by Jane Langton
The mirror over the sink showed a yellow-faced Leonard. He hated himself. His hair stuck up all over his head, pushed sideways in the wrong direction.
His watch too was on the wrong arm. He must have switched it absentmindedly last night.
But when he unstrapped the watch from his left arm, he was puzzled by the band of pale skin on his left wrist. Crazy! Why did he think he always wore his watch on the right? Obviously he didn’t and never had.
Trying to wake himself up, Leonard washed his face in cold water and ran a wet comb through his hair. It was queer, the way it refused to lie flat and kept springing up under the comb.
In the end he had to part it on the other side.
20
Cambridge City Hall was a large nineteenth-century brick fortress near Central Square, looming high above Massachusetts Avenue.
Mary and Homer walked into a vestibule lined with tributes to the veterans of various wars—This Tablet commemorates the enlistment of the company of volunteers which was the first in the country to answer the call of President Lincoln for troops to maintain the union of the states.…
“Hey,” said Homer. “I didn’t know that. I wonder how many of them ever came back.”
The Death Records office was up a long flight of stairs. Breathing hard, Homer opened the door and they walked in. Sunlight streamed in the windows, shining on desks and file cabinets and on half a dozen clerks, all busily keeping track of the deceased citizens of Cambridge.
“May I help you?” A woman popped up in front of them, small and quick. She looked at them brightly, apparently undismayed by the mortuary nature of her job.
“We’d like to find out more about the death of an infant child in the year 1991,” said Homer ponderously—he had been rehearsing the question in his head.
“The trouble is,” confided Mary, leaning over the counter, “we don’t know his last name. Just his first name, Patrick.”
The birdlike little woman raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know the last name? Well, that does present a problem.” She stared at the ceiling and made a tent with her fingers.
“We hoped we might be permitted to examine your records for the year 1991,” said Homer politely.
“After all,” said Mary eagerly, “there couldn’t have been very many dead babies named Patrick in the year 1991.”
“No, of course not.” The brisk little woman bounced away. In a moment she was back, lugging a heavy ledger. Heaving it up on the counter, she flipped the pages open. “Index book for I860, males left column, females right, in order of date of death.”
“But—,” said Mary.
“Historical interest.” The bright eyes snapped.
Mary was on the point of saying, “But we just want a small piece of contemporary information,” then thought better of it.
Homer of course did not complain at all. Recognizing a barmy fellow enthusiast, he understood at once that history came first and information second.
“Well, how fascinating,” he said warmly, “Ms.—”
“Puckett. Amelia Puckett.”
“Ms. Puckett, would you explain it to us, the way records were kept at that time?”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Puckett,” said Mary, nodding and grinning from ear to ear, “please do.”
Amelia Puckett beamed and ran her finger down the page. “All handwritten, of course. Note that many of these people were immigrants. In the column for Place of Origin, you can see that many were born in another country. Look, see here? Ireland, Ireland, Italy, Ireland.”
“Hey,” said Homer, “my grandparents must be in here somewhere. Potato-famine Irish. They met on the boat.”
Mary propped her elbows on the counter and watched patiently while Amelia Puckett and Homer pored excitedly over the 1860 book, and then through an even heavier one for the year 1863.
“Battle of Gettysburg,” murmured Ms. Puckett reverently, tapping the ledger. “That’s why there are so many.” Mary and Homer watched her finger run gravely down the listings of dead young men. This, then, was what had happened to the company of gallant volunteers on the memorial tablet downstairs.
Bang! Enough of that! Amelia Puckett slapped the book shut and dragged it away. When she came waltzing back, she was carrying the computerized volume for the year 1991.
“It’s all yours,” she said cheerily, thumping it down on the counter and bouncing away.
They huddled over it. “It’s so thick,” whispered Mary. “Look how many Cambridge people died in the year 1991. Golly.”
