Among the Dead

by Michael Tolkin

  ‘How close to the border?’

  T don’t know.’

  ‘I was just wondering.’

  ‘Frank. My God, Frank.’

  ‘I’m at the airport now. Maybe you could come up. I think I’m going to need some help.’

  Lowell was crying. Frank had seen people crying in their cars, usually women; he always imagined that they had just left their boyfriends, or that their boyfriends had told them to leave, or that they had been fired for incompetence from jobs that weren’t so demanding. He had never seen a forty-year-old man in a car crying while he was talking on the car-phone. Lowell drove a Ford Explorer.

  ‘I’ll be there in three hours. Should I come to the airport?’

  Ed Dockery and Bettina Welch had walked across the room, to the door that was now open to the lounge. There were three groups of people in the lounge: airline officials, a few first-class travellers, and another ten or so people who only an hour and a half ago had said goodbye to their families and friends who had just died in San Diego.

  He heard someone say that she had heard about the crash on the radio. Someone else said the same thing.

  His privilege as the first of the next-of-kin to show up would soon be over, and he would be ushered into the crowd. He called to Ed Dockery, who came to him immediately.

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘How long will I have to be here?’

  ‘You don’t have to be here at all if you don’t want, but the airport chaplain is on his way over and also some grief counsellors. And personally I don’t think you should leave on your own. Is there anyone who can meet you here?’

  Frank nodded and returned to Lowell on the phone. ‘I’m not going anywhere for a while.’

  ‘She was so beautiful, Madeleine. She was just so beautiful.’

  Frank said, ‘Yes,’ and then he put the phone down. Bettina Welch was standing next to him. She had something to say, and he guessed she wanted him to join the others in the lounge.

  ‘Mr Gale, the chaplain is here now, and so is Mr Dahlgren, who’ll be acting as liaison with the airline. Would you come into the lounge?’

  Someone had moved the first-class passengers out of the room. How many people were cancelling their travel plans because of the crash? Or would they say to themselves, like gamblers playing a roulette number because it hadn’t come up in a long time, that they were safe now, because the odds were against two crashes on the same airline leaving the same airport in one three-hour period?

  A television crew was trying to get into the lounge. The chaplain was a Catholic priest, a Filipino with a little charisma. As he began a benediction, another airline official opened the door for the cameras. Frank supposed that part of the airline’s strategy now was to show the world that THE AIRLINE’S FIRST RESPONSIBILITY IS TO THE MOURNERS. The language of the catastrophe would be managed by the airline. He had seen this before, disasters on the news, and now he was part of it. How many crashes are the direct fault of the airlines? They said this was an explosion. Terrorism? Arab? Or some other group. A plane to Mexico. It could be anyone. Mexican politics. What a stupid way to die, worse than just slamming into a mountain top because of bad weather and bad radar. They probably know more than they’re saying. All that crying at the gate; was there a feeling of some extra shock, an added horror? Why had the crying woman been so fiercely miserable? A friend of hers died, and she was feeling her grief. What other explanation? Lamentations. The keening of women. Not so self-conscious – they are not like me.

  The priest blessed the living and the dead. Did he believe what he was saying, or was it only by rote? People around him were crying. It had been a day of different kinds of tears. In the morning Madeleine had asked him to carry her from the den to the kitchen, and he told her he would hold her hand. He didn’t like carrying her in the house, he wanted her to walk by herself, to tolerate being alone in a room, he wanted to build her character, make her less dependent. He didn’t know if this was a stage from which she’d grow, in which case carrying her would not sap her moral fibre, or if she was testing him, in which case it was essential that she learn to walk by herself. He offered to hold her hand, and she had taken it, lightly, and kept crossing his path with her arms wide, blocking and imploring him. He had refused to carry her, and so she had cried, but the tears were not from a deep well, and by the time he half pulled her by the hand into the kitchen, she was already asking him to let her feed the goldfish. He had to lift her up to the counter, and she got the hug she had wanted. Later he had seen a tear in Mary Sifka’s eyes. He had brushed it aside with his finger, a gesture he regretted in the limousine on the way to the airport. He should have let her cry, alone. Just as he should have let Madeleine walk, alone. But was it fair to compare those tears, since Madeleine’s were strategic, and Mary Sifka’s, although they rode on the surface of a grief that was complicated, for an impossible love that had run its course, told him that she mourned the death of a passion, of a friendship? Mary was going to miss him; she was going to miss the friendship. Why had he given this up? Why did I construct this stupid drama? If I had left things alone, I could have kept Mary Sifka, and my family would still be alive. Don’t some people manage with a mistress and a wife? Lowell has his share of lovers, thought Frank. Before the plague, he had a boyfriend, and other friends. And he never caught it. Lowell had the flu once, and everyone was scared; no one wanted to say what they were afraid of, that he was going to get sicker and sicker, with sores, and pain, and that Frank would have to take over his business, and would run it into the ground. And when Lowell had that flu, and before he recovered, Frank almost welcomed his death, because he thought, If Lowell dies, I can show them all, I can run the business too. I just need to have it to myself. And then Lowell got better. Frank’s mother called him with the news when Lowell’s fever dropped, and he hated her at that moment because he knew she would never have called Lowell with such relief, such gratitude to God, if Frank had been through the same thing. His mother’s tears that day came from an abundance of emotion. They were different from Madeleine’s and also from those of Mary Sifka, who cried from self-pity, but who else was there to give her the sympathy she needed?

