Gods of Aberdeen

by Micah Nathan

  It was a calm evening, no wind, little sound, everything muted in a blanket of snow and ice and cold. The living room light was on, and I saw Dan walking in from the dining room. I stopped at the front door, steeled myself, and walked in.

  The house was as if I’d never left—same comforting smell of polished wood and the charred, piney scent of the fireplace. Everything was spotless, the dining room table was buffed to a glow. A colossal bouquet of flowers was centered upon it (courtesy of Thomas, as I later found out), and an unopened crate of wine sat against the dining room wall (also courtesy of Thomas). Nilus loped over and snuffled my hand and bumped up against my leg. He smells her, I thought. Art’s got him trained, like those airport dogs.

  Dan turned to me, smiled, and held his arms out in a grand gesture.

  “Hey, hey,” he said, giving me a quick hug. His brown hair was a bit longer, but still parted on the left. He withdrew into the same old Dan—hands in pockets, head down thoughtfully. “Art told me he found you living like a Franciscan in the basement of the Paradise, wrapped in blankets and speaking in tongues,” he said.

  Dan told me about Boston, about the snow they had, long, lazy days of boredom, shopping with his cousins on Newbury Street, hiking through the Arboretum, hanging out at the Harvard library and browsing through old atlases. He had spoken with Howie once—a drunken call at two in the morning on a Wednesday, Howie slurring on the other end, loud blues blaring in the background, something about a girl who wanted Dan to fly down and go to bed with her.

  Art walked into the foyer, yawning, wearing plaid flannel pajamas. He scratched Nilus behind the ears. “Nicole called,” he said. His glasses sat low on his nose. “She said she’ll be home after nine. Where did you head off to?”

  I thought of a dozen lies.

  “Dr. Lang’s,” I said, finally. “I had to pick up a paycheck and work out my schedule for the semester.”

  Art was already not paying attention, looking down at his hands, turning them over. Ellen called, I thought. She thought the whole episode funny and wanted to share the experience with Art.

  “You going to bed?” Art asked me. The memory of Ellen shrieked away.

  “It’s only eight,” I said.

  “Oh.” He scratched his head and smiled sheepishly. “Feels much later. Jet lag, you know.” He sighed and grabbed the stair railing, and then walked upstairs, his pace plodding and slow as if he were shackled.

  Dan and I lit a fire and played backgammon. At around ten it started to snow hard. Dan told me Dr. Cade had left Art a mountain of work: translations and expanded chapter outlines, along with the more Byzantine assignment of gathering information on Dr. Linwood Thayers’s project. Art had posed as some academic journal reporter and called Dr. Thayers’s Stanford office. His secretary (Which journal is this for? The Plume? That must be new…Who did you say you were again?) knew nothing, and suggested Art call Dr. Thayers’s publicist.

  We talked about Prague, and Art’s experiments. The belladonna, and his visions of the black dog and the knocked-over beer can.

  “Don’t you think it’s dangerous?” I said, rolling my dice. “The belladonna could’ve easily killed him.”

  Dan shook his head. “Art knows what he’s doing.”

  “What about that one night, when you passed out in the garden,” I said.

  Dan frowned. “Didn’t we already talk about that?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “It was a mistake,” Dan said. “It’s all a part of the process.”

  “So you’re not into this alchemy thing for the fun of it,” I said.

  Dan looked at me with mild disgust. “Not at all.”

  “And you believe it. Immortality and everything. You believe that if you died you could come back.”

  “I don’t disbelieve it.”

  The fire crackled and a flaming log split in half, a rush of sparks spurting out.

  “So why haven’t we seen any proof yet?” I said. “If this knowledge has been floating around for centuries, where are all these immortals?”

  “How about Cornelius?” Dan said. “Art told me he’s two hundred years old.”

  “Cornelius is senile,” I said, though I didn’t fully believe that.

  Dan didn’t look convinced either. “It is a fantastic notion,” he said. “I’ll grant you that much. But it’s not entirely outside the realm of possiblity. Why are you so reluctant to at least admit the possibility?”

