A Prayer for the Dying (8 page)

It’s black, and you have to leave the hallway before you see Marta sitting in the rocking chair, her hair a bright frame, her face dark, impossible to read. She’s still, hands in her lap. Amelia’s in her crib, already asleep, and softly you go to Marta.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, ready to explain why, but she doesn’t take your hands, she doesn’t look at you, as if you’ve done something inexcusable. A wet sniff and you know she’s been crying.

“What is it?”

“She’s sick,” she says.

“What do you mean?” you ask, though you already know. Better than anyone, you know.

“She’s sick,” Marta says, and now she’s clutching at you, grabbing, crushing herself to you with a strength you find frightening. “Jacob, she’s
sick.
”

4

In the dark you hear Amelia coughing, then Marta’s soft footfalls. You slip out of bed and stand in the door in your nightshirt, watching her bend over the crib. She rearranges the blankets, returns to the rocker and waits.

“Come to bed,” you whisper.

“No.”

“I’ll see to her.”

“No, you go on.”

It’s been like this all night. You’ve already warned her that it’s dangerous, that she needs her rest. You argue, then retreat. You wouldn’t think of keeping her from Amelia. Maybe it’s just a summer cold. You’ll get Doc to take a look at her in the morning.

Till then, you lie awake in the half-empty bed, each cough startling you like a gunshot. You think of your sermon, of what you can possibly say now that would be true. You do believe Amelia will get better. And if she doesn’t, what will that do to your faith? Is it so weak that the sorrows of this world can destroy it with one puff? You hope not, but maybe so. Maybe so.

You think of the night you first saw Marta—at a barn dance in Shawano—how, like now, you couldn’t sleep afterward, how it seemed that her grin and the cock of her slim hips threw your whole world in doubt. She danced herself into a sweat, and when you tried to take her by the waist—primly, oh, with the most noble intentions—she kicked you in the shin and whirled away laughing. Though you’d spoken only a few words to her, you felt—you hoped and feared both—that soon you’d be leaving behind everything you knew. It was exciting, and frightening, and while that’s not quite how it feels tonight, you recognize this new edge the two of you have stepped over.

But that was willful, you think. This is different.

Faith will always save you. In the dark you repeat the phrase to yourself, as if that will make you believe it. It’s a question, really, and you think the answer could make a good sermon. When won’t faith save you?

When you believe too much in this world. In yourself. In anything but God.

When you won’t let it. When you don’t want to be saved.

And why wouldn’t you want to be saved?

Because you don’t deserve to be.

Those nights during the siege, it was this quiet. You’d lost track of the days, cut your thumb peeling strips of meat from the horse’s jaw. You had to feed the little Norwegian; he couldn’t walk from hunger. His teeth fell out in clumps, his hair took a reddish tint. At night you stood guard with an empty rifle, bayonet fixed, listening to the wet suckling of lips. In the morning, the dying accused you of having food.

A cough, and Marta crosses the room. Amelia wheezes. You wait till it ends, then get up, your nightshirt fighting you, binding you tight as you toss the heavy feather tick aside.

Marta has the lamp lit, the wick so low the flame paints her chin blue above the crib. She lays the back of her hand against Amelia’s head, then tucks the coverlet up to her neck and turns to you, a hand on the rail.

“How is she?” you ask.

“Hot. She’s due for a feeding but I don’t want to wake her.”

“She’ll be fine,” you say, and Marta nods. She understands you have to say this, that you have to believe.

“Go back to sleep,” she says. She pads to the rocker and sits down, tips her head back and closes her eyes. “Go.”

You want to do it just to agree with her, to make things easier. There’s nothing to say, no appropriate biblical wisdom, though you could quote Scripture till the sun comes up. And so you go to your knees beside the crib.

You don’t have to ask Marta to join you, merely close your eyes and bow your head, and soon you hear her cross the rug and kneel beside you. Her hand takes yours, cool, and the two of you concentrate, beseeching Him, pledging your honest faith though you know it’s nothing in His eyes and that you’ll accept His will regardless because you’re His servants.

Amelia barks, stopping you. Her throat rattles, full of stones. The two of you wait till it’s just scraps, then whistling breath. You go on.