  The gate attendant’s tears were the deepest he had seen today. Some of the tears around him in the lounge were unconvincing, exaggerated, theatrical. A woman in front of him, screaming out loud and looking at the cameras, was she a bad version of herself, or was she connected to the people who had blown the plane up, and therefore acting the part of the mourner, or was she secretly, even from her unsophisticated self, relieved about the death, and already counting the money from the insurance settlement? But I cannot cry, thought Frank. This hurt him, that he couldn’t find a grief large enough to extinguish the world, that the mundane distractions of life were still so close, so much a part of the moment.

  How much money would this be worth? he wondered. Frank was insured for $2 million, Anna for $1 million. Because he was worth more to the marriage. What will the airline pay? How quickly will the money come? They’ll want to settle, of course, avoid the lawyers, that has to happen soon. Someone will approach me and say something about how difficult it is to think about insurance at a time like this, but lawsuits can take years, and the lawyers claim a third, and this is what we’ve settled for in the past, and this is what this kind of crash has traditionally brought, and wouldn’t you rather get over the tragedy and get on with your life, knowing that you’ll never have to go to court and face the story all over again?

  And it all depends on fault.

  If the wing fell apart because of bad maintenance, how much? Ten million? A wife and a child. A wife and a child. Think about that.

  And will there be a funeral? Will I have to go to a funeral with all these strangers? People I don’t know?

  And how do I claim the bodies? Will there be bodies? An explosion. They could have been launched into the air as the plane broke up in the sky, and when they hit the ground, or a roof, or a tree, what h
appened? Does the body keep its shape?

  And if they stayed in the plane, strapped to their seats, and there was a fire when they hit, what would remain? Drop a melon from a few feet, a mess of seeds, flesh and rind. A body from four miles? Does the body maintain its integrity falling from twenty-eight thousand feet? Thirty-two feet per second per second. Thirty-five pounds, and 122 pounds. The body is made of mostly water. Water balloons filled with blood and bone. And the fire on the ground. And houses. Someone told him, he’d forgotten who said it, that sixty people died on the ground. I am a part of the news.

  There was a television, and people were watching it. A squad of airline executives was in the room now, taking down names, making phone calls to relatives, arranging for rooms at a nearby hotel for anyone who wanted them.

  A man with a large belly came to ask him questions. He looked like a drinker and a fisherman, something about his confidence, he knew he wasn’t ever going to be rich, or running the company, and he knew he had as much sense as any executive, but it didn’t gall him. Frank wondered if he had ever been twenty-seven and unhappy. His unhappiness would have come only from immediate dramas in the family, he wasn’t a man to change jobs, or even think of anything like a career.

  ‘Mr Gale?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bill Modell.’ He said it Moh-dell, the way he would before he told people over the phone how to spell it. ‘I’m with Customer Service. I’ve been asked to pitch in and help out with this, and they’d like me to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind.’

  He smiled at the end of each sentence. This annoyed Frank, but he didn’t want to say anything, although he thought that the event had given him sanction to say anything to anyone today.

  How can I use it? he wondered. So much money. A rich widower in Los Angeles.

  ‘How can I help you?’ asked Frank.

  Modell sighed. Frank thought that this was a man with genuine emotions. ‘It’s important, as we put this all together, to know as much as we can about every aspect of the crash.’

  ‘What do you want to ask me?’ Frank was losing patience, he had hoped that Modell would have presented a way to manage grief, but he was floundering.

  ‘Do you know what your wife and daughter were wearing?’

  ‘I came from work, from lunch, a business lunch, sort of, a friend, an old friend, but it was business.’ There was no reason to say this, but he felt a compulsion to explain why he missed the flight, why he was something of a ghost. ‘I don’t know if Anna changed for the flight. She was probably wearing something black, probably expensive exercise clothing, you know, sweatpants and a sweatshirt – she liked to be comfortable when she travelled. Maybe she wore a skirt, I don’t know, I doubt it. This was a vacation. And Madeleine, I don’t know. I’m sure Anna changed her outfit. She was wearing these green overalls in the morning, but I doubt she had them on for the flight. I can go home and look in her closet for what’s missing, but I don’t know her clothing that well. I’m sorry I can’t be of any help.’

  ‘The reason we ask is that clothing, even pieces of it, can be tested for traces of chemicals, explosives, if it was a bomb, and by tracing back to a particular seat, we can figure out what kind of device was used, how big it was.’

  ‘Was it a bomb?’

  ‘We don’t know. These questions have to be asked, Mr Gale.’

  ‘How many people were on the plane?’

  ‘A crew of ten, and a hundred and thirty-nine passengers.’

  ‘How many children?’

  ‘Six or seven. There may have been an unregistered infant.’

