Splotch and Kojo looked at each other. “Yes, it is your brother,” Splotch said. “We on our way now to lower him into a hole.”
Linc stopped where he was and fell to his knees. “Do not bury him yet. Please. Put him down, let me see him. Let me say goodbye.”
They set the crate down in front of him. “All right,” Splotch said as he dusted off his hands. “But I am warning you, it is not a pretty sight in there.”
Linc buried his head in his hands and whispered Bram’s name. Then he sat up straight and ran his fingers along the groove of the crate’s lid. A family of hummingbirds seemed to cry just above as if they, too, wanted to offer final goodbyes. The crate smelled of pine and wet dirt, it was intoxicating as he lifted the lid—or was he just drunk with grief? His brother. He could not look in the crate. Could not open his eyes just yet to see Bram stretched out lifeless because once he saw him that way, he would have to accept his death as real. He clenched his eyes tighter and tried to think of a prayer he could say. He could think of none, so he settled on: “I shall see you on the other side.” He did not fully believe that, but right now he also did not not believe it, and he thought that at least the possibility of seeing Bram in some Heaven was a comfort right now, so he said it again, louder this time, with more conviction. “I shall see you on the other side, Brother.” And then one more time he said it, this time shouted it as if he might actually wake Bram with his shout. Then he opened his eyes and looked in. He jumped up. “What the fuck!” he said. The crate was filled with rocks and grass and dirt.
He could hear Kojo and Splotch laughing from very far away, though they stood right there and were practically laughing in Linc’s ear. “You dumb donkey’s ass,” Splotch said, between his howling laughter. “ ‘I shall see you on the other side, Brother,’ ” he mocked Linc.
Linc turned around and punched his fist through the air, through the years, and landed his fist against Splotch’s mouth the way he’d wanted to when he was a small boy and Splotch held a knife to his neck. They fought then. They cursed and punched each other, and Kojo stood by, yelling, “Get ’im, get ’im good, Splotch.” They rolled in the dirt and Linc appeared to be getting the best of Splotch, and Kojo pushed up his sleeves and commenced to move toward them, but a voice stopped him.
“I would not do that if I was you.” It was Buddy. “ ’Cause if you do, it will have to be me and you, and nothing would give me more delight this instant than to whup your ass, and I reason your goal is not to make me a happy man.”
Kojo turned to face Buddy. He walked toward him and squared his shoulders and snorted. “I did not know he was a friend of yours—”
“Well, this is a case where what you do not know can cause you grave bodily harm.”
“Call off your boy, I will call off mine.”
“Hey, Lincoln,” Buddy yelled into the cloud of dust Linc and Splotch had stirred up, his eyes still fixed on Kojo, as if daring him to make a move. “Save some for the card table. That’s where you really gonna give him a whuppin’. In the meantime, come with me—Sylvia got something she need to say to you.”
36
HAD LINC NOT taken the long way around through the woods; had he not stopped every few feet in the woods to grapple with all that had happened, to smoke tobacco and talk to the trees, to pick up rocks and hurl them through the air, to stomp fallen branches, to release the coil of rage and regret and amazement, he would have been privy to the activity at the guesthouse. He would have heard the news by now.
Vergie surely would have told him. Vergie was a natural storyteller—the way she’d give life to the tiniest detail, and go back and forth in time, all the while keeping the hearer oriented; she’d imitate the voices of the people she described; she’d wear what their faces did; she’d even venture into surmising their interior worlds. And at first, when she started in with her recitation of the monumental thing that had happened, Linc would have been distracted by the sight of her as his eyes fell to her mouth—that mouth, those pouty lips, both fleshy and firm as they’d moved against his own mouth that first time they were together in the cellar.
The air carrying the sound of her voice would have been confused by the time it reached the part of his brain that handled hearing, because the first sight of her would have redirected all of his nerve impulses first to his lower, baser self—he was just a man, after all—and when he recovered from that he would have felt a jolt to his heart, like a mild shock that brought heat and light with it and opened him up. It all would have happened in a mere speck of time, but it would have felt like a millennium until the impulses rightly routed to the part that deciphered words and he could hear what in fact she’d said.
