by James Siegel
There were piles of clothes nearly everywhere. Somber gray suits huddled in the corner. A menagerie of dresses so bright they hurt the eye. A veritable tower of underwear. Ties entangled one around the other like a nest of snakes. Socks, shirts, hats, and sweaters. Some piled neat as a linen closet, some haphazard as a rag bin. They were good clothes too: Sunday best suits were in there, the kind a person might wear on moving day to make a good impression on the new neighbors. And they were made for warm places, for summer, or places like summer. William remembered Collins Drive-the old people clip- clopping down the street in mules and Panama hats, the heat sending ripples across the pavement.
He was lying in a slaughterhouse, a graveyard; he was about to be interred there.
And now what?
Dr. Fern was pulling off his shoes, first the left one, then the right one. Of course. They were destined for a pile-the shoe pile, and that's where Fern promptly brought them, throwing them smack upon a pair of purple Hush Puppies. Then his socks, left, then right, Fern in a rhythm of sorts, William feeling a damp chill envelop each naked sole in turn. Really feeling it.
The muscle relaxant was wearing off.
But too slowly.
He was being prepared, being made ready for death. He spotted a white porcelain tub out of the corner of his eye, and that's where he tried to keep it, in the corner, where he couldn't really see it, and think about it, and mull its specific uses. It was a deep tub, squat and deep, so that a person couldn't really bathe in it, but everything that made a person could fit in it. It was that kind of porcelain tub. By its side was a table laden with gleaming metal instruments and he could smell alcohol wafting over from its general direction.
Fern was undoing the buttons of his pajama top now. They said no one really wore pajamas now. They wore sweatpants, or T-shirts, or just underwear. But even if old men die easy-old habits die hard. William was about to make a donation to the pajama pile.
One button, two buttons, three buttons, four.
Five buttons, six buttons, seven buttons, more.
Dr. Fern pulled off his top. The air made him shiver. Even with the huge burner going full blast in the corner of the basement, the one Dr. Fern had just upped the thermostat on so that it now glowed white hot. Even with that he'd shivered. Visibly shivered.
The muscle relaxant was wearing off.
It was.
His pajama bottoms came off with a sharp tug.
Then he was naked.
Dr. Fern, Dr. Petoit, stood and stared at him-as if admiring his work, or maybe just sizing up the task ahead.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. William tried to remember, to remember back.
Though I walk through the valley of death…
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… the words coming slowly to him, the way they do on instructional cassettes-one at a time, so there can be no mistaking them.
I shall fear no evil…
I shall not fear…
I shall not…
Dr. Fern took him by the legs and began to drag him toward the tub, the deep white porcelain tub, the one that he'd kept at the corner of his eye for as long as he could, but no longer.
He was dragged past suede and lace and cotton and burlap, past Mrs. Winters's favorite blouse and Mr. Shankin's lucky hat, and Mrs. Joseph's new shoes and Mr. Waldron's loud tie. Past a thousand reminders of people no one remembered. Past William's striped pajamas and threadbare socks-William, who'd no one much remember either.
Dr. Fern lifted him up, grunting, sweat glistening in little beads on his forehead-up and then into the porcelain tub. Not exactly into, but across, so that his legs flopped over the sides.
For thou art with me…
Dr. Fern was pulling on brown latex gloves, the kind dishwashers use, dishwashers and morgue attendants.
He picked a small saw off the instrument table, then wiped the sweat off his forehead with his left sleeve.
Oh God… Oh…
William understood now. Completely understood. There was to be no injection for him. There was, after all, no need for it, no reason to try and fool him, to tell him tales of vaccinations and South American immigration laws. Fern was about to dispose of the body before disposing of him.
And now he was dressing for it, with the solemnity all good surgeons must have before the big operation. He pulled a smock off the back door of a closet-a smock that even bleach had failed to keep white. It seemed more blood than cloth now, as if the red itself had faded and not the other way around. It was a butcher's smock; it had a butcher's smell.
The furnace was starting to pop and crackle, like the sound of snapping twigs in a dark and lonely forest. The beast was coming for him, the bogeyman and the troll. No one could save him.
