something crucial in those days—the rocks’ names.

  Sophie also warmed to the idea that Charles had liked tricks. But it wasn’t only that she loved his playing a trick (called “Raising the Doctor”) on the atrocious headmaster, Dr. Butler, in his boarding school. Sophie loved the form of the trick and how he expressed it: “…consisted of a dozen boys going into the room over the Doctor in the middle of the night & dancing a tattoo & then rushing back and pretending to be asleep.”

  Dancing a tattoo. Something artful, even in just trying to give someone the business for violating your boundaries: a tattoo. Or maybe it echoed the “taptoe” drumbeat that signaled a ship crew to go to their quarters at night. Some sort of military stamping. But for Charles and his friends it was not mere stomping around; it was dancing. Something artful. Another kind of code.

  Sophie wished she herself had danced tattoos in rooms over certain poseurs in the middle of the night. But still, she thought, she could do that if need be. Drumming, tapping, she could still do it. Maybe even a Morse code that spelled “Back Off” in dots and dashes. A dot would be a stamp. A dash would be stamp-stamp. A slash would be a moment of silence:

  -… .- -.-. -.- / – ..-. ..-.

  Back off.

  Back off, Ted. Back off, my friend. I’m not ditchin’ the Darwin.

  Codes, collecting, secret messages, tricks. They were lively, alive; the opposite of death.

  Early last spring, 1828, a woman from Gilmerton came to Hare’s house as a nightly lodger, Hare keeping seven beds for lodgers: That she was a stranger, and she and Hare became merry, and drank together; and next morning she was very ill in consequence of what she had got, and she sent for more drink, and she and Hare drank together, and she became very sick and Vomited, and at that time she had not risen from bed, and Hare then said that they would try and smother her in order to dispose of her body to the Doctors: That she was lying on her back in the bed, and quite insensible from drink, and Hare clapped his hand on her mouth and nose, and the declarant laid himself across her body in order to prevent her making any disturbance, and she never stirred, and they took her out of bed and undressed her, and put her into a chest, and they mentioned to Dr. Knox’s young men that they had another subject, and Mr. Miller sent a porter to meet them in the evening at the back of the Castle; and declarant and Hare carried the chest till they met the porter, and they accompanied the porter with the chest to Dr. Knox’s class-room, and Dr. Knox came in when they were there; the body was cold and stiff. Dr. Knox approved of its being so fresh, but did not ask any questions.

  – William Burke, from Burke’s Confession.7

  Corpses: Supply and Demand

  The young Charles went up to Edinburgh thinking he would become a doctor. His formidable father, Dr. Darwin, aka Squirt, encouraged him to think in this way.

  He did go to medical school but he had one reservation. He would miss Spark, the dog, with his “dear little black nose.” A dog again. How could you not love a man who thought Spark’s nose was “a dear little black nose.”

  Sophie decided not to tell Polly about Spark or should she let it slip, she would follow by saying, “This was years before you so you don’t have to be jealous.” Men said this to their fiancées all the time.

  And then if the men were wise, they quoted Indiana Jones. He told his heroine that he’d had a few women since his long-ago attachment to her but that they’d all had the same thing “wrong with them.”

  “What was that”? She was interested.

  And Indiana Jones said, “They weren’t you.”

  Before too long, Charles discovered things in medicine that may not have been the objects of his affections. Listening to lectures which were “fearful to remember,” “dull,” “intolerably dull,” and “incredibly dull.” Watching surgery performed on children before ether was in use. Perhaps hearing about if not seeing anti-phrenological experiments on live animals: some professors threaded silken floss of many colors on sewing needles, ran them through duck, rabbit, and chicken brains; and then watched the creatures run around.

  In some respects, though, he was far from squeamish. Sophie noted that in his younger years he had been a hunter, a shootist. In the summer hunting season of 1826, he shot 177 hares, pheasants, and partridges.

  Human death was another matter; it deeply disturbed him. Charles had lost his mother when he was eight, remembering little about her save her death-bed, a gown, and her work-table.

