Lincoln in the Bardo Page 11
He sat, distraught and shivering, seeking about for any consolation.
He must either be in a happy place, or some null place by now.
Thought the gentleman.
In either case is no longer suffering.
Suffered so terribly at the end.
(The racking cough the trembling the vomiting the pathetic attempts to keep the mouth wiped with a shaky hand the way his panicked eyes would steal up and catch mine as if to say is there really nothing Papa you can do?)
And in his mind the gentleman stood (we stood with him) on a lonely plain, screaming at the top of our lungs.
Quiet then, and a great weariness.
All over now. He is either in joy or nothingness.
(So why grieve?
The worst of it, for him, is over.)
Because I loved him so and am in the habit of loving him and that love must take the form of fussing and worry and doing.
Only there is nothing left to do.
Free myself of this darkness as I can, remain useful, not go mad.
Think of him, when I do, as being in some bright place, free of suffering, resplendent in a new mode of being.
Thus thought the gentleman.
Thoughtfully combing a patch of grass with his hand.
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L.
Sad.
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Very sad.
hans vollman
Especially given what we knew.
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His boy was not “in some bright place, free of suffering.”
hans vollman
No.
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Not “resplendent in a new mode of being.”
hans vollman
Au contraire.
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Above us, an errant breeze loosened many storm-broken branches.
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Which fell to the earth at various distances.
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As if the woods were full of newly roused creatures.
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I wonder, said Mr. Vollman.
And I knew what was coming.
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LI.
We wished the lad to go, and thereby save himself. His father wished him to be “in some bright place, free of suffering, resplendent in a new mode of being.”
A happy confluence of wishes.
It seemed we must persuade the gentleman to return with us to the white stone home. Once there, we must encourage the lad into the gentleman, hoping that, while therein, having overheard his father’s wish, he would be convinced to—
hans vollman
A fine idea, I said. But we have no method by which to accomplish it.
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(There has historically been some confusion around this issue.)
hans vollman
No confusion at all, friend.
It is simply not within our power to communicate with those of that ilk, much less persuade them to do anything.
And I think you know it.
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LII.
I beg to differ.
We caused a wedding once, if you will recall.
hans vollman
Highly debatable.
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A couple strolling here, on the brink of ending their engagement, reversed their decision, under our influence.
hans vollman
Almost certainly a coincidence.
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Several of us—Hightower, the three of us, and—what was his name? The decapitated fellow?
hans vollman
Ellers.
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Ellers, of course!
Bored, we swarmed and entered that couple and, through the combined force of our concentrated wishfulness, were able to effect—
hans vollman
This much is true:
They were overcome with sudden passion and retreated behind one of the stone homes.
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To act upon said passion.
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While we watched.
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I have misgivings about that. The watching.
hans vollman
Well, you had no misgivings on that day, my dear fellow. Your member was swollen to an astonishing size. And even on a normal day, it is swollen to—
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I seem to remember you watching as well. I do not recall the slightest aversion of any of your many, many—
hans vollman
Truly, it was invigorating to see such passion.
The fury of their embraces was remarkable.
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Yes.
They sent birds winging from the trees with their terrific moans of pleasure.
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After which they renewed their commitment and departed hand in hand, reconciled, betrothed again.
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And we had done it.
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Come now. They were young, lustful, alone in an isolated spot, on a beautiful spring night. They hardly needed any help from—
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Friend:
We are here.
Already here.
Within.
A train approaches a wall at a fatal rate of speed. You hold a switch in your hand, that accomplishes you know not what: do you throw it? Disaster is otherwise assured.
It costs you nothing.
Why not try?
hans vollman
LIII.
There in the gentleman, Mr. Bevins reached for my hand.
hans vollman
And we began.
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To persuade the gentleman.
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To attempt to persuade him.
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Together, the two of us began to think of the white stone home.
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Of the boy.
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His face, his hair, his voice.
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His gray suit.
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Turned-in feet.
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Scuffed shoes.
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Stand up, go back, we thought as one. Your boy requires your counsel.
hans vollman
He is in grave danger.
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It is anathema for children to tarry here.
hans vollman
His headstrong nature, a virtue in that previous place, imperils him here, where the natural law, harsh and arbitrary, brooks no rebellion, and must be scrupulously obeyed.
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We request, therefore, that you rise.
hans vollman
And return with us, to save your boy.
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It did not seem to be working.
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The gentleman just sat, combing the grass, rather blank-minded.
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It seemed we must be more direct.
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We turned our minds, by mutual assent, to a certain shared memory of Miss Traynor.
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Christmas last, paying a holiday visit, we found that, under the peculiar strain of that blessed holiday, she had gone beyond the fallen bridge, the vulture, the large dog, the terrible hag gorging on black cake, the stand of flood-ravaged corn, the umbrella ripped open by a wind we could not feel—
hans vollman
And was manifesting as an ancient convent, containing fifteen bitter quarreling nuns, about to burn to the ground.
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A girl-sized convent in the style of Agreda, the little nuns inside her just embarking on morning vespers.
hans vollman
Suddenly, the place (the girl) is ablaze: screams, shrieks, grunts, vows renounced if only one might be saved.
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But none are saved, all are lost.
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We willed ourselves to see it again, smell it again, hear it again: the incense; the fragrant wall-lining sage-bushes; the rose-scented breeze wafting down from the hill; the shrill nun-screams; the padding of the tiny nun-feet against the packed red clay of the town-bound trail—
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Nothing.
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He just sat.
