by Unknown
The services were predictably solemn and the crowd, for a man of Randolph Mountjoy’s outsized character and achievement, smaller than Michael would have expected. His father’s own sister, Michael’s Aunt Helen, had called to say she wasn’t well enough to come all the way from Seattle. And the eulogies were short and sounded, to Michael, more like biographical sketches than loving tributes. More than one of the speakers mentioned his father’s signature line, “How goes it, my friend?” though it failed to elicit any tears from anyone but his mother.
The procession then moved on to Lakeview Cemetery, and up the long winding drive that Michael had traveled many a summer, when he was supposed to be overseeing the installment of a tombstone or grave marker. Michael couldn’t see the newly erected mausoleum until the car stopped and he got out, and it was just what he thought his father would have erected. It was a grand tomb of white marble, in the classical style, with rounded columns on either side of the double doors and winged angels perched on all four corners. Michael didn’t remember there ever being a point this high in the cemetery, and he figured his father must have paid to have the hill made higher, so as to afford a more expansive view of the cold gray waters of Lake Michigan beyond.
The gleaming casket was removed from the hearse, with only a few close friends of the family remaining in attendance, and Richard himself opened the mausoleum doors; they appeared to be made of heavy, opaque glass, overlaid with an elaborate black iron scrollwork—a design, as far as Michael could tell, similar to the one on his father’s favorite necktie. There was some uncomfortable maneuvering among the pallbearers to get the casket, which looked to Michael to be somewhat oversized, through the doors. Standing just outside, he could hear Richard giving instructions—“Here, just below the round window—gently now”—and the scraping of shoes on the floor, the sliding of the polished mahogany box onto presumably some marble shelf. The hired men filed out, as Michael waited with his mother and sister on the hard-packed earth of the gently sloping hill. On closer inspection, he noticed now that the four figures atop the mausoleum weren’t angels at all; they were owls, with furled wings and curving beaks. Moments later, his brother emerged, and quickly turned to secure the doors with the kind of key—black and large—Michael would have imagined locking the gates of Bedlam. Another note.
Michael was taken aback at that—he had imagined that he would be allowed to go inside, and the fact that his brother hadn’t even offered him, or anyone else, the opportunity, was galling. “What’s it like inside?” he asked, hoping his brother would realize his omission and relent.
“Nothing in there you need to see,” Richard said, “but the workmanship is top notch. Dad wouldn’t have allowed for anything less.”
Taking his mother by the elbow, Richard led them all back down the hill and drove them home in the Bentley—to the reception due to begin very soon.
Most of the people there Michael barely knew or only dimly remembered—he had seldom come home after college. A few asked him about his career “out there in Tinseltown,” and Michael had to make the obligatory remarks, meant at once to suggest success while modestly claiming none. Thank God they didn’t know how well warranted the modesty was. After less than an hour, he was able to discreetly leave the room, and retire upstairs, where he quickly made notes about the day’s events.
But as he laid back against the headboard of the bed, scratching his thoughts on the pad, his mind kept going back to certain moments—the whispered conversation on the stairs, his brother concealing the papers in the office, or barring his entrance into the tomb. It had been years since he felt so keenly his brother’s bullying, or his own general estrangement from the family. Even his mother, once his only ally, was too devastated by the sudden loss of her husband to be much help. It was as if his father’s strong will had been the oné thing keeping the family intact, the planets in alignment, the stars in their assigned positions, and now that he was gone, everyone was off balance and looking for some new order to be imposed.
Michael made some more notes, went downstairs for a quick snack from the buffet now that the guests had gone, and intended to make it an early night—he hadn’t slept well the night before—but found that he just couldn’t calm down. He watched some TV in his room, took a long hot shower, but instead of getting into bed, he found himself getting dressed again and creeping downstairs. He was annoyed; no, he was angry, he told himself. Something that had been building for years was now, at last, coming to the fore. He wasn’t as resigned to his fate as the family outsider as he had always pretended to be; he was pissed about it. He wasn’t above the fray, after all; he’d just been afraid to stand up for himself. And now, he was going to. (“The protagonist of your screenplay must ACT,” ran through his mind, from one of his screenwriting tapes, “not be acted UPON.”)
And that’s what he was going to do—act. Richard, he knew, had at last gone back to his own apartment for the night, and his mother was no doubt zonked out on Valium. Sissy was in her old room—he could hear “Top Chef” on her TV—and when he went into the home office, he found the top desk drawer unlocked. He took out the papers Richard had been looking at, and for a second didn’t realize what he was seeing. It was clearly a new letterhead and logo for the business, but it was only on closer inspection that he discovered the company was now called “Mountjoy Stone and Building Supply.” No “& Sons.” And certainly no “& Brother.”
Was that what he’d been whispering about on the stairs last night? Was that why his mother was crying—at this further, and final, betrayal, of her younger son?