  His uncle (also named Charles) had, as a student, died from infection in Edinburgh after conducting a postmortem on a child. Under dissecting knives, hands were severed from arms which came from corpses which came from God knows where.

  Death again.

  Of the time in Edinburgh, Sophie noticed that Charles used words such as “disgusted” and “haunted.” He didn’t have the stomach for it.

  “Did he ever tell you where the corpses for dissection came from, Polly?”

  Polly’s look was frank but non-committal.

  “I found out. Did he ever tell you about Burke and Hare? Do you remember? He must have read about their methods. Do you remember him telling you?”

  “Whereas, I do naught.”

  She had left biographies to read the actual confessions of William Burke who with his accomplice, Hare, murdered people and supplied corpses to a private anatomy school in Edinburgh. The illustrious Dr. Robert Knox taught in this school. Mr. Burke was tried and executed in 1829, after Charles had left for Cambridge.

  Just then they heard a train whistle and they were both alert—when the train came through Green Valley, coyotes occasionally answered its call with yippings and wailings. When Polly heard them she would jump up and whine and then lie d
own again and look at Sophie. But tonight there were no coyote answers. They listened. Nothing. Where were the coyotes?

  “Do you know what Burke confessed? It all started with the death of an old pensioner who lodged in the house of Hare where Burke himself had a room. And then it got worse and worse. Here, I’ll read parts of the actual record of the confession to you. The language is quaint, Polly—a little like yours.” She ran her fingers along the rough white coat of the terrier’s back.

  “Not. Naught. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT.”

  “But, Polly, it’s fascinating as well as brutal.”

  “Did they murder any canines?”

  “No.”

  Polly moved away from Sophie’s hand and started scratching herself. When she stopped she said, “Now I remember the story of Burke, Burke, Burke—burble, burble, burble—and I do naught care to hear it again.”

  “But it’s his actual confession. Right out of the pages of history.”

  “Whereas, I do naught want to hear naughty confessions. No history. Naught will come to naught.”

  “Polly, history is more than a zero. More than a cipher.”

  A whisper of a snore, a kind of wheeze. Polly. Asleep.

  “Polly.”

  Polly lifted her head and gave Sophie what could only be called a fierce look. Then she put her head back down on her paws and stared straight ahead.

  Foibles

  A bird was making a racket in her backyard and all of a sudden Sophie found herself outside. How had she gotten there?

  It used to take a good deal of conscious thought to walk out into her back patio but these days the screens might just as well have been semi-permeable membranes or those white sheers at The Delano in Miami’s South Beach for all they hampered her. Now she wished to go outside and then found herself outside.

  She must have closed the sliding screen doors behind her, because she heard a whine. She turned back to Polly who was standing inside, disconsolate.

  “Polly. Look.”

  She needn’t have said it. By now she could read Polly’s mind.

  “Whereas I saw this small before you did. Way before you did. Heard its chug chug chug which you didn’t. Heard its flickster tail which you didn’t. Let me out and you will make me happy. Letmeout, letmeout, letmeout. Beloved Charles, my beloved Puppy, would have let me OUT.”

  The bird flew to the top of the patio wall. What was it? She had seen it through her study’s glass doors, hopping around on the gravel. She needed to carve out more time to learn the names of birds.

  Beyond the wall, Jack came into view. He was bearing split oranges, swapping them out for the desiccated ones. The bird flew.

  He said, “Hi.”

  “Hi. I’m looking at that bird.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know its name?”

  “I do.” But he didn’t tell her what it was.

  She stood, waiting.

  “What do you see?”

  “What do I see?” Sophie crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Yes. Take a good look.”

  She cocked her head not at the bird, but at him.

  “Do you,” he said, “have a bird book? Do you have binoculars?” When he looked at Sophie’s face, he gave a weak imitation of a salute. Then he walked away, the old orange-halves still in one hand.

  Oh, how he irritated her. What do I see? What do I see, for God’s sake. She could feel the expression on her face—disdain.