“Don’t forget,” muttered Homer, running his finger down the first page, “this is a big city with a hundred-thousand people, that’s what Leonard tells me.” Homer’s finger stopped near the bottom of the page. “Hey, here’s somebody named Patrick. Patrick Michael Summers. Mmmm, let’s see how old he was when he died.”
Mary craned her neck. “Eighty-one, Homer. Wrong Patrick. Who’s next?”
Slowly they turned the pages, pausing at Patrick after Patrick. Homer was amused. “Good Irishmen all,” he said, turning another page, “immigrants from County Cork and County Galway and County Limerick.”
“Oh, Homer, these people weren’t immigrants. Look, they were born here.”
“Well, the children of immigrants then, or the grandchildren. Even so, they remembered Patrick, the saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland.”
Halfway through the ledger they found a Patrick who had been born in 1990, obviously an infant at the time of his death in 1991. His name was Patrick O. Fell.
“Fell,” said Homer, disappointed. “Not Finnegan? Flannery, McDuffy?”
“Oh, Ms. Puckett?” called Mary. “We think we’ve found him.”
Amelia Puckett trotted over and looked at the entry for Patrick Fell. “How sad,” she said. “Infant deaths are always so sad.”
Swiftly she whirled around and scurried across the room. Mary and Homer watched as she ransacked a file cabinet, whisked out documents and plunged into another drawer for more.
In a moment she was back with a handful of papers. Slap, slap, they were spread out on the counter.
Mary scribbled it all down—
Patrick O. Fell
Date of birth, March 19, 1990
Date of death, May 29, 1991
Cause of death, automobile accident
Place of burial, Mount Auburn Cemetery
“Mount Auburn,” said Homer. “But, my God, it’s so huge. How will we ever—?”
“Records,” interrupted the mortuary archivist joyfully. “Mount Auburn keeps records of all their burials. Meticulous, absolutely meticulous. And it’s such a beautiful garden. Truly inspiring. You’ll see.”
They thanked her and she tripped away, beaming.
“I love enthusiasts,” murmured Homer.
Mary slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. But before turning away she glanced at another ledger lying open on the counter.
“Look, Homer,” she whispered, “it’s for this year.”
“So it is,” said Homer. “Right up to the minute.”
He glanced at the latest recorded death in the city of Cambridge, the suicide of someone named Leonard Underdown. He had been only thirty-six years old.
Sad. It was another sad case.
21
Leonard and Homer met at the monumental entrance to Mount Auburn Cemetery. “I’ve seen this all my life,” said Homer, “but I’ve never been inside.”
The entrance was a monumental Egyptian gate. It spoke of ancient tombs along the Nile and colossal pharaohs rising out of the desert.
“Listen, Homer,” whispered Leonard.
But Homer said, “This way.” He strode through the gate and turned left in the direction of the administration building, a one-story stone structure in a nest of pretty plantings.
Leonard began to follow, then stopped to stare anxiously at the landscape of tall trees and grass and gravestones. With a pang, he remembered that ninety-thousand people were buried in this place. Mount Au
burn was a city of the dead.
Homer looked back, and Leonard hurried to catch up. “Where’s Mary?” he said uneasily. “I thought she was coming.”
“Visiting a friend. Old friend in a nursing home.”
“Listen, Homer, I’ve found her apartment.”
“What?” Home had forgotten the original purpose of their investigation. “Whose apartment?”
“Frieda’s. At least I think it was hers.”
Homer stopped short and stared at him. “You mean you’ve found her? The woman you’ve been looking for?”
“No, unfortunately I haven’t. She’s moved away.”
“Oh, Christ. Look, here we are.”
The sign said OFFICE. Homer led the way into a large room bright with sunshine from a skylight overhead. A woman with grey hair and pink cheeks stood up from a desk and asked politely what she could do to help.
“We’re—uh—looking for someone’s grave,” began Homer, expecting a succession of bureaucratic delays, forms to fill out, explanations of intent. “A child’s grave. His name was Patrick Fell.”
