Picking the Bones

by Brian Hodge

  “Down there,” the sergeant called to him, and pointed.

  A small crew had been clearing obstructions away from the base of the building. He walked close enough to see that they’d uncovered a wide set of marble steps that sloped underground, beneath the building…a shelter, one of hundreds throughout the city where people would’ve crowded together and prayed to survive the bombardment over their heads.

  Closer still…the shelter’s interior had retained a stifling amount of heat that radiated up and out. When he looked down into the mouth of the passage, it seemed to exhale a warm cloud of breath, moist and reeking, that left him gagging. Never, throughout the entirety of the war, had he smelled anything like this.

  “Here,” said the sergeant, a familiar face from better days. He stepped next to Horst and gave him a handkerchief soaked with water; took renewed note of his left arm and knotted the cloth around the lower half of Horst’s face himself. “It’ll help a little. The smell…one of the men said the closest thing to it is the vats at a rendering plant.”

  Next he felt the sergeant’s hand at his back, urging him forward, toward the steps.

  The iron doors at the bottom had been opened already and he had no trouble seeing within, several meters past the doorway. The entire side of the building, even the foundation and below, was well lit. Although the sun was dipping toward the west, there was so much less to block it now, the light passing through the buildings behind them as though they were latticework—no roofs, no floors, just walls of empty windows splitting the sunlight into shafts that flickered with the passing of smoke from fires smoldering upwind.

  Strange, though—the stairway, and the doors as well, seemed too short. As if a yellowed floor had risen and ebbed out to flood the bottom of the passage.

  It took awhile to comprehend what he was looking at, longer still to accept it. When the reality of it hit him, he wavered, grateful for the sergeant’s steadying hand on his shoulder. What had looked at first like an empty room was anything but. Wall to wall, it was filled with a thick lake that had once been human beings. How deep—a meter, or even more? The smooth yellow glaze, he realized, was a crust of fat, risen to the surface and starting to cool.

  “How could this happen?” he whispered. “Why didn’t they burn?”

  “As I understand the way the bombing worked, it would’ve been the oxygen,” the sergeant said. “The lack of it, I mean. They would’ve needed air to burn…but with the firestorm above them, there wouldn’t have been any.”

  And so, in this airless chamber, subjected to hours of factory furnace heat, they had melted. So deep…so many. He could imagine them seeking refuge from the first wave of bombers, packing belowground in ones and twos, as families and as groups of strangers who’d found one another in the street, until they stood pressed together in the dark, noses filled with the smell of their neighbors’ sweat and terror.

  “The only crumb of mercy I can find here,” the sergeant said, “is that they would have suffocated before this happened.”

  Did their bones remain, at least, littering the floor at the bottom of the soup that had been made of them, or were even these last traces of anything individual gone?

  Do your job, he had to tell himself. If this camera doesn’t speak for them, who will?

  He lifted, he aimed.

  Do your job, and don’t think, he had to tell himself, because sometimes this was all that stood between sanity and whatever lay beyond. Do your duty.

  He focused, he snapped.

  One close shot of the slurry that had oozed out to the steps below his boots. Another shot through the doorway into the shelter. But would anyone be able to tell what this was? There were no faces, no arms or legs…nothing human at all. It wasn’t his concern. Shoot now, let someone else decide its value later.

  Horst let the camera dangle loose against his chest, and pointed into the middle of the room, toward the limits of the light spilling in from behind.

  “The surface back there…see it?” he said. “Why is it broken up? It shouldn’t—”

  He could feel the sergeant’s gaze over his shoulder, the same faraway stare that he’d once imagined could see all the way to Moscow.

  “We should leave here,” the sergeant murmured in his ear.

  Had they been heard by more than each other? Had their thoughts been divined? Stranger things had happened in wartime. They’d just begun to back up the steps when, in four distinct places, the crust of fat cracked apart, pliant and steaming, and gave rise to heads. Shoulders came next, then torsos revealed to the waist. They stood, their bodies streaming with murky pink runoff and soft yellow slabs that slid loose and plopped back to the surface. Then they waded forward as though crossing a swimming pool, disturbing a thousand dead in their wake.

  Horst and the sergeant had cleared the steps by the time these newfound four got there and ascended into the light of day. Whatever they were, they showed no fear of rifles and machine pistols. They said nothing. They seemed to have no need for words at all…and neither did anyone else now. In a world with such stark divisions between compatriots and enemies, here was something else entirely. Were they male? Female? Horst honestly couldn’t tell. They were simply other, and in nearly every way perfect, and though he no longer doubted that people had been talking about them all day, he still had to wonder if those who’d first spread the rumors truly understood what they had seen. Or if they’d ever asked themselves what it was that heard the final pleas of doomed people, and answered the call.

  If anyone fled, they did it quietly. The only thing Horst heard was a rifle clattering to the street behind him, then the clank of a dropped helmet. He turned around in time to see Bruno shed his pack. Next, the boy unfastened his topcoat and let it fall away from his shoulders as he lurched forward in his uniform tunic.

