Swimmer in the Secret Sea (4 page)

His body ached and his eyes were tired. The shops on the street were all closed, the merchandize on display beneath dim nightlights, and he passed by it all on weary legs. The hotel had a single door leading to a cramped little lobby, into which he stepped, looking toward the night clerk's desk. The clerk, reading a newspaper, did not look up. A television set was going, and two men sat before it, smiling at some flickering image Laski could not see, but he sensed the loneliness of the men, and their desperate fight against it, huddled together before the television.

As if turned by a magnet, he went back out through the door into the street. The snow fell on him as he walked back to the truck and climbed into it, driving out of town and over the white highway toward the woods.

He entered the cabin reluctantly, as if it were a wave of ghosts. The stove was low and he stirred it up. When the surface was hot, he slid on a frying pan and cooked himself supper. He ate slowly, staring out the window at the whirling snow. When his meal was finished, he washed the dishes, not hurrying, but working slowly, with concentration, leaving no room for morbid thoughts, ghosts, fears. There was only the hot water, the dish, his hands, the soapy rag.

The stairs to the second floor looked dark and foreboding, and what's up there, amidst the baby clothes and crib? There's nothing up there, he said, and he walked up the stairs and undressed in the small bedroom. He kept the light on for a few minutes and then, resigning himself to darkness and sleep, switched it off.

Alone in a dark house far out in the woods, with a storm blowing on the outside and the shadow of death on the inside, he crawled beneath the covers. Spectres rose up behind his closed eyes, weird and menacing. He watched his mind play out its age-old fears, and trembling, he fell into dreams, finding himself outside the cabin walking through the dream-forest. Beside a tree he saw a cloaked and hooded figure. The figure turned and the face beneath the hood was a smiling skull of stone. Death held out his walking stick, and Laski took it in his hand.

Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the hospital window and he sat down beside her again. She looked stronger, and the storm was over.

'We have to bury the baby,' she said. 'They don't want him in the morgue anymore.'

'We can bury him in the woods.'

'That's what I told the nurse. She said it was highly unusual, but that it would probably be all right. She had a lot of forms. We'll have to have a witness.'

'How about the autopsy? Won't the baby be...?'

'She said they put him back together again.'

Doctor Barker came into the room. They both looked at him in silence. He stood, tall and uncomfortable at the foot of the bed. 'The autopsy showed your baby was perfectly normal. There's no reason why what happened should ever happen again.'

'Do you think she can go home tomorrow?'

'How do your stitches feel?'

'They burn a little, that's all.'

I suppose you can leave, if you'll feel better at home.' He turned to go, then turned back to Diane. 'I know it's difficult to lose your first baby when you're thirty.'

The last light of day went along the brick wall of the hospital. Laski sat by the window, watching as night came on. Diane, wearing a bathrobe, entered the room. 'I told the nurse we'd be taking the baby home tomorrow after-noon.'

'I'll build a little box for him tonight.'

Will you be able to dig a hole in the frozen ground?'

A nurse peeked her head inside the door. 'There are some fluids in the hall if either of you want any.'

Laski went out and found a tray of watered fruit drinks. He poured some orange into two glasses and returned to the room. 'Fluids,' he said, handing her the thin orange drink.

The night visiting bell sounded. 'I'll be in first thing
tomorrow afternoon,' he said, kissing her lightly on th
e lips. Then he went down the green hall, toward the street, the highway, and home.

The steel roof of the cabin was bright in the moonlight as he parked the truck in the drive. He opened the door to the shed, where his lumber was piled. How am I going to do this? he asked himself, looking at the long pile of pine boards and at his tools. He was overcome by a feeling of dread about making the coffin; he had no wish to build it, or anything, ever again.

He fingered the smoothly planed surface of the boards; the heavy feeling in him remained, as if he were in a dark cloud, but he grabbed a board and hauled it out of the pile.

Carrying the sawhorses into his studio, he spaced them out evenly. Across them he laid the long clean pine board. Then he brought his toolbox in and set it down. He pulled the metallic ruler out of its case and stretched it along the wood imagining the size of the baby's body.

