Lincoln in the Bardo Read online

Yes, I said.

  He said he will come again, he said. He promised.

  I found myself immeasurably and inexplicably moved.

  A miracle, I said.

  the reverend everly thomas

  XXIII.

  At approximately one a.m. tonight per this report Pres Lincoln arrived at front gate requesting he be allowed to enter same accordingly and not knowing what else to do given his position which is President not an inconsiderable position for him to have or anyone I did allow him entry even though as you know Tom protocol states once gate locked is not to be unlocked until such time as unlocking is scheduled to wit morning but since it was Pres himself asking was a bit of a horned dilemma staring in my face and also I was somewhat groggy it being late as mentioned above and having given myself over yesterday to some fun in the park with my own children Philip Mary & Jack Jr. thereby being somewhat tired and I admit dozing a bit at your desk Tom. Did not question Pres as to what was he doing here or something like that only when our eyes met he gave me such a frank friendly somewhat pained look as if to say well friend this is rather odd I know it but with eyes so needful I could not refuse him as his boy is just today interred so you might well imagine how you or I might act or feel in a similar sad spot Tom if yr Mitchell or my Philip Mary or Jack Jr. was to expire well no use thinking of that.

  Had no driver with him but had arrived alone on small horse which I was quite surprised at him being Pres and all and say his legs are quite long and his horse quite short so it appeared some sort of man-sized insect had attached itself to that poor unfortunate nag who freed of his burden stood tired and hangdog and panting as if thinking I will have quite the story to tell the other horsies upon my return if they are still awake at which time Pres requested key to Carroll crypt and accordingly I handed it over and watched him wander off across grounds wishing I’d had courtesy at least to offer him loan of lamp which he did not have one but went forth into that stygian dark like pilgrim going forward into a trackless desert Tom it was awful sad.

  Tom here is the strange part he has been gone for ever so long. Is still gone as I write. Where is he Tom. Lost is he lost. Lost in there or fell and broke something lying there crying out.

  Just now stepped out listened no cries.

  Where is he at this time do not know Tom.

  Maybe out there in woods somewhere recovering from visit indulging in solitary cry?

  In watchman’s logbook, 1860–78, Oak Hill Cemetery, entry by Jack Manders, night of February 25, 1862, quoted by arrangement with Mr. Edward Sansibel.

  XXIV.

  It would be difficult to overstate the vivifying effect this visitation had on our community.

  hans vollman

  Individuals we had not seen in years walked out, crawled out, stood shyly wringing their hands in delighted incredulity.

  the reverend everly thomas

  Individuals we had never seen before, now made their anxious debuts.

  roger bevins iii

  Who knew Edenston to be a tiny man in green, wig askew? Who knew Cravwell to be a giraffe-like woman in spectacles, holding a book of light verse she had written?

  hans vollman

  Flattery, deference, smiles, ringing laughter, affectionate greetings were the order of the day.

  roger bevins iii

  Men milled about under that high February moon, complimenting each other’s suits, enacting familiar gestures: kicking at the dirt, throwing a stone, feigning a punch. Women held hands, faces upturned, calling one another lovely and dear, pausing beneath trees to exchange strange confidences withheld during many years of seclusion.

  the reverend everly thomas

  People were happy, that was what it was; they had recovered that notion.

  hans vollman

  It was the idea, the very idea, that someone—

  roger bevins iii

  From that other place—

  hans vollman

  That someone from that other place would deign to—

  roger bevins iii

  It was the touching that was unusual.

  the reverend everly thomas

  It was not unusual for people from that previous place to be around.

  hans vollman

  Oh, they were around often enough.

  the reverend everly thomas

  With their cigars, wreaths, tears, crepe, heavy carriages, black horses stamping at the gate.

  roger bevins iii

  Their rumors, their discomfort, their hissing of things having nothing at all to do with us.

  the reverend everly thomas

  Their warm flesh, steaming breath, moist eyeballs, chafing undergarments.

  roger bevins iii

  Their terrible shovels laid carelessly against our trees.

  the reverend everly thomas

  But the touching. My God!

  hans vollman

  Not that they didn’t sometimes touch us.

  roger bevins iii

  Oh, they’d touch you, all right. They’d wrangle you into your sick-box.

  hans vollman

  Dress you how they wanted you. Stitch and paint you as necessary.

  roger bevins iii

  But once they had you how they wanted you, they never touched you again.

  hans vollman

  Well, Ravenden.

  the reverend everly thomas

  They touched Ravenden again.

  roger bevins iii

  But that sort of touching—

  hans vollman

  No one wants that sort of touching.

  the reverend everly thomas

  The roof of his stone home was leaking. His sick-box had been damaged.

