“Of course it’s Him.” Mrs. Ludlow removed a lace handkerchief from her sleeve.
“You said that about them others too, remember. That last feller, what was he? A census taker, that’s what. I’m only saying you don’t want to go jumping to conclusions.”
“Jump, jump—tsk! Aunt Lucia said we’d get fooled the first few times, didn’t she? Said He’d be everywhere inside and out, a feeling of Him in the air. We never was right certain sure the last times—just sort of hoped or feared, like. Besides, the sun was shining them times. And my bones didn’t ache neither.”
Mr. Ludlow caressed a small amulet shaped like an elk’s tooth. “Myrtle, your bones—they feeling pretty shipshape now?”
“Ache like the dickens. Feel just right, they do: conditions is right everywhere. Watch at how He walks—mincey-like, like He don’t even touch the ground.”
Mr. Ludlow sighed. “Well,” he said. “Well—guess maybe you’re right this time, my dear. Come to think about it, I got the feeling myself.”
The old woman clutched suddenly at her husband’s arm. She searched his face. “You don’t suppose—I mean, He wouldn’t want just one of us, would He? It wouldn’t happen like that.”
“Shh. Still now. You want Him to see you all broke up and whiny?” Mr. Ludlow paused. “Either way, it wouldn’t be for long.”
The brown tomcat put its head to one side and stood with arched back, listening. Steps on the outside porch sounded briskly, then stopped.
Mrs. Ludlow held to her husband’s hand.
“Henry— Oh, tarnation! Go and answer the blame door. Said I wouldn’t act like this and I ain’t. Go on now.”
Mr. Ludlow brushed the tops of his shoes along the backs of his legs and walked out into the hall. He looked at the old woman sitting in the chair by the window, paused a moment and then unlatched the door.
A man in black stood smiling. “How do you do, sir. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Henry L. Ludlow?”
Mr. Ludlow wet his lips and looked at the man, at the man’s tailored suit, gray homburg hat, briefcase, small waxed mustache. “Yes, sir, you do.”
“Excellent. Now, my name is—”
“Come on in.”
The man stepped lightly into the hall and took the homburg hat carefully from his head so that no single hair was disturbed.
“Thank you. Thank you very much. My goodness, sir, such a charming house! And so secluded—I tell you, I had the devil’s own time finding it. Yes indeedy.” The man examined a wooden hat rack briefly before depositing his homburg thereupon. “Exquisite,” he said.
Mr. Ludlow looked curious. “Had trouble finding us, you say?”
“Well, a slight exaggeration. Although, well, I did get a little bit lost once or twice.”
“You got lost?”
“I certainly did. In fact, I called on two other homes by mistake.”
“Say, I’ll have to tell Myrtle that one! The wrong house—twice!”
The man looked sheepish. “But now then,” he said, “I imagine you’re wondering who I am and why I’m here.”
“Well, wouldn’t exactly say that, no.”
“No?” The man furled his brows. “Oh, the print on the briefcase, eh? Ha ha, now that’s very perspicacious of you, sir. I mean, for a man of your age—what I mean is—”
“Never mind, son. That’s all right.”
“Most folks getting along in years,” the man said, “why, they never give us a second thought. You might not believe it, but they wait right up to the last minute, wait until it’s too late.”
“You don’t mean to tell me!”
The man looked sad. “Yes. You’d be amazed. No perception, no acceptance of reality. Why, if we’d known you were thinking of us, we would never have troubled you in this way. Most people, you see, somehow don’t take to the idea. Can you countenance it, sir: eighty-seven per cent of people above age seventy must be sought out by us!”
“Huh!”
“Oh yes. Those that do call are pretty generally goaded into it by others. Therefore, if I may, I’d like to congratulate you, Mr. Ludlow, on your down-to-earth common-sense attitude.”
Mr. Ludlow scratched his head.
The man in black went through some papers. “Now let’s see,” he said. “According to our records, we understand you have a wife—Myrtle Louisa Ludlow. May I ask if she is present?”
