Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) (80 page)

In the almost-darkness, beneath the silhouetted trees, a glowing oval rose up, elongated and began to expand. He realized that it was coming toward him, and from its sureness it must see him. He had never before felt such terror. He tried to console himself by thinking: I ought to treasure this feeling. That means I still want to live, and therefore my life is valuable—in which case I should get away from
her.
Oh, please let me live, let me escape that thing—

Then Victoria's ghost rose up before him and said: You can go. It's all right now. Please; I'm tired—

Thank you, he said a little stiffly. How was he supposed to feel toward her? As he strode back to the hole in the fence, he realized that he didn't even care anymore whether the ghoul was there, perhaps merely because he believed that it would be gone, as indeed it was.

He slept until late in the morning. When he returned to the cemetery late in the afternoon, his belly sore from vomiting, a lawnmower was wandering through the hollow, which had formerly been a pleasant nineteenth-century pond where bereaved families picnicked. Here they were trimming the grass nearly to the roots, doubtless for the sake of hygiene. He saw the caretakers working around Victoria's grave. The grass had been torn up as if by some large animal.

He walked away, returning at night through the hole in the fence.

Don't ask me anything, she said.

Then he finally remembered that the caretakers must have removed the blanket he'd given her.

He did ask her, that time and the next; he pointed out, very reasonably in his own judgment, that since he came all this way to visit her, with his health not being of the best, it was only right that she inform him how much danger he might be in.

Well, I've already told you one secret thing, which isn't to say I gushed with confidentialities.

And you won't tell me anything more?

I don't want to be part of this.

Then I'd say you hold me pretty cheaply, he said, and maybe I won't come again. I have to say, Victoria, I feel disgusted . . .

Are the leaves back by now?

Can't you see them?

You know I can't! What is it you
want
of me? Why is everybody so demanding? All I want to do is be alone.

Then be alone; I'll go—

No
. Listen. Promise to keep another secret.

I promise.

All right. I made him understand. Do you believe me?

Sure.

He stays under the lake. Go down there and—but he's not to know I told you.

Won't he figure it out?

He doesn't exactly think.

I'm afraid.

So am I, she said.— I'll hold your hand.

Will it hurt me?

I asked him not to.

What happens if we don't go?

He'll come here every night until he corners you. We'd better go now.

Why are
you
afraid, Victoria?

Please . . . I said I love you. Isn't that enough?

Elongating toward him in an ecstasy of avarice, the foul thing simpered expressionlessly. It sprang; he could hardly bear the horror. Sniffing him all over like a dog (its own odor almost unendurably foul), it drooled, dribbled and moaned. It afflicted him as relentlessly as a stench. When it got to his belly, it began to whine eagerly. Then it grunted. It sprang a few paces backward, then studied him, grinning. Its eyes reminded him of blue light-shards in black water. Victoria released his hand.

Shimmering like spiderwebs in a thick elderberry bush at dusk, the ghosts whined quarrelsome round and round their graves, much as Canada geese in autumn overcircle black swamp water, searching for what we do not
know. No doubt he had imagined them. Victoria must know them all. He wished to ask what it was like underground, but this appeared to be another of her private secrets. Come to think of it, perhaps she didn't know anything. Why was she here and not on the moon? If he inquired as to the whereabouts and identity of the husband of this Mrs. Emilia Woodruff, on whose grave he and Victoria sometimes sat, would he be answered? If not, would Victoria's whims be to blame, or something else? During this last summer, wondering anything had become so considerable an effort that he felt guilty doing it and not doing it. There had been much sweetness in his relationship with Victoria; he had lived for her, and become better as a result, but now he could not tell whether the wrongness lay in her or him or both of them. When she had shut him out before, that felt different; he had been courting her. Perhaps even then he might have felt desperate and jealous when she kept something from him, but probably not; jealousy had never been his favorite vice. Nowadays what could be interpreted as a pattern of rejection still wounded him, coming from her; but being excluded from any particular thing left him indifferent. He was no crackshot astronomer, to map out her orbital period. Often he already seemed to be remembering both this summer and the other from some rainy, windy country. The whining of the ghosts, or insects, or whatever they were, made him look up from himself. Not seeing anybody else, not even Victoria, who had told him that tonight she wished to play by herself, he set out to find the green-faced thing again. After all, it was his dog.

Just as in the swamp he frequented he sometimes observed ripples starting and stopping in one place, then a darkness rising in the green water, a fin or narrow turtle-head showing itself before falling again, bubbling whitely as it vanished within its ripples, so it came from under the lake.

This time he felt more revulsion than fear. It somehow struck him that the thing was intelligent as well as sensitive, although he could not have defined its awareness or capacities. It grinned and grinned. He forced himself to stroke its head.

Victoria's blonde hair glared luridly against Mr. Arthur J. Bishop's black granite tombstone; she was sitting against it, running her left hand through her hair. She said: Tell me what it's like where you go, in the day.

Well, until I got sick I used to spend too much time at home. Now I can't even recall exactly what I did there. I lie down a lot now, of course, but when I'm not feeling too bad I try to go out. There are some reeds in the swamp down the road, and I love their jade-green color. Sometimes I think nothing's as beautiful as the silver-blue slime they grow from—

Except for me, of course.

That's right. Do you miss the sun?

The sun is horrible, she said quickly. Sometimes when I'm down in the ground, even as far as I can go, I feel it picking at me, rotting me and making everything worse. When my children and my husband all needed me at the same time, or— Anyhow, this is much more annoying than that. But there's not much I can do about it.

I love the sun.

Well, you're still alive. I suppose I did, too.

When I remember you, I think of summer. It seems as if it was always summer when we—

That's because we were only involved for one summer.

It was longer than that!

