Lincoln in the Bardo

by George Saunders

  roger bevins iii

  Milk, incense, leather.

  hans vollman

  LVI.

  The night of February 25, 1862, was cold but clear, a welcome respite from the terrible weather the Capital city had been experiencing. Willie Lincoln was now interred, and all ceremonial activities associated with that activity concluded. The nation held its breath, hopeful the President could competently reassume the wheel of the ship of state in this, its hour of greatest need.

  In “The Spiritual Lincoln: An Essential Journey,” by C. R. DePage.

  LVII.

  By two a.m. the President had not yet returned to the White House. I considered waking Mrs. Lincoln. Although it was not unusual for the President to ride out alone evenings. He would routinely refuse any escort. Tonight he had ridden Little Jack, of whom he was fond. The night was cold and wet. He had not taken his greatcoat, which still hung on the peg. He would be chilled when he returned, that much was certain. Although his constitution was strong. I took up my post near the door, now and then stepping out to listen for Little Jack’s trod. Another half hour passed and still no Mr. Lincoln. If I were in his shoes, I thought, I might keep riding and never come back, until I had ridden myself back West into a life of less import and trouble. When three a.m. had come and gone I began to think he might have done just that.

  I again considered waking Mrs. Lincoln. But pity forbade me. She was in a very poor state. I found it strange that he should have left her alone at such a time. But she was heavily sedated and, I think, not aware that he was gone.

  Hilyard, op. cit., account of Paul Riles, White House guard.

  LVIII.

  Mary Lincoln’s mental health had never been good, and the loss of young Willie ended her life as a functional wife and mother.

  In “A Mother’s Trial: Mary Lincoln and the Civil War,” by Jayne Coster.

  Around two in the afternoon I heard a terrible commotion from the part of the house where the sick child lay. It appeared the moment had come. Mrs Lincoln rushed past me, head lowered, making a sound I have never heard emitted from human throat, before or since.

  Hilyard, op. cit., account of Sophie Lenox, maid.

  While the president’s outburst allowed for depiction, his wife’s did not.

  Epstein, op. cit.

  The pale face of her dead boy threw her into convulsions.

  Keckley, op. cit.

  Mary Lincoln collapsed into her bed.

  Von Drehle, op. cit.

  An altered woman.

  Keckley, op. cit.

  Laudanum being administered, even this powerful concoction could not suppress her cries of agony or subdue her disbelieving outrage.

  Coster, op. cit.

  Mrs. Lincoln was too ill to attend the funeral services.

  Leech, op. cit.

  Mary Lincoln stayed abed for a full ten days following the funeral.

  In “A Belle Remade: The Journey of Mary Lincoln,” by Kevin Swarney.

  Mrs. Lincoln was unable to leave her room or rise from bed for many weeks after the tragedy.

  Sloane, op. cit.

  When she finally emerged a month later, she moved about mechanically, gazing at us as if we were strangers.

  Hilyard, op. cit., account of D. Strumphort, butler.

  Some blows fall too heavy upon those too fragile.

  Coster, op. cit.

  There she lay, longing that the thing should not be so; now disbelieving that it had occurred, now convinced anew that it had. Always the same walls, bed-things, cup, ceiling, windows. She could not rise and leave—the world outside too terrible now. She sipped of the drugged drink that was her only hope for peace.

  Swarney, op. cit.

  Where was her boy? she kept asking. Where was he? Couldn’t someone find him, bring him to her at once? Mustn’t he yet be somewhere?

  Hilyard, op. cit., account of Sophie Lenox, maid.

  LIX.

  All still quiet, dear Brother—Only the fire popping & dear Grace snoring from your old room, where I have put her, so she may more easily attend me on these difficult nights—The moonlight shows the premises across the way littered far & wide with the detritus of yesterday’s great storm—Mighty tree-limbs lay against crypts & across graves—You may recall a certain statue of a bald man in Roman garb (whom we used to call “Morty”), standing with one foot on the neck of a snake, & that once a certain mischievous young fellow threw his sweater up there many times, until “Morty” might catch it upon the end of his sword—Well, “Morty” is no more—Or at least is not the man he once was—A falling limb hit that brave Roman at the arm, & off it came, sword & all, taking off the head of the snake on its way down—Now arm & sword & snakehead lie in a heap—& Morty himself, as if shaken by this proof of his mortality, stands a bit askew on his base.