  roger bevins iii

  They hauled it into the daylight, threw open the lid.

  the reverend everly thomas

  It was autumn and leaves were falling all over the poor fellow. Proud type, too. Banker. Claimed to have owned a mansion on the—

  hans vollman

  They yanked him out of the box and dropped him—thump!—into a new one. Then asked, in jest, had it hurt, and, if so, did he wish to file a complaint? Then they enjoyed a lengthy smoke, poor Ravenden (half in and half out, head tilted at a most uncomfortable angle) calling out feebly all the while for them to kindly place him in a less unseemly—

  the reverend everly thomas

  That kind of touching—

  roger bevins iii

  No one wants that.

  hans vollman

  But this—this was different.

  roger bevins iii

  The holding, the lingering, the kind words whispered directly into the ear? My God! My God!

  the reverend everly thomas

  To be touched so lovingly, so fondly, as if one were still—

  roger bevins iii

  Healthy.

  hans vollman

  As if one were still worthy of affection and respect?

  It was cheering. It gave us hope.

  the reverend everly thomas

  We were perhaps not so unlovable as we had come to believe.

  roger bevins iii

  XXV.

  Please do not misunderstand. We had been mothers, fathers. Had been husbands of many years, men of import, who had come here, that first day, accompanied by crowds so vast and sorrowful that, surging forward to hear the oration, they had damaged fences beyond repair. Had been young wives, diverted here during childbirth, our gentle qualities stripped from us by the naked pain of that circumstance, who left behind husbands so enamored of us, so tormented by the horror of those last moments (the notion that we had gone down that awful black hole pain-sundered from ourselves) that they had never loved again. Had been bulky men, quietly content, who, in our first youth, had come to grasp our own unremarkableness and had, cheerfully (as if bemusedly accepting a heavy burden), shifted our life’s focus; if we would not be great, we would be useful; would be rich, and kind, and thereby able to effect good: smiling, hands in pockets, watchi
ng the world we had subtly improved walking past (this empty dowry filled; that education secretly funded). Had been affable, joking servants, of whom our masters had grown fond for the cheering words we managed as they launched forth on days full of import. Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets, who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun. What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.

  the reverend everly thomas

  And yet.

  roger bevins iii

  And yet no one had ever come here to hold one of us, while speaking so tenderly.

  hans vollman

  Ever.

  roger bevins iii

  XXVI.

  Before long a sea of us surrounded the white stone home.

  the reverend everly thomas

  And pushing forward, pressed the boy for details: How had it felt, being held like that? Had the visitor really promised to come again? Had he offered any hope for the alteration of the boy’s fundamental circumstance? If so, might said hope extend to us as well?

  roger bevins iii

  What did we want? We wanted the lad to see us, I think. We wanted his blessing. We wanted to know what this apparently charmed being thought of our particular reasons for remaining.

  hans vollman

  Truth be told, there was not one among the many here—not even the strongest—who did not entertain some lingering doubt about the wisdom of his or her choice.

  roger bevins iii

  The loving attentions of the gentleman having improved our notion of the boy, we found ourselves craving the slightest association.

  the reverend everly thomas

  With this new-established prince.

  roger bevins iii

  Soon the line of people waiting to speak to the lad ran down the path as far back as the tan sandstone home of Everfield.

  hans vollman

  XXVII.

  I will be brief.

  jane ellis

  I doubt it.

  mrs. abigail blass

  Mrs. Blass, please. Everyone will get a—

  the reverend everly thomas

  “Once at the Christmastide Papa took us to a wonderful village festival.” Ugh.

  mrs. abigail blass

  Please don’t crowd. Simply stay in line. All will be accommodated.

  hans vollman

  She yips and yips and must always be first. In all things. How, please tell me, does she merit such—

  mrs. abigail blass

  You could learn a thing or two from her, Mrs. Blass. Look at her posture.

  hans vollman

  How calm she remains.

  the reverend everly thomas

  How clean her clothing is kept.

  roger bevins iii

  Gentlemen?

  If I may?

  Once at the Christmastide Papa took us to a wonderful village festival. Above a meatshop doorway hung a marvelous canopy of carcasses: deer with the entrails pulled up and out and wired to the outside of the bodies like tremendous bright-red garlands; pheasants and drakes hung head-down, wings spread by use of felt-covered wires, the colors of which matched the respective feathers (it was done most skillfully); twin pigs stood on either side of the doorway with game hens mounted upon them like miniature riders. All of it bedraped in greenery and hung with candles. I wore white. I was a beautiful child in white, long rope of hair hanging down my back, and I would willfully swing it, just so. I hated to leave, and threw a tantrum. To assuage me, Papa bought a deer and let me assist him in strapping it to the rear of the carriage. Even now, I can see it: the countryside scrolling out behind us in the near-evening fog, the limp deer dribbling behind its thin blood-trail, stars blinking on, creeks running and popping beneath us as we lurched over groaning bridges of freshcut timber, proceeding homeward through the gathering—

  jane ellis

  Ugh.

  mrs. abigail blass

  I felt myself a new species of child. Not a boy (most assuredly) but neither a (mere) girl. That skirt-bound race perpetually moving about serving tea had nothing to do with me.