You know He is just and merciful and that there is a purpose in all His works, even this. You ask this in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, who was crucified for your sins, and in that equation, that sacrifice—Christ’s willing death for your sins—you see the hope of all this balancing out, of some justice or salvation from what seems pain and chaos. You believe.

“Amen,” Marta says, and squeezes your hand, then sends you to bed. This time you go.

And yet, do you sleep?

Marta’s rocker squeaks, and far off, a dog shouts out an alarm. The woods are full of tramps moving through. You think of Old Meyer tending Bitsi and Thaddeus, Lydia Flynn in your cellar. You consider the possibility that you’ve given it to Amelia, that as you loved Marta in the grass last night, you were killing her. Amelia hasn’t been out of the house in days. You dragged the dead man by his ankles, had Thaddeus lift him by the armpits. You set Clytie afire, breathed the meaty smoke. Now Amelia’s sick. What other explanation is there?

You get up and go into the other room. Marta looks up, startled, as if she’s been sleeping.

“It must be me,” you say. “I’ve given it to both of you.”

“Go back to bed,” she says.

“I’m sure of it.”

“Jacob.”

“No,” you say, and confess everything, kneeling at her feet. She leans over and holds you, her hair falling across your face, catching in your tears. Your pride, your carelessness, your sentimental love for the dead. It’s all true.

“But you’re fine,” she reasons, “I’m fine. It might be a cold after all. We won’t know until Doc looks at her.”

“And if it is?”

“If it is,” she starts, but doesn’t finish.

You look up at her, find her eyes. She’s always been stronger than you. Why is this a surprise?

“If it is,” she says, “then it is.”

Though you hold each other, it isn’t comforting, and when you’re back in bed, alone, the moon seems bright on the wall above the commode, the shadow of the empty basin a dark blossom, the lamp a twisted stalk. The portrait of Amelia that Irma painted for her birthday is obscured, faceless, a framed blot. Marta coughs now, heavier than Amelia, and measured. You get up and move to your desk, lean over a blank sheet of paper in the gray light. Uncap the ink, dip the nib. Again, what can you say that is absolutely true?

It is not ours to question God’s will.

There is a reason for our suffering.

You dismiss these immediately, don’t even write them down. We will always question God’s will. We will always need a reason for our suffering.

Something about mercy.

Amelia coughs and Marta moves to the crib.

Mercy,
you write, then hesitate.

Is that all we can ask for? And even then there’s no guarantee. What does faith entitle us to?

Nothing. And in that lies its purity.

Can you really say this? You picture your congregation lifting their faces, chins tipped up, waiting for you to start. Doc, John Cole and his family, Yancey Thigpen, Millie Sullivan. And what can you say to Old Meyer? Marta? Chase?

“Jacob,” Marta whispers from the door. “You’re talking to yourself again.”

You nod, apologetic, and she leaves you. Usually she’d joke with you, ask if you’re wrestling with angels, but not tonight—or this morning, as your pocket watch reminds you, its ticking amplified by the desktop. In two hours the sun comes up.

Mercy.

You nudge the sheet of paper away, cap the ink and blot the quill. Stand and let out a cough.

It’s just a rumble, a speck catching in the skin of phlegm coating your throat, the air tearing its way back up and out of your mouth. Briefly, gone before you can raise a fist to stanch it. That’s it, just the one. You lift the feather tick and slide in, then lie there in the moonlight, wondering if all three of you are sick, until, perversely, you’re sure it would be best for everyone. Board yourselves in and die together. You’d be the last, that way you could take care of them. Oddly, the thought eases you.

And still you don’t sleep. You won’t, you know, and so you lie there trying to come up with a first line for your sermon. It’s obvious what you’re going to talk about; avoiding it would be pointless, coy. The question is, what can you possibly say to help them?

You’re still trying out first lines when you hear Fred Lembeck’s rooster. He calls and calls. You’re not going to sleep anyway. A spider’s working in the corner of the window. The sun’s not up yet, the sky deepening to blue in the east, the morning star low over the horizon. It’s cool enough for dew, and the tracks of something have dragged a dark path across the yard. Beyond the garden, the trees are noisy with birds.

Marta comes in from the other room, bleary and yawning, taking baby steps. “She’s still asleep,” she reports, and lies down.