“Nevada and I went looking for Son because Nevada had not caught sight of Son of late,” she would have begun. “While we were searching we came upon the crate filled with dirt and grass and stones, and I confided to Nevada what I had managed to pull from Sylvia, that the crate supposedly held a deceased man, your brother, Bram.” She would have said the name slowly, blowing the name out to make it lighter than air so that the sound of it could get a lift and rise and rise higher still. “Nevada said that the crate had Son’s markings all over it because he loved to fill empty containers and try to sink them to the bottom of the creek.” She would have imitated Nevada’s face then, making her eyes pop as Nevada’s had. She would have yelled out Son’s name the way that Nevada did, too, extending the word so that it stretched from one minute fully to the next. Then she would have replicated Nevada’s rapid-fire speech, waving her hands up and down as Nevada did, gasping in between her words. “ ‘Mercy, it is Son, he musta found the body. Lord, who knows what he did to it, where he put it, he been acting strange lately, running in and out of the cellar at odd times, I thought it was to get the company’s needs stored down there. I told myself I was gonna go down there and see, but I am a scared little lamb when it comes to dark cellars, I do not descend into one ever unless I absolutely have to. I should have, Lord, but then Buddy came, and, mercy, I could hardly think straight, and then I got so sad over Carl losing his leg, and with trying to keep all these people fed in quarantine, stretching the food like Jesus did the fish and the loaves, not that I am making myself equal to Jesus, but, hell, I have performed a bit of a miracle, and no one has even noticed that the eggs been scrambled with meal to make more of less, that the cornbread been buttered with duck fat, that the chicken and dumplings was mainly dumplings. Lord Jesus, we got to go in the cellar, Vergie, come with me, we got to go down there.’ ”
After imitating Nevada, Vergie would have slowed the telling, would have paused to describe how Miss Ma was sitting out back with her sewing basket spread around her, making one attempt after another to thread an embroidery needle, allowing the tension to rise as she imitated Miss Ma licking the thread and trying to get it through that needle’s eye, only to have the edge of the thread split, trying it again and watching it bend back, and again missing the needle’s eye completely. By the time she’d gotten through that description, Linc would have been rooting for Miss Ma to thread the needle, would himself be damning the needle because she could not.
“ ‘Ma, put the dratted thread and needle down’ ”—Vergie would have resumed speaking in Nevada’s frantic voice. “ ‘We got to get down in the cellar. Come on now, I need you, and I know nothing scares you. I watched you stare down a rabid possum back to its hollow in backwoods Virginia, so going in this cellar will be child’s play for you, but it is no playing matter. Come on, Ma.’ ” Vergie would have pulled Linc’s hand to demonstrate how Nevada had pulled Miss Ma’s, and he would have tried to hold on to her fingers; though she would have yanked them from him, softly, she needed her whole self to get through to the end of the story she needed to tell him.
As she told of them walking down the ladder into the cellar, she would have walked thusly herself, stooping with one knee, then the next, and he surely would have felt as if he was walking with them. “The darkness fell around me with
a sudden warmth against my skin that was at once rough and soft as a blanket filled with nubs, and my other senses became so acute I could hear Nevada’s heartbeat, and Miss Ma’s, too. I knew exactly how many steps to take to get to the lamp. And I felt ashamed when Nevada said to me, in a voice laced with judgment, ‘Know this cellar well, do you, Vergilina?’ Then Nevada gasped and jumped when I struck a match to light the wick, because that quick swish of a sound was magnified since it was dark, and it was a surprise, and even the otherwise fearless Miss Ma jumped at the sound. Nevada and Miss Ma were stymied by the barricade of furniture and such that seemed to cut the cellar in half.” She would have lowered her eyes when she said that, and Linc would have tilted her chin up so as not to lose the warm feel of her eyes on him. He would have cupped his hands around her face, traced the arc of her cheekbones. “And then what happened?” he would have asked her.
Now it would have been her turn to be distracted, to lose herself in the middle of her telling as his breath hit her face and she could taste the mist of it that smelled of brandy and longing, and at that moment she would have been rushed with the urge to cure his longing, but she would not, because she’d come to understand, after all, that she could not. His desire she could satisfy, but not his longing; his longing sprang from the whole of who he was, as did her own. Each person had the responsibility to concoct their own cure specific to their own essential self—so she had come to realize.
