19
A SECOND DISPOSITION
Naturally, I thought she would help me. She didn’t, however. Once she was sure that I’d keep silent about the tragedy, she looped her bag over her shoulder, picked up her cane, chose an umbrella from the hall stand, and throwing me a last penetrating glance (meant, no doubt, to steel my resolve), departed. It was perfectly clear that she wanted to dissociate herself from the whole sordid affair—and who could fault her for that? I only wished I could do the same. There was no way, however, for me to avoid the melancholy consequences of my intemperate conduct.
Melancholy—yes, that is the proper word. Anyone who is interested in sounding the depths of cheerlessness and gloom should try spending a rainy evening at home with a dead man (preferably one he’s done in himself) on his parlor settee, patiently awaiting the arrival of midnight so that he can dig a soggy grave and perform a swift, surreptitious funeral. I felt like a character out of something by Matthew Gregory Lewis or Montague James.
After covering the corpse with a counterpane, I sought to banish it from my thoughts by watching a cowboy-and-Indian extravaganza on television, but it didn’t work. Every few minutes I’d imagine that I heard a sigh or a grunt, and hoping that the man had regained consciousness, through some miracle, I would leap up, dash over to him and yank back the coverlet. There were no miracles, though. Already his eyes had sunken and his lips turned blue. Once while I was thus examining him, his head lolled on his shoulder and his mouth fell open an inch; from out of the darkness the gold tooth winked at me, like a signal light blinking a nautical message across a nocturnal sea. Shuddering, I straightened his head and closed his jaws.
The skin was now appreciably cooler. His right hand had been hanging down from the couch, with the knuckles resting on the floor, and I noticed that the fingers had become a dusky, purplish red. Cyanosis, I thought, or perhaps livor mortis, which is a phenomenon caused by the draining of the blood into the cadaver’s extremities. Be that as it may, he was unquestionably dead. He’d even begun to stiffen slightly.
Midnight came at last. It was still pouring rain, but to delay the undertaking until the storm’s end was quite unthinkable. Muttering curses, I donned a slicker, stumped out, fetched wheelbarrow and shovels from the charnel house, and got on with the odious task.
I couldn’t help musing on the vagaries of my fate. After living nearly a lifetime without digging a single grave, I was now about to scoop out my third in as many weeks.
As the ground had already been broken there, I put the body into Great-grampy’s empty plot. Nevertheless, the operation was by no means an easy one. With only a glint of light from the street lamps, and with the wind driving the rain through each and every gap in my sou’wester, I had a frustrating time shoveling the viscous mud and the greasy clay. More than once I lost my footing and fell to my knees. It was like laboring in a hog wallow.
But I finished, finally, put the tools away and hurried through the downpour back to the house. A hot shower cleansed me of the muck, and then I went to bed. So weary was I that I didn’t dwell a moment on the frightful events of the day. I went to sleep immediately.
20
RESULTS
For three (or was it four?) days Madge remained away. Both Eulalia and I were convinced that she was gone forever. I was despondent. Guilt, loneliness, anxiety, yearning—these voracious demons gnawed on my heart.
I often thought of Mahir—the unlucky man—and tried to justify my destruction of him. There was no justification, however, none at all. Norbie had wanted to die, but Mahir had loved his peculiar existence, much as he complained. I had unquestionably committed a vicious crime, and with that on my cosmic record, what sort of reincarnation could I expect when I entered the life to come? I’d be transfigured into something horrible, something grotesque and vulgar. Had I been wise I’d have given the Turk a sum of money from the valise, but the idea had never occurred to me. How foolish of me!
Eulalia did not share my sadness, though. With the lady gone she grew increasingly jolly. She chided me for being “glum and gloomy” and did her best to cheer me up.
This situation was short-lived, however, because a morning came when the comely archaeologist reappeared. Almost instantly our moods were reversed. Eulalia plummeted from her pinnacle of gaiety into an abyss of misery, while I shed my worries and retrieved my former vitality.