And then to his surprise the receptionist at Mount Auburn turned out to be as helpful as the vivacious little woman at City Hall.
“Of course.” Instead of bustling away to heave giant ledgers off a distant shelf, the pink-cheeked woman pulled open a drawer on her side of the counter. “We have that information right here.”
“Well, good,” said Homer happily, leaning over to look.
Her fingers twiddled in the drawer. “We call this the roll call of the dead.”
“Tarantara,” said Homer cheerfully, getting in the spirit of the thing. Leonard flinched.
“There’s a card for every burial. Let—me—see. Yes, here it is, the Deceased Card for Patrick Fell.” She plucked out a small yellow card and read it aloud. “Patrick Fell, Narcissus Path. Date of interment June 7, 1991. Order signed by Edward Fell, father. Undertaker, Hornby and Son, Cambridge.”
She showed them the card. “It’s yellow, you see, not white. That means it was a regular burial, not a cremation.”
“Bingo,” said Homer, amazed. He looked triumphantly at Leonard, who seemed stupefied. Then Homer spread his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “But where s Narcissus Path? How will we ever find it?”
Pink-cheeks smiled. “Nothing to it.” She reached across the counter to a display of pamphlets, took out a map of the cemetery and spread it on the counter.
“This is where you are right now,” she said, pointing, “right down here at the entrance.” Her finger traced a looping line along green and white avenues and dotted paths. It stopped and tapped at a spot. “Here’s Narcissus Path, near Auburn Lake.”
“Oh, thank you, that’s great.” Homer fumbled in his pants pocket. “How much is the map?”
“Take it,” she said. “The next one will be a quarter.”
“Excuse me,” said someone, pushing forward. “I’d like to speak to the genealogist about my distinguished family.” He was frowning. “I think I spoke to you before.”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” said the receptionist. Her pink cheeks became pinker. “Do you have an appointment?”
The descendant of the distinguished family was a short tubby man in a grey suit. “An appointment? No, I do not have an appointment. Isn’t the genealogist a regular employee? Isn’t it her job to receive inquiries?”
Homer grinned at Leonard and nodded his thanks to the kindly receptionist, who was under siege, and they walked out of the building.
“Hey, Leonard,” he said, “have you got a bunch of distinguished ancestors?”
“Ellis Island,” said Leonard. “Frightened immigrants from Uzbekistan. Babushkas, babies, bags and bundles.”
“Well, I told you about mine, Micks escaping the potato famine. Mary’s are another story. Noble Concord farmers.”
“Well, the hell with genealogy anyway,” said Leonard. Gloomily he followed Homer to the parking lot, thinking about the roll call of the dead, picturing a beefy sergeant at arms barking out the names of those on the brink of death—
“Jones?”
“Here!”
“Smith?”
“Here!”
“Sheldrake?”
“Here!”
“Okay, you knuckleheads, fall in!”
And then, one by one, they would keel over into the trench—all the terminal cases, the battle fatalities with their bleeding wounds, the wheezing tuberculars, the mangled accident victims, and of course the occasional dismal suicide.
22
Mrs. Winthrop had set out for Mount Auburn that morning a full half hour after Leonard, but she was comfortably settled in her favorite neighborhood long before Leonard land Homer found their way to Narcissus Path, because they kept getting lost.
“We must have made a wrong turn back there,” mumbled Leonard. “This isn’t Beech Avenue, it’s Cypress.”
“Wow, talk about Egypt, look at the sphinx.”
The sphinx was a Civil War memorial celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation and the preservation of the Union. They admired it respectfully, and Homer told Leonard about the names of the dead for the year 1863 in the ledger at City Hall.
Again they consulted the map. “Left,” said Homer, “we go left on Cedar.”
Cedar led to Walnut, which strangely lost itself in Poplar, which disappeared into Larch. Here there was a dispute. Homer wanted to reverse direction and go right on Willow.
