Gods of Aberdeen

by Micah Nathan

  “And the wet bar?” Howie said, hefting his bag over his shoulder.

  “Pardon me?”

  Howie leaned in closer. “The wet bar. What kind of booze can I look forward to?”

  Art pocketed his room key and pressed the elevator button, eager, it seemed, to get to his room before anyone else. We’d said little to each other since our argument the evening before, but because of the day’s somber occasion neither of us had the energy for anything but avoidance, which was fine with me.

  “I believe you’ll find the liquor and wine selection most adequate,” the concierge said, bowing his head slightly. “If you should need anything, perhaps a particular brand—”

  “Famous Grouse and Glenfiddich,” Howie said.

  The concierge paused, eyes raised in thought.

  “I’ll have those sent up right away, sir.”

  “That’s service for you,” said Howie, and he slapped the concierge on the shoulder and winked at me.

  Dr. Cade had reserved separate rooms for all of us, quaint rooms on the seventh floor with queen-size beds and small office areas, and a spectacular view of the city. We were meeting at St. Frederick Church at nine, according to the itinerary that Professor Cade had slipped under our doors the night before we left. Service was to be short—a half hour—followed by a car procession to Mount Auburn for the interment, and then a brunch at Mrs. Higgins’s place. Art and Howie were pallbearers. I, thankfully, was not.

  As I showered and shaved (I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, at least not at my eyes) I realized I’d never been in a church before and that I didn’t know whether Dan’s body would be laid out for viewing. My mother, true to her socially rebellious nature, had stipulated no church service and no viewing, instead opting for something similar to an Orthodox Jewish funeral. She died on a Monday and was in the ground by Tuesday afternoon. Her friends said their words at the grave site, my mom’s cousins gave a small blessing, and that was it. She was buried in a plain box with a false bottom, despite the protests of her close friends, who’d always teased her about her “hippie” lifestyle, and I remember when I rushed to the side of the grave as her casket was lowered, ripping free from Nana’s sweaty grasp, I caught a glimpse of my mom’s pale arm when the bottom gave way and her body thudded into the earth. She had on her favorite dress, a gauzy yellow thing with sunflower patterns stitched into the bottom hem. Dirt had gotten on it, dark clods sticking to the fabric. I remember that, more vividly than anything else that day.

  Dr. Cade was staying at the Ritz-Carlton, having flown in early that morning. His manuscript deadline was in three days and despite the circumstances we were all working feverishly to complete our sections, maybe finding solace, as I did, in the mind-numbing tasks of organizing and indexing our references. I was, essentially, writing one long string of footnotes, ibidem after ibidem, letters staying in my line of vision whenever I closed my eyes. I also had schoolwork, my one-thousand-word translation of the Aeneid’s Death of Turnus.

  Howie called my room at 8:20 A.M., loud and drunk and telling me how we had to “get the fuck moving because we’re gonna be late,” and after I told him I’d meet him in the lobby, a wave of nausea washed over me and I ran to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, my memory still clinging to the last passage I’d translated before the phone call, before the final realization I was on my way to Dan’s funeral:

  He sank his blade with great anger.

  The body of Turnus fell limp in death’s cold grasp,

  And with a groan for such disgrace

  His spirit wisped into the gloom below.

  The service was horrific. A few tears, mostly stone-faced grief carved deep into the high-cheekboned faces of Dan’s immediate and extended family, all of them looking like Dan in some subtle way, all of them sharing his nondescript good looks. Dr. Cade—I’d never been so relieved to see him—was the only shining spot, subdued but still animated, drawing small crowds who asked about his upcoming books and if he would sign a few copies of This Too Must Pass. Dan’s body hadn’t been laid out; instead there was a small table with a photo (a larger copy of the portrait I’d seen at Dr. Cade’s), and his various plaques and awards set close by. I passed by the table once but couldn’t look at it.