Madge offered no explanation for her absence, but then, none was required. It was plain that she’d been lying low for safety’s sake. She was manifestly pleased when I informed her that neither the police nor anyone else had been around making inquiries. Still, there was a nervousness in her manner, I noticed, and she steadfastly refused to discuss the events of that stormy night in the parlor. Small wonder. That she had returned at all was remarkable, I felt. Whatever Great-grampy’s notebooks contained, it exercised a tremendous influence on her—one that rendered her willing to risk the grave jeopardy of a possible criminal prosecution. A determined girl she was.
And so we resumed our routine, almost as if it hadn’t been interrupted. I had my periods of moroseness now and then, but I was always able to dispel them. Instead of brooding on the Turk’s unfortunate death, I took to speculating on his present whereabouts in the universe—a far more agreeable pastime.
One afternoon, prodded by curiosity, I went to the shop on Newbury Street. Wary about using the conspicuous red Mercedes, I traveled by streetcar. The windows of the small store were dark, yet when I peered through them I half expected to discern Suleyman seated among his moldy cushions in his rattan wing chair. The teak elephants with their ivory tusks, the ravaged rugs, the tarnished silver prickets, the lacquer boxes, the narghiles and the hanging braziers were all in their appointed places; only the shiny-coated proprietor was missing.
As I contemplated this lugubrious scene, a voice called to me from the sidewalk. I turned. There at the top of the stairs was Mr. Vodena, the Turk’s friend.
“Where is Mahir?” I asked, concealing my hand behind me and crossing my fingers, because I knew I would have to tell some lies. “Where is he today, Mr. Vodena?”
“Ah! That is something nobody knows,” said the old fellow, his face solemn. “He has disappeared, Mr. Pendleton.”
“Disappeared? How do you mean?”
“One night he left his shop, and never got to his home. I went to the police, but they do not take it seriously. They say maybe he has gone back to Turkey. That cannot be true. Would he leave his goods? His goods were his only wealth.”
Mr. Vodena shook his head. I climbed the stairs, saying, “That’s very strange. Have you checked the hospitals? He might have had an accident.”
“Oh, yes. His friend Taki called every one, but he could not find Mahir. I do not know what to do. Do you think, Mr. Pendleton, that the police have him in jail and are not telling us? Would they do such a thing in America?”
“No, no, it’s against the law, Mr. Vodena. Perhaps he has gone to visit somewhere.”
“For so long? And without his suitcase? And without going home to have his dinner?” the man asked, wrinkling his forehead. “No, I do not think so. I do not think so.”
For ten minutes we discussed the mystery. I was barraged with questions. Should he write to the Turkish embassy in Washington? Should he go to a lawyer? If his friend didn’t return by the end of the month, should he pay the shop rent for him? If not, what should he do with the goods? And what about his apartment on Huntington Avenue? He had a sister, too, who lived in Adrianople; what should he write to her?
I did my best to answer these queries sensibly, but though the Bulgarian (or Hungarian, whichever) listened patiently, he remained discouraged.
At last I was able to make my escape. I walked back to Brookline, more than a little infected by the old man’s woe. What trouble Madge and I had caused!
Regaining the house, I told the lady what I had heard. She smiled with satisfaction.
21
AN INTERLUDE
In addition to scouring the notebooks in the library, Madge Clerisy now spent a part of each day meandering about the Burying Ground, where she read the mossy, bird-defiled headstones and gouged the earth with her cane. She spoke of organizing another nocturnal dig, of drilling into the soil with special archaeological probes, of even hiring a man with a bulldozer, to clear the scrub from the graves. Naturally, I raised strong objections to these schemes. Any such tampering with the town’s property was sure to attract the attention of the police—a contingency we could ill afford. I doubt that she was serious, in any case. She was stymied and therefore irked. Where Great-grampy had got to was as much a mystery to her as it was to me.
