whither Willow?

by Peter Ponzo

  Jack tried to interrupt. "Who is this Barney fellow? Do you know his last name?"

  "Ha! You go it, mister, " Grubby shouted. "Fellow, that’s him.”

  Then Grubby Baker kept right on going. "Bottom o' the bog, he is. Then Josh up and got hisself a wife."

  "Who's Josh? Josh who?" Jack flipped back through the pages of his binder. "I know of a Joshua Kumar, died in 1895 ... I think. Is that who you're talking about?"

  The old man kept right on talking, not listening at all to Jack Laker.

  "Mighty pretty gal, Melly, and Josh telled us all about how that gal was ...you know ..."

  Old man Baker, paused, fluttered both eyes trying to wink at Jack, cackled, then kept on talking.

  "Then Josh goes, mebbe to the same old bog, mebbe to see Barney at the bottom o' Sparrow Lake." He chuckled, stopped, then looked straight at Jack. "Say yer name is Laker, did yuh? Bottom o' the Laker, is yuh?" He began again to laugh, so hard that his wad of tobacco spilled, dripping from his narrow chin. He quickly scooped it up, pushing it across his chin into his gaping mouth, his tooth hanging stained and solitary. When he was satisfied that he had it all, he continued.

  "When Josh was gone, then Arn just upped and moved right in. We wuz waitin' at Martin's, but Arn didn't never come by no more. We wuz waitin' to see how Melly was ...you know ..."

  The old man tried unsuccessfully to wink again, but just closed, then opened both eyes several times. Jack held up his hand, his pencil waving in the air.

  "Mr. Baker, when did all this happen? I mean, Joshua Kumar vanishing and all." Jack glanced at his notes. "According to ... uh, the police files ... uh, Joshua Kumar disappeared in 1895 and was never seen again. Are you saying that he lies at the bottom of Sparrow Lake?"

  The old man was now listening intently, staring at the Jack's pencil, held aloft. When Jack stopped talking and placed his pencil in the binder, the old man started right in again.

  "Then we hears that Melly got herself a baby and we know why Arn ain't comin' no more to the bar." The old man blinked both eyes, trying again to wink. "He been busy." Grubby cackled and wiped his beard. "Yessir, old Arn was mighty busy." He cackled again, coughed up some tobacco then went on. "Then we hears that Arn gets his hand chopped off ... and he don't talk no more cuz he can't talk no more. Then old Doc Manner gets it good."

  "Wait a minute. Did you say Doc Manner?" Jack raised his pencil in the air and Grubby Baker stopped talking and stared at it, dark juices oozing from the sides of his mouth. "Is that ... uh, let's see." Jack Laker flipped through his notebook with one hand, the other holding his pencil aloft to retain Grubby's attention. "Is that Doctor Philip Manner, a country doctor who died ... commited suicide, in ... uh, 1917?" Jack was pleased that he had collected sufficient history that he could confirm Grubby's story.

  Grubby stared at the pencil, silent, and Jack lowered the pencil slowly to his notebook, and the old man started in again.

  "I seed 'em all, I did. I seed 'em comin' and 'specially I seed 'em goin'. I seed Barney and Josh goin', then I seed the doc goin' ... and goin' ... and goin' ..."

  Jack stared at the old man. He had leaned over the table, his head falling lower and lower and lower as he spoke, until his face was flat on the table, his hand still clasping an empty styrofoam coffee cup, his tobacco running over his chin. He was sound asleep,

  Bryan and Chuck had started to yell, just outside the window, and Jack got up to go. Somebody from the mill came by, saw Grubby and yelled just as loudly as the kids. A second mill hand came by and together they lifted the old man to his feet and carried him from the cafeteria. Jack watched them go, gathered his three-ring binder and walked slowly out into a bright sunny Saturday afternoon.

  He would finish his History of New Bamberg ... one day ... and his children would be able to point to it with pride. Bryan and Chuck would know that their dad had accomplished something in his life. His wife and children would see that he had left something for the world that was more important than money or social status or property. Jack Laker stood quietly for just a moment, staring at the clear blue sky and the chaos of Fall colour, his three-ring binder clutched to his chest.

