“I just can’t seem to get through it,” Richard said. “How long is it going to take?”
“People are always wanting to get through things, to get over things.”
A murmur rose from the crowd. A large number of women in white aprons were passing through the aisles, handing out morsels of food. “Take, eat,” the women said. The crowd looked like one great, milling hive.
Johnson Senior gingerly climbed the rocks to the platform and faced the crowd, his suit so dark it looked like a hole burned through the background of water and sky.
“I haven’t done this in a while. I hope I still have the knack.” This was greeted with scattered laughter. “This’ll be from Mark six, verses thirty through forty-six. Also John six, one through fifteen. You all know this one, it being about Jesus and those blessed loaves, and those equally blessed fishes.
“And Jesus said, ‘Let us go to a quiet place and rest awhile.’ And isn’t this the quietest place you’ve ever been?”
The crowd murmured their agreement.
“And the people saw Jesus leaving. They saw where he was going, and so they took a shorter way to the quiet place. Because even back in those days, people did love a short cut.”
Someone shouted, “Amen!” There was scattered applause.
“Because, you see, these people were like lost sheep, and Jesus knew they needed him to be their shepherd. He comforted them, and he healed the ones that were sick.
“And Jesus said, ‘Give them something to eat!’
“But the disciples, they said there wasn’t enough food to feed all those folk! And back in those days, don’t you know they weren’t blessed with the Big McDonald’s, the Kentucky Frieds, or even the all-you-can-eat cafeteria buffets!”
Some of the crowd laughed heartily, but others looked serious as death.
“And Jesus told his disciples to seat the people, like it was some kind of big sit-down dinner, with five thousand men, and many women and children. Can you imagine that many people dropping by your house for dinner? Now what would the wife say to that?
“And Jesus took the five loaves and the two fishes, and he looked up to heaven and blessed those loaves and blessed those fishes, and then he broke them, and then he broke them again, and he gave all those pieces to his disciples to give to the people.
“And don’t you know that little bit of food was passed, and passed around, and it reached every last one of those guests. And they had to use twelve great big baskets to hold all the bread and the fish that was left over!
“And don’t you know I bet that was the best meal they ever had!”
And with that the crowd burst into cheers and applause. And the preacher’s wife, leaping up from the front of the crowd, dove past the desperate hands of her guardians and bit into a child’s arm.
A LARGE GROUP of the young men had been deployed to guard the basement bulkhead door. Richard really had no objection this time, but it still angered him. He occupied himself with keeping the little girls away from the basement. He was going to have to talk to the Reverend Tim soon, if at all possible. The Senior Reverend had sent some men out to find his son. Richard wasn’t privy to the details of whatever commitment the Deadfall had made to these people, but he couldn’t let this go on. Jacob might not approve, but there were children involved.
“Daddy, Annabelle and I made a wreath. Could you give it to her mom?”
He was holding it before he figured out how to reply. It was rough and uncomfortable in his hands, made out of dried branches, leaves, and other matter fallen out of the trees, made out of dead things.
He didn’t like to think about his daughter and her friend making such a thing. They stared at him from a few feet away, not saying anything. Still, it was a beautiful wreath. They’d made it with what they had. That was the whole meaning of it.
Richard saw Jacob motioning to him from the corner of the hotel. He walked over. Jacob looked at the wreath in his hand. “We’d best get down there,” Jacob said.
“Into the tool storage? You know, I don’t think those young men are going to let us this time.”
“There’s another way,” Jacob headed toward the front steps.
Of course there is – what was I thinking? Richard hurried to keep up with him.
He followed Jacob into a coat closet near the front door, through a narrow side panel, then down a rickety metal spiral staircase that swayed alarmingly with every step. They came out into the basement from behind a curtain of hoses and long-handled garden implements.
Reverend Tim and Mrs. Johnson lay entwined by one wall, their flesh gouged and torn, Mrs. Johnson’s right hand rammed far enough down her husband’s throat to dislocate his neck, as if to snatch out all his solicitous words, his desperate entreaties. A knife handle sagged from her left ear canal. She smiled the smile of the dead, muscles relaxed by the absence of pain. In the orange light of the grime-painted bulb, a line of wet earth glistened from one corner of her mouth down to just beneath her pale chin.
Richard and Jacob climbed out of the basement through the bulkhead door, surprising the young men gathered there. Annabelle ran forward, saw that he no longer had the wreath. She ran to Richard, wrapped her arms around his leg, and cried.