  Before the service I had tried to approach Mrs. Higgins but she stared through me, her gaze blank and fixed, sitting in the front row flanked on either side by wealthy-looking women in black dresses with long, black-stockinged legs and shoes that matched their handbags. Art and Howie mingled with some tall men on the other side of the room, all of them wearing suits that looked the same. I felt poor in the suit I’d bought at the Haberdashery the day earlier, despite being assured by the proprietor that it was “much classier than the new styles,” and had come from the Winslow family, one of Fairwich’s oldest and most prestigious pedigrees.

  Dr. Cade found me, mercifully, catching my glance from across the room and excusing himself from an attentive crowd. He floated past the aisle and down the back row of pews, silver hair swept back, hands clasped in front, blue eyes shining.

  “You are all alone, I see, as usual,” he touched my arm kindly. “Today is not a day to be by one’s self. Let me introduce you to some of Daniel’s family. Have you met any of his aunts yet? There are three of them, triplets.” He smiled. “All delightful women. They sent me over here to fetch you. I understand Daniel talked about you often to them.”

  “I can’t,” I said, afraid I was going to start crying. “I’m not feeling so well.”

  Dr. Cade nodded. “You and Arthur both. He’s running a fever.” I looked across the room, to Art. He stood, unsmiling, next to Howie in one of the front aisles, still engaged in that forest of tall men in dark suits. Howie was gesticulating and rocking on his heels. I wondered if any of them knew how drunk he was.

  “This is a beautiful church,” Dr. Cade said, gazing upward. “Very understated, very eloquent.” We were standing in the nave, to our right the transept, the priest (white-haired, imperial, garbed in an ivory-colored robe with a green stole) talking with Mrs. Higgins while more people walked in, speaking quietly, hushes and whispers and the brief sound of street traffic before the church doors swung shut.

  “This is my first time in a church,” I said.

  Dr. Cade raised his eyebrows. “Really?” he said, visibly pleased. He was a proudly unreligious man, viewing the Church with the respect and intense curiosity of a staunch intellectual pagan. “You aren’t Jewish, are you?” He asked me this with a glitter in his eyes, as if were I to say yes, that he’d find himself in the company of a most fascinating and unusual specimen.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know what I am.”

  “Then you are wiser than most. Look here.” He reached down and took a prayer book from behind the pew. “I suggest, should you have the time, that you look through this. You will find, in one passage whose exact location escapes me, an amusing typographical error; the original phrase, amended after the Council of Toledo, read ‘I believe in the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.’ But you will find, in this version, the preposition ‘in’ is omitted, and by accident the word ‘holy’ does not appear. So instead you have ‘I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church.’ I have always been surprised such an error has never been corrected, though with the speed the Church recognizes and corrects its past mistakes”—Dr. Cade handed the book to me—“I should not expect otherwise.”

  I sat in the fourth row, at the end, nearest Howie, with Art on the other side and a row of four noisy children to his right dressed in little suits, slipping off the pews, poking and prodding each other, giggling and stomping their feet despite their frazzled mother’s repeated attempts to shut them up. It wasn’t until an older man turned around and hushed them with a thunderous stare that they finally stopped moving, and when they did it was as if they had turned to stone, petrified by the male Gorgon in their midst.

  Dr. Cade sat in the front row with Dan’s mom, her two sisters on
her other side, their husbands directly behind them, staring straight ahead, chins held high. The priest spoke in low tones, glasses resting on the tip of his nose, hands grasping either side of the pulpit. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled—

  Howie was mumbling the words in unison with the priest. He stank of liquor and cologne, and had missed a spot shaving, on the underside of his jaw.

  Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works—

  A wail rose from the back of the pews. I kept my face forward, concentrating on a spot on the wall in the back of the transept. The old man sitting in front of us coughed.

  I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live.

  St. Augustine had proposed striking the breast while reciting the Confiteor, as a form of penance. A partial version of the 8th-century confessional prayer was later finished in the 11th century and subsequently added to the Mass. It utilizes the sacredness of the number 3, as revealed in the thrice-asking for forgiveness. Quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

  Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

  Dan’s mom had asked Art to speak; I didn’t know this until I saw him make his way to the pulpit. His face was flushed, like he had a fever. When he reached the pulpit he took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it slowly, crinkling it in the microphone. Howie shuddered and rubbed his eyes, hard, pressing his palms into his sockets, and when he dropped his hands his eyes were watery and red.