He laid his T-square on the mark, drew a straight line and sawed along it, thinking of the old days when men had always built the caskets of their loved ones, and he saw that it was a good thing to do, that it was a privilege few men had anymore. He marked the next line carefully and sawed a matching piece to form the floor of the casket.

He joined the two pieces and then cut the sides and ends for the box. The time passed slowly and peacefully. He worked, sanding the edges of the pieces so that they would join well, to form a box that no one would see, but which had to be made perfectly. He drilled holes and countersunk them, and screwed on the sides and end-pieces.

Squatting on the floor, sawdust on his knees and a pencil behind his ear, he turned the screws slowly, biting deep into the wood. He sanded along the edge of the box, making another fine cloud of sawdust, which filled his nose with a memorable smell. I built a house for us, with a room for him, and now I'm building his casket. There's no difference in the work. We simply must go along, eyes open, watching our work carefully, without any extra thoughts. Then we flow with the night.

The little box took shape and he resisted feeling proud of it, for pride was something extra. I do it quietly, for no one, not even for him, for he's gone beyond my little box. But he left behind a fragment of himself, which requires a box I can carry through the woods. And the box needs a lid and I've got to find a pair of hinges.

He rummaged around the shed and found an old rusted pair, small and squeaky, but serviceable. Marking the outlines for the hinges, he chiseled out their shape, so they slid snugly down into the wood. He tried the lid and continued setting the hinges, until the lid finally closed solidly. He worked the lip up and down a few times, enjoying the smooth action of it, until he remembered what it was for, and he saw again that there should be nothing extra in the work.

He put away the sawhorses and his tools, and swept up the dust. Then he sat down in a chair and quietly rocked, back and forth, looking at the coffin. A vague dissatisfaction stirred in him, growing slowly more clear and troubling.

If we bury him here, we'll be attached to this land permanently. I can have him cremated at a funeral home, and his ashes will be put in a little metal box and we can carry it around with us when we travel. And when we get to the middle of the ocean someday, we can throw his ashes there.

That's exactly what we should do. I'll take him to the funeral home tomorrow and they can cremate him in the little coffin.

A feeling of freedom came to Laski—freedom from land and houses and graves. And keeping this thought in his mind, he went upstairs to bed.

When he entered the hospital room, it was into a new atmosphere—the other bed was now occupied. As he went toward Diane, out of the corner or his eye he saw a young girl lying in the bed he had lain in. Beside her was a young man, and two older women. They pulled a curtain around themselves and Laski sat down beside Diane.

'She lost her baby,' whispered Diane.

Laski glanced toward the closed curtain, behind which soft shadows were moving. 'I think we should have the baby cremated in town this afternoon.'

'But why?'

'If we bury him on the land, it will just be another tie for us, that this is the place where the baby is buried.'

Her eyes filled with tears again. 'If you think i
t's best
....'

'I don't know what's best,' he said. 'Maybe there isn't any best. But the thought was very strong and I'm trying to flow with it.'

'What will you do?'

'I'll go over to the funeral home now and find out if they can do it right away.'

He stood and went past the other visitors. Down the hall once more, and down the stairs, his thoughts were racing now—to get it over with, and set them free.

He crossed the parking lot quickly and started the truck. Vaguely remembering the whereabouts of a funeral home, he drove through town. They'll deal with the whole thing, and we won't have to get involved.

Snowplows were still working, clearing the streets, and here and there people were shoveling out their sidewalks and driveways. Laski turned a corner and saw the old colonial manor with the black and white nameplate on one of its large old pillars. It was an enormous place, with many windows, and he looked through the front window, down a long hallway lined with flowers and muted floor lamps. The parking lot was filled with cars. Three large limousines were heaped with flowers, and a crew of professionally somber men in black were standing beside a fourth limousine, hung with gray velvet curtains. The side door opened and the front end of a casket came out, made of dark wood polished to a high gloss and trimmed with silver and gold filigree. Clinging to its shining brass carrying-rails was a crew of professionals, waxed-faced and silent, bearing the huge gaudy coffin toward the hearse, where the back door was opened smoothly by a driver, who helped to slide the coffin into the richly curtained interior.