He started to stuff the letterhead back into the drawer, then remembered to do it gently, so as not to leave any evidence of his having been there. And it was then that he noticed the black iron key, the one that Richard had used to lock the mausoleum. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand, and as he did so, he felt his resolve strengthening. Maybe it was time to start asserting himself, after all. He’d just figured out what his brother’s plans were for the family business, and now he could find out what, if anything, was so damn important that he couldn’t be allowed inside the tomb to see it.
Even now, he was too afraid to drive his father’s Bentley. And trying to find the keys to his mother’s car, much less opening the electric garage door, would give away his plans. So he quietly put on his parka, stuck a flashlight in his pocket, and took his old bike through the side door of the garage. The back tire was almost flat, but it would make it—the cemetery was only a mile or two away.
What he hadn’t counted on was the snow that began to fall when he was only a block or two from the house. It started out as a light flurry, the flakes sticking to his glasses and the backs of his hands. He put up the hood on the parka, and pedaled faster, but the wind was starting to pick up now, too, and it was hard to make much headway on the increasingly slick streets. The back tire didn’t help any, either. By the time he reached the cemetery it was really coming down, and he was coated with wet snow. Leaning the bike against a side gate, he punched in the code he remembered from his summer jobs there, and slipped inside.
He didn’t want to turn on the flashlight for fear he might be spotted by a night watchman, so he made his way very slowly, and very carefully, among the graves and headstones. The ground was quickly becoming covered with an even layer of snow, and his footprints reminded him of the ones left by Claude Rains as “The Invisible Man.” Something to enter in his notebook. His sneakers crunched across the fresh flakes, and then traced a path up the winding drive toward the highest point in Lakeview—where the mausoleum stood.
Surrounded by snow now, the tomb looked barely real, like a white ornament atop a white wedding cake. Even the black ironwork over the door was dusted with snow, and Michael had to brush some away from the lock before inserting the key. He turned it first to the right, to no effect, and then to the left, which resulted in the sound of a heavy bolt being withdrawn. Another turn, back to the right, and he was able to swing the heavy do
ors apart and open. It wasn’t until he had stepped inside and closed them again after him, with a satisfying whump—it sounded less like a door than an air lock—that he dared to turn on the flashlight.
The marble interior was as bare and antiseptic as he might have expected. Against both walls, there were eight or ten empty shelves—each one deep and dark—and although it was too high to afford any view, one small, round window facing the lake. Who’d be looking out of it, anyway? Michael thought, with a sudden shudder.
He slapped his arms against his sides, to loosen the snow, and warm himself. But still, he shuddered again. And laughed. It only now occurred to him that his mission was pretty damn odd, and spooky, and if he hadn’t been so pissed and determined, he might have considered these things sooner.
Especially what he’d feel at the sight of his father’s casket, resting in pride of place, on a separate shelf just below that window. He turned the flashlight beam toward it—and only then discovered that the casket had been draped in a purple cloth, with gold tassels; some words were embroidered in silver in the center of the cloth. He stepped closer. They were in Latin, which he could not read. “Velle est posse.” Huh. Surely, his brother, who must have placed it there, would know what it meant. And wouldn’t it be a neat trick to ask him?
He turned the flashlight on the walls, and now he could see there, too, other inscriptions, but in even more foreign tongues. Some looked like Hebrew, or Arabic, others were simply glyphs. Birds in profile, and wooden boats with black sails. What was all this? Some sort of Masonic secret code?
He heard a soft rustle from somewhere in the chamber, and quickly swept the floor with the flashlight. It was impossible that there’d be a mouse, a squirrel, or even a bug, in such a newly sealed and artfully designed structure. His father always built to tight specifications, and, as in all things, he got exactly what he wanted. Nobody ever questioned his orders—at least not successfully. Michael had seen him demand that an entire foyer be torn up and redone because the plinth was a quarter inch too short and one of the slabs was not perfectly laid.
The rustle came again, and this time Michael zeroed in on the purple cloth. Had a draft disturbed it? That, too, seemed highly unlikely; the place seemed hermetically closed—and, on a night like this, terribly cold. Outside, Michael could hear the muffled sound of the wind ripping off the lake and howling around the stone walls of the mausoleum, like a pack of wolves trying desperately to get in. Heavy, wet snow slapped against the glass of the doors and coated the one round window above the casket.
Michael started to wonder what he was doing there. What exactly was he hoping to find? And having successfully penetrated the tomb, couldn’t he simply declare victory and leave now?
A tassel on the edge of the purple cloth moved, almost imperceptibly. Michael assumed he had disturbed the air. He stood stock-still, his breath fogging in front of his face, and now several tassels swayed. And Michael could swear he’d heard something, like a voice, under the gusting wind. A chill literally went down his spine—and even though it was true, something so clichéd could never go into his screenplay. He bent his head over the casket, and heard it again. Like a sigh.
His head instinctively jerked back, and the flashlight nearly fell from his grasp. Could it be? Could he have heard… something like that? No. He couldn’t have. The Poe story, the one about the premature burial, jumped to mind. But that was a story—and that was before embalming was routinely done—as had, most certainly, been done here.
