39
A SERIES OF INTERMENTS
Will kept the top of the Sealy Hospital in view, but no straight path there existed. Debris, as well as bloated carcasses of mules, cats, chickens, and a distressing number of snakes were everywhere. What made it worse was Albert’s bleary-eyed insistence that each deceased creature they encountered deserved a proper burial. Though he maintained a strict policy against what Albert suggested, Will could barely keep the younger boy moving because of this hyper-developed sense of civility.
“We’re not stopping,” Will said firmly.
However, when they found themselves in front of a body of a man impaled on a wrought iron gate, they both stopped. To pause here seemed required. The body had taken on a gray-yellow hue unimaginable until now and the poor man’s limbs were bent akimbo in a terribly unsettling way. His mouth and nostrils were dark purple. His scalp was ripped back halfway. All Will could do was shake his head at the notion that this had been a human being only a day or so ago. Albert, seemingly unaffected by the state of the body, acknowledged the remains couldn’t be removed without a tall ladder, a small scaffold, or by some other method which he, as a boy untutored in the science of engineering, could not yet conceive. Will responded that whatever sort of man this was before them, he deserved much better, but that trying to address the predicament of removing his corpse for burial now was out of the question. This would have to be left to others.
“If we can’t help him,” Albert said, “then, Will, we ought to at least bury something smaller and easier to get to.”
“Albert, I’ve got to get you to the hospital. I’ve been trying to save you going on a day and a half now. You need to cooperate.”
Albert looked around for alternatives, not hearing Will.
“No,” Will said, seeing where his eyes had alighted.
“Look at that poor dead dog.”
Albert went to it and, despite Will’s protests, picked up the pup’s body and found a dry stone to lay him on. He carried the stone and the mutt away from the road, cleared some of the debris in front of an abandoned, half-destroyed house, and picked up a short plank from a pile of rubble and lumber. With it, he began to dig a hole. Though it was a shallow grave, it took almost a half hour because of the rudimentary nature of the tool, Will’s decision to remain a spectator, and Albert’s own compromised condition.
After laying the stone and the body in the hole, Albert covered the canine remains with the plank, and the available sedge and moss nearby which would at least keep the vultures away. He then took a deep breath and looked around again. The dog burial, rather than satiating this pastoral urge in Albert, enflamed it. It fulfilled something sweet, terrible, and addictive in him, and he redoubled his insistence on burying everything that had once walked upon the ground, flew in the sky, or swam in the ocean. Will hewed to the position that even choosing a single category of these was lunacy.
“You’re not the undertaker of the animal kingdom,” Will said, making an appeal to Albert’s understanding. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
Will presented to Albert all the practicalities against these interments cogently, but it was Albert’s unshakeable view that maybe if he did this, the act might be reciprocated for Maggie wherever she was. This argument, though untenable, was also unassailable. Thus, for a time, Will gave a measure of berth to Albert’s inclination, telling himself that Albert had received a terrific blow to the head, was a good and decent person, and had been placed under impossible circumstances. Eventually though, to scuttle Albert’s new avocation, he resorted to physically pulling him along. Even so, every block or two, Albert would pull away with the intention of entombing a duck, a gull, or squirrel with extended liturgy and sacred rites. Will next tried hygienic arguments, but his clinical narratives too went unheeded as Albert escaped, bent upon burying a large cat in a shallow grave.
“Alright, Alright,” Albert finally relented, as he finished writing out “C-A-T” in the dirt over the hump which marked the feline’s last resting place. “Just one more. Then we can go on.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise, Will. One. You have to help me though.”
“Fine, but I won’t be party to burying any snakes or rats, Albert. We’ll catch the plague for sure.”
Albert quickly found another plank which more ideally resembled a shovel and moved across the street with it toward a large dead goat.
“And nothing that big,” Will shouted. “We’re not burying a dead goat. Pick something proper. We’ve got to go.”
Then, just beyond the goat, both of them saw a solemn young man with short dark hair beside a low stone wall. He stood in abundant stillness, one hand on his waist, the other holding a short stick. He tapped it on his thigh in a rhythm only he could feel.
The body of a petite young woman dressed in a ragged yellow dress that had once no doubt been the color of the sun, rested at his feet.
40
LILA
As Albert stepped over the goat, the young man bent down and rearranged the torn, pale yellow clothing on the woman’s body. She had a small gold ring on her finger. The man began to rock back and forth, slowly biting the nails of his fingers, as if something still hung in the balance. Albert looked down at the body, moving with a quiet caution toward the mourning man who was now focusing on his approach. He stood alone, along a desolate block on which the homes had been all but swept clean, only the low rock wall was left behind him. Two telegraph poles stood crooked against the blue sky farther behind the wall. The ground the man occupied was especially boggy. His shoes had sunk an inch or two into the mud.
Albert began to use his shovel to dig, but as fast as he did, the mud leeched right back. In a few minutes, he stopped to wipe his brow with his sleeve.
“Sorry, mister,” Albert said with a formidable gentleness. “I can’t even make a blamed hole.”
“The ground,” the man said. “The ground.”