Laski drove on, horrified. What in hell did I almost do?'

His hands were trembling on the wheel. Tears in his eyes, he looked down at the little pine box on the seat beside him, and laid his hand upon its plain smooth surface.

Circling back through town, he returned to the hospital;
once again through the corridors, once again up the stairs, once again past the nurses, and past the people visiting in Diane's room.

'Let's go,' he said softly, taking Diane's hand. 'We're going home together, and we'll bury him down by the stream.'

'But what about the funeral home?'

'Just something I dreamed up to protect myself from the truth of death.'

She got up from the bed. 'I just have to get dressed,' she said, taking her clothes into the bathroom; he sat on the edge of the bed, and heard the voices of the visitors talking to the young girl behind the curtain.

'You mustn't think about it anymore.'

'Tomorrow's another day.'

'Yes,' said the girl. And then again, '
Yes
,' softly.

'That's right, dear. You should always look to the future.'

'What a pretty nightgown.'

'I got it at the K-Mart.'

'They'll have the sales there now.'

'Everything will be half-price. After New Year's.'

Smoke drifted over the curtain. Laski went to the window. The previous day's paper was on the window-sill, and glancing at the headlines he saw war, scandal, inflation. We'll bury him the stream. This moment dies and is followed by another moment which also dies. Moment to moment I go.

'I'm ready,' she said. He picked up her bag and they went to the desk. An elderly nurse spoke them. 'I've told them to have the baby ready for you down at the reception desk. He'll be all wrapped nicely.'

Another nurse appeared with a wheelchair.

'I can walk,' said Diane.

'Rules,' said the nurse. 'You get to ride.'

Diane sat in the chair and they went to the elevator. The nurse wheeled her into it and Laski stood beside her as they rode down to the lobby.

The usual crowd was there, reading magazines and staring at the pale yellow walls. The nurse wheeled them to the reception room. 'The Laski baby,' she said.

The receptionist went into the room behind her and returned with an orderly, who carried a small linen bundle.

Diane, still in the wheelchair, held her arms out, a sob breaking in her throat. The orderly stood puzzled, not knowing what to do. Laski reached out and took the cold little parcel cradling it in one arm, and carrying Diane's suitcase with the other. They went up the exit ramp toward the door. He looked down at Diane and saw her still crying.

'I'll bring the truck to the door,' he said, and went out across the parking lot, with the baby still in his arms. He could not feel the outline of the body, only the small
weight of it in the cold linen wrapping. From a refrigerator
, he thought, and then he opened the truck and slid inside.

With the baby on his lap, he opened the pine box and laid the linen-shrouded child into it. He closed the lid and latched it shut. The nurse was waiting at the sidewalk as he drove up to the entrance of the hospital. They helped Diane out of the chair and into the front seat of the truck. 'You'll have better luck next time,' said the nurse. She waved to them, standing for a moment beneath the hospital awning, and then as they pulled away she turned with the empty wheelchair.

'It's a lovely box,' said Diane, her voice calm now.

The box was between them on the seat, and for a moment Laski smelled the sweet perfume of death, or was it the smell of the wood? The delicate odor continued to come to him as they went along the highway, by the fields and the river. The day was unseasonably warm, with wisps of gray mist above the water, and the snow was changing to slush along the shoulder of the road.

'It's just us again,' he said.

'Yes,' she said, their hands touching on the lid of the pine box.

He wheeled the truck up into the wooded hills along the old road toward their home. Above an abandoned farm a crow went through the January sky, black wings beating slowly on the gray heights.

Laski turned down the lane to the cabin, and into the drive. He got out and opened the door for her. She stepped into the snow, leaning on him. The sound of melting snow as it dripped on the trees filled the air, and the smell of the trees came strong on the moist warm breeze.