Death Kit

by Susan Sontag

  Often, dress identified the period in which the dead person had lived. The woman in a coffin at the top of an unstable heap on the left, for instance, clad in a long, high-necked dress of the 1890’s, with padded bosom. The man in the powdered wig and Colonial shirt and breeches. But it was one particular coffin that gave Diddy what he considered virtually conclusive evidence for the considerable age of most of the bodies. This was a coffin in much better state than most, of highly polished oak, barely scratched, whose firmly secured lid had an almost full-length window. Diddy looking. The body of a little girl wearing a pink frock, white socks, and pink ankle-strap shoes of patent leather; according to the plaque on one side of the coffin, Martha Elizabeth Templeton, 1922–1933. But the child doesn’t show any signs of decay that Diddy can detect through the glass. She looks alive. Just sleeping. Perhaps a little jaundiced, that’s all. (Now) add to this striking sight the fact that, among the other coffins bearing names and dates, Diddy found, in an admittedly rapid, cursory search, no date as recent as 1933. And no body in as fresh and wholesome-looking a condition. So concludes that the others must go back in time, much further back.

  Martha Elizabeth Templeton’s coffin was sealed. But the temptation to touch was irresistible. Where touch was possible. Diddy reached out gingerly to several of the open coffins and stroked the withered, dusty faces. Most of the coffins containing, of course, only a single body. Sometimes accompanied by an object. Beloved or merely necessary, totem or tool. Beside one man in a full dress suit, a bassoon. A pair of crutches lay alongside a man in a brown tweed overcoat and cream-colored scarf; a man not visibly crippled; but perhaps the deformity would be visible if one rolled up his trouser legs, which Diddy started to do, but then stopped. He had glimpsed a piece of the white shinbone. What’s rather touching, though, is the neat-looking old woman with gray hair who is still wearing her large pink plastic hearing aid.

  In just a few of the coffins, Diddy found two people together. Because, having loved each other so much, they couldn’t bear to rot separately; had rejected the idea of decaying anywhere except in each other’s arms. Or because their families saw how much money they could save if they bought a single coffin? Peering through the pane of glass set in the top of one coffin, Diddy sees a withered youthful couple, the man on his left side and the woman on her right, embracing. Stretched out on her back in one of the lidless coffins, a woman in a long white lace dress has clamped an infant—also wearing a white dress, a tiny replica of hers—to her breast. Diddy reached down and stroked the baby’s cheek. Its skin looks fairly fresh to the eye. But feels soft like newspaper, not skin, to the fingers; as dried out as that of the oldest person he’s touched here.

  On the far side of some coffins which had tumbled into the long aisle and which he has to shove aside with his bare feet, then grapple and haul with his hands, Diddy has sighted an impressive doorway. He paused for a moment, indecisively. Wipes the sweat off his face with his forearm. Another moment of reflection. Chews at his lips with his teeth.

  The answer to the unvoiced question is no. Not yet. Necessary for Diddy the Disciplined to proceed systematically, or he’ll get lost. There’s a system of priorities here, as anywhere else, that Diddy might be wise to observe. One thing at a time. (Now) the time to restrain mere curiosity. Diddy isn’t ready for something new, since he has yet to explore with thoroughness the area in this room on both sides of the long aisle. That’s why he turns back into the aisle, continuing for a distance of some fifty feet.

  Diddy has ventured again into the intricate crowded space. Finding miniature pathways for his naked body between the heaped-up coffins when possible; more agile climbing over the coffins when necessary. Diddy’s score: only one near fall, plus a scrape on his right knee. And, as he expected, his efforts have yielded results. Diddy does uncover an exit in each of the walls parallel to the aisle. So, besides the room straight ahead, there’s another room branching off to the left, still another to the right. Diddy has much to see.

  These rooms, also crammed with coffins, are far smaller than the main crypt; with flat ceilings about ten feet high. And warmer, Diddy sweating. Making him feel even dustier and dirtier. Wipes away moisture from his palms, forehead, upper lip, the back of his neck. Anything to be done for him? One could hardly hope to find a thermostat in rooms as unsentimental, bare, and purely functional as these; Diddy is already fortunate to have this much good light, furnished by the naked bulbs jutting out of iron wall fixtures in all the rooms. Still wishes it weren’t so warm. Perhaps the temperature of the place has to be kept high; part of the method by which the dead bodies are preserved. For them it may be just the right temperature. But not, altogether, for Diddy: lone subject in a world of objects. Think, though, that he could be worse off than he is. What a lucky whim that was long ago, when he decided to discard all his clothes.

