After Life (37 page)

One morning that week I cataloged a book called
The Human Vivisection of Sir Washington Irving Bishop, the First and World-Eminent Mind-Reader.
It was a thin, pamphlet-sized monograph bound in faded blue paper with gold lettering, dated 1889. It was written by Bishop’s mother, Eleanor Fletcher Bishop, and told the story of her son’s bizarre death. Washington Bishop was a mind reader, one who performed stunts like this one: someone—preferably a prominent, well-known, and liked person of the city he was performing in, the mayor, perhaps—would hide a brooch or a hair pin or some other small object within a mile radius of an agreed-upon starting point. Bishop, with his hand tied to that of the person who’d hidden the item, would then rush about the city, invariably finding it within half an hour. Sometimes, he’d head straight for it, veering from the most direct route only when a building or river or some other immovable structure required it. However, these acts of clairvoyance took a lot out him, and often after such a performance, Bishop fell into a kind of cataleptic fit. He’d barely make it back to his room before succumbing to a deathlike state: his breathing would nearly stop, his heartbeat slowed to just detectable levels, his skin turned gray and cool. Anyone who knew Bishop would never mistake this state for death, however; he—like many Victorians—had a morbid fear of premature burial and spoke of it often. In the latter years of the century, all kinds of devices were patented to prevent such an occurrence or to catch it before it was too late. I’d seen them in other books. One, I remember, involved a sensitive air bladder placed on the chest of the deceased; any movement, even the slightest breath, would cause a bright red flag to pop up and signal to passersby that an exhumation was in order,
tout de suite.
Other devices involved megaphones and air tubes and lightbulbs—the only thing worse than waking up in a coffin underground being, presumably, waking up in a coffin
in the
dark.

Washington Bishop’s big fear, worse even than being buried alive, was that of premature autopsy. He carried a note with him stating that under no circumstances should his “corpse” be subjected to autopsy, or packing in ice, or prodding with electrodes. However, stated Mrs. Bishop in her monograph, an autopsy is exactly what happened, not eight hours after his final mind-reading performance. It was carried out in secret—I couldn’t tell by whom, but it appeared to be initiated by a cadre of jealous, less-successful mind readers—and it wasn’t discovered until shortly before the funeral. A friend was helping the distraught Mrs. Bishop prepare her son for the service, combing his hair, when he dropped the comb. It disappeared. A little probing revealed that Bishop’s head had been sliced open and his brain removed; the comb had fallen into the empty cavity. Well.

The brain was eventually retrieved and buried along with the rest of Bishop, but his mother wasn’t satisfied. There was supposed to be
no
autopsy, yet one had occurred. Mrs. Bishop was convinced by this time that her son hadn’t died at all, but been murdered by the crazed “vivisectionists.” This turned out to be a tricky thing to prove in court. If he seemed dead, tested dead in every way, how could someone say he simply wasn’t? How could Mrs. Bishop be so sure?

A mother simply knows,
said Mrs. Bishop, claiming for herself the psychic powers that killed her son.

On Saturday morning I got a phone call from Peter’s sister. I was in my pajamas, fixing an English muffin that I planned to eat upstairs in my room, when Ron handed me the phone.

“Moira Morton,” he said.

I set my muffin down and took the phone cautiously. It was several seconds before I could say Hello.

“Hi, I doubt you remember me. We met at the library last month. I hope you’re not busy today, because I’d really like to meet you for lunch. Moira Morton, Peter’s sister?”

“Right,” I said. I recognized her voice: the woman at the library. “Of course. Today’s actually kind of busy.”

A long silence. Then: “All right, I understand that, but can you meet me for lunch? I can be there at noon.”

“I don’t know.”

She sighed impatiently. “I’m coming at noon, then. Meet me outside the library.”

I hung up the phone and stood there for a moment, wondering what I had gotten myself into, and then the phone rang again. Again it was Moira.

“If you have anything of Peter’s, books or anything, I’d like you to give them to me,” she said.