  “You were wrong,” he told Horst as he pushed past him. “Don’t you see…?” Louder now, calling over his shoulder: “You were wrong about all of it! They didn’t come to burn anything—I can see it in their eyes! They stayed with everyone down there! They comforted them through the end! Don’t you see it?”

  No. He didn’t. How could he possibly perceive the same qualities in them as Bruno?

  To begin with, they had no eyes.

  Bruno approached the nearest one, the boy’s steps halting and uncertain, as though he were looking past the coating that glistened on their bodies to see something that he felt compelled to appease. When he dropped to both knees he hit hard, but seemed to feel no pain.

  With eyes averted, Bruno reached for its hands, groping as though he’d never needed anything as much as he needed to feel its touch. It met him halfway, and by the time it stooped to enfold him in its arms, Horst had the camera up and ready. The shutter’s click had never sounded so loud.

  When it unfurled its wings, he wondered if anyone else saw them, the move like a display that a peacock would make, full of arrogance and pride.

  Horst managed one more shot before the smoke began to waft and the flames to crawl, and three more afterward. Do your job. As long as the camera was between them, he scarcely heard Bruno’s shrieks at all. Do your duty. The gunfire lasted for a fraction of the ordeal, because if they had no fear of guns then they would have no fear of bullets. By the time the stampede of footsteps faded and he lowered the camera, Horst realized he was the last man standing.

  And clearly beneath further notice, as they moved unhurried back to the marble steps, descending this time, returning to the shelter as though to the cooling waters of a spa.

  *

  After he had developed the film and printed the photographs in a makeshift darkroom in the barracks on Dresden’s north side, untouched by the bombs and fire, Horst spread them across a table in chronological order. In the light of a bulb powered by a generator, he reviewed what he had…a day’s journey that only veterans and Dante might fully understand. Most needed no explanation; they told their own stories. Especially the final series of five: two shots of be
atific poise and three of torments. A youth struggling as he burned inside enfolding arms that never loosened…even with the fire at its fiercest, Horst was able to make out Bruno with more clarity than he could the being that held him, a shifting shape of specter and iron.

  Before they went in the envelope, he put pen to paper:

  By now you will have heard rumors and reports of what have been called the Angels of Dresden. I include here what I in my limited knowledge believe to be the sole two photographs of one of their great number. It is seen here comforting a young soldier overcome with grief at Dresden’s losses. Later he told all present that it also shared the inspiring message of hope that the German people are not alone and will prevail.

  For himself, Horst kept a complete set of prints. For Berlin, he packed a set minus three; negatives too, with the final trio of exposures snipped free of the rest. After some thought, he took this short strip to the coal-fired stove in the corner of the room, cranked open the door, and flicked it inside like a soiled bandage.

  By now, he had no idea which was the greater crime.

  RE: YOUR APPLICATION OF 5/5

  FROM: Trent Tibbets, Associate Director

  Committee for the Assignment of Blame

  Hoffler Institute, Washington, D.C.

  TO: Anthony Rinaldi

  Dear Mr. Rinaldi:

  Congratulations! I take great pleasure in informing you that you have been selected for the unique and challenging career opportunity for which you applied six weeks ago. You have every reason to feel proud today, as both a patriotic American and as a man, for rest assured that meeting our criteria for this newly created position was no minor accomplishment. In the wake of the tragic conflagration at the Irvine Meadows Home for Wayward Boys—only this week confirmed by federal arson investigators to have been caused by its own residents—we were inundated with responses to our Sunday classified advertisement. I am sure you can appreciate how daunting was the task of narrowing down a field of several hundred qualified applicants to one.

  This of course makes you, Mr. Rinaldi, one very special man, perfectly suited for our needs, just as we hope we shall be suited for yours. One might even go so far as to say that the Creator, in His abundant wisdom, has brought us together, in much the same benevolent and visionary spirit that led Him to direct our ancestors (well, mine, maybe, but not yours, I won’t hesitate to point out) across the ocean to Plymouth Rock some four centuries ago.

  While your qualifications are as numerous and varied as they are obvious (thank you for your 128-page indexed and cross-referenced personal manifesto), be advised that officially we will not be holding you responsible (the public at large may prove to be another matter, however) for any actions, events, or calamities that have occurred on or off U.S. soil or that of its territories prior to today’s date, although we have found no cause to doubt the veracity of your claims of ultimate responsibility for the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, Hurricane Andrew, last year’s post office shootings in Grand Rapids, MI, Augusta, GA, and elsewhere, the entire Somalia situation, and the deterioration of the Mir space station. And while our investigators have thus far uncovered no human remains in any of the thirty-four mapped locations that you thoughtfully provided, we are nevertheless confident that this discrepancy will prove due to memory lapse (as clearly you are a busy man, with much to keep track of), although for the time being we shall continue to dig in hopes that the search will bear fruit.