  Nakedness may mitigate heat, but it doesn’t redeem the squalor of these rooms. Which continues to dishearten Diddy. None of the rooms are infested with either vermin or rats—as far as he’s noticed, anyway. Still, everything is appallingly dirty. Not grime and soot. Nor blood, excrement, grease, semen. Not the dirt of animal secretions and excretions. Not industrial wastes, either. The dirt of time. Immortal dirt. Thick, thick dust.

  Which Diddy is getting used to (now). Being naked may not render his surroundings less squalid, but at least it minimizes some of the penalties for being here rather than somewhere else. Diddy may dislike the contact of his own flesh with what’s dirty or soiled or rotten or slimy. But doesn’t, in addition, have to endure the indignity of getting his clothes dirty as well.

  Becoming more accustomed to this new space and its stringent topography. Learning how to manage obstacles. The common case of new skills arriving just when they’re needed, no sooner. Diddy the Vulnerable stands in acute need of being transformed into Diddy the Intrepid. Precisely at this moment. For Diddy had never suspected the tunnel to be this vast, so complex. And (now) he’s eager to explore all of it.

  Trying, in turn, each of the new rooms.

  Finds, in every one of these smaller rooms, more coffins. Lying about in a foul disarray—that resembles, on a smaller scale, that of the large vaulted chamber. And the coffins themselves as poorly cared for. Individual caskets are coming apart; and some of them, perhaps once neatly stacked, have toppled over, broken open, and spilled out an arm or leg. Watch out! Don’t trip over one of those. Several skulls that have gotten separated from their families, the bones below. Skulls like shells.

  These rooms give on to still more rooms. Diddy the Naked passes through them very rapidly (now), his brisk walk sometimes breaking into a loose-limbed run. No need to gaze at everything closely, when everything looks more or less alike. Diddy the Surveyor just checking, to see if the general idea remains the same. But to do this, he must at least glance in every room. Usually possible. But not always. Diddy exasperated when, as happens several times, disorder mounts and clutter becomes so dense that there’s not space enough to enable even a single person to pass through. To keep moving. One solution would be for Diddy to set to work and clear a narrow passageway for himself. But he doesn’t. Not that he lacks the physical strength. It’s a question of prudence and the best use of his time. At the entrance to one room, a rickety wall of coffins rises almost to the ceiling; ignorant of what lay on the far side of the doorway, Diddy thought it hardly prudent to undertake the strenuous labor of dismantling the improvised wall and hauling the coffins away, one by one. Similar decisions made on two other occasions when, exploring a new corridor, his route was halted by what looks like the aftermath of an avalanche of coffins.

  Then what happens when the massive wooden casket boxes are piled so thickly as to obstruct Diddy’s passage, preventing him altogether from getting by? Only one alternative. Diddy is reluctantly forced, several times, to retrace his steps. To regain the big chamber. Then to move forward again in a straight line. Keeping to the central sequence.

  Diddy is reconnoitering
the future. Diddy is exploring his death. Cautiously, thoughtfully, diligently. He wills to know, he will know all the rooms in this place; even if it’s the house of death.

  Thought a moment ago he hears the throbbing of a fast train charging along the tracks. Coming closer (now). If that’s what the sound is, he’s safe. Diddy could hardly be in a safer place. No train can follow him here; no tracks have been laid on these stone floors, or possibly would be. Then let it come on as fast as it likes. Aren’t there speeds so great they obtain immobility?

  (Now) Diddy has entered another large chamber, fully as wide as the first and even longer. Only the ceiling isn’t as high; and not vaulted. Still, it’s more than twice the height of the ceilings in the small rooms. As before, the room is harshly lit by a plentiful number of naked bulbs. But for all the light, it’s definitely cooler; for which Diddy, gleaming with sweat, was grateful.

  Diddy in what could be called the second grand crypt. A room whose contents or furniture differ from those in the room he’s already explored—the first large chamber and its dependencies. Here, not even a halfhearted sloppy attempt is made to enclose the dead in coffins. The dead (now) are simply in an upright posture, side by side. In three rows, using up all the space on all four walls from floor to ceiling. Each body is secured in place by two long heavy ropes: one wound once around the chest, passing out on either side under the armpits; and the other wound once tightly around each pair of knees. Both upper and lower ropes run from body to body; continuing unbroken, not even knotted once, the entire length of each wall.

