The Lesson (5 page)

It has often plagued princes that they are known to be more cowardly than other men, despite all the advantages they begin with. Likewise, the most common birds may find themselves disgusted by the behavior of an eagle when it is confronted by a dog. Now, that is not even taking into account whether or not the other birds recognize the eagle (as many men do) to be the preeminent bird. Of course, although I find eagles very special and fine to see and come close to, when it is possible, as in the case of a convalescing eagle with a broken wing, I nevertheless strongly disagree with anyone setting the eagle up as the best bird. Ravens, crows, and owls are far more compelling to me, and I haven't gotten so far as to mention that magnificent fellow, the Ceraneous Vulture, who looks like nothing so much as a bishop or archimandrite free of his burdensome entourage and set foot upon the common roads with nary a care. I have even, I will tell you, seen a pair of these fine darlings together, quarreling, and the spectacle was something marvelous.

To wit, cowards are odious, and even more so when discovered among the ranks of the strong.

These are some of the thoughts that crossed Loring's mind as she stared upwards through the telescope. I won't go deeper into it, other than to say that part of the equipage from the balloon procession broke off and fell, and that perhaps even one or more of the children were nearly killed in that way, right in the street.

Of course, they were quick-footed and managed to escape. How glad they were, suddenly after, laughing and examining the wicker crates and leather bindings, the smashed provisions. One found a tricorn hat and started immediately giving orders to the others, who obeyed without question. At some point in these proceedings, Loring went inside and shut the window.

Downstairs in the parlor, she set the pieces up again on the board. He probably hadn't managed the Knight's Tour; there hadn't been very much time. It was likely, though, that he was thinking about it at that moment. Might one say that? That someone else would be thinking of something just then?

She sat down in the chair, the high-backed one, where she often slept. Then she stood and turned Ezra's photograph about the right way, so it was no longer facing the wall. She sat again, and leaned full back in the chair. She looked at the photograph then, as she had looked at it a thousand times, and it seemed to her to be the mention of her task—to go at once to the cemetery. There was still some light left. She wasn't really hungry at all, and could eat later. She would go to the cemetery.

Where the road ended, there was a little path down into a sort of basin, across which one could go with ease, as there was very little underbrush. Beyond this, the wall that surrounded the cemetery could be seen, but there was a place, and it was the place to which the path led, where the wall had fallen down in parts. This was the entrance Loring always used, for she did not often go in through the tall gates that faced the boulevard. In this way, even her entrance into the cemetery was private, and she liked that.

This was not the sort of cemetery where one is allowed to have a real say in what the tombstone will look like. All of these were exactly the same, more like small obelisks, or markers, about two feet high and eight inches square. The writing was very small, very small indeed. What was most interesting perhaps was that, beyond the rule that the stones be of the same sort, there was no rule that they be in lines. So, the stones on these hills were haphazardly placed, and gave an odd impression.

Another fineness of this particular place was the profusion of stone staircases laid on one or another hill. These made good places for sitting, and gave an odd sense of ill-founded purpose to the proceedings.

You can begin to see now why Loring liked this cemetery, and why she had not wanted her husband shipped away to be buried elsewhere. Of course, the niceness of this cemetery probably had nothing to do with that. She just wanted him near.

That a person should treasure the physical body of a dead lover is unsurprising, to say the least. In some sense we define our location in respect to the place where our counterpart stands, when they are still standing. No less then can we define our location in this way when they have perished. And so it is that there is a particular psychological condition, entirely undocumented, which has to do with the malaise and confusion one feels when one has been too long away from the place of burial of the ones one loves.

In no way would Loring, not even knowing the existence of this condition, risk such an issue.

Therefore, not a day passed wherein she did not go to the cemetery, and she had learned its appearance in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night. It was the night she liked best, of course. Wasn't it an old monastic practice to sleep a night in a cemetery? But she had sprained her ankle falling one black night, and since then, had kept more to the day when she could.

The caretaker was there, and saw her walking. He came up, and with him his wife and daughter.

This wife and this daughter, they were the same person, by a series of odd coincidences, but we will not go into that at the moment. Suffice it to say—do not be prejudiced against Gerard for this simple reason. There is proof that he is not to be blamed!

—Mme. Wesley. I hope you're well.

—Quite so, Gerard. Hello, Mona.

—Hello, said Mona, looking at her feet.

This was a habit of hers. Mona was not shy, but it was understood in the town that she didn't like looking at people much.

—I believe there was an accident, said Gerard. The balloon extravaganza caught fire. Everyone perished. I was asked my opinion by a correspondent from a national newspaper. He was here half an hour ago and left. He was looking for the crash site.

—What did you say?

—I said I didn't think there would be a crash site. Such an accident, at such a height, wouldn't the debris just spread out across the county?