  She had moved here for a rare sort of space in her older age, not for having space taken up by a large man in an adjoining back yard. Not for a man fastening fruit to her mesquite—what the hell, it was her own mesquite tree. She should have purchased five acres for more insulation from such nuisances. But she could not have afforded five acres and a house.

  She wished the bird would come back. She looked up at the sky and then went into the house. “Polly, I’m thinking that man is rude.”

  “Good.”

  Was extreme annoyance mixed with a reflexive haughtiness nice? No. But that was what she felt. She had had problems with angry feelings all her life. Probably it was, in throwback terms, considered a venial sin.

  She had heard someone use the word “foible” the other day. And now she remembered that Charles Darwin had a foible—annoyance. One of his professors wrote him and chided him about it.

  Did foible come from French? She saw that it did and that it came from the language of fencing. Foible was related to the French faible, low. Or feeble. Or the weaker (but also the most flexible) part of a sword blade in fencing.

  When the Catholic church instructed the uniformed, mostly pale children in their charge, the priests and nuns could have used “foible” instead of “venial sin” to show that persons are not perfectly and uniformly strong. To show that they were human.

  If they had thought of the sword metaphor, would they have in the end used that notion with their children? Not likely. For how could foibles have been forgiven in confession? “Father, forgive me, for I have foibles.”

  She would start to think of her weaker points as foibles. You could always work with foibles. There was a possibility of success when working with foibles. Now there was a cheerful thought.

  Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table,[a] took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,[b] but is entirely clean. And you[c] are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

  12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, servants[d] are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 8

  – John 13

  Foot Washing

  It was Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, she realized, and then felt the same chill she always felt on that day. Until she married Richard and was excommunicated, she had looked forward to going to Holy Week services. The progressions of that week; the drama, the images, the movements of mind and heart had been renewing.

  Michael had mentioned a church in Tucson. What if she went that evening? No one would know her—that would be the good thing. She could just be among other people; hopefully, they would ignore her. She knew that there would be a Eucharistic celebration, a celebration of the Last Supper. When she looked up the address of St. Philip’s in the Hills she saw that it was Episcopal.

  OK. Why not? Move. Just do it. Don’t think about it.

  It took her forty minutes to reach the whitewashed adobe structure. She did not expect to see the desert inside the church, but there it was. Behind the altar, a
gigantic arch of a window revealed trees and in the background, the Catalina mountains. It felt—inclusive, as if the whole reach of creation dwelt here. The structure of the interior was not ornate; she saw dark, rough-hewn wood and simple lighting.

  She settled herself in a pew and started reading the bulletin. How could I have forgotten? How could she have forgotten that this was also the evening of the liturgical foot washing, a memorial of Christ washing the apostles’ feet at the Passover supper they were sharing. A memorial meant as an example.

  At 1950s Holy Thursday services in St. Paul, the Catholic priest had washed the feet of a few other clergy or of a few pre-selected lay men. The bulletin in this place, however, invited all to participate.

  But—uh-oh. Oh, no. In this case, “all” unnerved her. She was uncertain, queasy, squeamish. The coral polish on her toenails was weeks old. She didn’t want anyone washing her feet and she didn’t want to wash the feet of a perfect stranger.

  I can just watch. Then next year—if I ever come here again—I could participate.

  But when the time came, Sophie slipped off her shoes and stockings. Just do it. She walked toward one of the front stations and stood in line. Three priests—one woman and two men—and some assistants came down from the altar where chairs, basins, pitchers, and towels had been arranged.

  The man whose feet she was to wash was sitting with his feet already in the basin. He wore a madras-plaid, short-sleeved shirt and conventional khakis. About sixty, Sophie guessed.

  When she knelt, she saw that he had a hammertoe deformity. She poured clean water from a pitcher and at first merely splashed it over his feet—then she thought better of it and she rubbed his insteps and heels a bit. When she finished and someone took the basin away to empty it, she dried his feet with the towel she had been handed. Drying was easier, less embarrassing. All this time, concentrating on the feet as she was, she had not glanced at him.