Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) (28 page)

Astonished, the Trench Ghost asked himself whether that could be true. He decided that it was.— In that case, he decided, I'll never be in danger. I have no body.

The next shell atomized the chaplain. The Trench Ghost said to
himself: That man was in danger. Something happened to him. But nothing will ever happen to me.

Then he asked himself: If that man was more than a body, then where is he? Why can't I see him? Can he see me? Is he where I am now?

And he began to search for the chaplain, as if he could hope for something. That was what led him all the way to China. How much more blood has darkened that dirt? In another century or two he might return to the Canal Grande in Trieste, because they say that every dead thing ends up in there . . .

If you have never loved with such luminous fidelity as to await a dead lady at a crossroads at midnight, then the question of why it is that Romania produces fewer vampires now than in old times must seem insoluble to you. Timidity becomes its own excuse; and perhaps you have not dared even to see your own spouse naked, much less encoffined. Many there are nowadays who refrain from kissing a dead forehead. A wife dies alone in a hospital bed, in the small hours when the nurse sits down to sleep, while the janitor rests his chin on the handle of his mop. At mid-morning the husband peeks in to identify her; next comes the undertaker to nail her up, or, as may be, the coroner to slit her open. Ashes to ashes, promises the minister, but should she refrain from decaying in that fashion, who will be apprised of that wondrous miracle except for the true heart who comes to the crossroads at midnight to share a kiss? Satan, they say, can speak even from a rotting skull—a mere assertion seized upon by you who have never loved bravely. Insisting over the sad sighs of your conscience that you would not be able to distinguish her from Satan, you decline to visit your own wife, forgetting that loneliness is the Devil's work—and what could be more lonely than a beautiful dead lady returning to the cemetery without a kind embrace from anyone? Let me tell you this: In Romania it was once not entirely unheard of for female vampires to glide home to their children; and in Greece the cobbler Alexander of Pyrgos died, became one of those swollen-bellied leather-brown monsters whom they call
vrykolakas,
and then, relying upon the discretion of a moonless night, crept back into the doorway of his much-adored wife, for whom he drew water untiringly. In the daytime, so that the children would not be afraid, he slept inside a certain oblong trunk which leaned up against the back of the closet; every night as soon as the young ones were all asleep his dear wife let him out, and he bent over his bench, returning their tiny shoes into good trim. As for him, he went barefoot and naked; his clothes had long since rotted off him; his yellow
toenails were indistinguishable from hooves. Perhaps his skill had declined somewhat; he now lost tack nails or sometimes drove them in crooked, but his heart, let's say, was correct. Sitting at his bench, counting scraps of leather with unmoving lips, he did as much as he could. One night when he stood at the well for his wife, with a bucket over each shoulder, the moon dashed out from the clouds to betray him; and so the neighbors came at high noon with blunderbusses, scythes, stakes and pitchforks. At that hour he was helpless, of course. They built a pyre outside the house, burned him, box and all, hacked up his curiously elongated bones, and raked everything down into that well, which they supposed his exertions must have cursed. They similarly disposed of his tools and stock (although one lad couldn't help keeping a handful of shining rivets; he soon died of a nightmare pox). Next went the children's shoes, and even the dried bouquet which this Alexander had first brought home from the graveyard. The way some tell it, his wife was tearless; the children had been having nightmares anyhow. It is reported when the saviors came in (not very politely, I'm afraid), she even might have pointed to the closet—wordlessly, in case he could hear. On the other hand, it could have been that her love for this Alexander survived his demise, in which case she knew enough to stay on the good side of the Church.— At any rate, a week after the vampire's removal there came a plague to Pyrgos. How could anyone blame Alexander's harmless ashes? Besides, nobody dared to drink from that polluted well, which, so some asserted, emitted a miasmatic cloud (people can always be found to speak badly of the dead).

The story now turns to Bohemia, where a sad paterfamilias named Michael Liebesmann, with three young daughters in attendance, watched his dear wife's coffin descend into the grave. All the neighbors were there, of course; even the butcher was weeping; I wonder if she owed him money? The priest gave a particularly fine sermon, and in signification of another kind of future consolation, there was visited upon Michael the full-lipped yet narrow smile of his widowed neighbor Doroteja, who wished to become his second wife. At the end, as was customary in their region, the members of the bereaved family masked themselves, and
returned home circuitously, in order that the abandoned corpse could not follow them.

