“Willie. I am so sorry. O God, it is horrible!” And he promptly began to weep. Not an unusual greeting from Eddie, in my experience.
“I should think you would be sorry. Do you know the danger you have put me in? Dear God in heaven, they are talking about digging you up!”
The tears subsided. Head in hand, theatrically disconsolate, he sighed and shook his head. “That is not what I meant.”
“Of course not. Harming a friend never entered your mind, did it?”
“You do not understand my situation. I stand accused of an appalling crime. Now that I am dead they are painting me as a monster—don’t you see? It is worse than ever. He has won!”
“Do you mean poor, haunted Griswold, whom you have driven barking mad?”
“Yes. Or rather, no. I did no such thing.”
“You did not haunt Mr. Griswold?
“Far from it. I went nowhere near him.”
“Then what is your explanation for his present condition, the story that he tells?”
“He is haunted by himself. That is what happens to Baptists who do evil.” Smiling at his private joke, Poe took a small sip from a water glass, three-quarters full of an amber liquid that may or may not have been tea. It seemed clear that the man was in an inebriated state.
“Willie, did you not see what he wrote about me? And under the name Ludwig—he couldn’t have been more obvious, he has been using it for years. Especially when he wants to carve up a competitor, and duck the rebuttal. Talk about kicking a man when he is down. To commit such an atrocity against a dead man—and to hide beneath the name of Ludwig!“ Overcome by the enormity of it, he paused to take a generous sip from his glass, then smiled to himself in self-congratulation, for it was a fine speech.
“Of course he assumed that no rebuttal was possible. However, being alive, I sent a letter to the editor, objecting to this libel of the dead, the sheer cowardice of it, and presented a few counterthrusts into the bargain. Under a pen name of my own, of course. I had to avenge my good name. Surely you can see that, as a West Point man.”
“And that is what drove him mad?”
“Griswold has the wit of an ox. One thrust and he keels over.”
“And that is just what you wanted, Eddie—was it not?”
The eyes, with their usual expression of melancholy intoxication, grew suspicious as well. “I do not know what you mean.”
“You had no interest in preventing such horrors as that poor toothless woman. She was but a prop, in a sideshow, for my benefit. You used your death for no other purpose than to take revenge against the man who ruined your Collected Tales.”
“I admit that your analysis contains a grain of truth. I was utterly ruined by him, you know. And yet the affair has gone beyond Griswold. It has taken on a life of its own, and with it a new ghastliness. Willie, there has been a savage murder. The murdered man was my publisher here in Philadelphia. Now I stand implicated in the press, though supposedly dead, and Griswold had nothing to do with any of it!”
“And how did you reach that magnanimous conclusion?”
“He was in the madhouse when the murder occurred.” “I see.”
“No. You do not see. The story came to life, to the effect that my ghost committed the murder—a silly public legend, but the press caught hold of it in suitably sensational tones, and now it is regarded as proven fact. Do you see the horrible irony? If I were known to be alive I would immediately be charged with murder—and what could I say in my defense? Don’t you see? I am condemned to death-in-life, buried alive, and even that is not the worst—for I am now a slave as well!” Again, Eddie indulged himself in a round of blubbering.
For my part, I could barely keep from executing a horizontal lunge for his throat. “Therefore, am I to understand that it was never your intention to remain dead? That you planned to emerge from hiding after taking your revenge, take a bow—and leave your old friend Dr. Chivers to suffer disgrace and imprisonment?”
“Far from it. I would claim to have been under a powerful drug. It is well known that people are buried alive regularly, due to medical error.”
“Excellent. A medical error committed by me. And with my reputation already in tatters, how would I explain the cadaver that happened to be under your name?”
“I would say that it happened subsequent to my revival. An error on the part of the grave diggers.”
“You, sir, are a liar. Now tell me how you came under suspicion for murder as well. I am interested, from a clinical viewpoint.”
“Did you happen to read my tale entitled ‘the Man Who Was Used Up? It appeared in Burton’s… Pardon me. I had forgotten that you do not read my work.”
“I suppose you expect me to apologize.” I ordered a glass of whiskey from one of the serving girls, in order to calm my nerves.
“The tale concerned a man who had in effect been dissected in battle. A satirical piece, but someone took it literally. And when Henry Topham, the publisher, was discovered in a dissected condition, the connection took on a life of its own.”
“There is no underestimating the stupidity of some readers, I suppose.”
“Especially when they are critics,” he replied, and burst into tears once again.
I took another sip of my whiskey. “Eddie, I am concerned about your peace of mind,” I lied, for nothing concerned me less at this point. “You are clearly in a state of nervous exhaustion. Not to mention the misery you are causing your fiancée, Mrs. Shelton. Would it not be better all around if you were to move elsewhere as Richard Perry, wipe the slate clean, and start afresh?”
“No doubt,” he replied. “But, Willie, when I say that I am a slave I mean it in the most literal sense. I am the literary equivalent of a plantation Negro. Except that the work is more degrading, I swear to you, Willie …”
Suddenly Poe stopped speaking, as though someone had given the order.