Will had never heard such genuine sadness in an exchange. Albert turned to Will, looking ruddy and more robust now despite his vain exertions. “You said I could do one more.”
Will looked at the woman’s body then the man and, seeing these circumstances presented a special case, moved forward and motioned for Albert to follow. The man watched them with a peculiar mix of interest and detachment as Will looked over the low stone wall behind him.
“There’s a patch there fairly free of roots. Considerably less greasy ground,” Will said. He looked at the man, then turned to Albert. “Find some big rocks,” he added, jumping up then lowering himself down over the wall, beginning to toil as Albert collected stones with single-minded purpose. If it took a half an hour for one boy to dig a grave for a small dog, Will thought it would take two boys twice that long to do this, but it didn’t. Apparently, there were no reliable ratios in the mechanics of such work.
“Can we bury your wife for you now, sir?” Will asked. Albert raised his hand subtly to slow Will down.
The man stopped rocking. “I’ve been searching for her all day and night. Found her here about an hour ago.”
“We can help you,” Will offered, speaking slower. The woman, Will could see, had been striking. She had a long trail of blonde hair framing her face and spilling down her dress.
“Do you want us to go?” Albert asked.
The man turned to Albert and now looked younger, more vulnerable. He mumbled something about vanity and pride, dropping his stick. “No,” he said. “Please don’t go, friends. Let me think on this a spell. What I must do.” He walked to the stone wall with his hand on the back of his head as if he was struggling with a complex equation. After making the short pilgrimage, he returned to his place standing over the woman just as he had been when the boys arrived. Then he walked over to the wall again, picked up the stick again and returned to the woman’s body, this time trembling. He couldn’t find words for the longest
time.
“Lila,” he said unwillingly. “We were married yonder at the church just last week.” He bent down and lifted her hand. The ring around her finger reflected sunlight and it compelled him to say something about the Fates.
“Yonder was my house. It was to be our home.”
Albert moved closer as the man fell back into silence. “Do you reckon we ought to help her find some peace now?”
The man interrupted Albert, but with no answer. He could barely breathe. He put his hands back on his hips then touched the back of his neck again looking down on Lila. His breath would not come. He bent at the waist, as if looking for it on the ground, then rose again.
“Well, let’s let her rest a bit more,” Albert said to Will. Will nodded, staring at the young woman’s miraculous face. Her eyes, angled slightly downwards and almond-shaped, were closed and her skin was like cold marble. She somehow remained incredibly beautiful in death though hauntingly so. Her face was untouched by the catastrophe which had stolen her life. Bluish veins ran the length of the inside of her arms, somehow persisting, conveying an inextinguishable sense of life inside her.
“I could do nothing to save her.”
“I can’t imagine you could,” Albert said. Will agreed, nodding once more. The man was on his knees again, now trying to straighten her yellow dress and began repeating himself. He ran his long fingers through his own dark hair.
“It’s not like this. It’s not like this,” he said to her. Will had seen children at the asylum become so frightened and anxious that something chemical would seep into their spines and even the most well-meaning consolation could not be absorbed, no matter what was done for them. Though the man remained still, his expression looked like one of those children. “Lila,” he said softly, still on one knee closer to her. “Lila. Oh,” he said.
Albert put his hand on the man’s shoulder, just as he had done yesterday with the tall fellow with the frames near the tennis courts, and then last night with Will on the street, and again over the cucumbers. “We can give her a proper burial.”
He was unable to speak.
“We can care for her, I mean.”
They remained still for some time before the man finally spoke again. “I’m not myself. Much obliged, friends,” he said. “My soul is most weary. I’m not myself.”
Will nudged at Albert to start as the man apologized again about not being himself and tried to rise, but it was as if a weight had been lowered onto his shoulders and he quickly fell back to one knee. He took a deep breath and apologized again. “I fear there will be little that is proper about it. No offense,” he said.
“None taken,” Will said. “I’m afraid you’re right. Are you ready?”
The man nodded his head affirmatively though everything else about him said no and Will ambled over the wall. The man and Albert then lifted her up. Her limbs were long, yet she was lighter than a cloud. Her wet clothes stuck to her frail body and Will sensed that these might be heavier than she was. Albert took her feet and the man held his beloved under her arms as they gave her to Will. Lila’s head swung to one side when Will received her. As they delivered her over the stone wall, her long blonde hair trailed behind her along the stones. The man felt the power and the sorrow of this, and Albert steadied him with a few words now from the other side. They brought her fully over the wall without the grace her lovely beauty was owed, as the man, recognizing this injustice, made a series of melancholy, barely audible sounds expressing this terrible inequity. Then they laid her down as softly as they could in the broad, shallow spoon of a hole which Will had so industriously dug in the good ground. Will, swallowing, settled her body into the soil. At the same time, the man took off his shirt to wipe her face. He then kissed the dead woman with an arresting softness. Albert recited the twenty-third Psalm so naturally, so sincerely, that it seemed as if it had come to him as an original thought.