He touched his fingers to the purple cloth—it was silk—and it swiftly slid from the casket, like a curtain being drawn back to begin a play.
On the roof of the tomb, Michael heard, unmistakably, the hooting of an owl. No, two or three owls. A veritable chorus.
The burnished mahogany of the casket gleamed in the reflected beam of the flashlight. Michael was torn between running out the door, and putting his ear closer to the smoothly beveled wood.
His mind raced for explanations, and came up with one—the body was settling. Hadn’t he read that all sorts of terrible things went on after burial? That bodies swelled with gas, that hair and nails continued to grow, that liquids—real and artificial—oozed out of pores and orifices? On that show, Six Feet Under, they were always throwing in weird shit like that. And what he was hearing—or thought he’d heard—had to be that, and nothing more.
“Lift.”
The word was as clear in his mind as a ringing bell.
His breath froze in his throat.
But he couldn’t be sure if he’d heard it spoken, or it had simply been… transmitted, somehow, into his head.
He waited… but there was no other sound.
Even more astonishingly, the word had been uttered in his father’s voice—in that gruff, imperious tone he had so often used, in life, with Michael.
And as if nothing had changed in that respect, Michael felt the same unquestioning obligation to do as he was told.
But lift what? The lid of the casket? What else could it mean?
But that would be crazy. Who would do that?
Why would he do that?
“Lift.”
More impatient this time. Demanding.
And definitely his father’s voice. The same voice he’d used when dressing down Michael for going out for the school play instead of a sports team—“acting, for God’s sake? Why don’t you just wear a skirt?”—or choosing to attend arty-farty Oberlin College instead of a real school like Notre Dame.
Michael’s mind was reeling. That was his father in there—didn’t he have to do what he was being asked? My God, how could he refuse? Especially when it was such a simple request. Just lift the lid of the coffin.
What harm could it do?
The owls hooted, over and over and over again, as if urging him on. The wind picked up and beat like fists at the double-doors.
“Lift!”
And Michael felt, as he had felt for his entire life, nearly powerless to resist that voice. His hands, so cold now that he could barely move the fingers, reached for the lid of the coffin…
At 5:30 A.M. the next morning, Richard drove from his Lake Shore Drive apartment building straight to the family house. No one was up yet, but he quickly made his way to Michael’s room, rapped on the door, and then waited—several seconds—before pushing open the door.
Michael wasn’t there, and the bed—to Richard’s delight—looked unslept in.
In the home office, he found the order papers for the new company logo right where he’d conspicuously left them—and the key to the mausoleum, as he’d hoped, missing.
He couldn’t keep from whistling on his way into the kitchen to make some coffee.
Once Sissy and his mother were up, he bundled them all into the Bentley and drove, as fast as the still-unplowed streets would allow, to Lakeview Cemetery. The main gates were barely open before he fishtailed through, and then up the long, winding drive that led to the Mountjoy mausoleum. It was a bitterly cold but clear day, and apart from a maintenance truck, he saw no other vehicles, or people, anywhere on the grounds. His mother was sitting beside him, with a look of mounting trepidation on her face; in the rearview mirror, he could see, and hear, Sissy devouring a Quaker Oats Breakfast bar. Reflective, she was not.
At the top of the hill, he stopped, and was careful to put on the emergency brake; the ground was icy and slippery.
“Do you want to wait in the car?” he said.
His mother nodded, holding a handkerchief to her nose, and Sissy said, “Yeah, you look. Tell me what happens.”
That was the way Richard would have preferred it, anyway. No other witnesses, no intrusions, no unexpected reactions. He got out of the car, regretting that in his haste he had forgotten to wear boots, and crunched across the snowy ground toward the mausoleum. If Michael had left any tracks, they were obscured now by the snow that had fallen later that night. At the doors, he stopped, took a long breath, and then, before removing the spare key from his ove
rcoat pocket, tried the handle. It turned.
When he cracked the doors open, he did not know what he would find, though it was fair to say he had not expected to see Michael lying on top of the casket, the purple cloth thrown like an afghan across his legs.
“Maybe we should have put in a heating system,” Michael said.
Richard was dumbstruck. If he’d found his brother passed out cold, he wouldn’t have been surprised. If he’d found him gibbering in fear, that wouldn’t have shocked him, either. But this… well, he just didn’t know what to make of it yet.
Although he did feel his spirits buoyed.
Michael swung his legs off the casket, letting the purple cloth fall to the floor so that the inscription lay face up. When Richard had asked his father what it meant, he’d said, “It’s Latin, for ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ It’s going to be the new company motto.”
That was fine with Richard, although he wasn’t quite sure how it pertained to the imported stone business.
“You bring the others?” Michael said, stepping down onto the cloth itself.
‘They’re in the car.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Richard’s hopes continued to rise, though he still felt he had to simulate some greater shock or even disapproval. Just in case he was wrong.
“But what are you doing in here?” he asked, and the withering look that Michael threw him told him everything he needed to know. Everything had worked, after all.