  Art cleared his throat and looked out onto the congregation. His gaze swept past me without pause or recognition. He gripped the sides of the pulpit and spoke:

  Once we were three, with but one heart among us.

  Scarce are we two, now that the third is fled.

  Fled is he, fled is he, but the grief remaineth;

  Bitter the weeping, for so dear a head.

  Art slowly refolded the piece of paper and slipped it back into his pocket, and then walked back to his seat, head held low, eyes staring down. No one said a word. What a strange passage, I remember thinking. It had been from an 8th-century poem Alcuin had written for a cuckoo bird.

  Mount Auburn was completely different from what I’d expected. During the funeral procession from St. Frederick to the cemetery (I rode in the front seat with Howie, who could barely drive straight, while Art rode in the chauffeured Bentley with Dr. Cade and one of Mrs. Higgins’s nieces), I imagined a misty, Gothic graveyard, with crumbling tombstones and thorny, twisted trees, ravens croaking atop crypts and black wrought-iron fencing weaving a spiky circle around land churned and muddied like a battlefield. But it was the opposite—Mount Auburn was a graceful tree-filled place, full of knolls and hills, sedge green with white folds of snow and ice tucked beneath root-tangled crests and overhangs.

  We drove up a hill, looping around a semicircle lined with naked chestnut and oak trees. I spotted the grave site, a mound of dirt rising up from the quiet earth like a miniature stupa, two men in blue overalls standing near the mound, leaning on their shovels, talking casually just like any other day at work. One of them was smoking, and when he saw the cars slow to a stop he took two final pulls, stripped the cigarette, and crushed it underfoot.

  Howie had said nothing the entire ride. Finally, when he parked, he turned to me.

  “I can’t do this, Eric,” he said, his mouth trembling. “Tell them I got sick and had to go back to the hotel.” He exhaled sharply and swept his hair back.

  “They need you,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll lose it. I swear to God I will.”

  “Everyone loses it at funerals,” I said.

  “But I’ve never been to one before.” Howie wiped his eyes. “No one I know has died.” He sniffled. “I mean, there was my grandfather last year, but to tell you the truth I didn’t really know him. He and my dad hadn’t talked in years.”

  I tried to change the subject. “Are your parents coming today?”

  Howie shrugged. “They said they’d be here about five hours ago. Chicago got socked with a storm this morning…but they’ll make it.”

  “What about Art’s parents? Are they coming?”

  “His dad is. His mom’s down in Belize, on a dig.”

  Howie blinked and moved his head back, as if trying to refocus.

  We said nothing for a few moments, sitting in Howie’s Jag, watching the cars unload. Dr. Cade emerged from the silver Bentley, followed by Art and a beautiful woman with long, straight hair. She patted the sides of her head as if making sure her hair was still in place, and Dan’s mom walked past, arm in arm with her sisters. They were triplets and all looked alike, dark hair, white skin, slender, and graceful. The sky was a light shade of gray, like fog at dawn. There was no wind.

  Howie sighed and wiped his eyes again. “I suppose you’ve heard about me and Ellen,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I’ve heard rumors.”

  “Whatever,” Howie said. “She’s just a woman. Not reason enough to destroy the friendships we have.”

  Someone knocked on Howie’s window. One of the tall men. Howie opened the door.

  “Let’s go,” the tall man said, glancing at me before turning his attention back to Howie. “We’re ready.”

  He was referring to the casket, which Howie and I could see jutting from the back of the opened hearse. Art stood close to it, hands in his jacket pockets, looking away.

  Howie turned to me, terror flashing across his dazed eyes, and he unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out, slowly and fearfully, like a man walking to his own execution.

  Howie broke down during the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, burying his face in his large hands, standing alone at the end of the line, his suit jacket flapping gently in the wind that started the moment Dan’s casket was laid on the bier. It looked like Art’s fever was peaking—his skin was sallow and his eyes were red-rimmed and sunken, and after he’d carried the coffin he took off his jacket and sat on the ground, his back soaked with sweat, the ridge of his spine clearly outlined under the back of his shirt.

