A Prayer for the Dying (3 page)

Maybe you are a fool. You remember what your mother used to say about Reverend Toomey: a holy fool is still a fool. It’s not true, you think, not completely. Funny how you never agree to anything, keep that last piece of yourself back. Is it prudence or faithlessness—and does it matter to anyone but you?

The trees give way to Main Street, the sun hot on your hair. Fenton’s out in his apron, dusting a rug over the hitching rail with a wire beater. You check the woman; she’s muttering, shrugging, arguing with herself. Yancey Thigpen’s mare is tied outside the livery, otherwise it’s quiet, only the steam pulsing up from the mill, the distant drone of the saws. Thaddeus draws the team even with Doc’s shingle. They stamp, their traces jingling, and you take the woman’s arm.

“Thank you,” she says, stepping down.

Across the street, Fenton’s stopped thumping the rug. You motion for Thaddeus to get the door. First he wipes his boots on the edge of the sidewalk, and you’re sorry for thinking poorly of him. The bell rings and you guide the woman inside.

Doc’s parlor is empty and dark and smells of violets fresh from Irma’s garden. She picked out the furniture in Chicago, and no one wants to sit on it. Even the city woman’s impressed, inspecting the flocked wallpaper, the golden innards of the clock in its bell jar.

“Hello,” you ask.

“Be a minute,” Doc calls from the back, behind the curtain. He splashes water in a basin, bangs a cupboard shut.

“It’s me,” you call. “I brought company.”

He flings the curtain aside like a magician. He’s just gotten up, small and dapper in his pin-striped suit and stiff boiled shirt, hair parted in the middle and brilliantined, mustache waxed. People say he’s taken to fancy ways since marrying, but that’s jealousy. Irma’s from Milwaukee, a teacher at the state normal school, and a few families here with prettier daughters are still bitter. And he’s always been fastidious; he orders his shoes through the mail, buys his shirts ten at a time.

“Oh my dear,” he says, noticing the woman, and goes over to her. She’s bigger than he is. “We’re not doing so well, are we?”

“Careful there,” you say, and tell him how you found her.

“Right,” he says, “I see,” more interested in her neck. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, do you?” he asks her.

“No,” she says absently, all the fight gone out of her. “Thank you.”

He tips her chin up to feel along her jaw, and you notice a bandage on his hand.

You ask.

“Just clumsy,” he shrugs. He gives Thaddeus a nod. The boy returns it, his hat in both hands, shy, polite. “Why don’t you bring the other fellow in? This may take a bit.”

Thaddeus waits for you to move, and again you’re impatient with him.

You forgot how hot it was, how bright. Fenton’s gone back inside, Yancey’s mare flinging her tail to drive off flies. You try to keep the burlap over the soldier, drag him across the back of the wagon like a sack, get him under the armpits. The boy just stands there.

“Lend a hand there, if you would,” you say, not too hard, and Thaddeus takes his ankles.

You walk backward, your heels searching for the edge of the sidewalk, the step up. You’re glad he’s not a fat one. You remember wrestling Mrs. Goetz onto the table in the cellar, turning your knee and cursing her, then that night praying for patience. What was it you said last week in your sermon—even the meanest work is a form of praise? No wonder Marta worries you’ll end up in the Colony, dancing jaybird naked in the woods, a candle in each hand.

You shoulder the door open and the bell tinkles.

“Hold on,” Doc calls, and bursts through the curtain with his shirtsleeves rolled. “Put him down.”

“Here?”

“Put him down,” he orders, almost scolding, and before you can give him a look, he says it again. “On the floor. Now.”

“What is it?” you ask, but he’s pulled the burlap off and kneels by the man’s face—the sunken eyes and greening skin. He leans in close as a lover, slips a hand between the man’s teeth and pulls down his jaw.

“That lamp,” he says, pointing, and you give it to him. He sets the glass chimney aside and lights it, holds it over the man’s face. Flecks of wheat stick in his whiskers. Doc’s fingers rummage around in his mouth, under his tongue, as if searching for a hidden jewel. Beside you, Thaddeus is transfixed.

Doc stands up and fits the lamp back together. “Take him next door and try not to touch him too much.”

“What is it?”

“Just take him down the cellar for now. I’ll talk to you when I get her settled.”

“She acting up?”

“You could say that. Just get him down, will you? And make sure and wash up good, both of you.”