And now Fern-Petoit was hovering over him like the very Angel of Death.
I shall fear no evil… no evil… I shall not… I shall not…
Fern placed the handsaw just above his left knee. He gave one small glance toward William, then turned and dug in.
At first, it was as if he was looking at someone else's leg, not his, but someone else's, pale white and threaded with veins, hanging limply over the side of the tub. A leg that twitched with each motion of the saw, a leg that bled, slowly at first, then in hard, powerful spurts that splashed up against Fern's smock and collar. What a curious-looking thing-a leg being sawed in half, right in half before his eyes.
Then he remembered.
The muscle relaxant was wearing off.
Remembered it because his nerve endings began prodding him about it, kicking up a fuss even though he was trying his best not to listen to them. But they would have none of it.
So suddenly it was his leg again, not someone else's, but all his. It felt like an itch, okay a bad itch-at first that's what it felt like, an itch he couldn't scratch. But then it became worse than an itch, more like a burn, as if Petoit had lit a match against his leg and was holding it there, as William waited only for a breeze to come and blow it out. But there was no breeze. It was the valley of death and it was dead calm.
Oh God… oh my God… it hurts… oh how it hurts… stop it… oh please stop it…
His leg was half sawed through. Half sawed in half. Half and half.
I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death… the valley…
Petoit paused to catch his breath; it was hard work sawing through bone, especially at his age, why if he didn't watch out he could hurt himself…
The burn was like a fire now, like a bonfire, like a raging forest fire. There was blood everywhere, it was raining blood. Hot blood too. Hot and salty blood. Like tears.
I shall fear no evil… I shall…
Petoit bent down again.
Put out the fire!
He screamed. And screamed. And screamed again. Petoit wouldn't stop.
Why won't he stop? Why please won't he stop? I'm asking him to stop. He won't stop. He keeps doing it. He keeps sawing. Sawing my leg off. My father can beat you up… he can… he can… my father can beat you…
Thou art with me… stay with me… with me…
He was going, he had his bags packed and he was going, he was going home, to Rachel. I'm home, Rachel, I'm home. He was going down, he was sinking, he was choking in blood. He was dying.
Then his bone snapped. Snapped with a loud crack. Snapped right in two.
And there was Petoit looking at him, looking at him with his black eyes dreamy almost, sort of dreamy and falling shut. Going to sleep, going to sleep right on top of him there in the tub. Petoit going to sleep.
And so was he, to sleep, soft sleep, with his leg still half there-even the bone-for he could see it now, though surely he had heard it crack in two, half his leg still there and hanging, and all that blood, and the raging furnace, but he was going to sleep, here, right here in the valley of death.
And as he went, he saw the Sandman, saw the Sandman on the stairs and smiled at him. Yes. He understood now. That's how it i
s in God's valley. Sooner or later, you find every mutt in the world there. Every one of them.
Even Weeks.
EPILOGUE
It wasn't until the early spring that he received permission to walk-or at least to attempt to walk. The attempt lasted all of two minutes. Two minutes he spent negotiating his way toward a pillowed chair held out by Mr. Brickman on the far side of the room, while Mr. Leonati shouted invectives at his back-the carrot and the stick. No matter. The carrot was too far away, the stick too soft; he collapsed somewhere between the two. Don't worry, the doctors said. It will take time. Don't worry, he told Mr. Brickman and Leonati-it won't. He tried again the next day, but with just about the same results. This time, Mr. Brickman caught him just before he hit the floor. "At least you're improving," he said to Mr. Brickman, who didn't laugh, but instead demanded to know why he was rushing things.
"I just want to walk," William said. And that's all he said.
The doctors had really done a splendid job-in fact, it made all the newspapers (along with the rest of it, of course)-a triumph of microsurgery, in that tendon, muscle, gristle, and bone-half of the bone anyway-had been completely torn apart. It was, in the words of one of the surgeons, a god-awful mess. The kind of thing they sometimes saw in plane crashes or accidents involving farm machinery. But they'd stitched it and fused it and plastered it and set it, and finally-or so they'd assured him-fixed it.