  The low voice of the priest, white robe against dark earth. Bare tree limbs clicking in the breeze. Dan’s mother’s face shining pale, red lips set in a line like the edges of a wound. Soft moans and hitched sobs. Strength now, I wanted to say. I’ve been through this before. It’ll all be over soon.

  We lined up to toss dirt onto Dan’s casket. The soil felt soft and cool in my hands, and it trickled from my fingers, falling soundlessly upon the coffin. I don’t know if I was crying, then. I honestly can’t remember.

  Chapter 9

  “Here’s the thing—let’s say I’m looking to buy something simple and cheap, like an office building in a less-than-desirable section of downtown. I’m not looking for junkies on the corner or hookers standing in the middle of the street.” Beauford Spacks gulped from his highball and smacked his thick lips. “But the area has to be on the edge, on its way up but still pretty damn low. Now, you think I’m going to ask the broker what the city’s like? No, sir. I’m not going to get an honest answer. I can look at housing values, sure, but those don’t tell you the personality of a city. I’m interested in the city’s character, and anybody who knows anything will tell you that character is destiny.”

  He handed his empty glass to a passing waiter without taking his eyes off the small crowd that was gathered around, standing in the living room of Mrs. Higgins’s Back Bay condo.

  “I look at the local paper,” Beauford said, with a knowing smile. “Not the news sections—they’re filtered through reporters—but the classifieds. They never lie.”

  The group of Boston Brahmins nodded approvingly, pressing in close to Beauford, who was obviously reveling in all the attention.

  “Low car prices show the local econo
my is down. Cheap guns and openings for security guards tell me the city has a crime problem. You know those little classified ads for ‘artist’s models’?”

  This didn’t get a response from his listeners, but he continued.

  “They’re a scam. ‘Artist models’ means hookers. Same thing with a personals column packed with ads from single women.” The waiter returned with another highball, whiskey and water. Beauford took it without any acknowledgment. “On the other hand, if I’m seeing personal ads from divorced women with children, looking for a husband, I know I’m dealing with a conservative community. No Hester Prynnes allowed.”

  Beauford gulped and smacked again, and patted his large stomach.

  “So which is it,” one of the listeners asked, a thirty-something man with light blond hair whom Howie had identified earlier as one of Dan’s many cousins. “Do you buy property in a conservative city or one with…you know…a seedier underbelly?”

  “Well, now, if I told you that,” Beauford waved a thick finger, “I’d be giving up my trade secrets, wouldn’t I?”

  The crowd laughed politely and broke apart. I was seated against a maroon wall, to the right of a fireplace with an alabaster mantle carved in cherub faces and Celtic-style knots. Mrs. Higgins’s place was big, even by non-Boston standards, a high, long living room with a coppery hardwood floor, a soft white kitchen with a central island and a stainless-steel refrigerator built into the wall like something from a Fritz Lang film. Food had been set out in the dining room, which had bowfront windows overlooking the Commonwealth Avenue mall. The dining room walls were colored purple, luxurious and rich, with a massive table positioned in the middle of the room, atop a gold and hyacinth Oriental rug.

  Beauford Spacks and his wife, Charlene, had arrived at Mrs. Higgins’s just as the rest of us did, Charlene greeting Dan’s mom with a hug and a kiss, and Beauford doing the same, but continuing to hold Mrs. Higgins’s hands in his own while he quietly gave his condolences. Howie’s father was a towering, massive man, dressed in a black greatcoat of enormous size with a black suit, his red dotted tie sloping down his broad chest and over his large stomach. He had dark brown hair cut close to his round head, and a well-trimmed beard and mustache. Everything about him bristled with energy, his eyes most of all, two piercing pits of blue set deep above fleshy cheeks. He walked with a slight hitch like he had a bad back, and this only drew more attention; the uneven gait of a lumbering behemoth was presumably a rare sight in Mrs. Higgins’s condo.