  His sons were already in the car, arguing. He sighed heavily, slipped behind the wheel and headed for New Bamberg. He should really come back to Dundee, another time ... but the kids were yelling now, and he groaned and thought: it's hardly worth the effort.

  CHAPTER 10

  Inspector Jaffre: August, 1975

  Somehow he seemed older than sixty-five. Somehow he felt he should have retired much earlier. But sixty-five was the mandatory age and although he talked to his grandson about retiring early, Kenneth Leland Jaffre just went on and on, as Chief Inspector of New Bamberg.

  ***

  It had been a strange year, 1975, filled with things good and bad.

  His son, George Alan Jaffre, had left Heather, his loving wife of some twenty years, and taken up with a boring girl who covered her face with too much makeup. She wore too much, swore too much and bored too much. That was bad.

  His grandson, Samuel Leland Jaffre, had joined the New Bamberg police force and, as one of his last duties as Chief Inspector, Kenneth Leland Jaffre had presented him with his badge. That was good.

  And the voices became louder, more insistent, talking to him in eager whispers, way back in his head. Voices that spoke of the babies ... and that was bad.

  ***

  He had first become aware of the babies - the stolen babies - back in the early fifties. His wife was still alive and his son still lived with them, though there had been little conversation between the man and boy.

  Then he got the phone call. Jerry Huber was frantic and had phoned the Inspector at his house. It wasn't all that unusual, getting phone calls at home. But this one was different. Jerry had lost his baby.

  Actually, it was Jerry's young wife who had lost the baby. She was some eight months pregnant, maybe a bit more, and she was as healthy as a horse - and almost as large. There was no reason for the aborted birth, at least three weeks before what would have been a normal delivery.

  Inspector Jaffre had taken the call in his study, leaning heavily on the table, his pen scribbling on a scrap of paper.

  Jerry Huber - calls from home - wife lost baby - 8 mos pregnant - wife not conscious - baby gone

  "Gone?" Jaffre wasn't sure he had heard it correctly. "Jerry, calm down. Is your wife okay? Then, you mean that your baby was stillborn - is that it? Gone? You mean you can't find any ... uh, any evidence of the birth? Perhaps she had the baby ... maybe, somewhere else, not in the house." Jaffre waited, then scribbled:

  baby taken from wife - Jerry sees car leave - maybe red, maroon - no licence plate - wife on floor, bleeding, coma - dress torn off

  "Look, Jerry, I'll be there is less than five minutes. Hold on. We'll get to the bottom of this. Don't worry."

  When he hung up, Betsy Sue Ann was standing at his shoulder, reading the scribbled notes.

  "Somebody took her baby? Before it was born?" She put her hand on Jaffre's shoulder. "How terrible. Oh Ken ..."

  But Inspector Jaffre had folded the scrap of paper, stuffed it into his pocket, kissed Betsy quickly on the cheek and left, still in his slippers and robe. She phoned the station to tell them where the Inspector went; that was standard procedure. Then she waited by the phone for any further calls.

  When Jaffre arrived, Jerry Huber was in the middle of the living room, holding his wife in his arms. He had covered her in a blanket and was now whispering into her ear - but she was clearly unconscious. There were blood stains on the carpet and when the ambulance arrived they concluded that Mrs. Huber was in a coma. She stayed that way for more than six months; then she died.

  And Jaffre could find no one who either saw the car leaving the premises or heard any sounds from the house. He was crushed. It was happening again, another unsolved case. He had come through the years after the New Year's Eve massacre onl
y with constant help from his wife. Slowly he had learned to forget, as had all of New Bamberg. Now it would be back, the criticism, the articles in the Gazette, the people pointing and whispering.

  At first he wanted to put the case aside, close the books: unsolved. His wife had turned on him. A young couple have just lost their first born and you only think of your status in the community. He was ashamed and spent every evening speaking to people in the neighbourhood, and the county and beyond. Yet, what was he looking for? A car without licence plates? A car, maybe red, maybe maroon?

  Then Betsy Sue Ann had died, and he dropped the Huber baby investigation and closed the files: unsolved. It was better that way.

  Then, in the mid-sixties, there were several babies taken, unborn, from pregnant girls, but Inspector Jaffre carried out only a shallow investigation on each and closed the files. If he could not solve the case, it was better not to focus attention on it. Strangely, there was never any criticism when he closed a case, unsolved. The criticism came only while the books were open.

