Death Watch

by Berk, Ari

  Uncle’s eyes were rimmed with fire from weeping and lack of sleep. He was exhausted from having spent much of the last two days scrubbing the room from ceiling to floor, and for the first time in years, it didn’t smell like piss.

  Under the table, a few forgotten toys had escaped his notice. The more Uncle looked, the more reminders of childhood he could see hiding in the corners. Hardly a room for a grown man, he thought. Perhaps it was best things had ended when they did. Now there would be a change.

  A change!

  He spoke to the other in the room:

  “Metamorphosis …

  “We can begin again.

  “Company is here. Your family is here. We’ll be all together. Won’t that be something? All together. They have made their way to us from afar, driving across the black land to our little patch of sunshine! You’ll hear their voices through the walls and floors. Everywhere, the sound of family. Your family. Our family. Won’t that be fine!”

  Uncle’s mouth turned down just slightly. He was telling himself a story. He wanted to be hopeful. This last year had been unbearable. He still had to keep this door locked to keep the other in. Further measures had been required because the room’s occupant was so strong. Locks. Bindings. The inner door was covered with chalk drawings that seemed to be working. No more escapes. No more mad scenes in other parts of the house. Everything was calm now. Contained.

  Charles Umber looked forward to the future.

  There would be metamorphosis. A rite of transformation, a rebirth. And a new thing is so like a child. So much easier. Excitement began to rise in him again, and, unable to control himself, he spoke once more into the room.

  “You are safe. Rest awhile. Your life was all hardship. Be at peace and prepare. Prepare. The worlds divide. The form remains. The spirit rises purified and reborn, a child of gold! Oh, creature of shared blood, be cleansed! Endure! War no more with thine own flesh, for it is preserved in peace and is now a holy place, a hallowed shrine….”

  He stopped just as his voice began to rise, remembering himself and the houseguests who now occupied bedrooms in the east and west wings of the house. Better to assume that he would never have the complete privacy to which he was accustomed. He looked at the massive door. The locks would keep them out, and it was a large house. But the house had many hollows behind the walls, gaps between the floors and ceilings, and sounds ran through such spaces like scurrying mice. It would be hard to know just how far his voice, or any other sound, would carry.

  “So you see? We shall have to make some accommodations. Quiet voices. Sotto voce, if you please.”

  Uncle had been spending more and more time in the Camera Obscura, and that would have to change too. One of the chains on the wall shook against its rusted bracket. “Yes, I’ll still be here, but I can’t sit all day in this room,” he said, feeling guilty. “I must prepare. Please understand. No matter where I am, I am always thinking about you. Always.”

  Across the room, several books fell to the floor with a loud thud, as though they had been pushed from their dusty shelves.

  “And that is precisely what I am speaking of. Please trust me. I need a little time.”

  Uncle stacked the books into a pile. He paused to hold a small volume between his hands like an open Psalter, as his eyes ran over the lines of a favorite page. Then he closed his eyes and said, quoting aloud,

  “Broken in pieces all asunder,

  Lord, hunt me not,

  A thing forgot,

  Once a poor creature, now a wonder,

  A wonder tortur’d in the space

  Betwixt this world and that of grace …”

  “Yes,” Uncle said with concern, “it has been all affliction for you, but rest assured, a change is coming. Metamorphosis. Resolution and the rising soul!”

  He looked through the thick glass.

  Its eyes were closed. No. One eye was open just slightly, and Uncle knew it was looking at him. Seeing him through that gray eye, somehow. Hearing his words. Waiting for his words, assurances, promises of what was to come …

  “Be easy now,” Uncle said soft like a song.

  “You are home.

  “You are home.

  “You are home.”

  THE NEXT MORNING SILAS AWOKE to a quiet world. He could just hear the sound of running water downstairs, but the rest of the house was silent. Outside, not even a car could be heard.