According to the astrologers, on that very night the moon had entered her seventh mansion, called
Alarzach,
which is good for lovers. And just before it set, while the children slept and Michael sat sadly in his doorway, his wife flitted back to him.

Among the reasons we ought to be grateful to death is that not until we lose the one whom we love can we feel how much we've loved her. Grief's wound lets light in! According to the Book of Revelation, it is a very particular species of light. I refer you to that certain half-hour on a summer's mid-morning in Torino when the charwomen are all finishing along the Corso Re Umberto, so that the floors of those squarish passageways they've tended, be they marble, mosaic-tiled or ordinary concrete, all glisten with comparable preciousness; and the walls, painted in burgundy and Naples yellow, achieve greater brilliance than they ever will again (until tomorrow, tomorrow); this goes especially for their far ends, which hint of sunlit courts. For we dwell within ourselves, losing sight, as Plato says, of the darkness; and when Death creeps up silently behind us on his bony tiptoes, strangles our cohabitant, and wrenches her outside of our flesh, we cannot but
see
that golden morning beyond us, which most of us fear more than Death himself. The light is nameless, while the wound is called loneliness. In time we teach ourselves to forget the light, straightening up within our bodies so that our soul-faces resume residence within our skulls; and that clotting gash in the chest (not mortal this time, evidently) admits the light only vaguely now; anyhow, it's so far below our chins as to pose no inconvenience;
*
and the charwomen set down their buckets, stretch, massage their aching hips, shield their gazes with dirty sweaty hands and peer down those corridors which they've mopped for ever so many thousands of times; and while the light remains
as hurtful as ever, the tunnels and corridors have dulled now, and the charwomen turn back into themselves, permitting me to do the same; in short, I follow a pair of immaculate policemen as we cross the Piazza Solferino untroubled by the red traffic signal. Such is light; such is life; and so the philosophers explained to me while we sat beneath Italian flags in Torino; and a double-chinned lady trolled through her magenta purse without looking, while a man in very dark sunglasses picked her pocket.

In short, Michael was lucky to get his wife back after bereavement taught him how to value her. But could he remember how precious she was?

Her eyes shone dully at him like copper coins in an algaed pool. She seemed very weak. Her cerements were stained with dirt, urine and blood. He took her hand, which resembled cool yellow marble. No one else was out, it being, appropriately, the witching hour. Tenderly he conveyed her to a secret place in the river-reeds, stripped her and himself, and bore her into the water, squatting down to lay her across his knees, with his right arm cradling her neck and his left supporting her ankles, and so he held her, singing her name to her while the filth oozed out to darken the water downstream. He rocked her in his arms, combing clean her long hair. Frantically kissing her drooping, bloody wrists, supporting her drooping head, he whispered loving secrets into her ear. Finally, he carried her to the grass and laid her across his lap. He massaged her with chicken-fat, arnica and lavender. Then he pulled her Sunday dress back over her, lifted her into his arms, and conveyed her into the hayshed where the children would not see her. In the corner where the forage was freshest and softest he laid down a bedsheet, which he tucked around her, then walled her away behind heaps of hay. Her eyes shone like candles, because she knew how much he loved her.

He kissed her and kissed her, fearing that she had fled him. At last she reopened her eyes.

He asked what death was like, and, just as the lid of an anthropoid Egyptian coffin slowly levitates, at first proffering nothing but a wedge of darkness, no long brown mummy-fingers yet, she parted her lips to speak. Terror poisoned him. She said, almost angrily: Are you
sure
?

Yes, Milena, I wish to know—for your sake . . .

Very well. You'll find yourself choking in your tomb, however large it might be. Even an Emperor learns that his sepulcher is no refuge.

What is it, then?

A torture chamber to kill the dead.

Upon her breath was the bitter smell of sand. As he stood appalled, she sought his hand, whispering: Save me; don't make me go back there! Do you promise?

I promise.

Thank you, husband.

Now tell me what happened to you.

Nothing.