  Then, in late 1968, a gang of hoodlums were seen in some neighbourhood and the police were called out to investigate. The gang had vanished, but they found a newly born child. It was bleeding and abandoned, but still very much alive. That was when Inspector Jaffre felt certain that this was not the work of a single unbalanced mind, but that of a cult; religious fanatics who took babies for some unholy purpose. He had every police force in the state on the lookout for wandering crowds. He personally interviewed every unusually dressed individual, every person with shaved head or rings on their ears or brightly coloured apparel or curious habits or hairdo.

  By the end of the year, the Gazette was to carry the headline:

  INSPECTOR JAFFRE: WE THINKS HE DOTH INSPECT TOO MUCH

  But it didn't deter the Inspector. Indeed, he continued the investigation with renewed enthusiasm. Betsy would be proud. This time he would close the file: solved.

  When someone reported cars heading out towards Dune, he immediately left for the country road. He had travelled Dune Road many times and it was usually deserted, but now he found himself among several cars, all heading in the same direction. When he reached the old house set back from the road he knew this was the place and his heart began to pound. The front yard was filled with perhaps twenty cars, and a crowd had gathered before a big old tree.

  He parked at the dirt road and marched up the long driveway. No one seemed particularly concerned even though his car was clearly marked with the orange and blue of Waterloo County police. In fact, no one even seemed particularly unusual. He had expected to see hoodlums with black jackets or shaved heads or unusually dressed or ...

  "Good evening, Kenneth."

  Inspector Jaffre stopped and stared at the Mayor with a certain unease. Behind the Mayor were three members of city council and behind that, Doctor Berger and Judge Wallberg.

  "Uh ... good morning, Mr. Mayor," Jaffre muttered. "Nice day for a ... uh -"

  "Picnic," said the Mayor.

  "Picnic," said Judge Wallberg.

  "Picnic," repeated Doctor Berger.

  Jaffre coughed slightly, backed away, apologizing, and bumped into a woman with long black hair that fell to her waist, a beautiful woman with haunting black eyes. She seemed to be the hostess, for everyone was now gathered around her, muttering, staring.

  "I'm sorry," stuttered the Inspector. "I just ... uh -"

  "Welcome Inspector," she said quietly. "You are very welcome to join us."

  "You are very welcome to join us," the others whispered in unison.

  She raised her arm and the small crowd fell quiet.

  "No, I'm sorry for the intrusion, I just thought ... uh, I'll go now," and he left immediately, the crowd standing on the grass by the tree, stiff-legged and motionless, watching in silence as he left. He thought he saw the tree raise several branches to hover above the crowd in some encompassing gesture, but he must have been mistaken. It was confusing. By the time he had reached the station he wasn't sure what he had seen.

  Then the voices came, whispering, and he tried to keep them out of his mind. But they persisted, back in his head, taunting, laughing, then they shouted and the shouting was of babies, unborn, whose souls were given to a higher purpose. And when he thought of the willow tree or the missing babies, somehow it seemed remote and confusing and he wasn't quite sure that he had recalled the facts with any accuracy. Perhaps it was better to forget, to close all the files: unsolved ... and Jaffre found himself placing the files in the archives, all the baby files, buried in the basement of the station, closed, to gather dust and be forgotten.

  ***

  Then he was sixty-five and he had watched his grandson graduate from the police academy and had presented him with a shiny badge, and the force held a party for him and they came from miles around, the police and the good citizens of Waterloo County, and they told him how much he had contributed and that all his good works were much appreciated.