  He got dressed and made his way down to the kitchen. He enjoyed the way the thick wool Persian carpets throughout the house felt on his bare feet. It was like walking on warm moss.

  When he reached the kitchen, he saw a woman bent over the sink as she washed pans. She was dressed in a faded blue dress and wore thick-soled shoes. She didn’t look up, but said, “There’s a plate of breakfast in the oven for you, Master Umber. Real eggs. Fresh.”

  Being called “Master Umber” seemed much too formal to Silas, so he replied politely, “My name is Silas. Please, call me Silas.”

  “I know your name, Master Umber. I knew your father when he was a young man.” The woman turned to face him and stared Silas up and down. “You have your father’s look about you, and there’s the truth,” she said. She opened a cupboard and brought out a jar of peaches.

  “Have you seen my father recently?” Silas asked very suddenly. He knew it wasn’t polite, or proper, but he was interested in her reaction.

  The woman’s hand must still have been wet from the washing, because the jar of peaches slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor. Thick syrup pooled out from among the fruit pieces, most of which were now shot through with shards of broken glass.

  “I’d prefer not to talk about your father, Silas, if you don’t mind. I am much saddened at his loss. He was a good man, although your uncle wouldn’t care for me saying so.”

  Silas felt the little hard edge to her voice. She was uneasy. Maybe because of his comment, or maybe something else. Her face was the surface of a stone and revealed nothing. Silas couldn’t even tell quite how old she was. She was stooped a bit and her face was careworn, her eyes circled with lines and arcs, but she might easily have been sixty or eighty.

  “May I ask your name?”

  “You may. I am Mrs. Grey.”

  “Have you worked for my uncle for a long time?”

  “I have worked for this house for many years. I knew your grandfather.”

  When she said “this house,” Silas could tell she wanted him to know that she didn’t consider herself her uncle’s employee, but instead, somehow, was part of the house itself, like the carpet or the roof.

  “So you are to live here now,” she said without any question in her voice. The sink faucet dripped as they talked, one quick drop after another, like the mechanism of a clock.

  “Yes, but, well, I’ll have to weigh my options,” he answered wryly.

  “That’s good,” she said quietly, “for the danger lamps are lit all the time now, and there’s the truth of it.”

  The kitchen door opened to reveal Uncle in the doorway. Mrs. Grey turned quickly back to the sink as she quietly resumed her work. Uncle ignored her.

  “Good morning, Silas. Excellent. Do take your breakfast where you please. I thought the fresh eggs would be a treat. Now, your choice: the den, or the parlor? The porch is warm this morning. It looks to be fine weather. I shan’t join you, as I’ve a little work to do in my study. Do forgive me. But if you like, shall we meet in a couple of hours for a little informal tour of the house? That will give you some time to unpack your things. I’ll fetch you at, say, ten?” His eyes were wide as he spoke, like an actor onstage presenting a well-prepared monologue.

  He waited for no reply before he turned quickly and left the kitchen. Silas could hear his uncle’s footsteps on the stairs.

  “You see, Silas,” said Mrs. Grey, as she turned toward him again. “You can see it in his eyes. The lamps. The danger lamps are lit.” She looked at the empty doorway where Silas’s uncle had just been. “You be su
re you don’t spend too much time locked away in this house. Plenty to see. Indeed there is. Plenty to see in Lichport. You be sure to get out when you can. You understand me, Master Umber? Get out when you can.”

  Silas smiled at her, but suspected there was great precision and meaning in her choice of words.

  “I’ll just eat in here, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Grey.”

  “Your uncle won’t like to know you’re spending so much time in the kitchen, but you must suit yourself.”

  From a high-backed chair perched near the rail of the second-floor landing, Uncle had been watching and listening to Silas’s movement downstairs for some time. He liked this chair with its heavy carved lion’s-paw feet. In it, he felt as though he was resting at the very center of the house. He could see the wide hall below and through the doorways into the front rooms. He could, by craning his neck, look down the entire length of the north wing. A simple sweep of his head one way or the other revealed to him both the east and west wings.