“Will you be wanting her, too?”
“By all means, sir. By all means! This is something for all of us to talk over. I—that is, I take it you have something definite in mind?”
“Something definite . . .”
“What I mean to say is, I gather from what you’ve said that you’ve been considering us?”
“Oh. Yes—we’ve had you in mind, all right. For quite a spell. Ever since Myrtle—that’s my wife—well, since she had that heart attack about four, five months back. We’ve been sort of sitting around waiting, you might say.”
“Good! I can’t tell you how pleased that makes me. For your sake as well as my own. You simply would not believe it: I usually have to plead with people, beg them.”
“That a fact?”
“Yes indeedy. They’re that stubborn.”
“Well,” Mr. Ludlow said, “I guess you ain’t been turned down by nobody.”
The man in black brightened and smoothed his mustache. “No sir, I am glad to say that that has not happened yet. I take a certain pride in the fact.”
“I imagine you do.”
“Oh yes, they all come around in time. But I’ve always said, why drag it out—when all the details can be taken care of in an afternoon?”
Mr. Ludlow hooked his thumbs in his vest and began to walk toward the big living-room doors. “The wife’s in here,” he said. “She’s probably wondering what we’ve been up to.”
They went in.
Mrs. Ludlow looked up and sighed deeply. “Henry, you gave me a scare. I couldn’t even move I was so scared.”
“Just a little preliminary talk, Myrtle. My dear, this here is—”
“I know who it is. How do, young man?”
Mrs. Ludlow stared at the man and a faint pink flushed her thin cheeks. She turned her eyes to her husband and whispered: “Henry—something happened while you was in the hall talking. No mistake about it now. I—had it.”
Mr. Ludlow answered in a loud voice full of admiration. “The vision? You had the vision, like Aunt Lucia said?”
“Clear as creekwater. There she was, tapping her foot, smiling away. ‘That’s Him,’ she says, ‘that’s Him.’”
The young man bowed uncertainly and sat down. “Very happy to meet you, Mrs. Ludlow,” he said.
“Expect you are.”
The man in black opened his mouth and then closed it. He put the briefcase on his lap. “Now then, folks, shall we get down to business?”
Mrs. Ludlow put a hand to her throat and the sternness went from her face. “So soon?” She looked about the room, at the pictures, at the walls, at the big brown tomcat. She looked at her husband.
“Oh, all right. Go ahead then.”
“Thank you. My!” The man’s face lost its look of annoyed confusion. “You can’t even guess what a pleasure it is to deal with you folks. My job isn’t as easy as some might think.”
“No,” Mr. Ludlow said. “Can’t say I’d want to swap with you.”
“Not easy work,” the man went on. “But it does have its reward. I like to think that I—one should say, ‘we’—are giving a lot of people a lot of happiness. Even if some of them won’t admit it at the time.”
“You look terrible young,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “You been at this here kind of work long?”
“Not actually—at least, not in this particular section. I’ve only been in Martinburg for, oh, two years. Before that I was with the army.”
Mrs. Ludlow gasped. “Then it was you—all them poor boys—you hear that, Henry?”
“No,” Mr. Ludlow said, “can’t say I’d sw
ap places with you.”
The young man was working his fingers through papers, swiftly, meticulously. “As I was saying to your husband, Mrs. L., if you folks had anything special in mind—?”
“Well sir, to tell the truth, we ain’t give the matter much thought. Didn’t rightly know we had anything to say about it.”
“Why, but you have everything to say about it!”
“We do?”
“Certainly! Indeedy yes, you do!”
Frost was forming heavily on the windows; the room was going dark.
“Now Henry,” Mrs. Ludlow said, “that’s right thoughtful of them, ain’t it.”
Mr. Ludlow didn’t seem to hear. “I think,” he said, “we ought to get one thing die-straight right off the bat here. Is this for certain for both of us, my wife and I?”
“Mr. Ludlow, there are innumerable fine things about Murmuring Everglades, but the finest, possibly, is this policy. Definitely for both of you.”