  “Because it’s common sense,” I said. I was accustomed to Art’s fantasies, I was even taken in by them occasionally, but hearing the same lines from Dan didn’t sound right. He was too logical, too even-keeled. And yet…I thought of the rituals that Ellen had told me about, and envisioned Dan in a black robe, hood drawn over his head, masturbating into a golden chalice.

  “Would you want to live forever?” I asked Dan.

  He thought for a while, watching the fire, turning his glass in his hand.

  “Not forever,” he said. Shadows played across his face. “I’d get tired of seeing everyone I care for die.”

  “You could give them the potion, too,” I said. “Buy a big house somewhere and watch the centuries roll by.”

  “Or I could be a college student for the next hundred years,” he said. “Get degrees in every field.”

  “Molecular biology.”

  “Engine repair.”

  We sat around for another few hours, talking about how we’d spend our lives if we had a thousand years to live: amassing wealth and power, buying clifftop mansions and two-hundred-foot yachts, summer expeditions hacking through the rain forests of Madagascar and winters spent climbing the Karakorum mountains. To fill the centuries we’d learn every existing language, like Sumatran Lubu and the Aztec Nahuatl. Given enough time, Dan said, we could master every musical instrument, or write the great American novel ten times over. Or we could do nothing and fritter away the centuries like divine flaneurs. With a millennium of time the accumulation of knowledge would be staggering. We would be gods, Dan said, and we laughed.

  Two gin and tonics later the snow had stopped, and through the picture window of Dr. Cade’s living room his front yard looked like a black-and-white photo. A rising and falling line of trees, the low field-stone wall cutting us off from the road. Nothing moved—no wind, no swaying branches, no sifting, shifting snow.

  I awoke early the next morning to take Nilus for a walk, but the air was so cold it froze my nostrils shut, and Nilus was able to last only ten minutes before ice built up between his toes and I had to bring him back inside. I then sat in the kitchen and ate breakfast while Nilus slopped and slavered over his bowl that I’d filled.

  Howie was supposed to be coming home either that Thursday night or Friday, followed by Dr. Cade that weekend. School started Monday, and I dreaded the upcoming semester. My class load was heavy—six courses, including an additional hour-long symposium for my History of Slavic Peoples class—and Dr. Lang wanted me to pick up an additional shift, since his grad assistant had taken a leave of absence for the remainder of the year. Before vacation, Cornelius hadn’t said much to me about returning to the library, so I planned to simply not show up for work, hoping he’d forget or just not care. As it was, the work-study agreement had been for one semester only, with a reassessment at the end, and I was certain that Professor Lang could arrange something on my behalf, perhaps shift my obligations to his office.

  I went back to my room and started my translations, monastic writings from the 11th and 12th centuries, some prescribing reform while others spoke of darker things, militaristic musings of monks as soldiers of Christ waging war against the Devil and his minions. There were miracles, too, extraordinary phenomena attesting to the power of various saints.

  A MIRACLE OF ST. RIPALTA

  (S. Ripalta. Vita Prima. Lib. IX [ex. exordio magno Cisterc], cap, VII)

  We happened upon the village of Amien and thereupon our arrival saw many ill and suffering, and the abbot did approach us seeking
assistance in removing the bodies from the chapel of St. Georgius. They were all his monks [and had served him loyally and without complaint] and he had prayed for their salvation but death still came. “Surely this is the work of the Devil” said the abbot, and we agreed, being men of God we had seen the Devil’s work before, [wrapped within] the cloak of disease. “Show me where the people are baptized” I said and the abbot led us to a small river above which stood the monastery, thereupon which I sat upon its bank and wept to the Lord. His guidance did come to me in the form of St. Ripalta, and I instructed for the bodies to be brought to the river and placed under its waters, and upon doing so there was a gathering of clouds and the river ran red, and we all fell to our knees and praised the Lord, for the dead monks were now living, clothed in white raiment and giving thanks for what we had done.