  He saw Silas come from the kitchen—where he had obviously eaten his breakfast—and watched him make his way to the parlor, where he paused—mostly out of view—for twenty-two minutes, perhaps reading? From there, Silas crossed the hall again and opened the front door, rather tentatively, and enjoyed twelve minutes of sunshine on the porch before coming back inside. He then stopped in the hall and had a good look at the mummified Ammit. Uncle watched the boy regard it from several angles. He is intrigued, thought Uncle. This is good. He stared quietly at his nephew, then coughed lightly to make his presence known and descended the stairs just as Silas had begun to pull gently in an exploratory manner at some of the ancient linen bandages.

  “A natural archeologist!” Uncle exclaimed, startling his nephew who quickly pulled his hand away from the wrappings.

  “Shall I show you a few more things that might interest you?”

  “Please,” said Silas.

  Quiet. Reserved. Inquisitive. Good, thought Uncle.

  Uncle led his nephew into the drawing room.

  “Please. Do look more closely.”

  Uncle watched as Silas rose up on his toes and bent over to examine the contents of all the shelves he could reach. Sometimes he nodded, as if he might know what an object was. With others, his nephew simply turned a particular specimen over and over in his hands, both mystified and apparently fascinated.

  “I see you are intrigued by Egyptian funerary sculpture.”

  Silas had been looking at a small ceramic statue in the shape of a wrapped mummy. It was no more than ten inches long, glazed bright blue, with a short inscription carved down the front length of its body and a longer text incised down its back.

  “I am here,” Uncle intoned.

  Silas was amused at this, and replied, “I know. I am here too. We’re both here.”

  “Ha! What a wit you have. No, no. That is what the little man says: ‘I am here.’ The Egyptians believed that when one read the inscription, the figure would come to life in the tomb to serve its master, because in order for some to enjoy eternity, others must perform a service. Reasonable enough, no? Surely you see the wisdom of such a doctrine? The honor of enabling the immortality of your betters. Isn’t that wonderful? Your father, forgive me for saying so, could never see the elegance of such a practical philosophy. If only I could get it to work! This house hasn’t had a full staff for years.”

  “Did you collect all these yourself?” asked Silas with genuine interest, ignoring his uncle’s attempts at humor.

  Uncle wondered if the boy might not be a little resentful at the cost of adding to or maintaining such a collection while he and his mother were, in essence, homeless.

  “Oh, no, Silas. Much of this collection goes back a very long time. And this is by no means all of it. Your father, I think, spirited away a number of intriguing pieces over the years, although I suspect they were sold. What you see here is the work of many generations of Umbers. Some of these specimens were brought over the sea with the first of our ancestors who came to Lichport. And, of course, through my business, I have been able to add many excellent objects to these shelves.”

  Uncle walked to the end of the drawing room and opened his favorite cabinet. Here he kept what he called the “experimental” pieces.

  “Look here,” Uncle said, as he beckoned Silas over to him with one hand and held up a large bottle of blue glass. “Herein, tradition and the auction record assert, a homunculus was grown in the eighteenth century.”

  Uncle could see his nephew was unfamiliar with this term and elaborated.

  “Homunculus … a little man. Certain preparations were made, all very secret, some say involving mandrake root, others insist … well, on even more obscure methods. All manner of ingredients were put into this bottle, which was then buried in dung, for warmth, for the span of thirty days. When that time had passed, a little man would have formed within the glass. Wondrous. Fed on honey and milk. When grown, it would protect its maker and might live forever.”

  Uncle handed the bottle to Silas, who held it up to the light and peered inside. Uncle could see him scrutinize its contents. Had the boy perhaps noticed the small pile of dust encrusted on the bottom or that tiny, partially formed bone? Uncle gently took the bottle from Silas’s hands and returned it to the shelf.