Mr. Ludlow walked to his wife and stroked her head. He waited a long moment, then he said: “This Murmuring Everglades, that there’s a good spot you say?”
The young man looked momentarily confused. “A good spot? Why, it is, if I may say so, sir, the very best. Did you happen to have any other cemeter—no, but of course you didn’t.”
Mrs. Ludlow shook her head. The brown tomcat leapt into her lap, purring, stretching.
“Very well. Now then, as I say, to business. Did you folks prefer a vault, the regular mausoleum or something a bit less expensive?”
Mr. Ludlow bit off the end of a cigar. “You handle all that, too?” he said.
“Oh, yes indeedy.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. What do you think of that, Myrtle? Well—for myself, I can’t say I much relish the idea of six foot of dirt on top of me.”
Mrs. Ludlow shuddered and looked out the window.
“But then again, I don’t reckon it’d make much difference one way or the other. What say, my dear?”
“You take care of it, Henry. Ain’t my place to.”
The man in black produced a sheet of paper and held it before his eyes. “If you think the vault is too expensive,” he said, “let me say, there is where you’re off on the wrong track. Yes indeedy. For a fine vault on selected property, the cost to you is negligible—in comparison with the rates of other similar establishments. For example—Mr. Ludlow, you see on this table I have—for a twelve-by-eighteen, completely air-tight, guaranteed Italian marble and imported granite vault—or Rest Haven—you pay only one thousand dollars down and—how old did you say you were, sir?”
“Eighty-four.”
“And the Missus?”
“Same.”
“Serious illnesses—tuberculosis, et cetera?”
“Well, not exactly. Just those heart attacks of Myrtle’s.”
“Oh yes, of course—those.” The young man scribbled on a piece of paper, consulted columns of figures. “Well,” he said at last, “that would come to twelve-hundred down with the balance insured. Can you beat that?”
“I don’t quite understand,” Mr. Ludlow said.
“Well, sir, it only means that Murmuring Everglades bets that you will live the two years necessary to pay up the balance.”
“And you let them do that?”
“I beg your pardon?” the young man said. “You see, Murmuring Everglades sets up this guarantee so that if anything should happen to you, the vault will still be yours. No risk that way, on your part. I think you’ll find it all quite in order.”
“Sounds all right to me,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “Henry?”
The old man nodded.
“The vault, then?” the man in black said.
“Yes, the vault.”
“Good. A splendid choice. So many people—well, you know, they simply don’t care how they’re put to their peace. The intelligent ones—like yourselves—always, I have found, always make adequate provisions. Now, there’s a Rest Haven on one half of an acre, overlooking the town. I’ve a picture—there, you see?”
Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow gazed thoughtfully at the brightly tinted photograph. Centered at the crest of a knoll was a large whitewash-white crypt, clean lined, solemn despite the colors around it.
“As you might guess,” the man was saying, “that construction is A-1. Completely impregnable to atom bombs, excepting direct hits. The statue, by the way, is a perfect reproduction of Rodin’s ‘The Kiss.’”
Mr. Ludlow showed the photograph again to his wife.
“Well,” she said, “it’s right pretty, but I have seen prettier places in my time. We’ll take it—you can tell them so.”
The man in black beamed. He extracted two other forms and wrote things upon these. “Yes indeedy,” he smiled, “a real pleasure to do business with you folks. Don’t often run up against such co-operation.”
Mr. Ludlow touched his wife’s shoulder. “It’s nice of you to say, my boy.”
“Tah!” The young man busied himself. “Most of the others feel it’s sort of looking on the dark side of things, and, well, that makes me feel bad. It’s a reality everyone has to face; but they don’t seem to understand.”
Mrs. Ludlow pulled her chair around quickly and stared into the frost. The voices and the talk and the papers faded into gray silence; time began to gather up like a hurricane, time and memory and presence. The old woman stroked the back of the brown tomcat and held the delicate lace handkerchief to her eyes. Minutes went by unheard.