Only it wasn't working yet. It felt artificial, not quite part of him, as if someone else's leg had been glued on. It felt neither strong or flexible-just stiff and useless.
He kept trying.
In between, he had a limited but steady stream of visitors.
Mrs. Simpson came every other day. She doted on him, in a sweetly maternal sort of way. Mr. Simpson, her nearly invalid husband, had passed away on Christmas day; she had no one else now. So she came and knitted scarves for him, baked him cookies every Sunday, and kept him up on all the local gossip.
The neighborhood, for example, had yet to calm down. Dr. Fern-a mass murderer! Kindly Dr. Fern. It was enough to cause several more deaths just from shock. After all, he'd been her very own Mr. Simpson's doctor. And next-door neighbor. People from who knows where still came to stare at the house, which, by the way, made it no easier for Fern's old handyman, who'd inherited the property through default maybe and found the crowds both threatening and inescapable. She'd gone over a few times to try and comfort him but the old man would have none of it. He was selling the house as soon as he found a buyer-then he'd be off. Mrs. Simpson couldn't blame him.
No, William said, between bites of a freshly baked oatmeal cookie. I think I'm ready for another try.
And Mrs. Simpson would call for Mr. Brickman and Mr. Leonati-and they'd do it all again. The carrot and the stick-and Mrs. Simpson the audience, adding to Mr. Brickman's plaintive protestations. Why must you rush it? Why?
I just want to walk, he said.
Mr. Weeks, of course, showed up too. Mr. Weeks, who'd been called by Mr. Brickman the minute after William left in the backseat of Fern's car-after all, it had looked pretty bad, and William had told Brickman to call Weeks if anything should happen to him. So Weeks, the recluse, had finally left home-but not without his army gun placed firmly in his pocket. Weeks, the Sandman on the steps, who'd interrupted Fern in mid-saw, and shot him squarely through the back.
Now that he was sort of a hero, and now that he'd ventured outside at least once and found it less threatening than he'd imagined, he came regularly-a small, withered man, as unlikely-looking a hero as Astoria had ever seen.
Sometimes the three of them sat around the bed talking-four, if you included Mrs. Simpson-talking about what older people generally talked about-doctors-the non-murdering kind, Social Security payments, grand- children-and if William closed his eyes he found it easy to imagine that it hadn't happened, none of it, that they were simply four retiring people at a retiring age-and not witnesses, participants to a tragedy-a notion both soothing and sad.
And William thought about things while he was waiting to walk, all sorts of things, about Jean and Santini and that night at the Par Central Motel and he could see it for what it was now, which was two people who'd made a human mistake, and one human, William, who'd made an even greater one. Because when he'd gone back and looked for Jean, he'd found himself too of course, and he'd found Rachel. And if he shut his eyes he could almost imagine a woman about his own age sitting somewhere on a porch near Sacramento. And when he walked up to her and said hello they hugged each other like old friends, like more than old friends, and they talked about an ice storm long ago when they'd held on to each other for dear life. Imagine that.
Eventually, painstakingly, though with enough setbacks to try the patience of Job, if not Leonati, his leg improved.
He was able to make it across the room, haltingly, minc- ingly, but with enough balance and leg strength to get it done. He practiced at night-several times waking Mr. Brickman, who appeared at the door with his eyes half closed like a bad-tempered sleepwalker.
On a lovely spring Sunday on which Mrs. Simpson was faithfully due to arrive no later than two, William made his way down the steps and into the outside air.
The asphalt sparkled like sandpaper. The air was pregnant with summer-sweet, damp, and milky warm. William took his time, savoring it like a famished gourmet, walking so slowly that he hardly seemed to move at all. But he did-down the three blocks or so to Northern Boulevard, then half a block down to the bus stop.
The bus, when it finally arrived, seemed new as well, like the asphalt and air, freshly cleansed as it was of all its Fuck your Mama graffiti. Even the bus driver was different, his old black friend giving way to a fat surly Irishman who cursed under his breath as William made his way down the aisle like Speedy Gonzalez on methadone.