Both in this moment and in retrospect, it was difficult not to think that his recitation had something to do with what happened next, but an immaculate sunbeam fell upon Lila in the grave through the naked trees. As majestic as it was tragic, in the instant that it occurred, she was suddenly shown to them briefly as she was in life. The man, overwhelmed by this small miracle, was moved again to his knees. Lila’s peach colored skin was illuminated by the light that radiated over her finely sculpted features brightly, even fiercely, and it mesmerized them all. This would be how the man would remember her for better or for worse. Will thought the man might next remove the wedding ring from her finger to keep it, but instead in a gesture of elegant simplicity and devotion, he removed his own ring and put it into her hand, closing it in her grasp, then laid her hand over her heart. Her body was so fragile in this light that it seemed to almost disappear into the earth. He then said a few words over her that concerned a balm in Gilead, which purportedly revived the sin-sick soul.
Then Albert said, “Amen.”
The man exhaled in long breaths as if he was about to dive deep into the sea and brushed Lila’s hair from her face. He laid his shirt softly over her immaculate face, then, taller, more squarely, not nearly healed, but touched, he rose. His suffering was of such dignity that its memory would remain with Will throughout his lifetime with the very clarity he had experienced it today.
“Go ahead,” the man said, blinking hard. He put his hands on his hips at his back and watched for a moment as Will began to shovel dirt in place carefully around and then over the young woman with his hands. They then placed the rocks Albert had collected around the raised earth. Each rock was placed in a sacred way that seemed just right, then the man, like Moses at the burning bush, removed his shoes.
“This is holy ground,” he said when the operation was complete. They all agreed. “Thank you,” he added. “You are good friends.”
“We bid your sorrows will one day cease,” Albert said.
They shook hands and, carrying his shoes, the man began walking toward his antagonist, the sea. Will and Albert never learned his name.
41
AN INTERLUDE ABOUT WILL’S HEART
Although Will had regretted ever mentioning his feelings for Grace to anyone, he had done so hesitantly to Frank in the spring, but only to prevent his heart from catching fire. He confided he’d tried three times to speak to her at school, but each episode was characterized by heightening levels of humiliation. Frank suggested it would be far less painful for Will to simply watch her from afar. Though conceptually he agreed, this strategy required a deportment Will was unable to maintain for any length of time. All year he had prayed for an opportunity that involved a more natural exchange, one in which he could casually exhibit what he considered his finer capacities, but he had begun to realize that such occasions arose so unreliably, that this was no strategy at all. The heady evenings at the Garten Verein had been memorable, but ephemeral. His concentration had been thrown off by her unexpected kindnesses and, not least of all, by that dark green dress. In addition, there were all the technical maneuverings required in the dance steps, the precise accuracy of which all seemed a matter of life and death to Miss Ruby Winifred of the Women’s Auxiliary. Will was so physically and emotionally wound up under Miss Ruby’s vigilant gaze and terse instruction as these moments unfolded, that he was unable to prove himself worthy of Grace on the dance floor—as he yearned to do. Nevertheless, these tense waltzes, quicksteps, and peculiar promenades were the impetus for his vow that he would eventually prevail, no matter what Frank said about the danger of mismatched pairs. Frank—and all others who operated in the realm of the right order of things—could see she was far out of reach for a St. Mary’s orphan, and repeatedly warned Will of the cruel saga ahead if he persisted in these unreasonable pursuits. In response, Will acknowledged he had a blind spot in such matters, but said nothing could be done to reverse course at this point, anyway. What he didn’t confess to Frank or anyone else was his sincere conviction, an
expectation even, that someday they might be thrown together by chance into some riveting adventure. A kidnapping perhaps. One in which they would be forced to escape together. Or perhaps they would find themselves in church during a wedding and become accidentally—but quite legally—married. In any event, Will had lost his heart already and felt the freedom engendered in the outright nature of this relinquishment might somehow tip the odds heroically in his favor, despite the considerable mathematical improbabilities.
42
THE LOCKET
Moving down Broadway, the number signs on the streets were diminishing in a way that brought consolation to Will’s heart and mind. When they reached 8th Street, they would turn north and move up Market Street. There might be a shorter and more direct route, but the clearing work, now underway in earnest, seemed focused on the larger thoroughfares. Will thought staying on the main streets, in the end, would limit the possibility of unexpected delay.
Now at 16th, less than a mile from the hospital and near Unger’s Grocery where Sister Elizabeth had traded the morning of the storm, Albert spotted a small heart-shaped locket on the ground. It was among a sheaf of correspondence that had spilled out of a black tin box in the midst of more castaway lumber. Though such items of jewelry were common for young girls to wear, Albert, on account of its color and shape, contended this one must be Maggie’s.
“Mind you, I never took special care in inspecting it,” he confessed.
Will glanced at one of the letters from the tin box. ‘My Darling Little Wife,’ the note began with tender fondness in a decisive hand. Will put it back in the box, vaguely comforted by the sense that there were still unwritten rules in effect to direct him in such matters. To show a certain decorum and respect for what remained of the notion of privacy seemed the only way to counterbalance the appalling lack of gentility that would be required to forcefully begin to restore the city to its previous position. To maintain small civilities like this, Will realized, was a means of combat, really the only weapon at hand. In addition, there was the sign he’d seen last night, not to mention all the similar ones cropping up all over town.
The Mourning Wave Page 10