The progress of my own endeavor—that of courting the lady—wasn’t too rapid, either. Even though I now had an automobile, she never once allowed me to drive her home. My eloquent appeals were all in vain. For me, Cupid was not only blind but deaf as well. On a Saturday evening, she did at last accept one of my invitations and went to dinner with me at Chez Henriette. I wore a new suit, and she a stunning frock. It was a most pleasant little party—I told her some of my best jokes and anecdotes—but afterward she flew off in a taxi, leaving me standing on Commonwealth Avenue utterly crestfallen. To this day I do not know which hotel in town she stayed at. Had she been engaged in espionage she couldn’t have kept it a closer secret. Perhaps she thought I would call her up nights and whisper endearments in her ear.
And I daresay I would have. She was an enticing creature. Despite all the inconvenience she’d caused me, despite her imperious, scornful, irritating ways, I couldn’t help wanting to be near her. Isn’t it peculiar how the curve of a rump or a bosom can warp an otherwise sober man’s judgment? Times without number, I chased her around the parlor, and though I rarely caught her, when I did, I helped myself to some quite feverish embraces. And there were kisses too, nonetheless ambrosial for having been stolen. Yet, fondling was the extent of my conquest because I was inevitably compelled to relinquish all captured territory in the face of her fierce resistance. Thackeray says that in every love affair there are two parties: one who loves, and the other who condescends to be so treated. Madge did not condescend to be so treated. I began to realize that to possess her fully I would have to knock her unconscious—and my upbringing, alas, precluded such behavior. Still, I cherished hopes.
Some days I went for drives in the country, touring secondary roads, farmlands, villages and forests. It was fun and it took my mind off my alluring guest. Another reason for these excursions was that the house plants—the philodendrons—and the dandelions in the yard frequently insulted me. They insisted that I had killed Norbie for his money—an absolute calumny. Indoors or out, I was plagued by them. Only at night when they were sleeping could I be sure of tranquility. What liars they were! I seem to recall that Eulalia had shown an interest in the money at the time, but for me it had hardly existed. I have my faults, I admit, yet baseness isn’t one of them.
And how was Eulalia? Well, she was resentful and provoking. Her hatred of Madge was truly monumental. She took great pleasure, too, in frightening me about Suleyman’s death, and could list dozens of reasons why the police would find out about it. “Go to the authorities, Al, and tell them everything,” she advised. “That way you’ll be safe. If you come forward voluntarily, they’ll know that it was only an accident. But if you do not, you’ll be caught anyhow, and then you’ll go to prison.”
Knowing how keen Eulalia’s sensitivities are, I had to weigh her suggestions though I suspected her motives for making them. She was almost mad with jealousy, poor thing.
22
THE CALAMITY
It was the sixteenth of July. Yes, the sixteenth—a Thursday. When I awoke that morning, I felt somewhat strange—unreal, otherworldly. I could almost imagine that I was ten years old again, that my mother and father and Great-grampy were downstairs having breakfast, and that Clarice was moving about in her room. I could hear the clatter of the dishes; I could even hear the clop-clop and creaking of a horse-and-wagon going along Beacon Street. This pleasant, dreamy condition lasted but a short time, however; it was hardly more than a spasm of sensation. Nevertheless, it relieved my mind of worry and put me in an excellent humor.
It was the sixteenth of July, I know, because I wrote the date down later. I washed, dressed, went to the kitchen and made myself four slices of French toast. I then came up to my mother’s room to eat them. My early appearance caught Eulalia by surprise; she hadn’t yet begun her day’s brooding. Taking advantage of this, I remarked on how pretty she looked, followed with a few more innocent flatteries, told a little joke and swiftly guided her into a blithesome frame of mind. She was soon relating her own amusing stories. One of these was a description of Mrs. Binney’s preslumber preparations—of how the old girl struggled out of her elaborate foundation garments, donned multiple nightgowns and a hairnet, applied numerous skin creams, searched under the bed and in the closet, and guzzled a glass of neat whiskey before finally climbing between the sheets. The poor thing had forgotten to lower her shade one night, and Eulalia had a ringside seat. It was very funny.