But when he got off-he was hit flush with good old deja vu. Everything was pretty much as he'd left it; the world had rotated clear around but come back. The Japanese, Korean, and Indian stores were still there, sort of- but the Chinese were still winning the war. He smelled the same too-pungent aromas, he drew the same non- stares. And when he reached the lot-that was the same too, the weeds and brambles already reaching toward summer with outstretched arms.
The Fern house, however, seemed to be in transition. No doubt about it. There were cartons spread out all over the lawn, along with several tightly wrapped bundles and a bunch of other odd bric-a-brac: wheelbarrows, globes, half a bicycle, and an old sewing machine. And when he entered the front door, the scene was pretty much the same. Everything was packed up, battened down, or discarded; it was moving day.
Fern's handyman appeared a second later, silverware in one hand, a small traveling case in the other. He seemed to be wondering whether to say hello or demand an explanation. No matter.
It was the traveling case that hit the floor first, just a soft thud, quite different from the forks and spoons that crashed and clattered and flew about the floor like panicked silverfish. Last of all was the body, which landed sitting up and only keeled over with the second shot.
Then William put Mr. Weeks's gun back into his pocket, and left.
POSTSCRIPT
It hadn't come to him all at once, not like a clap of thunder or a burst of lightning-it never does come that way. It had dawned-in the most literal sense of the word; an eerie finger of light here, another there, a methodical pulling back of shadow like a magician teasingly lifting a veil. Then there it was-the light.
It came in dreams-dreams of Jean and Mauthausen, of piles of clothing and ribbons of blood, of a cluttered office in midtown where Jean had pulled out a picture and whispered three names. Michelle, Marie, Alain. Them.
And it came in the slowest part of the afternoon, when with nothing to do but heal, he'd sifted through the phone book just one more time and come across those three names-there in the phone book, as if they were merely a quarter away. Three names without a number-Alain, Marie, Michelle-on the D page, where the homily r
ead Don't judge a book by its cover. A common American phrase-the kind mothers spout to their children and teachers to their pupils-the kind that would have made Jean shake with mirth. Maybe. Or maybe every time he read it but once. The day he "bequeathed" it to Weeks. That day.
And it came at the very beginning of his miraculous recovery-his miraculous recovery coming right on the heels of his miraculous deed-for wasn't it truly miraculous how a seventy-year-old man or thereabouts, a man retired and used up, was able to track down a mass murderer, a mass murderer who'd eluded the best France had to offer, track him down and with a little help from his friends-finish him off. A mass murderer who was more than a little clever-a psychopath who from the age of nine had always made sure his guilt fell on others. Others like Jean, who'd gone to Mauthausen while he'd gone free. And the rest of the hired help, most of whom had hanged for their part in the murders. Most, but not all. For instance, the abortionist Lazlo, who'd shot himself with dope when he wasn't shooting Petoit's refugees with air bubbles. And, who like Petoit, had never been found. One or two who'd fallen through the cracks. Who'd escaped just as Petoit had, maybe some with Petoit.
And when else did it come-when did the dawn really start breaking and throw its cold light on the scheme of things? How about when he was telling the story-to reporters and to Brickman and to Leonati and to everyone who was interested, telling about the penlight and the muscle relaxant, and Fern's first words to him. My handyman saw you, he'd said. He doesn't miss very much. His handyman.
So now the shadows were truly lifting-like walking backward from an Impressionist painting, where angles turn hard and you get sense from nonsense. The sun was straining now, the glow spreading like yellow stain, and then there it was, the last piece, the piece that by itself would have meant nothing, but with the rest, meant everything. Daybreak.
Because he'd remembered everything Dr. Morten had told him-everything, about the dog, and the girl, and about a valley called Aisne too, where Petoit had blown up his leg on maneuvers. Blown it up badly enough to find himself stuck in a hospital, blown it up badly enough so that when he'd left the army with a discharge for psychosis, he'd also left it with a limp. Not a huge limp, but a limp nonetheless.