“No, no,” whispered Leonard, “left on Oak.”
They compromised by getting lost among pretty paths named for flowers—Rhodora, Rosemary, Jasmine.
In the meantime Mrs. Winthrop had left her post beside her husband’s grave because something exciting was happening on Beech Avenue. Through the trees she could see a funeral procession. The first vehicle was full of flowers, and then came the long grey hearse. The two dignified automobiles were moving very slowly, followed by a parade of friends and relatives in ordinary cars.
She would watch! Mrs. Winthrop stood up and stumbled along Willow Avenue. Fortunately the interment was nearby, and she was able to catch up. Respectfully she stood behind an obelisk, not wanting to interfere.
The procedure was familiar. The casket was taken from the hearse and placed on a contraption that would lower it into the ground, and then it was covered with flowers.
So pretty! The deceased’s loved ones had spared no expense. There were lilies and delphiniums, carnations and roses, daisies and snapdragons.
Of course, observed Eloise a little snobbishly, there were not as many for this person as there had been for Zachariah. For his interment there had been far too many flowers for the lid of the casket. The rest had been heaped around it like a garden. And there had been flowery tributes from colleagues all over the world.
But after all, Eloise reminded herself smugly, Zachariah Winthrop had been Zachariah Winthrop. Who, she wondered, was being honored with this modest display today?
She watched as the clergyman straightened his stole and opened his book. The gathering moved closer. One young woman was sobbing quietly. The bereaved wife, thought Eloise with rapt attention. Or perhaps the grieving daughter.
But when the clergyman began to speak, she understood at once. This was the interment of the poor young man who had killed himself, the one whose picture in the paper had looked so much like her dear tenant. The name the clergyman pronounced was Leonard Underdown.
And, good heavens—from Mrs. Winthrop’s courteous distance behind the obelisk, she recognized a familiar person. It was the mother of the dead baby, the handsome woman who was always so faithful to the resting place of dear little Patrick. She must be a relative of the Underdowns. How amazing!
When the clergyman closed his book and the mourning friends and relatives began drifting away, moving toward their cars, Eloise saw with sympathy that the dead baby’s mother was walking with the bereaved wife. She had her right arm tucked into the wife’s arm and with her gloved left hand she pat
ted the wife’s limp wrist.
“Oh, you were so good,” moaned Margaret Underdown, leaning on her new friend. “Father and I are so grateful. You tried to save my husband.” There was a fresh burst of tears. “Thank you, oh, thank you.”
“Tell me, dear”—there was an uneasy note in the new friend’s voice—“was your husband interested in art at all?”
“Art?”
“Yes. You know, gallery openings, prints, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, no, never. Lennie wasn’t like that, not a bit.” Margaret Underdown seemed a little insulted. Proudly she said, “A man’s man, that was my Lennie.”
Mrs. Winthrop was too far away to hear this exchange. From behind the obelisk she guessed that Patrick’s mother was the older sister of the poor little wife. Having endured one unbearable tragedy, she is wise in the ways of grief. She can comfort poor Mrs. Underdown.
On the way back to Willow Avenue, Mrs. Winthrop saw the peacock again, ducking under a dogwood tree to nibble at a daffodil. She spoke to it severely. “Shame on you, peacock! Why didn’t you appear at the interment and spread your tail as a symbol of everlasting life?”
But it hadn’t. Eloise walked slowly back to Zachariah, remembering that there was something she had meant to ask him. Nestling on her blanket as close to his tall stone as she dared—respecting the rule that the monuments were not to be touched—she asked Zach her question about the house of which he had once been lord and master. There seemed to be a leak in the roof. What should she do?
Wisely he advised her to wait. Perhaps the problem would go away by itself.
“Oh, yes,” breathed Eloise, getting to her feet and folding her blanket. “And, oh, Zach, the weatherman predicts nothing but sunshine all next week.”