By the time I’d finished the toast and drunk the coffee, my friend was singing songs to me in her sweet voice. Her rendition of Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? Johnny’s Not Home from the Fair was ineffably fine. Not to be outdone, I bellowed a few choruses of Abdul Abulbul Ameer—fairly ribald ones—which made Eulalia giddy with laughter. How animated she was! Her round, translucent cheeks glistened, while the lip of her spout appeared to curve in a broad, sensuous smile.
Barely had I finished my performance, however, than Madge Clerisy’s irregular footsteps sounded on the staircase. She went past the door and into the library. At once, Eulalia lost her gaiety. The old peevishness came back into her voice. She began to interrogate me. Why was the woman still in the house? What was she doing? Had the police come around yet, inquiring about the dead Turk? Why hadn’t I taken her advice and told the whole story to the authorities?
My carefree mood evaporated, and my anxiety returned. As it happened, a young policeman had been to the door the preceding day, ostensibly checking the number of occupants in the building for the town directory. Though his sudden appearance had upset me a bit, there was nothing bogus about his manner, so I’d dismissed him from my thoughts. Now, because of Eulalia’s remarks, the visit assumed sinister aspects. I told her about it.
“Ah! You see?” said she, seizing on it immediately. “They’re after you, Al. The town directory! What an obvious lie! As if anyone would take a census in the middle of summer, with everybody away on vacation. Give yourself up, Al, while there’s time. Since it was an accident, you have nothing to fear. And it’s a way of making amends for the wrong you did to Mahir. Think of your next reincarnation, Al.”
On and on she went, until my head was swimming. I did argue with her, but not too forcefully, as I suspected she was right. Because I was getting old, she pointed out, what happened to me in this life was much less important than what was in store for me in the life to come. There was no denying that, was there? One must look to the future.
So engrossed were we that we did not hear Madge approach the room. Suddenly the door was flung open, and there she stood. She glanced at me, then at Eulalia, then at me again. A scowl came to her lips.
“Have you seen my bag?” she inquired curtly.
“What? Your bag?” I asked, uncomprehending.
“Yes, yes—my handbag. I’ve lost it somewhere.”
“Oh. No, I haven’t. When did you see it last?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I may have left it on the streetcar. Damn! There wasn’t much money in it, but there were papers—and a half-completed letter to a friend of mine.” She regarded me closely with those piercing amber eyes of hers. “Are you quite certain you haven’t seen it, Al?”
“Absolutely,” I replied a trifle frostily, since the question struck me as accusatory. “Why should I say it if it weren’t true?”
; “Well, I’ve been all over the library, without turning it up,” she answered. “I suppose I’ll have to call the transit system people, hopeless though it will be.”
During this exchange Eulalia had remained silent, but now she said to me, “Tell her that you’re going to the police station, Al.”
But I paid no attention to her. Madge was clearly in a bad mood; it was no time to broach such a subject, I felt. Miffed, Eulalia became more insistent. The archaeologist, meanwhile, was asking me for the full name of the trolley company, and where she could find the nearest telephone booth. With the two voices assaulting my ears, I became rattled. And so, without really intending to, I stated loudly, “Eulalia wants me to go to the authorities and tell them about Mahir Suleyman’s death. She thinks it would be best.”
The abruptness of this remark threw Madge off her stride. She looked at me blankly for a few seconds, then her fair features gradually reddened. Even before she opened her mouth, I knew she was infuriated. “Eulalia does, does she?” the woman sneered. “She wants you to confess—is that it, Al?”
I nodded, ill at ease.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort—do you hear me?” she said. “You’ll keep your big mouth shut.”
“But why? If we explained all the circumstances, surely they’d be lenient,” I mumbled.
Madge’s reply took the form of invective. She called Eulalia an unflattering name, and me another—one I hadn’t heard since I left the Navy. Not content with that, she delivered a tirade to us that was as profane as it was prolix.
“Defend yourself!” Eulalia shouted at me, contributing her share to the tumult. “Don’t let that coarse creature—that gypsy—treat you like a weak-brained child. Be a man and stand up to her. Don’t let her insult you that way, Al!”
The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton Page 14