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Now, together, we became aware of something.
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In his left trouser pocket.
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A lock.
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The lock. From the white stone home.
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Heavy and cold.
Key still in it.
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He had forgotten to rehang it.
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An opportunity to simplify our argument.
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We focused our attention upon the lock.
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Upon the perils of an unlocked door.
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I called to mind Fred Downs, raging in frustration as those drunken Anatomy students tossed his bagged sick-form on to their cart, horses rearing with alarm at the smell.
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I pictured the wolf-rended torso of Mrs. Scoville, tilted against her doorframe, one arm torn away, little veil fluttering in what remained of her white hair.
Imagined the wolves massing in the woods even now, sniffing the breeze—
Making for the white stone home.
Snarling, drooling.
Bursting in.
Etc.
hans vollman
The gentleman put his hand into that pocket.
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Closed it upon the lock.
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Shook his head unhappily:
How could I have forgotten such a simple—
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Got to his feet.
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And walked off.
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In the direction of the white stone home.
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Leaving Mr. Vollman and me there behind him on the ground.
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LIV.
Had we—had we done it?
hans vollman
It seemed that perhaps we had.
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LV.
Because we were as yet intermingled with one another, traces of Mr. Vollman naturally began arising in my mind and traces of me naturally began arising in his.
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Never having found ourselves in that configuration before—
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This effect was an astonishment.
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I saw, as if for the first time, the great beauty of the things of this world: waterdrops in the woods around us plopped from leaf to ground; the stars were low, blue-white, tentative; the wind-scent bore traces of fire, dryweed, rivermuck; the tssking drybush rattles swelled with a peaking breeze, as some distant cross-creek sleigh-nag tossed its neckbells.
hans vollman
I saw his Anna’s face, and understood his reluctance to leave her behind.
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I desired the man-smell and the strong hold of a man.
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I knew the printing press, loved operating it. (Knew platen, roller-hook, gripper-bar, chase-bed.) Recalled my disbelief, as the familiar center-beam came down. That fading final panicked instant! I have crashed through my desk with my chin; someone (Mr. Pitts) screams from the ante-room, my bust of Washington lies about me, shattered.
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The stove ticks. In my thrashing panic I have upended a chair. The blood, channeled within the floorboard interstices, pools against the margins of the next-room rug. I may yet be revived. Who has not made a mistake? The world is kind, it forgives, it is full of second chances. When I broke Mother’s vase, I was allowed to sweep the fruit cellar. When I spoke unkindly to Sophia, our maid, I wrote her a letter, and all was well.
hans vollman
As soon as tomorrow, if I can only recover, I will have her. I will sell the shop. We will travel. In many new cities, I will see her in dresses of many colors. Which will drop to many floors. Friends already, we will become much more: will work, every day, to “expand the frontiers of our happiness” (as she once so beautifully put it). And—there may be children yet: I am not so old, only forty-six, and she is in the prime of her—
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Why had we not done this before?
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So many years I had known this fellow and yet had never really known him at all.
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It was intensely pleasurable.
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But was not helping.
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The gentleman was gone.
Headed back to the white stone home.
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Impelled by us!
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O wonderful night!
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I exited Mr. Vollman.
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Upon Mr. Bevins’s exit, I was immediately filled with longing for him and his associated phenomena, a longing that rivaled the longing I had felt for my parents when I first left their home for my apprenticeship in Baltimore—a considerable longing indeed.
Such had been the intensity of our co-habitation.
I would never fail to fully see him again: dear Mr. Bevins!
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Dear Mr. Vollman!
I looked at him; he looked at me.
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We would be infused with some trace of one another forevermore.
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But that was not all.
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We seemed, now, to know the gentleman as well.
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Removed from both Vollman and the gentleman, I felt arising within me a body of startling new knowledge. The gentleman? Was Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln was President. How could it be? How could it not be? And yet I knew with all my heart that Mr. Taylor was President.
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That Mr. Polk occupied that esteemed office.
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And yet I knew with all my heart that Mr. Lincoln was President. We were at war. We were not at war. All was chaos. All was calm. A device had been invented for distant communication. No such device existed. Nor ever could. The notion was mad. And yet I had seen it, had used it; could hear, in my mind, the sound it made as it functioned.
It was: telegraph.
My God!
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On the day of the beam, Polk had been President. But now, I knew (with a dazzling clarity) that Polk had been succeeded by Taylor, and Taylor by Fillmore, and Fillmore by Pierce—
hans vollman
After which, Pierce had been succeded by Buchanan, and Buchanan by—
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Lincoln!
hans vollman
President Lincoln!
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The rail line ran beyond Buffalo now—
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Far beyond!
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The Duke of York nightcap is no longer worn. There is something called the “slashed Pamela sleeve.”
hans vollman
The theaters are lit now with gaslight. Striplights and groundrows being employed in this process.
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The resulting spectacle is a wonder.
> hans vollman
Has revolutionized the theater.
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The facial expressions of the actors are seen most clearly.
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Allowing for an entirely new level of realism in the performance.
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It would be difficult to express the perplexity these revelations thrust upon us.
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We turned and ran-skimmed back toward the white stone home, talking most excitedly.
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Mr. Bevins’s hair and numerous eyes, hands, and noses velocity-streaming behind him.
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Mr. Vollman bearing his tremendous member in his hands, so as not to trip himself on it.
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Soon we were in Mr. Lincoln’s lee, so close we could smell him.
hans vollman
Soap, pomade, pork, coffee, smoke.