No it wasn't; my letters afterward didn't count. But what else do you do with your days? Why don't you have another womanfriend?

She died.

Did you love each other?

Very much.

Why did you call me up instead of her?

I don't know.

What was she like?

You know, Victoria, it would be one thing if you cared to tell me about your family, not that I'm even so interested except that I'd like to know everything about you, while you—

Let's not fight.

Speaking of daytime, is there somewhere you'd like me to go where you can't, so I could come and tell you about it? For instance, I—

No.

Whatever you say.

But do tell me more about your friend Luke. What did he look like?

You know what he—

Before he died, silly.

When he was young, he was an extremely handsome man. After his first tumor he aged quickly. Unlike me, he was never fat. He had brown hair and greenish-blue eyes with twenty-ten vision. He was very strong, with great endurance, and he used to be a mountain climber. He took care of himself in more ways than I did, so it's strange that he went first.

I wonder if he would have liked me?

I saw you with him.

What do you mean?

In the viewing room—

What do you mean?

Anyhow . . .

Maybe I would have made it worth his while.

No doubt. You have your charms.

Too bad you were never handsome. I might have stayed with you then, or at least stayed with you longer.

I hope you got what you wanted with your other men.

Did I hurt you just now?

Not at all. I've had harder lovers than you. But you haven't answered me. Did you get what you wanted?

Mostly. But it didn't mean as much to me as it should have. Maybe you were better off.

You think I got less?

You didn't get me!

Yes I did.

I'll bet you don't even remember me! I'll test you. What size was I?

Seven.

That was just for awhile, after a certain thing happened. I guess I have to give you half-marks. You did try, I admit. I don't know how I felt about that.

I loved you so much.

Why?

You were my first. Isn't that the best reason?

I demand that you destroy all my letters.

Why should I? What will you do in return?

I'll tell you bright new stories and sing you all the ghost songs I know. Ha, ha! I actually don't know any ghost songs.

Then tell me a story.

And you'll destroy my letters?

Not yet. But—

Here's your story: When I was seventeen, I used to wish for a big brass bed with someone in it to watch me combing my hair. And it had to be a brass bed that wouldn't squeak! I was always very particular.

This is your bed, Victoria. I'll sit here and watch you comb your hair whenever you like.

Well, I'm not seventeen now. Now I'd rather make friends with the sun again, which I actually can't. I like what you said about the reeds in the marsh. Are there many flowers?

It's too late in the season.

I wish I could stay up all day, see the sun and dance on my grave.

Will you dance with me now?

Did you ever learn how?

Not really, but I could try.

You were the worst dancer of any of them. Not only did you try to get too intimate, but you never learned my timing. That's why I only let you dance with me once.

I must be worse now. Old men with stomach cancer aren't known for their fancy moves.

Never mind. I wish my grave had a porch that we could eat dinner on.

You and me?

Yes.

It makes me happy that you would say that.

Well, don't get spoiled or I'll be bitchy again. I quite enjoy being bitchy.

And you're my favorite dead bitch both spoiled and decayed.

What do you like for dinner these days?

Nothing now. Before I had cancer, I used to sauté catfish with whatever green vegetables were in season. I had a girlfriend who taught me how to cook fish.

Was she good in bed?

Excellent.

As good as me?

I don't know.

It used to make me sad, the way I could wrap men around my little finger. I knew exactly what to do to drive them crazy. The only thing I didn't know was how to feel it.

Then I'm sorry for you, Victoria. I always felt it.

Well, we're both beyond that now, aren't we? It's nice to just be domestic.

Next time I'll bring two paper plates so we can eat together. I'll pretend to eat a little something to be companionable, and I'll set fire to your portion, so it can be a burnt offering, and you can hover over the smoke.

That sounds like fun! Will you burn incense to me? Then I'll perform a snake dance.

With or without clothes?

Whatever you like, darling.

You know what I like.

Of course I do. You're no different from the others.

Once upon a time in that swamp he liked to visit, a lost black crayfish on the path, seeing his approach, extended its pincers in what he presumed to be a terrified threat. The ghoul's attitude of menace now struck him as nearly as ludicrously innocuous as that. Nearly every night it rushed toward him, burying its snout in his belly. He thought: This is how it must have been for Victoria when I came to her, back when we were seventeen.

But when he was all alone at home, he frequently imagined that the thing would come bursting through the front door. Then he would hear it rushing up the stairs. He lay in bed watching the bedroom door and knowing that in an instant it would fly open and the ghoul would come leaping at him with its mouth already wide open to bite. Wishing to domesticate not only the thing itself but also his dread of it, he reminded himself that it was, so it seemed, his future. Perhaps he would learn to be fond of it, and then it would take him to laugh with the fat green people who lay on their backs beneath the ground, rolling from side to side and kicking like infants.

It was August. Behind the well-known headstones lurked other strange
old beings which were actually familiar; by September, should he live that long, he might be able to make pets of them also. Each time he vomited, he felt freer. He no longer opened the hospital's invoices or returned the doctor's automated calls. He often lay on his back all day, imagining that he was thinking, and never lonely, thanks to the pain. He assured himself: Although I now belong to death, I can nonetheless own my death, just as I can own my memories of Victoria no matter who she was or is. And when I do take possession of and perhaps even love my death, then the other death which once corrupted me when I was seventeen, seeping out in my shyness and hideous poems, will be tamed, like this ghoul.— In point of fact, learning about himself had become ever more sinister; but since he was dying he lacked any obligation to continue this education.

In one of those lengthening nights when his belly was pregnant with foulness the ghost rose tall and narrow in the twilight, like an egret's neck, and said: When we were seventeen and my mother started reading your letters, I felt like a little girl who had her hands slapped. I knew that once I got away from her I would never want to come back.