Mrs. Ludlow started at the gentle pressure. She looked up and smiled, took the pen in her thin fingers and signed her name on five black lines.
Then the young man in black took all the papers and returned them to his briefcase. He rose, smiled. “May I congratulate you both? A great burden has been lifted from your minds; and in these twilight moments of your life, you can know that the best possible thing has been done, the best possible resting place chosen for your final peace. No trouble, no more bother—all arrangements waiting for you.”
Mrs. Ludlow put her hands about the arms of her chair. “How—how long will it be?” she said.
“How long? Before—” The young man straightened his suit. “Well, Murmuring Everglades will have all preparations completed by next week, I should say.”
“Just—a week?”
“We try to be prompt.”
Mrs. Ludlow held to the chair. “Only a week . . .”
“Yes indeedy, folks. But that old vault might stand empty for ten more years!”
Mr. Ludlow unhanded his elk’s tooth. “What was that?”
“Um? Oh, merely that you might not see the inside of your property—unless on routine inspection, of course—for ten years or longer. It’s entirely possible. Just because we look at reality doesn’t mean we ought to be pessimists, no indeedy. You may both have many wonderful years ahead of you. And that’s the beauty of it! You can spend them now without worries and heartaches about the Afterwards.”
Mr. Ludlow stared at the young man. “I don’t understand.”
“Who does?” the young man said. “Who does? Just for an example: I called on a gentleman of ninety-two a year and a half ago. He purchased his property—a modest but very pleasant plot very near the Kirche by the Heide—and I haven’t seen him since. Understand he’s in excellent health, all things considered—a little weak but the doctors aren’t particularly concerned.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Ludlow’s mouth was open. “You really—you really mean all that?”
The man in black walked toward the hall. “I do indeed, I do.”
“And you came here—only to make these arrangements for later on?”
“That’s right.”
“And—” Mr. Ludlow was gasping. “And we can stay here, right here, stay on for ten more years? We won’t have to sit waiting for you and looking for you, scared all the time, scared you’ll come?”
“Not unless some question arises about your property. But I don’t think that’s very likely, heh? You both
look in fine shape to me and, well, I see no reason whatever to believe an estimate of ten years is anything but skimpy.” The man grinned. “After all, you know,” he said, “Murmuring Everglades is betting on it.”
Mrs. Ludlow picked up the tomcat and held it to her breast. Her body trembled slightly.
The young man stood silently, looking at the two old people. “And, of course, if anything should come up, if you should ever need me for anything, don’t hesitate to call. Yes indeedy.”
Mr. Ludlow took his hand gently from his wife’s cheek. His face glistened. He switched off the light. “I don’t think we’ll be needing you for anything, young feller.”
“Fine.” The young man walked into the hall. “Don’t bother,” he called. “I can find my way.”
The house waited for the crisp sharp steps to disappear and then it was silent.
Mr. Ludlow went to the door and watched the figure walk down the little path, on past the twin gates; watched the figure turn and wave, standing tall against the sulphurous sky; then he closed the door, leaned against it for a moment, and returned to the living room.
“Henry, now what’s happened to the air? Ain’t it warm, all of a sudden? Warm like honey!”
Mr. Ludlow took off his jacket and tie-pin and replaced them in the closet. He sat down in his chair and scooted it nearer his wife.
“And look at the window,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “The frost is going away. It’s melting.”
Mr. Ludlow leaned back in the chair.
“Henry, look! The moon’s come out!”
“That so?”
“It’s big, and yellow; it’s lighting up the whole yard. You can see every tree!”
The old man smiled and put his head on his chest.
In moments he was asleep, and his wife was asleep, and there was only the sound of the brown cat, purring.
Last Night the Rain
We’d been clear out to the cemetery and we’d climbed the hill and now it was getting dark—or seemed to be, it had been gray since morning, and wet—but Amy had that look. She said, “Josh,” in her quiet way, and I knew what she wanted to do.
I said, “Let’s go home.”
The Hunger and Other Stories Page 12