And then what?

Then suddenly I missed you so much that it was worse than dying. I was blind and paralyzed, but aware. I wanted to be dead and not yearn for you, but I couldn't be, and if I had been, the grave would have begun torturing me again. Then I felt a pain in my right breast as if a rat were eating me; and worms bored into my eyes. Through the holes they had made, I could see, and through the hole in my breast, my heart could drink from the moon. So I came to life again. See, Michael—feel my heart!

She laid his hand on her yellow-white breast, smiling pitiably.

Can you feel it beat?

Yes, he lied, kissing her blue lips.

Michael?

What is it, darling?

I think the sexton stole my wedding ring.

Let him keep it.

What will we do?

I don't know, he said. But he did know the following: Since he loved her, he would not return her (at least not prematurely) to
that,
her coffin-prisoned head staring up forever into vile darkness.

But then matters got worse, for Milena said: It's about to get light. I need to hide—

God's sake, what do you mean?

To sleep in my grave, until nightfall.

With the coffin-lid pressing on your face?

Yes. But I won't know it.

If I make you a new coffin, can you sleep at home?

Yes, but if anybody finds out—

I can't bear to be apart from you, and you under the earth.

Yes, yes; I'm going now. Michael, I love you; I'm going now . . .

That night she returned to him. By then, he had built a wooden box to her measure, which of course he knew by heart.

Usually she awoke shortly before dusk, but she preferred not to be present until the Blessing of the Lamps. They had agreed not to tell the children, at least not until they were older.

Sometimes he peeped in on her in late afternoon, when he could not bear to wait anymore. At that time her open eyes wore that lost gaze pertaining to the faces of marble statues. Taking her thus unawares gave him an erotic feeling he could hardly resist, but as he bent down to kiss her, she seemed almost to squirm and grimace, as if his presence were disturbing her; her mouth gave off a bad smell. In the morning, as he discovered, she presented a far more hideous appearance. It was as if at dawn she relapsed into an utterly corpselike state, then slowly over the daylight hours regained whatever it was she needed to live. Once he understood this, he would no more have spied on her (at least, not too often) before the sun was waning than he would have watched her in the outhouse.

You see, he tried his best to love her as she was, which is why this story will be as sweet as the tale of little Merit, the Egyptian wife, who, playing one of her girlish pranks, predeceased her husband; he adored her so much that he permitted her to dwell forever inside the sarcophagus made to his own larger measure. The slaves built him another, and in time, as
any good husband should, he came to join her. And now the glass-eyed effigies of their anthropoid coffins stare straight up, side by side. She is bewitching in her gilded and bitumen-striped mummy-mask. They have kohled the outlines of her sweet dark eyes; they have painted her eyebrows and drawn stylish cat-lines from the outer corners of her eyes toward her temples. Her cheeks have been rouged to perfection, and gold shines subtly through the transparency of her pink smile. They gaze upward, but will never see the sky.

He begged her to let him comb her hair, and, smiling wearily or perhaps grimacing, she bowed her head to him, while lovingly he ran her best four-toothed comb, one of whose teeth the middle daughter had broken off by accident when she was very little, through her long wet hair, singing to her as he untangled it.

Her mother, whom he had brought secretly, gazed downward, and her face contorted into a sobbing smile. Milena opened her eyes. When she reached up to touch her mother's neck, the mother screamed.

They made her swear by Saint Polona not to tell anyone. She kept weeping.

Mother, it's really me; I'm not a fiend . . .

Oh, I believe you; I won't say a word, not even to the priest, but why in the Lord's name couldn't you sleep in your grave? What happened to you, Milena; what happened?

Before she could answer, Michael said: Mother, if you learn the answer, you'll never have any peace. I promise upon my salvation that she's done nothing evil. Trust me! You're better off not not knowing what death is.

I don't know, I don't know—

Mother, said the returned one, do you want to see me again?

No, child. I can't bear this. I love you, and I wish you and Michael happiness, but you're
dead.
I'm going to tell myself this never happened . . .

Next came the turn of the daughters, peeping pale and timid, the youngest one gaping and the middle one rubbing her red eyes, the eldest folding her hands in her lap—how could this
not
have occurred?