“And then what happened . . .” She would have repeated his question back as a statement of fact and just gone to the end of it, because his thumb stroking her face would have kindled a heat that by then would have spread all the way to her toes. “We heard movement coming from behind the barricade, and Miss Ma went fearlessly there and peeked to the other side, and then she pulled her head back quickly and let out a laugh; it was her most piercing laugh ever, and Nevada started to cry: ‘Is it that bad, Ma, what is it?’ And I could not wait for her to finish laughing so that she could explain, and I looked back there myself. And the first thing I saw was a trail of ants organizing around the tiniest crumb of cornbread. I did not want to see the rest, as I imagined that the ants had got to Bram as he lay there decomposing.”
Vergie’s eyes would have begun to fill and she would have barely been able to keep them from spilling over when she got to this point. And Linc would have pulled her to him; he would have rubbed her back and squeezed her so close that she would be able to feel the sobs trapped between his ribs. He would allow her to comfort him, too, the way he’d not been able to do when she’d first told him that Bram was dead.
He would have barely heard her as he pressed her head against the strength of his chest and she talked into his chest and described what she saw. “Son was sitting there, dear Son, sweet Son, man-of-wonder Son. He had propped Bram to almost sitting. I was sure without a doubt that it was Bram by the scar you had described. Son had his canteen tilted to Bram’s mouth, and I saw the ball of Bram’s throat move as he swallowed, and he swallowed, and he swallowed.” She would be sobbing now, so affected by the scene as she retold it. And he would have gently pushed her shoulders back to look on her face, to make sure that what he’d heard was what she’d said. That Bram was alive.
But Linc was not privy to the rising up of activity at the guesthouse that had the sound of a thousand geese flapping their wings to take flight. He was not there to hear the story as Vergie would have told it. Nor the aftermath, the screeching hysteria as the guesthouses came to life and the news spread. A dead man has been found in the cellar was the first report. Fossilized; no, eaten by the ants to the bones; no, it was a ghost; no, a warlock; no, a deity; no, a man brought back to life like Lazarus, Jesus did it, he is here, he is waking the dead. You better get right with God, people, Jesus has come again.
The commotion woke Spence from his marriage bed and he pushed through the crowd that had gathered at the cellar door. There was a hush when he reemerged from the cellar and set the record straight. “The hospital erred in sending a man here who was neither expired, nor hot with fever. He is yet alive. I will go get Sylvia so that we can keep him so. And then it will be my greatest pleasure to send all you people home.”
BUT LINC WAS unaware about all that had transpired as he’d tarried in the woods, and then prayed over a crate of rocks and grass. He had fought, been helped to his feet by Buddy, shook the dirt off, swallowed the blood from his busted lip. Now he walked with Buddy toward the house. “Do you know what Sylvia needs to speak to me about?” Linc asked.
“For her to say, not me.” Though Buddy had wanted to tell Linc about Bram, Sylvia insisted that she would. Buddy and Sylvia had gone back and forth just outside of the hospital room where Bram was resting comfortably. Sylvia said that she couldn’t say for sure if Bram had yellow fever, though it was possible that he’d been pronounced dead in the acute stage of the disease, people were known to survive even from that point. Buddy said then that he’d recalled Bram having bouts of some kind of ailment from the time he was a younger boy, according to what Meda used to tell him. “It could be a liver ailment. Now I am beyond curious and will investigate this as soon as I tell Linc that Bram is alive.”
“Whoa, hold on there, Miss Lady, I’m telling him. I practically raised that boy.”
“Well, these hands ushered him into the world,” Sylvia countered, as she proudly waved her hands in front of Buddy’s face.
“What world?” Buddy had asked as he looked at Sylvia’s hands dancing through the air.
Sylvia laughed. “Let it suffice that I’m calling in your pledge of years ago. Remember? You promised me you would return the favor—”
“For throwing the cake and saving the day. I fold, Miss Lady, you win,” he said. “But, what world?”
“Now, that I’ll leave for Linc to say to you.”