  I skipped dinner and worked straight through until 8 P.M., and then came downstairs to a suprisingly empty house. Art’s car was gone, a rectangular outline in the snow where it had been. His boots were gone from the front hall, along with Dan’s.

  I wandered into the kitchen, opened the door leading to the back, and looked out over the pond. Frigid air rushed in and stung my face. A quarter moon reflected off the water, its white horns wavering gently upon the surface, skeletal trees looming all along the shore. The night sky spread above in milky darkness, swirling with stars, vertiginous and infinite. It’s a sky I’ve dreamt of many times, since then.

  At around three in the morning I was awakened by Art sitting on my bed. I imagined any variety of reasons—another suspicious birthmark or freckle that he wanted me to inspect, perhaps a splotchy rash on his arm indicating scarlet fever—but when I felt his hand grab my shoulder and shake firmly, I thought of the only reason it could be: Ellen had told.

  He said my name, but I kept my eyes closed. Another shake, this one so hard I couldn’t possibly pretend I was still asleep. I steeled myself and opened my eyes. I had prepared for this, somewhat.

  I rolled onto my back. The room was dark, Art a jet-black figure sitting on the edge of my bed.

  “Something’s happened,” Art said. His breathing was heavy and quick. “You have to come downstairs.”

  The radiator in my room clanked and hissed. “It’s late,” I said. “We can do this tomorrow morning.”

  “This can’t wait until tomorrow.”

  “Come on, Art. It’s almost three—”

  “We tried the formula.”

  It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about.

  Art stood and clicked on my lamp. One look at his expression and I scurried out of bed, pulled on my sweatpants, and followed him downstairs.

  I’m reluctant to recount the first few minutes after I followed Art downstairs and saw Dan’s body lying on the foyer floor. I no longer believe that traumatic experiences are indelibly burned into our minds, and what I do remember of that night may contain unconscious mental elaboration, but I am certain of at least one image: Dan lying on his back, head rolled to the side, arms and legs splayed out like a child making angels in the snow. Drying spittle on his face and white froth at the corners of his mouth. Dead eyes, pupils like two pools of spilt ink. A fleck of dirt perched on the tip of an eyelash. The point of his tongue sticking straight out.

  I remember grabbing his wrist and searching for a pulse, and then thrusting two fingers under his jaw and not feeling anything there, either. And then I did something I’d seen on TV—on those frantic medical dramas where handsome young doctors are forever running alongside blood-soaked gurneys. I got a flashlight from the kitchen drawer and shone it directly into Dan’s eyes—his pupils didn’t change. I slapped his face and shook him by the shoulders and said his name. Dan…Dan…

  Cold foyer, Art in a red cable-knit sweater, stubble darkening into the beginnings of a beard. Knees drawn to my chest, sleep crumbling from my eyes. Nilus underneath the dining room table, watching.

  What happened, I said, and I said it again and again, and I don’t even know when I stopped saying it, or if I’ve just been asking different people the same question since that night.

  I soon found myself seated at the breakfast nook, in the dark, the kitchen lit only by the moon and the night-light over the sink. Art sat across from me, talking, explaining. He talked about dosages gone awry, a miscalculation of Malezel’s procedures, errors in translation, impure ingredients, and Dan drinking the formula despite Art’s warnings. They had waited in the living room, sitting across from each other on the couches, tense and silent, and after an hour Dan stood up and said he felt nothing. Nothing at all, he insisted, and then he mumbled incoherently and dropped to his knees. Convulsions and foaming at the mouth followed. He collapsed onto his back, unconscious, and his heartbeat faded even as Art listened, head pressed tightly to Dan’s chest, counting the beats, hearing them slow from stuttering uneven flutters, then to weak slaps, and finally to nothing.

  Art stopped and got himself a bottle of scotch from one of the cabinets. He collapsed onto the bench, uncapped the bottle, and guzzled, dark liquid trickling down his chin.

  “We have to do something,” he said.

  There was nothing I wanted to do. I was numb, but I knew panic was coming. I could see its dark shape far away, on a shadowy ridge, and it began its journey while I watched. A beast bounding through bog and field, Grendel coming to eat Hrothgar’s men.