  ‘And on the ground? How many were killed in San Diego? Sixty?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’ He paused. For a moment he stared at the floor, and then his shoulders relaxed. He looked back at Frank. ‘Mr Gale, I want you to know how sorry I am about this.’ There was a tone of personal responsibility in his voice, he emphasized the first I, as though others might not want Frank to know about their sorrow, as though by expressing himself, he was already violating the company’s orders. If Modell had bitter children, and they saw him now, trying to be honest, would they regret their contempt for him? He asked if Frank wanted to stay at a hotel.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘The Sheraton. Two minutes by car. We think it might be a good idea – it gives all of you a chance to help each other through the first hard days.’ And keep us from the press, thought Frank, but he liked the idea of a hotel room. He could tell the desk not to let through any phone calls. He could watch a movie on television. He could order room service. Lowell would be here soon, and they could stay up late and talk and get drunk. If Modell was around the hotel Frank supposed that he could be invited in for a drink, but he thought that Modell would be interesting only in the loose way that all people are sort of interesting if you ask the right questions and find out about their obsessions, even if all that keeps their minds going are a few old insults and family squabbles elevated to the central facts of their lives. But if he started to talk to Modell about music or movies, he knew that the fat man would disappoint him, and with his stupid opinions try to hog the conversation at the same time. So he wouldn’t talk to him once this little interview was over.

  Modell asked him what kind of luggage Anna had taken, and what she had packed. Frank described it as best he could. He thought that these interviews were a clever device; he was talking about the crash in a way that was strictly controlled, and even if this was just the expression of a sinister corporate protocol for disaster management, something developed by psychologists as a good way to get the person with the potential lawsuit to think of the airline as a friend, there was comfort in the process.

  No one had yet introduced any of the survivors to each other, and there were now about fifty in the room. Frank thought that he was the only one who was alone, since everyone else had brought someone for support.

  Ed Dockery got up and called for everyone to listen to him. For those who wanted to go, it was time to move to the Sheraton. They were to board a bus and would be settled in at the hotel in twenty minutes. Frank stopped Dockery after the announcement and told him that his brother was coming, and Dockery told Frank not to worry, they’d tell him where to go.

  3

  Buffet

  Lowell called from the lobby, and Frank gave him the room number. He had a few minutes to think about things while his brother found the elevator. He worried about his brother, how his brother would try to take over the situation and tell him how to suffer and tell others how to treat him, how to give them both respect.

  There was a knock. Frank opened the door, and Lowell was there. The expected hug. Frank patted Lowell’s shoulder, as though Lowell needed the comfort more than he did.

  In the family’s mythology Frank had one respected attribute, his role as peace-maker. Lowell, for all of his brilliance in business, brought his attack to the dinner table, and what had been, in childhood, to his mother, a lawyer-like precocity was now sometimes exhausting. The only times their mother was ever really impatient with Lowell was at dinner, when Frank was the least indignant. But Frank knew, and he told himself, too often, as a kind of punishment, that to face the truth, any truth, he had first to admit to himself that Lowell really was his superior, emotionally, morally, intellectually. Let their parents pretend they were equal, because they owned equal shares in the business, but Lowell had the better ideas. Did their parents always know that Lowell was better? Or did they believe that the business started as a true partnership? He imagined better parents had the courage to see the differences between their sons, and then act on this knowledge, help them, help the one who needed help. And is this why I was so reluctant to have two children? Fear of the pain of their competition? Fear of having to distinguish between them?

  And did their parents ever admit to themselves what they so obviously thought of the partnership? Or did they pretend that it was a kind of unspecific soup of ideas, no separate areas of expertise?


  What did they tell their friends? Lowell is the businessman, but Frank is the one closer to the artists. And did the friends think, how odd, since Lowell is the homosexual, and by rights should be closer to the artists than dull Frank? Or did their parents avoid the topic?

  It was Lowell who found the locations for the stores, and moved near them as they opened. He kept a condominium in Santa Monica and came to the city for a few days every two or three weeks.

  Frank worked with the record companies and distributors, keeping up to date on the schedule of new releases, because he was supposed to be the more musical of the two, but that was a convenient lie the brothers told themselves, an accommodation to this: if Lowell died, the business died; if Frank died, the business continued. The business was not about music, but about making a profit selling records.

  ‘My God, Frank. My God.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank. He felt a wave of shame for having called his brother to his side. If his brother had a family, and the family had been killed, and his brother called for his help, Frank thought that he would have been annoyed at the interruption of his daydreams.

  ‘Fuck God, Frank,’ said Lowell.

  Frank wanted to leave God out of this. Frank felt that it was important to protect God right now and not blame Him for the crash. He might need God soon and didn’t want to give Him an excuse to bargain with his prayers.

  ‘This is a terrible question,’ said Lowell, ‘but I don’t know how else to ask this. How do you feel?’

  ‘I guess I’m in shock. It’s hard to feel anything.’

  ‘Of course, of course. It’s Nature’s way, I guess. It protects you.’

  ‘I’d like to feel more.’

  ‘Have you cried?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘If you want to cry, go ahead.’

  ‘Thanks, Lowell. But if I don’t cry, don’t think I’m not unhappy.’

  ‘Have you called Mom and Dad?’

  ‘Not yet. I was hoping that you would make the call.’