It was so abrupt, she almost laughed, but then she said, «Remember what Edith Whanon said when Henry James did what you just did?»
«What?»
'The flavor starts at the elbow.'
They broke into laughter together and he turned and went down the marble steps toward the stained-glass entry. At the bottom of the stairs he looked up at her and said:
«Tonight, when you're going to sleep, remember what I called you when I was twelve, and say it out loud.»
«I don't remember,» she said.
«Yes, you do.»
Below the town, a train whistle blew again.
He opened the front door, stepped out, and he was gone. Her hand on the last light switch, looking in at the double circle of books on the far table, she thought: What was it he called me?
«Oh, yes,» she said a moment later.
And switched off the light.
Free Dirt
1996 year
The cemetery was in the center of the city. On four sides it was bounded by gliding streetcars on glistening blue tracks and cars with exhaust fumes and sound. But, once inside the wall, the world was lost. For half a mile in four directions the cemetery raised midnight trees and headstones that grew from the earth, like pale mushrooms, moist and cold. A gravel path led back into darkness and within the gate stood a Gothic Victorian house with six gables and a cupola. The front-porch light showed an old man there alone, not smoking, not reading, not moving, silent. If you took a deep breath he smelled of the sea, of urine, of papyrus, of kindling, of ivory, and of teak. His false teeth moved his mouth automatically when it wanted to talk. His tiny yellow seed eyes twitched and his poke-hole nostrils thinned as a stranger crunched up the gravel path and set foot on the porch step.
«Good evening!» said the stranger, a young man, perhaps twenty.
The old man nodded, but his hands lay quietly on his knees «I saw that sign out front,» the stranger went on. «FREE DIRT, it said.»
The old man almost nodded.
The stranger tried a smile. «Crazy, but that sign caught my eye.
There was a glass fan over the front door. A light shone through this glass fan, colored blue, red, yellow, and touched the old man's face. It seemed not to bother him.
«I wondered, free dirt? Never struck me you'd have much left over. When you dig a hole and put the coffin in and refill the hole, you haven't much dirt left, have you? I should think…»
The old man leaned forward. It was so unexpected that the stranger pulled his foot off the bottom step.
«You want some?» said the old man.
«Why, no, no, I was just curious. Signs like that make you curious.»
«Set down,» said the old man.
«Thanks.» The young man sat uneasily on the steps. «You know how it is, you walk around and never think how it is to own a graveyard.»
«And?» said the old man.
«I mean, like how much time it takes to dig graves.»
The old man leaned back in his chair. «On a cool day:
two hours. Hot day, four. Very hot day, six. Very cold day, not cold so it freezes, but real cold, a man can dig a grave in one hour so he can head in for hot chocolate, brandy in the chocolate. Then again, you get a good man on a hot day, he's no better than a bad man in the cold. Might take eight hours to open up, but here's easy-digging soil here. All loam, no rocks.»
«I'm curious about winter.»
«In blizzards we got a icebox mausoleum to stash the dead, undelivered mail, until spring and a whole month of shovels and spades.»
«Seeding and planting time, eh?» The stranger laughed.
«You might say that.»
«Don't you dig in winter anyhow? For special funerals? Special dead?»
«Some yards got a hose-shovel contraption. Pump hot water through the blade; shape a grave quick, like placer mining, even with the ground an ice-pond. We don't cotton to that. Use picks and shovels.»
The young man hesitated. «Does it bother you?»
«You mean, I get scared ever?»
«Well . . . yes.»
The old man at last took out and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, tamped it with a callused thumb, lit it, let out a small stream of smoke.
«No,» he said at last.
The young man's shoulders sank. «Disappointed?» said the old man. «I thought maybe once .
«Oh, when you're young, maybe. One time …»
«Then there was a time!» The young man shifted up a step. The old man glanced at him sharply, then resumed smoking. «One time.» He stared at the marbled hills and the dark trees. «My grandpa owned this yard. I was born here. A gravedigger's son learns to ignore things.»
The old man took a number of deep puffs and said:
«I was just eighteen, folks off on vacation, me left to tend things, alone, mow the lawn, dig holes and such. Alone, four graves to dig in October and a cold came hard off the lake, frost on the graves, tombstones like snow, ground froze solid.
«One night I walked out. No moon. Hard grass underfoot, could see my breath, hands in my pockets, walking, listening.»
The old man exhaled frail ghosts from his thin nostrils. «Then I heard this sound, deep under. I froze. It was a voice, screaming. Someone woke up buried, heard me walk by, cried out. I just stood. They screamed and screamed. Earth banged. On a cold night, ground's like porcelain, rings, you see?
«Well-« The old man shut his eyes to remember. «I stood like the wind off the lake stopped my blood. A joke? I searched around and thought, Imagination! No, it was underfoot, sharp, clear. A woman's voice. I knew all the gravestones.» The old man's eyelids trembled. «Could recite them alphabetical, year, month, day. Name any year, and I'll tell. How about 1899? Jake Smith departed. And 1923? Betty Dallman lost. And 1933? P. H. Moran! Name a month. August? August last year, buried Henrietta Wells. August 1918? Grandma Hanlon, whole family! Influenza! Name a day, August fourth? Smith, Burke, Shelby carried off. Williamson? He's on that hill, pink marble. Douglas? By the creek …»
«The story,» the young man urged.
«Eh?»
«The story you were telling.»
«Oh, the voice below? Well, I knew all the stones. Standing there, I guessed that voice out of the ground was Henrietta Fremwell, fine girl, twenty-four years, played piano at the Elite Theatre. Tall, graceful, blond. How did I know her voice? I stood where there was only men's graves. Hers was the only woman's. I ran to put my ear on her stone. Yes! Her voice, way down, screaming!
«'Miss Fremwell!' I shouted.
«'Miss Fremwell,' I yelled again.
«Deep down I heard her, only weeping now. Maybe she heard me, maybe not. She just cried. I ran downhill so fast I tripped and split my head on a stone, got up, screamed myself! Got to the tool shed, all blood, dragged out the tools, and just stood there in the moonlight with one shovel. The ground was ice solid, solid. I fell back against a tree. It would take three minutes to get back to her grave, and eight hours of cold night to dig to her box. The ground was like glass. A coffin is a coffin; only so much space for air. Henrietta Fremwell had been buried two days before the freeze, been asleep all that time, using up air, and it rained just before the cold spell and the earth over her, soaked with rainwater now, froze. I'd have to dig maybe eight hours. And the way she cried, there wasn't another hour of air left.»
The old man's pipe had gone out. He rocked in his chair, back and forth, back and forth, silently.
«But,» said the young man, «what did you do?»
«Nothing,» said the old man.
«Nothing!?»
«Nothing I could do. That ground was solid. Six men couldn't have dug that grave. No hot water near. And she might've been screaming hours before I heard, so . .