“Ye’d best drink up, me old trout,” said a voice behind me. The accent combined an Irish lilt with the flat tones of a northeaster—and there remained something military as well, the clipped consonants of command.
Eddie glanced longingly at his glass. “This was to be a private meeting, Lieutenant,” he said. “We agreed to this.”
“True for you, you’re right there, but privacy is a relative thing is it not?”
I turned to look up at the man behind my chair, and beheld a military carriage for certain, and what looked to be an infantry tunic beneath his coat. As well, the man was not without troop support, for behind him stood the shavers I had encountered outside the saloon.
Like the shavers, he wore a duster coat over his tunic, and a top hat set at a precise angle, but of better quality and fit.
The face was handsome if low bred, but for one of the eyes—or the lack of it, for the socket gaped as empty as the skull on a bottle marked Poison.
“How do you do?” I said, unable to look away from the empty eye.
“And top of the morning to yerself, sor,” replied the lieutenant, and his smile was anything but warm. The upper front teeth were missing, which made the canines appear more prominent than usual.
“Might I ask your business with us, sir?” I asked.
“Yes, you might,” he replied, and ventured nothing further. I took my gaze from the empty socket to the other eye, and realized that it had been watching me closely, that the blind eye had been a kind of decoy.
When I turned to my companion for enlightenment, Eddie’s expression suggested that I had been taunting a poisonous snake.
“Willie, please forgive me.”
I began to experience nausea. “What have you done to me now, Eddie?”
“I told them I would convince you to go back to Baltimore, that you would say nothing, that it was unnecessary to take drastic action. Now I see that I have led you into a trap.”
“Leading me into traps has become a lifetime hobby, hasn’t it, Eddie?”
His eyes grew enormous in their appeal for sympathy, as ano
ther group of top-hatted shavers appeared behind his chair, led by a fellow with a prematurely aged face. “Yer want carryin’ or will yer come with us on your own hook?”
“ ‘Fore we tap yer yockers fer ya,” offered one of the others, meaningfully raising a stick with a knob the size of a man’s fist.
Poe rose to his feet with an expression of utter defeat. “I am truly sorry, Willie,” he said.
“Sorry for what?” I asked, though not overanxious to hear the answer, as he disappeared out the nearby back entrance, followed by a column of former street Arabs who did not reach his shoulder.
“And now ye’ll come with me, sor.”
Obedient as a waiter, I accompanied the one-eyed gentleman to the front door, for there seemed no point in doing otherwise. As the crowd respectfully parted to allow us to pass through, it seemed obvious that I would scarcely find an ally in the building. Once outside, I might have had a slight chance of making my escape on foot. Or probably not.
“What do you want from me?” I asked as we stepped outside.
“The truth of it is, sor, I want you to disappear,” he replied, and turned to face me. I did not argue. I was slightly taller, but he had the stick, and with notches down one side—for drawing blood? Breaking a head? For men killed?
“Ah, me old sweat, yer a military man if I am not mistaken?”
“Yes. I was a doctor at Veracruz.”
“There it is. For that service I will leave yer with yer life and a warning.”
“Believe me, sir, I consider myself amply warned already,” I replied— humbly, obsequiously, like a condemned man to a magistrate about to reduce my punishment. Coward!
Below the veranda on which we stood, a group of the youngsters watched with interest. It seemed as though we were actors on a stage, playing a scene for their benefit. Then, as though at a signal, they began to tap their sticks on the cobbles—randomly, so as to make a sound like hailstones on a roof. Then, led by the scrawny shaver with a prematurely old face, they began to chant a word I did not recognize, that sounded like huge him, which made no sense to me whatsoever.
“If ye ever sees me again, ye’ll not see me again,” he said, and the empty eye tilted in my direction, and something darted toward me.
“Sir, I do not understand …” I began to say, when suddenly I was looking at the empty socket and the floor at once, and I realized that he had plucked out my left eye.
I heard a scream, which I think must have come from me, drowned out by laughter below and the clatter of hail on a roof, and then another scream, which seemed to tear out of my throat as my hand clutched the wet round thing hanging from my left cheek like a peeled plum …
The fact that there was still vision meant that the muscles and optic nerve remained intact… Think, a voice hissed in my brain, Use your brain, think.
I had undergone a traumatic globe luxation, of that there could be no doubt.
Someone began shouting a vain plea for help while my mind scrambled for footing, like a cat about to fall off a roof. A test. A test of the mind. Experimentally, I closed my eyes; the eye continued to stare at the palm of my hand, which meant full luxation—the eye had been plucked far enough out of the socket for the eyelid to close behind it.
The pain. Do not faint. Think.
Someone continued shouting words I did not recognize as I rose to my feet (I was not aware of having fallen), one hand cupping that precious, fragile thing, held by threads of muscle and nerve, which would fall apart like a boiled onion should a sudden move of my hand break apart the sclera … Think.
No blood. Good. Momentarily I felt overcome by dizziness— shock, which is often attended by fainting … This must not happen.