“All right. I’ll look around.”

“Good,” she said.

She showed up at exactly noon, in a black minivan that looked like a government vehicle. It rolled down the narrow leafy road toward the museum. I was watching for her out a side window. I’d put my hair up in the closest thing to a French twist I could manage, and I was wearing a pink cotton sweater and a pink-and-blue plaid skirt. I hadn’t taken a shower, which I regretted now; my fingernails could have been cleaner and I suspected I smelled odd. Sometimes when I got very nervous I’d sweat, and I was nervous now. I sniffed myself and thought I could detect a faint oniony odor. I’d just have to keep my arms clamped to my sides all day. In my purse were two books of Peter’s: a biography of Tycho Brahe and the plays of Aristophanes. I hadn’t wanted to give them up, but I did want to make Moira happy.

I was already outside, locking the front door of the library, by the time the minivan had come to a complete stop. Moira got out and slammed the door. She was wearing a suit made out of a nubbly, woolly material, and her black hair was swept off her forehead and tied in a loose ponytail. She walked up to me with her arms folded, her eyes not quite meeting mine. They were hazel, darker than Peter’s, and sat above Peter’s small sharp cheekbones. The expression on her face was neither hostile nor friendly; she looked, as she had in the library, rather bored. I wondered what she did for a living. Something in an office, I’d have bet; something with numbers instead of people, a job that let you be as rude as you liked, as long as you dressed well.

“I suppose I should ask what this is all about,” I said. I tried to say it lightly, with some irony, but it came out stiff and frightened.

“Lunch, as I believe I told you,” said Moira. “Did you bring those things I asked for?”

I opened my purse and took out the books. “I brought these…some Greek plays, and a biography of Tycho—”

“Is that it? Two books? He didn’t leave anything else?”

“No. Why…?”

She sighed impatiently. “Well, let me put them in the car.”

I handed them over. As Moira tossed them into the back seat of the minivan, I wished I’d lied, said he’d left nothing. I wanted the books back. I had been planning to read them someday; I wanted to learn from them.

Moira returned, wiping the book dust from her hands onto her skirt. “So, where do people eat lunch in this place?”

“There’s the cafeteria.”

“Oh. I’ve been there. Well, all right.”

We walked down the hill, Moira a step or two in front of me. The ground was frozen hard and tricky to navigate. I slipped and stumbled a little and broke out in a fresh sweat. The cafeteria, as it turned out, was closed.

“Shoot,” I said. “This time of year you just can’t predict.”

“Where else, then?” Moira’s nostrils had turned pink in the cold, just like Peter’s used to.

“There’s Ferd’s. The, umm, Groc-n-Stop.”

We tramped up the road. Ferd’s was, as usual, cramped and steamy. There was no place to sit and not much to eat as takeout, but Moira seemed very interested in the freezer full of ice-cream novelties. She reached in and pulled out a shape unidentifiable beneath its thick coating of frost.

“I’ll have one of these,” she said.

“I guess I will, too.”

We paid for our novelties and went outside, where I managed to scrape away enough frost to see that I had a Fudgie Cone. Moira had a raspberry Ripple Cup. I peeled the paper off and at tempted to take a bite, but it was rock-hard, and my teeth could find no purchase.

“Why don’t you show me around,” said Moira.

“All right. Sure.”

We walked, gnawing at our ice cream, and I began to relax somewhat. I pointed out the sights: the Memory Garden, the trail to the Stump, the Silverwood Hotel, the Lecture Hall. For weeks now I’d felt as if Train Line were my enemy, as if the town itself—the trees and gravelly roads and houses—were pitted against me, but for now they seemed returned to their old selves: dull and benevolent.

“That’s the Crystal Cave,” I said, pointing to a large half-renovated house sided with plywood.

“Let’s go in.”