  If these three rows of bodies had been all, the second chamber would have had a remarkably uncluttered, spacious look. But, as before, the genius of disorder and overpopulation that governed this place had been at work here, too. Though every foot of the long walls was taken up with bodies, there were apparently more candidates for these spaces than could possibly have been accommodated. These surplus bodies lie, three and four high, at the base of the gray stone walls. And while the bodies suspended on the walls are arranged quite neatly—initially, at least, a good deal of care must have gone into their installation—those stacked on the floor lie in all sorts of awkward positions. About the only idea of order that appears to have been acknowledged at all is one concerning direction. Keep their heads to the wall, their feet pointing toward the center of the room. Needless to say, that rule had been violated or ignored a good many times.

  In short: Diddy notices here the same lack of careful maintenance as in the rooms with the broken and heaped-up coffins. And, with better care, who knows how much more intact and lifelike these nonetheless remarkably preserved bodies might have been? A wider range on that matter, here. Some of these bodies seem better preserved than any he saw in the rooms with the coffins. Some are in far worse condition. So far as Diddy can determine—given that, as before, all the bodies are clothed—fewer here have an envelope of skin that is relatively intact. But the skin itself seems tougher, more durable. A very dark leathery skin, rather than the frailer parchment on the bodies laid out in the coffins. All too frequently, though, the leathery skin is falling away, and the bones sticking through. And some figures on the walls are virtually without any of this metamorphosed flesh. But even those that are merely skeletons are never bare skeletons. Always at least some patch of leathery skin adhering to the bones. As was the case with the coffined bodies, most of the faces here are very distorted. Because the shrinkage of the flesh has twisted the leather mask into grotesque expressions. Or—this additional reason, a penalty, no doubt, of upright posture—because the jawbone has fallen off. Producing the effect of a grotesque scream. But almost all the toothless skulls with their empty eye sockets retain some of their hair, if nothing else. A full head of perfectly preserved hair, like a wig, may lie above a face whose flesh has entirely dropped away. Some with only shreds of flesh sport thick chunks of scalp hair. Diddy noticed one skull with no flesh at all, except what could be presumed to lie under its flourishing beard and mustache.

  Again, it’s by the clothing that Diddy could always tell the sex of the body, usually the period in which the person lived, and often his or her occupation. The condition and color of the hair also give some evidence, though hardly conclusive, of the person’s age at the time of death. Some of the guesses Diddy makes may be farfetched, but they are better than nothing. For, in this new chamber or zone of the space he’s exploring, none of the bodies is labeled with name and dates of birth and death. Perhaps there is a book, somewhere. A huge, moldy, fascinating catalogue in which everyone is identified.

  As if he were wandering through a warehouse, Diddy began taking stock. What are the contents, in more detail? This large chamber seemed to contain a random collection of bodies. Of both sexes, all ages, who lived in widely different periods. The earliest specimen Diddy could find belonged to the seventeenth century: a Pilgrim with a broad-brimmed hat, round stiff collar, breeches, and buckled shoes. But nearby, many modern types. A banker in a top hat and striped pants and cutaway coat. A boy in his Cub Scout uniform. A registered nurse. A policeman, one of New York’s Finest. For this room, bodies seem to have been supplied right up to the present day. Many figures on the walls who postdate the unhappily brief span of Martha Elizabeth Templeton, d. 1933. For instance, a GI in the battle dress of the 1960’s with a Silver Star pinned to his left breast pocket. But not one body, however recent, was as fresh, as nearly well preserved as that of Martha Elizabeth Templeton. Maybe she was just an exception to all the rules.

  Passing on to some of the succeeding, small rooms, Diddy has to admit that a good deal of care has been taken here. At least, at the time the bodies were installed. For most of these small rooms were specialized. Bodies had had to be sorted out, and then the sub-groupings of bodies assembled.

  A whole room, for instance, given over to young children. Just as many rows, three, of bodies less than five feet tall could be mounted on all the walls; even though the ceiling here is considerably lower than that of the large chamber. This room is the first on his tour to make Diddy feel sad. At least if the children had been put in coffins, they could lie hugging a favorite doll or some other toy. But hanging here, they look so abandoned and unloved. Each completely unrelated to all the others, as if they’d been captured and strung up while still alive; dying, not of starvation or physical mistreatment, but of loneliness. Look at that little girl in the second row near the corner, the one wearing her white communion dress. The splendor of children is never, really, more than pathos.