  ... and he left the station without a single regret

  ... and the voices stopped their whispering.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bryan Laker: August, 1977

  Bryan Laker, a young Assistant Professor, was tired and depressed. He had marked nearly eighty exam papers and it was late. He leaned back in his chair, stared at the pile of unmarked papers, reached over and grabbed his calculator for the second time and repeated the calculation. It he could mark one paper every five minutes, there were 105 students in his math class, it would take - he punched in the numbers and stared at the digital readout: 8.75, it would take nearly nine hours. He looked at his watch. It was 11 o'clock. He had been marking for seven hours. He'll finish tomorrow. He put down the calculator and grabbed his pipe. He was too tired to refill it and lit the gray ashes, inhaling deeply. He hated marking final exams. Most of the questions on the exam he had already done in classes. Why didn't they pay attention? Was he wasting his time? He had given them a sheet of questions, a review of all the material he had covered during the term. He had told them, several times: know how to solve these problems and you can pass the exam. They didn't listen. Now what? He hated to adjust the marks but a 30% failure rate was high. And if he did fiddle with the marks should he just add 10 marks to everyone? What if the exam were marked out of 90 instead of 100. A 50 would become ... he picked up the calculator again and punched in the numbers: 55.555556, a student with 50 out of 100 would get, let's say 56%. Why did he use a calculator for that? He was a math professor; surely he could divide 50 by 90. He leaned back. He'll finish tomorrow. He was tired and couldn't think straight any more.

  When he left the building he headed for the parking lot, his pipe trailing a thin spiral of smoke. It was a fine warm evening and the sky was full of stars. He stopped and gazed up at Ursa Major and ran his eye beyond the lip to the star, Polaris. He pulled his pipe from his mouth and spat on the ground. I really must clean that old pipe he thought, wiping his sleeve across his lips then knocking his pipe against the side of his shoe.

  Two students walked by and greeted him. They looked familiar but he couldn't remember their names. He never could remember names. He had read a book on how to memorize: associate each name with an item of furniture and just run through the pieces of furniture, recalling the names as you go. He had done this quite successfully using the furniture in his mother's house. He learned the 40 books of the old testament. The collection of furniture ran around the living room and down the hall to the dining room. The 40th piece of furniture was the large chair by the window. It worked quite well until he moved out and took a place of his own. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ... He couldn't even remember the pieces of furniture now, let alone the books of the old testament - just to Numbers. Did that have something to do with his being a math prof?

  Bryan walked to a bench and sat down to refill his pipe. He would try to associate names with furniture again, this time using his own furniture. Did he have 40 pieces of furniture? Ma
ybe not. Maybe it wasn't worth the effort.

  He recalled memorizing the first 40 digits of the number , as a young lecturer, still living at home. He would construct a problem for his class that required knowing  and then he would ask his class for the value. They all knew 3.1416, some answered 22/7. Then, without stopping to take a breath, he would write 40 digits on the blackboard: 3.1415926535 ... what came next? He took a long puff and tried to think. Gone. All those digits gone. But it wasn't worth the effort. The next time he had asked his class for the value and turned to write it on the board he just invented the digits beyond the first few. It was just as effective. Nobody knew the digits anyway. He smiled and leaned forward, rising from the bench.

  Several students ran across the field in front of him. One stopped. "Professor Laker? Have you marked our exams yet?" He shook his head and she continued after her companions. What was her name?

  When he reached his apartment the parking lot was dark. The security light was burnt out again. The building was in poor repair, but it was cheap and he didn't complain. He walked slowly to the front door and stopped to look up at the sign, slightly leaning, slightly dirty and slightly broken. It said: WILL T WERS, with several letters missing. He sighed and entered, heading for the stairs. The elevator hadn't worked in years and all the tenants lived on the first five floors. The upper five floors were deserted and many of the windows were broken and covered in plywood. His apartment was the only one on the fifth floor.

  The fluffy white Bichon began to bark even before he had entered his apartment. He opened the door, stooped and scooped up the dog and it stopped barking. Being alone on this floor was a good thing because he never had any complaints about the dog. He walked to the kitchen, plugged in the coffee pot, opened the fridge, removed the can of dog food and began to fill the bowl, first with canned food, then a pinch of dry food, then some hot water. The dog started to bark again until he placed the bowl on the floor, still steaming from the hot water. He walked to the living room and sat at the stuffed chair under the hanging tiffany lamp, gathering the collection of loose paper on the side table as he sat down. He leafed absentmindedly through the papers until he heard the coffee pot buzzing. He went to the kitchen and returned with a large mug of over-sweetened, over-creamed coffee, collapsing again into the chair, carefully holding his mug in the air as he sat. Not carefully enough; the coffee sloshed onto his pants. He groaned and pulled the papers onto his lap, gazing at the cover page: A Short History of New Bamberg . The word Short had been added recently.