  I had such high hopes, you see.

  The boundaries of the world seemed vast. I would visit Rome, Paris, Constantinople. Underground cafés presented in my mind where, crushed against wet walls, a (handsome, generous) friend and I sat discussing—many things. Deep things, new ideas. Strange green lights shone in the streets, the sea lapped nearby against greasy tilted moorings; there was trouble afoot, a revolution, into which my friend and I must—

  Well, as is often the case, my hopes were…not realized. My husband was not handsome and was not generous. He was a bore. Was not rough with me but neither was he tender. We did not go to Rome or Paris or Constantinople, but only back and forth, endlessly, to Fairfax, to visit his aged mother. He did not seem to see me, but only endeavored to possess me; would wiggle his little roach of a mustache at me whenever he found me (as he so often found me) “silly.” I would say something that I felt had truth and value in it, regarding, for example, his failure to get ahead in his profession (he was a complainer, always fancying himself the victim of some conspiracy, who, finding himself thus disrespected, would pick some trivial fight and soon be sacked) but he need only wiggle that mustache and pronounce mine “a woman’s view of the thing” and—that was that. I was dismissed. To hear him bragging about the impression he had made on some minor functionary with a “witty” remark, and to have been there, and heard that remark, and noticed the functionary and his wife barely able to refrain from laughing in the face of this pompous little nobody was…trying. I had been that beautiful child in white, you see, Constantinople, Paris, and Rome in her heart, who had not known, at that time, that she was of “an inferior species,” a “mere” woman. And then, of an evening, to have him shoot me that certain look (I knew it well) that meant “Brace yourself, madam, I will soon be upon you, all hips and tongue, little mustache having seemingly reproduced itself so as to be able to cover every entry point, so to speak, and afterward I will be upon you again, fishing for a compliment” was more than I could bear.

  Then the children came.

  The children—yes. Three marvelous girls.

  In those girls I found my Rome, my Paris, my Constantinople.

  He has no interest in them at all, except he likes to use them to prop himself up in public. He disciplines this one too harshly for some minor infraction, dismisses that one’s timidly offered opinion, lectures loudly to all regarding some obvious fact (“You see, girls, the moon hangs up there among the stars”) as if he has just that instant discovered it—then glances around to judge what effect his manliness is having on passers-by.

  jane ellis

  If you please.

  Many are waiting.

  mrs. abigail blass

  Is he to care for them?

  In my absence?

  Cathryn is soon to begin school. Who will make sure her clothes are correct? Maribeth has a bad foot and is self-conscious and often comes home in tears. To whom will she cry? Alice is nervous, for she has submitted a poem. It is not a very good poem. I have a plan to give her Shakespeare to read, and Dante, and we will work on some poems together.

  They seem especially dear to me now. During this pause. Fortunately, it is a minor surgery only. A rare opportunity, really, for a person to pause and take stock of her—

  jane ellis

  Mrs. Ellis was a stately, regal woman, always surrounded by three gelatinous orbs floating about her person, each containing a likeness of one of her daughters. At times these orbs grew to extreme size, and would bear down upon her, and crush out her blo
od and other fluids as she wriggled beneath their terrible weight, refusing to cry out, as this would indicate displeasure, and at other times these orbs departed from her and she was greatly tormented, and must rush about trying to find them, and when she did, would weep in relief, at which time they would once again begin bearing down upon her; but the worst torment of all for Mrs. Ellis was when one of the orbs would establish itself before her eyes exactly life-sized and become completely translucent and she would thus be able to mark the most fine details of the clothing, facial expression, disposition, etc., of the daughter inside, who, in a heartfelt manner, would begin explaining some difficulty into which she had lately been thrust (especially in light of Mrs. Ellis’s sudden absence). Mrs. Ellis would show the most acute judgment and abundant love as she explained, in a sympathetic voice, how the afflicted child might best address the situation at hand—but alas (herein lay the torment) the child could not see or hear her in the least, and would work herself, before the eyes of Mrs. Ellis, into ever-increasing paroxysms of despair, as the poor woman began to dash about, trying to evade the orb, which would pursue her with what can only be described as a sadistic intelligence, anticipating her every move, thrusting itself continually before her eyes, which, as far as I could tell, were incapable, at such times, of closing.