  In another room, only firemen. Decked out in their uniforms, with rubber boots to the tops of their thighs. Many with the huge, red, oval-brimmed hat that’s their trademark. Cocked on their skull; not so much rakishly as awkwardly, since the head, with or without meat and hair on it, tends to slump forward. (Now) the mood is quite different. Adult splendors are either satisfying or comic. Diddy feels these men are quite pleased with themselves. And that they know why they’re here.

  In another room, nothing but priests. Diddy looks about the walls for “his” priest, the plump smooth-voiced man with the breviary. But how can he tell any more? Any one of these grinning black-suited bodies might be that man. No point in not looking, though. Diddy came closer. Until he realized that these priests, especially those in purple and white ceremonial robes, have a bulk that cannot be genuine. Faking? Alas, yes. Even here. As Diddy discovers, most of the bodies—or rather, skeletons—have been stuffed with straw to give shape to their imposing clothes. Sometimes, when the trick fails, the effect is almost funny. As it must fail, of course, when the body has no skin left. For instance, with that very rotund priest wearing the black vestment for a Solemn High Requiem Mass. With bits of straw peeping out of his wide sleeve, above the few skinny bones which are all that remain of his wrist and hand.

  And an entire room of figures wearing Civil War uniforms, both blue and gray. This room, on closer inspection, seems to be even more specialized than that description would indicate. Reserved not simply f
or men who had fought in the Civil War but, judging from their white hair and generally small stature, for aged veterans only. Many, perhaps, who hadn’t died until quite recently. At a hundred years or more. A funerary parade for the Republic.

  In another room, men and boys in the uniforms of various sports. After the experience of the roomful of stuffed priests, Diddy more suspicious (now). Could one be buried or interred—or whatever this is—in a uniform to which one has, properly, no title? After all, not everyone can be glamorous. But so many people want to be, or at least think they do. Is he genuine, that football player by the doorway whose massive shoulder pads come up, on either side, almost to the top of his bare, small skull? Even when fleshed and alive and running, must have had a small head. Over there, a catcher for the San Francisco Giants—if one can trust the evidence of the uniform and the mask whose metal bars cover the dead man’s lean, contorted, well-preserved face. Diddy in a mood to be pigheaded, to take nothing on faith. But why should the dead pretend to be other than they are? And even if such was their dying wish, why should the survivors indulge it? Are there many among the living who would go to the trouble of masquerading these bodies to satisfy a vulgar vain fantasy that expired with the deceased’s last heartbeat? Diddy scraps his policy of suspiciousness. Resolving to meet the evidence halfway or more; to give the corpses the benefit of the doubt. For instance, it’s hardly likely that any of the figures dressed as basketball players are phonies, impersonators. Because of their height. The tallest of those assembled here being a seven foot seven skeleton in the uniform of the Cincinnati Royals, an impressive figure with his knee guards still clinging to his bare patellae.

  In another room, figures in denim overalls and workshirts or similar tough, shapeless clothing. No pretensions here. Farmers and farmhands, Diddy supposed. Many types of blue-collar workers are probably represented, too: riveters and welders from automobile factories, sewing machine operators, ditchdiggers, telephone-line repairmen, janitors, bricklayers, longshoremen, garage mechanics, and so forth. Is this where Incardona would be assigned a place? Here? Strung on one of the walls of this very low-ceilinged airless room? As if he were in fact the admissions officer charged with making the decision, Diddy hesitates. Diddy behaving as if he has found some fault in the way Incardona’s application has been filled out, as if he seeks some bureaucratic technicality that would bar the workman. Why? Because he thinks that Incardona deserves better accommodations than these, or because he wants to bar Incardona from the kingdom he has already come to regard as his own? Diddy is being tiresome. Whether it’s the first, a misplaced solicitude, or the second, a burst of spite, he should stop. Stop stalling. Why not Incardona? Why not here, for God’s sake? Or anywhere else. Surely Diddy can’t take very seriously this ad hoc, amateurish system of filing the bodies? And if what moves him is not a habit of inane deliberateness when confronted with any organized system, then Diddy is being not only vindictive but snobbish. Where does he think he is? It’s hardly an exclusive club. A candidate doesn’t need to have a good character, or meet any other standards that might be applied to his life. The only prerequisite is being dead. Diddy the Reluctant Democrat. Well then, let’s bury him. Diddy takes a step backwards, glancing over his shoulder at the doorway through which he has just come. But Diddy doesn’t want to retrace his steps; would rather do almost anything than go back out into the tunnel. Someone else is there besides Incardona. But a stranger might go in Diddy’s place. Voluntarily perform the arduous errand. As a favor. Or an act of charity.