  Must have dozed a bit just now—Yes it is nearly four—There is a horse over there, across the way, tied to the cemetery fence—A calm & exhausted fellow, nodding as if to say: Well, though I find myself at the yard of the Dead in the dark of night, I am Horse, & must obey.

  So now I have a mystery to distract me—Who could be over there at such a late hour?—Some young gentleman, I hope, paying homage to a true love lost.

  The light burns in Manders’s little guard-house and he paces back & forth before the window, as is his habit—You may recall that it was he who mounted a ladder to retrieve the afore-mentioned sweater from Morty’s sword—He is older now & looks it, burdened, I think, with many family concerns—And now leaves the guard-house—His lantern-light receding—He is seeking, I imagine, our “midnight visitor”—All very intriguing—Whoever might think that an impairment such as mine disallows excitement, I wish that individual could sit here beside me at this window tonight—I will stay awake, I think, & see if I may glimpse the face of our visitor once Manders retrieves the fellow.

  Perkins, op. cit.

  LX.

  Left behind on the roof of the white stone home, I resolved to make one final attempt to talk sense to the boy, who lay nearly insensate at my feet, like a dazed and fallen Pasha-prince.

  My feelings had been hurt by the juvenile, deceptive actions of Mr. Bevins and Mr. Vollman, who, in their rush to chase after the slightest amusement, had left me in a very bad position indeed. Like some sort of primitive gardener I worked, bent at the waist, seizing at tendrils with both hands. I must continually be deciding whether to attack the several already attached, or take on their new-arising brethren. In truth, it mattered not what I did: the boy’s time was not long.

  An opportunity soon presented for a frank moment with him.

  Scanning the horizon for the feckless Bevins and Vollman, I saw instead, creeping out of the woods, the Crutcher brothers, accompanied, as usual, by Mr. and Mrs. Reedy, the four of them comprising the core group of that depraved orgiastic cohort that resided near the flagpole.

  We come to watch, said Matt Crutcher.

  The decline, said Richard Crutcher.

  It is of interest to us, said Mrs. Reedy.

  We watched it last time, said Matt Crutcher. With that gal.

  Found it most stimulating, said Mr. Reedy.

  Really gave us a boost, said Mrs. Reedy.

  And everyone needs a boost, said Mr. Reedy.

  In this dung-hole, said Matt Crutcher.

  Don’t judge us, said Mr. Reedy.

  Or do, said Mrs. Reedy.

  Makes us feel naughtier, said Matt Crutcher.

  To each their own, said Richard Crutcher, stepping over close to Mrs. Reedy.

  Perhaps, said Mrs. Reedy, slipping her hand into his pants-pocket.

  The group now fell into a watchful rapacious squat: disgusting vultures drawn here by the boy’s misfortune. And soon got up to some strange cross-handed business, manifesting as one terrible creature, their pumping arms and rhythmic gasping conveying a distinctly mechanical impression.

  What do you think? I said to the boy. Is this a good place? A healthy place? Do
these people seem sane to you, and worthy of emulation?

  And yet here you are, the boy said.

  I am different, I said.

  From me? he said.

  From everyone, I said.

  Different how? he said.

  And I teetered on the brink of telling him.

  the reverend everly thomas

  LXI.

  For I am different, yes.

  Unlike these (Bevins, Vollman, the dozens of other naifs I reside here among), I know very well what I am.

  Am not “sick,” not “lying on a kitchen floor,” not “being healed via sick-box,” not “waiting to be revived.”

  No.

  Even there, at the end, in our guest room, with a view of the bricks of the Rednell house next door, upon which there hung a flowering vine (it was early June), the stable and grateful state of mind I had tried to cultivate all my life, via my ministry, left me in a state of acceptance and obedience, and I knew very well what I was.

  I was dead.

  I felt the urge to go.

  I went.