“I’ll be quiet.”

“When does Doc open?” She keeps her eyes closed.

You explain about Chase coming in for the woman.

She opens her eyes and gets up, starts going through her wardrobe. You follow her lead.

“I can take her if you want to rest,” you say, but just for form’s sake.

Marta ignores you, chooses a blue blouse you love. You button up beside her, the two of you silent, concentrating on getting dressed. Your belt buckle jingles and clinks; her petticoats rustle. You catch her eye as if you have something to say, and she stops brushing her hair, waits, her hand cocked. But what is there to say? She tips her head again and pulls the brush through, tearing out hair with a ripping sound. She pinches a wad from the bristles and drops it above the trash basket, and the dead cloud floats down.

“I’m sure it’s just a cold,” you say, and immediately the heat of shame—of trespassing—flares through you.

“Let’s hope,” she says, but bitterly, and you promise not to do this to her again.

You put on coffee, your one concession to the usual routine. Neither of you can stomach it. Any other day you’d pour it back in the pot, but now you wait till she goes to wake Amelia, then open the window and dump both cups out on the ground.

“What was that?” Marta asks when she returns.

Rather than answer her, you take Amelia in your arms and hold her to you. She surfaces a minute, still dreaming. Those too-blue eyes, all Marta. She’s warm, and her breath flutters wetly in your ear. Her lungs seem to squeak. It’s just a cold. Doc will know.

She coughs and fusses, grumps, nearly waking up.

“It’s all right, honey,” you murmur, and sway to quiet her. “Papa’s right here. Yes, that’s better, you hush now, yes.”

Marta’s about to take her back so you can get your jacket on when you hear the bells. Seven o’clock. Doc should be in by now. You hand Amelia over and go to the front hall closet. You palm the doorknob, and the church bell rings.

You turn as if you can see the bell tower from here. Cyril rings it again, lets it reverberate away into birdsong. Marta looks to you, confused, though you both know it means a woman has died. Her eyes ask if you know anything; you just shrug, puzzled.

Neither of you move as it tolls out the age of the dead. You count. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Amelia clenches a tiny fist, then lets it fall, drops back into sleep. Fifty-one, fifty-two. It goes on, preposterously, and you wonder if Cyril has lost track (but no, that’s not Cyril; he’s precise to a fault, his child’s mind exacting, inflexible).

Then suddenly it stops.

“Seventy-six,” Marta checks, and you nod yes.

“Elsa Sullivan.”

“Poor thing.”

You don’t want to appear cruel, but you need to get Amelia in to see Doc, and you turn and open the door. You can talk about Elsa on the way. Doc probably has her laid out in back by now.

It’s brilliant out—as it has been all month. You step aside to let Marta by, and the bell tolls again.

You both stop on the walk.

Twice, another woman.

Cyril chimes out her life. The two of you stand there; it would be disrespectful to move. You count to seventy-three.

“Millie,” Marta guesses.

You know she’s right, but it doesn’t make sense. Elsa you’ve already conceded. Millie’s still strong.

Marta crosses herself and then Amelia’s forehead. Usually you’d ask each other what could have happened—a fire maybe—but not today. Before the last knell has faded away, you’ve opened the gate and started off for town. And then the bells stop you again.

One.

“Jacob,” Marta beseeches you in the long pause, and you put an arm around her, squeeze her shoulder, the two of you standing there, facing the distant steeple, counting.

Thirty-eight.

There are a few possibilities—Fenton, Carl Huebner, Gillett Condon—but neither of you say their names. You walk fast, as if Cyril might stop you again. You wonder why Doc didn’t come and get you. The dust is thick and hard to walk in. A Menominee family creaks by in a wagon heaped with provisions, blankets, furniture, a skinny cow trailing behind. A minute later, a second family with the same cow, the father laughing deeply at something, making the best of the move. It reminds you of the retreat after the siege, everyone desperately grateful, a little wild.

Outside the livery, in a ditch, one of Austin Phillips’s dogs lies on its side, flies swarming its eyes, the peach pit of its behind. Marta flinches, covers her mouth with a hand, turns as if to shield Amelia from the stink. If it’s not gone by lunch, you’ll have to ask Austin to bury it, under penalty of fine, and you don’t want to do that.