Linc and Buddy had reached the house. The sun had dipped low in the back of the sky and sent up red streaks to be remembered by. They pushed open the door. The lights were all lit and laughter crowded the parlor and blended with the harmonica and fiddle and spilled over into the dining room. The air smelled of mint and sage and fizzed with expectation as Nevada came in from the kitchen and set a basket of rolls still steaming in the center of the table. They had begun to gather around the table and claim seats, and Buddy left Linc’s side and went to Nevada and pecked her cheek and whispered in her ear and she laughed like a naughty girl. Skell held out chairs for the unescorted ladies to sit. And shortly they were saying grace and digging in to eat.
Vergie walked in from the kitchen carrying a jug of punch. Linc looked at her and thought of Meda. He wondered what Meda would have said about all of this, about him claiming to be a black man before he knew that he was, about hiding out in the cellar, about Vergie.
He imagined her having him sit under one of her Lincoln sketches and asking him to explain what he felt about all of this. He pictured himself saying, “Ah, Meda, there is a pretty miss who has reached her hand through my chest and touched my heart.” He thought that Meda would wink then. He could see it, Meda tilting her head, smirking the way she did when she really wanted to smile but hid behind a stern face, her cheekbones even more pronounced, her eyes sweeping him in that way that made him feel as if he was the best boy to ever walk the earth. Saw her letting that one eye close slowly in a playful wink. Saw himself, too, trying to keep from blushing as if he were ten.
Vergie was involved in a dispute with Lena over place settings and had not yet looked up to see him standing there. Then Sylvia came in from the kitchen and motioned Linc toward the foyer. When he joined Sylvia in the foyer she asked if he would take a walk with her to the hospital. “Is it Carl?” he asked, desperation clinging to his voice.
“It is not, but it is a matter that is better seen than talked about.”
Now Vergie stepped into the foyer. Linc held her gaze, and he got that same surge as on the first night he’d laid eyes on her. “I should be happy to come with you to the hospital . . . if Miss Vergilin
a would also agree to walk with us.”
Vergie nodded her consent. He held the door for Sylvia, then took Vergie’s hand in his own. He leaned his head back into the dining room. The red of the evening sky cut a slice through the parted draperies. He felt connected suddenly to this hodge-podge assemblage gathered around this table, laughing and sniping and ultimately agreeing. What a community this was.
“I trust everyone is well this evening,” he said. This time he did not have to make his voice go deep when he said it.
Author’s Note
ALTHOUGH THE PEOPLE, situations, and plot lines that comprise the Lazaretto are fully imagined, the Lazaretto did, in fact, exist as a quarantine station. Its historical significance is indeed great, even as it remains relatively unexplored. Penn’s David Barnes has called the Lazaretto “Ellis Island’s great-grandfather.” Mr. Barnes’s important research and writings on the quarantine station were helpful in stoking my imagination and shaping the Lazaretto’s fictional world.
Acknowledgments
I HAVE NOT included acknowledgments in the four novels following Tumbling, my first. It felt redundant. The people in my universe have consistently provided the vital support and encouragement, the critiques, the space, the understanding, the distractions, the patience, the laughter, the love. But it’s been twenty years since the first novel: twenty! My first agent has been replaced by the tenacious Suzanne Gluck, who knows what to say, and when, to keep me steady on the course. Claire Wachtel has continued to persevere through draft after draft; her assisting associate editor, Hannah Wood, is so efficient, so smart, as is Caroline Upcher, who contributed her editing prowess as well. Mary Rhodes, at ninety-four years of age, continues to serve as my wisdom well. And James Rahn is still helping writers like me push the material until it sings. Two of my siblings, Gloria and Bobby, are no longer here in the flesh, but their spirits are, and when my nieces, Robin and Celeste, smile, Gloria is here. Paula, Gwen, Elaine, and Vernell, are still the best sisters—and friends—a person could ask for; I’m grateful to their spouses, Charles, Jim, and Jerry; Celeste’s husband, Jean; and my nephews, Aaron, Gerald, Paul, and David. My twins—my daughter, Taiwo, my son, Kehinde—are all grown up since that first novel; their insight regarding my work is amazing. And yes, their laughter is still my greatest joy, a nice chorus when Kehinde’s wife, Teresa, and Taiwo’s partner, Aaron, join in. Okay, so I’m being redundant anyhow. Though redundancy can be a beautiful thing, because Greg is still Greg, my soul mate and truest friend.
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