  Yes: simultaneously becoming cause and (awed) observer (from within) of the bone-chilling firesound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon (an experience I shall not even attempt to describe), I went.

  And found myself walking along a high-mountain trail, preceded by two men who, I understood, had passed only seconds before. One wore a funeral suit of a very cheap type, and looked this way and that, like a tourist, and was, rather oddly, humming, in a way that communicated a sense of vacuous happiness, willful ignorance. Though he was dead, his attitude seemed to be: Ha ha, what’s all this, then? The other wore a yellow bathing costume, had a beard of flaming red, moved along angrily, as if in a hurry to get somewhere he very much resented going.

  The former man was from Pennsylvania; the latter from Maine (Bangor or thereabouts); had spent much time in farmfields and often made his way to the coast, to sit for hours on the rocks.

  He wore a bathing costume because he had drowned while swimming.

  Somehow I knew this.

  Periodically, as I made my way down that trail, I was also back here. Was in my grave; was startled out of my grave by the sight of what lay in my coffin (that prim-looking, dry-faced relic); was above my grave, nervously walk-skimming about it.

  My wife and congregation were saying their final goodbyes, their weeping driving small green daggers into me: literal daggers. With each sob, a dagger left the griever and found its way into me, most painfully.

  Then I was back there, upon that trail, with my two friends. Below us lay a distant valley that I somehow knew to be our destination. A set of stone steps became visible. My companions paused, glanced back. Recognizing me as a man of God (I had been buried in my vestments) they seemed to be asking: Should we proceed?

  I indicated that we should.

  From the valley below: chanting of some sort, excited voices, the clanging of a bell. These sounds contented me; we had journeyed, had arrived, the festivities might now begin. I was filled with happiness that my life had been judged worthy of such a spectacular denouement.

  Then, vexingly, I was back here; my wife and congregation now departing in coaches, occasionally sending forth the random green dagger, the impact of which did not lessen no matter how far they drove. Soon my mourners had crossed the Potomac, and were eating the funeral meal at Prevey’s. I knew this even as I paced back and forth before my grave. I became panicked at the prospect of becoming stranded here, wished only to rejoin my friends there, on that stairway. This place was now entirely unappealing: a boneyard, a charnel ground, a garbage dump, a sad remnant of a discouraging and grossly material nightmare from which I was only just waking.

  Instantaneously (with that very thought) I was there again, with my friends, coming off those stairs into a sun-drenched meadow in which stood a large structure unlike any I had ever seen, built of interlocking planks and wedges of purest diamond, giving off an array of colors that changed of the instant with any slight variation in the quality of the sunshine.

  We approached arm in arm. A crowd gathered about us, ushering us along. An honor guard stood by the door, beaming at our approach.

  The door flew open.

  Inside, a vast expanse of diamond floor led to a single diamond table at which sat a man I knew to be a prince; not Christ, but Christ’s direct emissary. The room was reminiscent of Hartley’s warehouse, a place I had known as a boy: a tremendous open space, high-ceilinged and forbidding, made more forbidding by the presence of an authority figure (Hartley himself, in those early days; that Christ-emissary now) seated near a source of heat and light (a fireplace then; a jagged topaz now, on fire from within, upon a stand of pure gold).

  We understood that we were to step forth in our previous order.

  Our red-bearded friend, ridiculous in his bathing costume, went first.

  Appearing now from either side, walking in perfect step with him as he approached the table, were two beings, beautiful in appearance: tall, thin, luminous, borne on feet of sun-yellow light.

  How did you live? one asked.

  Tell it truthfully, the other said, as, from either side, they gently touched their heads to his.

  Both beamed with pleasure at what they found within.

  May we confirm? said the one on the right.

  Sure, said our red-bearded friend. And I hope you will, too.

  The yellow-footed being on the right sang out a single joyful note and several smaller versions of himself danced out (I use this word to denote the utter grace of their movements) bearing a large mirror, the edges of which were encrusted with precious gems.

  The yellow-footed being on the left sang his single joyful note, and several smaller versions of himself tumbled out, rolling forth in the most exquisite sequence of gymnastic movements imaginable, bearing a scale.