“Okay,” you say, but hesitant, to let him know he’s being strange.

You rearrange the burlap, pick the soldier up and walk backwards again, brushing the jamb, tottering down the walk one door to your place. It’s open, and as you maneuver through, you see Fenton over the boy’s shoulder, peering from his door.

Thaddeus looks around your office at the empty cell, the rifles locked to the wall, the old posters. What an adventure he’s having; how jealous Marcus will be. And now you’re taking him down to a room the boys of Friendship whisper about, the boldest professing intimate knowledge around dying campfires.

There’s nothing to see—the clay walls, the table with its gutter draining into a pail, a few casks of fluid, a miter by a stack of cured cedar cut to the three usual lengths. Your tools hang neatly on the rough beams, polished and gleaming in the lamplight. To him it must seem ghoulish, fantastic as Ali Baba’s cave. You want to tell him it’s a job, and not simply a necessary one, but a last opportunity to care for another person, to serve their family.

You get the soldier onto the table. If it were just you, you’d strap him in and turn the crank so the whole thing would tilt, but the boy’s seen enough for one day. You thank him and he thumps up the stairs.

“It’s cold down there,” he says, washing over the basin.

“Stays the same the year round.” It’s an old trick, you want to tell him. A hundred years ago the French used it to summer their furs. In the winter you store Friendship’s dead down there, their coffins waiting for the ground to thaw out. You want to tell him about the conversations they have, the arguments over things long forgotten. You want to impress on him how many stories everyone has within them, how much each death diminishes Friendship, especially with the young people leaving. But again, he’s done enough. And he’s young, you don’t expect him to understand. Outside, he lifts your bike over the side of the rig, and you thank him once more before he starts off.

Yancey’s mare is gone, but John Cole’s sorrel and buckboard are hitched at Fenton’s. You slip into Doc’s as if for an afternoon chat.

The parlor’s empty, in back the sound of water sloshing.

“That you, Jacob?” he calls, and you answer. “I’ll just be a minute.”

You slap the dust off your bottom before sitting on Irma’s love seat. You wonder what Doc saw. Usually he’ll take you into his examining room and go over the littlest detail with you, as if you’re a student. Maybe it was starvation, and he was too busy with the woman. You don’t believe it, the way the man pitched into the fire. When soldiers go hungry too long, they liberate food. And it’s not like Doc to boss you around. Make sure and wash up good, he said. This is the hard part of being a constable: when it comes to Friendship, you don’t like mysteries. You worry too much. It’s like Amelia’s colic; you want to be sure it’s normal, that in the morning you won’t find her blue and motionless in her crib.

Doc comes in with his jacket on, his bandage missing. He takes a seat behind his desk without looking at you, leans back and crosses his legs—a city thing. He’s frowning, going over something in his mind, and you know not to interrupt.

“You say the fellow’s pockets were turned out,” he asks.

“Probably his traveling companion. Why, what is it?”

“If I’m right,” he says, “diphtheria.”

“Diphtheria,” you echo, trying it out in your mouth. Endeavor went through an epidemic a few years ago, took half the town. And Montello had that typhus that went through the tannery there, killed all those women. You’ll have to enforce quarantine, burn the dead’s possessions. But of the disease itself you’re mostly ignorant. It kills, that’s enough.

“Don’t bother dressing him out,” Doc says. “Just get him in the ground. And be damned careful how you handle him.”

“Right.”

The two of you sit there a minute in the cool room, pondering what this means to Friendship. Your thoughts refuse to connect, run together like the cicadas outside, screaming in the trees.

“Guess I better wire down the line and let Bart know,” you say, but it’s a question. You’re hoping Doc will back off and say he could be mistaken, that the woman’s symptoms could be anything. Diphtheria kills quick, that’s the one thing you know. You think of what the woman said—He takes the little ones first.

“Yep,” Doc says, half-distracted, and sighs, an admission of failure. “I guess you’d better.”

2

“We can leave,” Marta says for the fifth time tonight. You’re in bed, under the comforter, but no one’s going to sleep. “We’ll take what we need and go to Aunt Bette’s.”

“We can’t,” you whisper. You’re nose to nose, inches apart, one thigh clamped between her knees. “I can’t. You know that.”

“I know.”