—I would think so, said Loring. But I'm not a correspondent. I believe that correspondents are supposed to be at the scene when they get their story. Maybe he was worried that it might not count for much if he was elsewhere, even if there was nowhere to be.

—It was odd that he was here in the first place, said Mona. To arrive so soon after it happened? When must he have set out? The correspondents don't cover the Jubilee. He must have proposed to himself that there would be an accident, and come when there had still not been one.

These are the sort of dark thoughts that Mona had. She had, if anything, been bleaker as a child than now. She had been one of those known as
stationary children
or
stationaries
because she refused to move much. This caused endless difficulties for her mother, who eventually perished, for other reasons. Her father kept her on afterwards, in one or another capacity. She was older than he, of course, and so he relied on her advice in order to run the cemetery.

—Did you pass the new plots on your way up the hill?

—I don't know.

—The ground is still broken a bit around them, hasn't settled in yet. You didn't see?

—I suppose I did, said Loring, looking back.

—It's no use to look from here, said Mona, not unless you can see through that hill and out the other side.

She laughed.

—People are so stupid sometimes. Anyway, what I was saying is this: The new plots are doubled up. That Grish family died, all of 'em from blood poisoning. There were six of them and just three plots, so there was a big conversation here with the constabulary about if there should be a lottery between them to see which three would get the graves, because, of course, someone has to pay for them, or whether donations would be sought out, which likely wouldn't come, as they weren't well-respected. Leastways, it was decided to put them all in, and so the pairings had to be made. Now, this was a particular problem, as Gerard didn't know them at all and didn't have anything useful to say in the matter, but luckily Jan, our digger, he knew them in some small way. I don't think he gets around very much, but he had some experience calling on them, and so he was brought in to say which of them might not mind being in the grave with which other, and so forth.

Gerard had sat down on one of the stones. It did not look very comfortable. Loring sat too, but on the stair.

—There were six of them, as I said, and so it would seem like putting the husband and wife together would make sense, except that it was ruled out immediately on the basis of their hating one another furiously (which perhaps was the cause of death). So, the mother, Celeste, was put with Jimmy, the third oldest, and the father with the youngest, Peter, who he had been seen with once at the fair (someone said) and had appeared to have been having a good time. That left the other two, Gladys and Rollins, who supposedly couldn't stand to be in a room together. However, there wasn't anything for it. Three coffins, three graves, six bodies, in they went. Not even money for stones. They all got one stone. It said, Grish Family, blood poisoned. I don't really know what that means, do you?

But by then night had fallen, and so the couple went off down the hill to their house, which was within the cemetery walls. (A cemetery watcher's house within the cemetery walls: a fine thing!)

—I will find my own way out, said Loring.

was such that Loring was entirely exhausted by the time she reached the grave. She had to pick her way carefully. That night happened to be extremely dark. There was no moon and the clouds were sufficient to dull any impression of stars. She sat on the ground there and sank her fingers in the earth.

—My love, she said.

It will perhaps confuse you if I explain that as she sat there, she heard in her head the playing of a concert they once saw in Munich, in their middle age. Young people always assume that such things require great powers of memory or concentration, but of course, all things come with time and chance, and all things that come of their own accord are in that way blessed with great strength. So it is that one may suddenly be visited by a memory with great presence, whether it is that of music, or the feeling of a day, or a sight seen from afar, a face, a sense of a period of one's life as though a foot is dipped into a pool of water—yes, you see what I mean. What she heard was not the music itself; that would be absurd. Instead, for her there: what she felt to hear that music, and the sense of the music happening. Do not believe, oh my friends, that this is counterfeit, either. It is what we have. The
sense
of music swelling up into the broad night, with little fists of stone graves littered on the hill around…

So, she sat there awhile in the night until she was too tired to sit, and then she lay down, and soon fell asleep. When she woke it was the morning, and at least ten birds were in the tree above her head.

They were doing that bird thing that involves sleeping with the head under one wing. Another way of writing the above sentence would be, when she woke it was the morning, and ten headless birds were draped throughout the tree above her head. Of course, that would be misleading in the extreme, as when she woke, they woke too, and one after another beheld the glittering day. For them it was a moment of true significance, and having no shame, they sounded their horns, and climbed about on the shoulders of the branches with great impetuousness.

For Loring, it was a matter of sitting up again, and maneuvering to the tree, and sitting with her back to it. The gravestone was to her left, the greater part of the cemetery to her right. That there had been clouds in the sky the night before would in no way be evident any longer, as the endless blue whirling of the sky set about this way and that, and Loring closed her eyes again, and slept for another hour before the sun was full in her face, and drove her all the way home, though she went haltingly, weakly, and stopped often for rest. It is a difficulty, one might say, that the old who are strong willed do themselves harm with this will, for they never cease to demand too much until they no longer can and are swept away.