  Quick check, said Christ’s emissary from his seat at the diamond table.

  The being on the right held the mirror up before the red-bearded fellow. The being on the left reached into the red-bearded man’s chest and, with a deft and somehow apologetic movement, extracted the man’s heart, and placed it on the scale.

  The being on the right checked the mirror. The being on the left checked the scale.

  Very good, said the Christ-emissary.

  We are so happy for you, said the being on the right, and I cannot adequately describe the sound of rejoicing that echoed then from across what I now understood to be a vast kingdom extending in all directions around the palace.

  A tremendous set of diamond doors at the far end of the hall flew open, revealing an even vaster hall.

  I perceived, there within, a tent of purest white silk (although to describe it thus is to defame it—this was no earthly silk, but a higher, more perfect variety, of which our silk is a laughable imitation), within which a great feast was about to unfold, and on a raised dais sat our host, a magnificent king, and next to the king’s place sat an empty chair (a grand chair, upholstered with gold, if gold were spun of light and each particle of that light exuded joy and the sound of joy), and that chair was intended, I understood, for our red-bearded friend.

  Christ was that king within; Christ was also (I now saw) that seated prince/emissary at the table, in disguise, or secondary emanation.

  I cannot explain it.

  The red-bearded man passed through the diamond doors in his characteristic rolling gait and the doors closed behind him.

  Never in my nearly eighty years of life on earth had I experienced a greater or more bitter contrast between happiness (the happiness I felt even glimpsing that exalted tent, from such a great distance) and sadness (I was not within the tent, and even a few seconds without seemed a dreadful eternity).

  I began to weep, as did my funeral-suited friend from Pennsylvania.

  But his weeping at least was leavened with anticipation: for he was next, his separation from that place to be that much briefer than mine.

  He stepped
forward.

  How did you live? asked the being on the right.

  Tell it truthfully, the other said, as, from either side, they gently touched their heads to his.

  They recoiled, then withdrew to two gray stone pots set down on either side of that grand hall, into which they vomited twin streams of brightly colored fluid.

  The small versions of themselves rushed to bring towels, upon which they wiped their mouths.

  May we confirm? said the one on the right.

  Wait, what did you see, he said. Is there some—

  But it was too late.

  The being on the right sang a single ominous note and out came the several smaller versions of himself, but crippled and grimacing, bearing between them a feces-encrusted mirror. The being on the left sang his (somber, jarring) note, and several smaller versions of himself tumbled out, rolling forth via a series of spastic clumsy gymnastic movements that were somehow accusatory, bearing the scale.

  Quick check, the Christ-prince said sternly.

  I’m not sure I completely understood the instructions, the funeral-suited man said. If I might be allowed to—

  The being on the right held the mirror up before the funeral-suited man, and the being on the left reached into the funeral-suited man’s chest with a deft and aggressive movement, extracted the man’s heart, and placed it on the scale.

  Oh dear, said the Christ-emissary.

  A sound of horrific opprobrium and mourning echoed all across that kingdom.

  The diamond doors flew open.

  I blinked in disbelief at the transformation within. The tent was no longer of silk but flesh (speckled and pink with spoiled blood); the feast was not a feast, but, rather, on long tables inside, numerous human forms were stretched out, in various stages of flaying; the host was no king, no Christ, but a beast, bloody-handed and long-fanged, wearing a sulfur-colored robe, bits of innards speckling it. Visible therein were three women and a bent-backed old man, bearing long ropes of (their own) intestines (terrible!), but most terrible of all was the way they screeched with joy as my funeral-suited friend was dragged in among them, and the way that poor fellow kept smiling, as if attempting to ingratiate himself with his captors, listing the many charitable things he had done back in Pennsylvania, and the numerous good people who would vouch for him, especially in the vicinity of Wilkes-Barre, if only they might be summoned, even as he was wrestled over to the flaying table by several escort-beings apparently constituted entirely of fire, such that, when they grabbed him (their searing touch instantaneously burning away his funeral suit), his pain was so great that he could no longer struggle or move at all, except his head turned briefly in my direction, and his eyes (horror-filled) met mine.