As I burst into the saloon, no doubt making a most unusual noise, patrons looked up mildly, watched me for a brief moment, then returned to their cards. The barkeep, on the other hand, seemed to understand that something serious had occurred—to me, at least.
Whiskey! Whiskey and a looking glass! These improbable words issued from my mouth as I made my way to the bar. Before me the crowd parted as though I were mounted on a horse—the momentum of a screaming man with his eyeball in one hand.
The eye which remained where it belonged now beheld a young barmaid with improbably red lips, running up to the bar, boots jingling in a way that made me think of Christmas. In her hand she extended a small round looking glass, arm at full extension, not to venture too close to the grotesque thing that was me. Now the bar-keep appeared before me with a bottle of whiskey. “That will be one dollar,” he said most sympathetically, and would not release the bottle until I produced that amount with my free hand.
In my mind I pushed away the pain, the pain of no pain, of a knife that has sunk too deep … Do not faint!
For an uncertain amount of time I remained in a dark bubble, as though nothing in the world existed but me and my eye, as though I was in my eye. With the whiskey as an internal and external lubricant (even in my desperation I did not trust the local water), I handled the organ with the delicacy of a watchmaker, remembering the technique employed by eye surgeons I had assisted in the field—albeit removing eyes, not putting them back. Carefully I fed the tendrils of muscle and nerve back into the socket with one hand, while my other hand, with agonizing slowness, gently rolled back the precious globe of tissue like a snowball, pausing to allow the sclera to stretch to its fullest… Done. I completed the operation—or must have. Looking back, I do not remember it having been done by me.
Using my handkerchief as a pad and my cravat as a pressure bandage, I covered my eye, not knowing if it would ever see again. Worse, a perverse part of my mind feared that I had inadvertently replaced my eye backward, and that I must spend the rest of my life with one eye staring within.
HAVING ONLY ONE eye, my ability to perceive distances had gone, yet I had no difficulty retracing my route back to the United States Hotel. In the crowded omnibus, none paid the slightest attention to the swath of fabric covering one side of my head. I expect it came as a relief to these Northerners—one less gaze to avoid.
Given the continued presence of its famous English guest, I had come to expect a throng of the curious in the lobby of my hotel, but what greeted me upon my arrival went far beyond precedent. Not only members of the press and public milled about, but the police as well. The gathering had a different quality than when I had left. A tense politeness predominated, and when they looked at me at all in my disheveled state, it was with the expression of people who had more important things to think about.
Everyone appeared to focus on the hotel staff, from the manager down, with questions I could not hear but whose answer entailed a shaking of the head. Near the reception desk a particularly tight group had convened around a tall, athletic, bespectacled gentleman in a French cravat, who seemed greatly exercised by something or other. No doubt the outspoken English author had committed yet another error of protocol; according to the press he had by now quite outworn his welcome with the American public for his presumptuous remarks on slavery, not to mention his mercenary, self-serving demand for royalty payments from American publishers of his books.
None of this was of interest to me, for my eye throbbed abominably from the abuse and its aftermath, and I was eager for a dram of morphine. As well, I looked forward to my reunion with Elmira Royster, to whom I planned to lie outrageously to the effect that Poe, as a man of honor, had released her from their absurd engagement.
Freed of him at last, at the cost of an eye, it was my hope that my misfortune would awaken her instinct to nurture and nurse. Given some affection for me and a broad interpretation of Scripture, we might spend our time as I had longed to do since we first met across a white linen tablecloth in the Exchange Hotel.
Fool!
There is a quality to an empty room, even if it is pitch black, that tells you upon opening the door that nobody is home. As a doctor, I had come to recognize the sensation from entering a room shortly after the patient has expired;
so much so that the taking of the pulse became a formality. Now the familiar feeling of absence came over me, and as I turned up the lamp my hands trembled with dread of what I might see. For I had no doubt that Lieutenant O’Reilly would slit a woman’s throat as easily as he would take out a man’s eye. He was, after all, an infantryman.
Not until I had turned up every lamp and searched the premises was I satisfied that the sensation I had experienced was not of a corpse in the room, but of an empty room, period.
But if Elmira was not dead—where was she? For it was now dark outside, and unthinkable that even she would be so rash as to venture onto the streets alone at night. Therefore, she must have left with someone.
Of course.
The note, placed on an arm of that dreadful couch, written on hotel stationery in a meticulous, steady hand, would have been utterly predictable to anyone but a fool such as I.
Dear Dr. Chivers,
Forgive me for my sudden departure. I hope that you will not think me rude. Nor, as a gentleman, should you be altogether surprised. We are, after all, engaged. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Elmira Shelton
From my pocket I retrieved the letter from R. A. Perry and the significance of its last line became clear: Commend me to Mrs. Le Rennet, with whom I shall speak at an early opportunity.
Clearly it was a private signal. And what was her response? I am at a loss as to why he would wish me absent. We are, after all, engaged.
Not Quite Dead Page 23