  I stood up and turned to the swinging door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Maybe he’s alive,” I said. “We can’t say for certain—did we check to see if he’s breathing? He might be in a coma. I saw a show once, this guy accidentally ate a poisonous fish and everyone thought he died but—”

  “There’s no pulse,” Art said. He took another swig of the scotch. “I kept my head to his chest for a long time.”

  Something scratched at the swinging door.

  I jerked back and banged into the corner of the breakfast table. Art clutched the bottle of scotch to his chest. Our eyes met for a brief, terrible moment. Some passage—a translation of a battlefield account, the war at Cortenuova, I remembered, insanely—sprung to mind. They arose, still, though bloody and battered, arose with arms outstretched and cursed us while we stood silently and watched.

  Another scratch, and the door swung in feebly and swung back. A snout lodged itself between door and jamb. I pulled gently and Nilus scrambled in, tail wagging, ears pinned back. A horrible glimpse of Dan’s body lying in the foyer—pale face, open eyes, rumpled clothes.

  “I can’t go back in there,” I said. “We have to call someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. The police. The paramedics…”

  “Wait, wait. Just hold on a sec.” Art exhaled and ran both his hands through his hair. “Nilus, sit. I can’t concentrate with that goddamn dog running around.”

  Nilus skulked away to the back stairwell and curled himself up against the bottom step.

  “Okay.” Art pushed away the bottle of scotch. “We call the cops. Then what.”

  “You tell them what happened.”

  “I tell them he drank poison, convulsed, and collapsed, and—they’ll love this—I waited an hour before calling for help. Wait, make that,” Art glanced at the stove clock, “an hour and a half.”

  “No…that can’t be right. You woke me up at 2:47. It’s only a quarter after three,” I said.

  “I sat here for an hour,” Art said quietly. “I couldn’t decide what to do. What could I have done? Jesus, if you’d seen him. It was horrible…the sounds he made…”

  I closed my eyes. I don’t want to know. Shut up.

  “It hasn’t been that long,” I said. “They won’t know the difference.”

  Art laughed, a bitter little snort that reminded me of Howie. “They’ll find out. Forensics can determine the time of death. It’s their fucking job.”

  I sat down on the kitchen tile, eyes closed, my back leaning against the door.

  Ten minutes later I op
ened my eyes. Art was slumped back into the bench, hands resting on the edge of the breakfast table. He was staring at the wall, expressionless.

  “We have to call someone,” I said.

  Nilus barked in his sleep, legs jerking and twitching. Something howled from the forest, a high, mournful wail. Coyote, I thought, and then I remembered what Art had said, months ago, when we’d first had coffee in Campus Bean and I’d told him about the pigeon grave in the woods behind Kellner. Maybe you saw a coyote den. Like the scorched bones marking the entrance to the dragon in Beowulf.

  I kept my eyes down, afraid to look at the window above the sink. I was sure Grendel would be there, bristle-haired face pressed to the glass, feral eyes glinting in the dark.

  At four-thirty Art stood up, re-capped the now half-empty bottle of scotch, and unlocked the back door.

  “We’ll put him in the pond,” he said, and he clasped his hands together and looked out over the backyard. “We’ll take out the boat and push him over near the mouth of Birchkill…it should carry him right to the Quinnipiac…”

  “You’re not serious—”

  “Of course, there’s always the risk he’d get caught up in the reeds, or get snagged on a fallen tree, but the Birchkill is deep enough, and the weeds all die off in the winter.”

  No, I said. This is crazy.

  Art stalked toward me. “Do you have a better solution?”

  “We call for help.”

  “We’ve already been through this.” Art pushed the swinging door open. “Look at him, Eric.”

  “Please close that door,” I said, trying not to beg but it nevertheless came out that way. “Please, Art. I don’t want to see him again.”

  “Dan’s gone. Do you understand me? There’s nothing to help. You want to call the morgue, arrange a proper burial? Call his mom, perhaps, ask her what we should do?”