  As you are undoubtedly curious, I have no qualms about sharing with you those attributes that elevated you above the multitude of applicants, but before doing so I would request that you keep this a matter of strict confidentiality.

  All other things being equal, it was, frankly, the indistinctness and subtlety of your ethnicity, which we feel will be able to pass for that of any number of Mediterranean peoples, including but not necessarily limited to Greek, Israeli, and Arabic strains, in addition to your own Italian. Skillful studio lighting should be enough to give your features a vague Indian, Pakistani, or even Slavic cast for photos disseminated to the media as need arises on a case-by-case basis. Digital manipulation should serve for Asian needs, although these are at present considered secondary. It is primarily your dusky, shifty-eyed mutability which we feel will not only tap most directly into public appetites for an extemporaneous scapegoat, but justify and cement their deepest fears that it looks like you. Focus group studies last week indicated that your appearance alone will be enough for “conviction” among 42% of the public, nearly a full three percentage points higher than your closest final-cut rival applicant. Well done!

  For those members of the public (although we feel that due to general denial and hypocrisy, the aforementioned 42% figure can be substantially increased on a practical level of prejudicial intrapersonal predisposition) who will insist on more substantive causes than mere ethnicity, your background in the arts, while at best only modestly successful in any accepted sense of the word, will handily serve the needs of your new position. Such is the nature of your written works that we are confident that virtually any random paragraph—published or unpublished—can, when extracted from its context, be subjected to sufficient scrutiny and analysis to render you guilty of collusion with or corruption of any impressionable personages or causative agents associated with whatever unfortunate newsworthy incidents may arise in the foreseeable future. As well, your background in music, theater, and dance has been sufficiently unfocused to open you to allegations of lack of motivation and/or disgruntlement over failures, while the bare fact of these pursuits in the first place should be adequate to arouse immediate suspicions of such objectionable correlative activities as Satanism, welfare fraud, homosexuality, and other non-specified deviances. Lastly, your medical and psychiatric records will speak volumes to those for whom psychological and emotional instability is the surest gauge of culpability. (At your earliest convenience, please sign and return the attached document granting permission for unrestricted access to, and release and distribution of, said records.)

  Re: your inquiry in the questions/comments section of your application: No, relocation will not be necessary, as your new position is fundamentally symbolic with no actual official duties beyond passively serving as a diversionary “lightning rod,” although in times of inordinate national stress your presence may be required for televised floggings or other forms of corporal or capital punishment, subject to various pending negotiations with Pay-Per-View outlets.

  On a brief and more personal note:

  Goddamn you, you prick bastard, did you think I’d let a technicality like your hiring date keep me from holding you responsible for what happened last year? Sixteen years we’d been married, and if there were any signs she was going to just walk out on that, I fucking well would’ve noticed them and dealt with them. I watched that woman like a hawk whenever I was home. So you’ll pay. However long it takes, I promise you you’ll pay. If you have any family left, I swear to God I’ll wipe them out for what you did to mine. I’ll cut your parents’ throats. I’ll throw acid in your kids’ faces. If there’s anything in this world you love, you can kiss it goodbye. Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you went and destroyed everything I held dear.

  Welcome aboard, Mr. Rinaldi, and I greatly look forward to our association!

  Sincerely,

  Trent Tibbets

  WHERE THE BLACK STARS FALL

  He held her hand and prayed.

  He used to pray a lot on first dates—or was tonight their second, or even a date at all?—but twenty-odd years later it was nowhere close to being the same prayer. Used to, he would pray to get lucky, straightforward invocations fueled by a lustful and all-consuming need, that he'd found that rare girl who would whisper to him an early yes because waiting for the next weekend and maybe would've been torture.

  But tonight it was almost as if nothing had ever changed, and so he held her hand and prayed. Older now, though, and patient in a way he could never have been while so young and
eager, asking now for nothing more mercenary than to not trip in the darkness of the park and fall on his face.

  "So who ordered the blackout, I wonder?" she said. "This could not have been timed any better."

  He had to agree. "This is probably the first time since I was a kid I'm actually glad the lights went out."

  "What would you pretend when it happened?" she asked, as if it were every woman's obligation to dig down to the boy who had lived before the man.

  And so he held her hand and walked, trying to recall the past as honestly as he could while the grass whisked dew-damp and slick beneath their shoes, and the encircling treeline loomed against the sky as solid as a canyon rim.

  "My mom would break out the candles," he said. "Blankets, too, if it was winter." Time had come full-circle: another outage, another blanket, although this one was from her closet, and carried beneath his arm. "I'd pretend we were pioneers. Sometimes I'd get my BB gun and watch out the windows, like it was my job to shoot cougars."

  "That's a cute touch," she said. "How many'd you bring down?"

  "Too many to count. But their heads lined the cabin walls."

  She made a sound as if she could actually see them, snarling faces lunging out of knotty pine. "Wasn't it always like the biggest disappointment in the world whenever the power finally came back on?"