  “It is my hope you will enjoy studying the objects collected here, Silas. This is your house now. These things were all collected by your relatives. So now, you and I, we are the keepers of these sacred things. It is our job, indeed, our obligation, to learn as much as we can about them and their secrets.”

  Uncle saw his nephew’s eyes glimmer with what appeared to be pleasant surprise at being tasked with such a responsibility. “What else would you like to know about?” Uncle asked him.

  “Everything,” Silas said, staring at a bowl filled with carved jade cicadas.

  “Would you believe that in ancient China, these were inserted into the corpses of the elite to insure their place in the afterlife? The cicada was seen as immortal, the human body merely a cocoon, a requisite prelude to eternity brought about by the metamorphosis of death. Why, did you know, in Persia they …” He paused momentarily, smiled at his nephew’s obvious fascination, and said, “Perhaps we should find you a notebook.”

  SILAS WAS HUNGRY. He had spent all day in the drawing room taking notes, listening to his uncle, and making his own small drawings of some of the ancient things. He was still resolved not to like his uncle, but now that Silas knew he was part owner, in a way, of everything in that room, he was determined to enjoy his share of the “inheritance,” even if it all technically belonged to someone else.

  His mother hadn’t cooked at all in the weeks leading up to the move, so both of them had made do on canned soup and whatever else they could find in the pantry. Now on the table in front of him, set out on an intricately worked but yellowing lace tablecloth, was more food than he’d seen in one place in a long time. Strange, though, Silas thought, because little if any of it that he could see was fresh or cooked. Maybe this was the custom in Lichport? There were several kinds of pickled vegetables and preserved fruits, olives swimming in little china bowls of brine, salted nuts, some kind of smoked fish, and a silver platter of thinly sliced cured meats. The room smelled like vinegar and melting wax, which was dripping from numerous tall candles set into tarnished silver candleholders. There were so many candles burning that the room felt warm. Maybe his uncle thought his mother looked better in candlelight.

  “I hope you are fond of preserves. These days, who knows where things come from or who might have handled them. The eggs were a bit of a treat for your welcome breakfast, but I think you’ll find our usual fare far more sustaining, in the long run.”

  Looking out over the table, Silas’s stomach knotted with appetite, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat. More than anything, suddenly, all he wanted was fresh food. How long have those olives been around, he wondered. Everything that comes from the earth must return to it. Everyth
ing. Yet here was a dinner of remains. So even when his uncle invited him, saying, “Sample anything you like, be at home here, my boy,” it only made Silas feel worse. It was as though eating even a single mouthful would have been the signature on some kind of unspoken bargain between him and his uncle. Although his uncle hadn’t asked anything of him, Silas knew one bite would let some other world inside him, into his mouth and stomach, and the thought sickened him. He told himself he was just tired, that it was too much too soon; that it was all too new. After all, he’d enjoyed exploring the museum in the other room, and breakfast had been good. Why should he feel so differently when it came to this food? Enough, Silas told himself, enough. Give the place a chance….

  “Do you have any fruit?” Silas asked in a low, queasy voice.

  “Oh, Silas!” his mother exclaimed, clearly embarrassed.

  “I’m sure there’s something, maybe a jar of peaches, in the kitchen,” his uncle said, as he strained to keep the tight, sharp edges of his mouth pulled upward in a not particularly pleasant smile.

  “I think you’re out of peaches.”

  “Really? There must be more in the cellar. But I see by your hesitancy we’ve offended you already. Well, we shall all have to become accustomed to one another’s ways, I think. In the fullness of time, in the fullness of time! In the meantime, let me see what I can find for you.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself!” his mother called after Uncle, but he was already up from his chair and headed into the kitchen.

  A minute later Uncle returned, beaming, holding a small silver tray with a single red apple perched precisely in its center. He set this down in front of Silas with mock ceremony, smiling all the time, and returned to his dinner, which, never having been cooked, had not cooled noticeably in his absence, but smelled as though it had warmed slightly in the heavy air of the dining room.