She’s so disappointed it makes you want to give in, and she knows this. All night she’s apologized for making you feel it’s your fault, but it is, and she has, so there’s no point. You don’t know how to argue; it’s a weakness in you. After the war, you lost the will to fight, the interest in getting your way in little things. Your strategy is to make her happy, keep the peace—at worst, retreat, take the blame. But there’s no argument here. Your duty seems plain. You hold her closer, smell the warmth of her neck, the taste of the day’s work on her—the tang of salt pork caught in her hair. Her breasts are tender; they leak when Amelia cries.

“Jacob, if I took her to Bette’s. For a visit.”

“How would that look?”

“I don’t care how it looks.”

“You don’t?” you ask, bold, because you know Marta’s not selfish, that she loves Friendship as much as you do.

“I do,” she concedes. “But what am I supposed to do—stay in the house all day while you go out? And if you should get it, what then?”

You tell her you know how to handle the dead, that once the disease spreads, you’ll need her even more, but you picture the soldier this afternoon, how you forced his stiff arms into the box and slid the lid shut, banged the nails home with three even strokes. You tell her Doc knows what he’s doing; he got Amelia through the croup, didn’t he? In the dark, she sighs, unmoved, and you realize your argument is calm and logical where hers is spurred by a mother’s fear. You realize you’ve entirely mistaken the issue you’re debating.

“You can go if you want. I’ll say it’s a visit.”

“No,” she says, bitter, even though she’s won. “We’ll stay.”

You part, roll over so you’re both facing away, but you turn and fit your knees behind hers. She takes your hand and bites one knuckle in forgiveness.

“I’ll be careful,” you reassure her. “I’ll be with Doc.”

“I know,” she says, but unconvinced, and shifts again, her hair tickling your forehead. This debate could go on indefinitely, rage silently while you rearrange yourselves, plump the pillows. Finally a long stretch of quiet, her breathing drawn and soft, and then from the nursery comes a hiccup and a siren of a cry as Amelia realizes she’s awake. Marta sighs and folds the comforter aside, staggers to the rocker to calm her. You wait in the dark, listening to them creak, then Amelia cooing, Marta’s song about the bear who ate too many blueberry pies.

You don’t remember falling asleep, or your dreams, though you know they were vivid, disturbing—a house with too many doors, tilting like a ship in high seas. You wake suddenly to daylight, the smell of frying butter. The blinds are up, but Marta’s closed the door, her robe hung from the peg. Outside it’s brilliant, another perfect day, and you try to hold off thoughts of the coffin you buried in the weedy edge of the churchyard, the woman Doc has locked in his office.

It breeds in the heat, he said.

You lie there and watch the light turning the leaves transparent. It seems wrong that this can kill. Rain seems more appropriate, long gray days, cold.

There’s no time to philosophize. You pitch out of bed and haul on some clean dungarees, pour an inch of water in the basin and wash your face. Take a second in the mirror to trim your beard with Marta’s sewing scissors, tilting your chin until you achieve the exact fashion the captain of your regiment wore. Buttoning up a clean shirt, you think you’re just as fastidious as Doc in your own way. But that too has to do with responsibility. An officer provides his men a model of cleanliness, order, decorum, and a town, like an army, looks to its leaders. You quiz your neat twin in the glass. Do you really believe this or are you just hoping? It’s like you to be steadfast when panic would serve you better.

Marta peeks in the door and says, “Breakfast.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You were tired.”

You thank her, hoping last night’s business is over, knowing it isn’t.

Open the door and you can smell corncakes and sausage. It’s strategic—all week it’s been oatmeal—and you try to conjure your arguments, the line you need to cleave to.

Amelia hangs on Marta’s ankles at the stove. Marta placates her with the straw dolly; Amelia gnaws on its head. Coffee’s on the table, too hot. The sausage pops in the skillet. Marta has her back to you, and you watch her elbow digging the cakes up, flipping them. She must know it’s too late to change things. And it’s the right decision, it’s the Christian thing to do.

She lays the plate in front of you and stands back to gauge your pleasure in her work. The butter runs. They’re rich, the edges crisp, middles still doughy. You nod with your mouth full, toss back a burning slug of coffee to help it down. Maybe the woman’s an isolated case, the soldier her lover, the woods their nightly rendezvous. It’s your fear of disappointing Marta that makes you cast about like this. You smile at her and pin a sausage with the side of your fork until the skin splits, spear it and cram in another bite. Satisfied, she unties the apron and sits beside you.