Loring went to the door and opened it. Indeed, it was not Stan at all, but the town doctor, Matthews, with whom we have previously been concerned. It had become his habit, every now and then, to stop by and play a game of chess with Loring. Of course, she would always give him odds, pawn and move, or even knight odds, depending on her mood. Nonetheless, he was an excellent player, and a discreet one. His manners were impeccable.

—John, why, hello.

—Hello, Loring. Have you time for a game or two? I was just passing this way.

—Yes, yes. A student is coming by, but that will be all right. Come in.

She welcomed Dr. Matthews into the house, and took his heavy coat, which he wore, even in the summer heat, being a very superstitious man. One somehow assumes that by their nature doctors, scientist, etc., would be immune to such nonsense, but of course it isn't the case at all. One might imagine a world of reason where all things fit into proper compartments, and then another, a hazy place of indistinct longings and infrequent arrivals—the first like a counting house, and the second like a train station during a land invasion. Is this hard to see—I am taking back my calling Dr. Matthew's superstition nonsense. Superstitions may be quite useful.

—You are looking well.

Loring was wearing an outfit that resembled nothing so much as a canvas sack with holes for the head and arms. To say that she had never troubled herself much over her appearance would be an understatement of the gravest sort. She had at one time had a great deal of youthful charm and exuberance. Now, in her latter days, utility was the matter foremost in her mind concerning clothing, and she would, in winter, wear as many as three dresses at the same time.

—Thank you, John.

They went into the parlor and sat down. The pieces were set up and Loring removed her queen's knight.

—Have you been playing much? she inquired.

—Oh, a game here or there.

They continued on and he soon blundered one piece and then another. He pushed his king over and smiled at her.

—Again?

And so they began again. The doctor loved to play in the romantic style of the nineteenth century. While such a style is delightful, scintillating, etc., it is generally effective only against weaker opponents. One must however appreciate that the character of their visits was enlivened by his archaic gambits, and she appreciated them in the spirit in which they were given.

Midway through the third game, a loud knock. The boy had arrived.

What did that meeting look like? The boy came in, wearing even then the sort of clothes a boy would wear to school; perhaps his parents were preparing him for that day which loomed in the near future, or perhaps all the clothes he owned were stiff and proper. In any case, he looked a boy with everything well in order. The doctor, of course, having delivered him, knew him well.

—Why, Stan, he said, are you a chess player?

Stan smiled.

—Dr. Matthews, it doesn't look like you're doing very well.

—She is relentless, said Matthews, grimacing. Don't you think?

—Oh, no, said Stan. She is very kind and helpful. A good teacher.

—Well, perhaps that is the problem, said the doctor. I come here for beatings and not for lessons. One of these days, Loring, you should give me some advice instead of spotting me a knight and beating the side of my head in.

—I will consider it, she said.

As the doctor's eyes passed across the parlor, from the boy to the chess board, they lit on the photograph of Ezra and his eyes narrowed. He looked at the boy and again at the picture and then at Loring. She did not see him, for she was busy staring at the board.

—Mate in five, she said. Unavoidable.

Stan came over to the board.

—Ah, said the doctor sadly. I see it now. My bishop here will fall when the rooks trade off, because of this intermediate queen check. At that point, it won't be protected. After that, there's nothing to be done. I can move this pawn, but, well…

Stan patted the doctor on the shoulder. Matthews was staring at him very carefully. He said nothing.

—Well, I am going to have to begin Stan's lesson now, so if you don't mind my kicking you out without tea…

The doctor got to his feet.

—I see, I see, he said. It's no trouble. Thank you for the games.

—I will see you to the door, said Loring.

She fetched his coat, and together they stepped out into the street. The boy was still by the chessboard. The doctor motioned that she should shut the door.

—Do you know, he said. Do you know how old that boy is?

—Five years old.

—Five years, four months, two days.

Loring looked at him.

—What do you mean?

—I don't mean anything at all. I delivered that boy on the very morning that,

—I understand perfectly well, John. That must have been where you were when,

—When I was called to this house with a certificate, yes. I came from there.

—I see.

They looked at each other for a moment longer, and then, unsure what to say, or if anything at all should be said, the doctor gave a curt half-bow, and tramped off down the street. Loring leaned against the door and looked up at the second floor of the house opposite. A fine web of ivy had overtaken the entire face and hung in strands, like hair from the withers of an ox.

—Born at the very hour, she said.

A woman was passing selling bread. She had a dark green shawl wrapped over her shoulders, and her basket had a thick leather strap that held it to her back.

Loring bought a loaf of bread from the woman and took it indoors. It was still hot from the oven. The woman must just have come from baking. Yet she did not have the look of someone who had just baked something. Perhaps she was the sister of the baker. What should such a person look like?