The bell tinkled as we entered, and I gave a little wave to Francesca, the large, very butch woman who owned the place. She nodded to me, somewhat coolly. The shop was filled with rocks—crystals and geodes, and jewelry made from them—and things like tiny bubbling electric fountains and wind chimes made of copper pipe. I remembered when the store opened: the summer Peter died. No one thought it would last, but it had expanded several times. There was room after room after room of glittering junk.

In the warm air my ice cream was acquiring some give, and I ate it quickly. I wadded up the wrapper and put it in my pocket. Now that I had nothing to occupy my hands, I began to feel my creeping nervousness return. Moira was poring over a display of turquoise jewelry, huge gaudy pieces that reminded me of wads of chewing gum. Her Ripple Cup had disappeared, and her fingers were laced behind her back so tightly, I noticed, that her knuckles were white. This frightened me.

“Naomi,” she said, not turning to look at me. “Tell me. How’s Peter?”

I was not sure I heard her correctly. “Pardon?”

“I said I want you to tell me how Peter’s doing. In the afterlife. That’s your business, right? So. How is he?”

We were in the next room over from the cashier’s desk, where Francesca was sitting and sipping from a mug. She could see us, and certainly hear us, too. I blushed.

“I’m sorry—I don’t know. I can’t—he hasn’t contacted me. Not really.”

“Hmm. I wonder why.”

She still hadn’t turned to look at me, and without seeing her face it was impossible for me to tell how sarcastically she meant this. I began edging away, looking intently at some tiny chunks of amethyst. A hand gripped my upper arm, hard. I jumped.

When I turned to her, Moira’s face was not filled with rage, as I’d expected, but with sorrow. This was so shocking I couldn’t breathe for a moment. Tears welled in her eyes, and her mouth twisted. Francesca was watching us with great interest.

“My mother killed herself,” whispered Moira. “She was diabetic and stopped taking her insulin. My father died years ago. And now Peter’s dead. Naomi…” The tears dripped down her face and her fingers were beginning to hurt my arm. “Naomi, I don’t understand how this happened. Can’t you tell me how this happened?”

A voice came booming over from the cashier’s desk. “How can I help you girls?” it said.

“We’re just leaving,” I answered.

I managed to pull Moira, who was now crying hard and without restraint, through the door and into the street. After a couple of minutes I pulled a Kleenex from my pocket and offered it to her. She didn’t take it, but instead wiped her eyes and nose with her fingers. “I was so mad at Peter,” she said, sniffing and pulling herself together a little bit. “I was mad that he ignored my mother all those years. He was always like that. He never bought anyone presents, he didn’t remember anyone’s birthday. I never liked him. But I didn’t think he was
dead
.”

She broke down in tears again. I was shivering; my teeth chattered. The wind was cold and I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. In fact, I’d dressed for an Easter brunch, right down to my white strappy shoes.

“Naomi,” cried Moira, “what’s going to happen to me?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“No! No, Naomi. I mean, I want to know what’s going to happen to me. I want you to give me a reading.”

“A reading?”

“Please. I want you to tell my fortune. Please.”

Normally, the word
fortune
would have made me wince, but I did not correct her. “All right,” I said.

I led her to the Violet Woods and down the path to Illumination Stump. Though regular message services hadn’t been held here since September, the benches weren’t yet packed away for winter. I gestured for Moira to sit down. Without the leaves and the flower boxes full of petunias, the clearing seemed empty and desolate, like a bombed-out church. I stood next to the stump and rubbed my forehead.

“All right, Moira, just—center yourself. Try to concentrate.” She squeezed her eyes shut and folded her hands. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

I tried hard. I focused on everything I knew about her: her mother, her father, Peter. I thought of her face and how her mouth looked when she was crying. But for the longest time, I heard no voices, and no one came to me. I was about to give up and just say something, say anything, when I saw it: Moira dancing. It was summer, she was wearing a flowered dress, her hair was long and loose. It looked fake and unreal, at first, like a detergent commercial, but soon more details came clear. A picnic table; a band with fiddles and banjos; friends all around her.