There were some in the crowd who wept, and some who prayed. Someone laughed inappropriately. Words were thrown, blessings were shared. But no one spoke of Heaven.
I do not know what kind of guardian Annabelle’s grandfather will be: the loving grandfather he appears to be, or a distant caretaker more than content to give up the raising of his young charge to boarding schools.
It is apparent that much damage can be done to children in a relatively short time. Children’s ability to survive, and thrive, is nothing short of miraculous. I do not know what kind of young woman Annabelle will be, but I can hope. Some flowers grow best in the worst soil.
I have read that there is a survival mechanism at work in the fact that the young of each species are ‘cute,’ according to the standards of the species. There is an arrogant, human-centric air to this theory – for how can a human being postulate a concept of ‘cuteness’ as it applies to another species? Some people, I am told, will not eat anything with a ‘face.’ What I believe this actually means is that they will not eat anything that reminds them of ‘people.’
But for the moment, let us assume this is a valid theory. We cherish and protect our ‘cute’ children. But as these children grow older they lose their cuteness, gradually forfeiting our special protection, until the ‘ugly’ adult loses our special consideration completely.
I find this quite disturbing. And it troubles me that this, simply a part of the ongoing flow of life, is what Annabelle and our Serena have to look forward to.
– from the diary of Jacob Ascher,
proprietor, Deadfall Hotel, 1969-2000
Chapter Six
PHANTASMAGORIA
Some residents, or relatives on their behalf, have elected to be interred in our little cemetery in the event of their demise. It is their right; it is one of the benefits of a forty-eight hour minimum residency at the Deadfall. The Senior Reverend Johnson did not choose this benefit for his son and daughter-in-law, although they most surely would have been welcomed. Instead, he took them with him when he and his granddaughter left the premises with the rest of the Gathering. I do not believe this group will be back next year. I cannot say I am sorry, although I found the granddaughter to be quite charming, and good company for our Serena.
Our cleanup of the cemetery was not quite complete, but we may finish the job at a later time. Richard did not notice the small stone on the outer perimeter of the Grand Circle, the one inscribed simply ‘Sean,’ with the crude drawing of a dog beneath. And I chose not to point it out to him. The dog stayed with us for many years – he was already well-ensconced by the time I arrived. He was one of Ms. Malachiuk’s favorite pets, and often lay beside her as she sat in her rocking chair reading and writing, late into the night (In her spare ti
me she was an aspiring, and unpublished, author of children’s books – unpublished for obvious reasons, I would say). He died – if that word has any meaning at all in this circumstance – only hours after his mistress’s death. In her honor, I buried him on the Grand Circle with other beloved guests, just as I buried copies of her unpublished manuscripts in the Deadfall library.
Personally, I never cared for the animal. I hated watching him move across the Deadfall lawn, like an ambulatory pile of hide and sticks. Even more, I hated watching him eat.
Another summer approaches. I trust we will not have a repeat of last year’s unfortunate incidents, and so accordingly I have shooed all cats, dogs, and other similar strays off the property. If Serena wants a pet this summer, she will have to settle for a goldfish, or perhaps a stone with eyes and a mouth painted on, which I think can look quite lovely when sitting upon a shelf.
Richard has worked out well here, although I have my doubts as to whether his tenure will be a lengthy one. Perhaps he is too sane for a life in the Funhouse. Certainly his devotion to his daughter suggests that, eventually, a position somewhere else might be more appropriate for them.
I have had to break it off with the former Mrs. Abigail Carter, or rather the ghost thereof (but again, I assure you, our relationship has been strictly platonic). My recent encounters with these men who have lost their loved ones is no doubt a small factor, a sad coming to terms with the fact that my own feelings, as crippled as they are, simply do not measure up, but Mrs. Carter’s increasing anger has been in fact the primary wedge in our relationship. I wanted a nice person I could talk to about important matters. It has become increasingly apparent, however, that the former Mrs. Carter’s main purpose in un-life, in afterlife, is to rage. Like many of the dead, she has reached that stage beyond acceptance, that stage of true hatred and resentment concerning the living and all that they have that she does not.
I have recently seen evidence of a deterioration in the Deadfall’s infrastructure unlike the usual wear and tear one might expect, if expectation is even a relevant concept in relation to this hotel. In any case, large sections of the paint we applied last summer have begun to peel like a seriously aggravated skin condition, pipes have swollen, doors and windows have shrunk to a degree beyond that explainable by seasonal climatic change. The deadfall grove is, well, unchanged. The situation warrants my close, unbiased observation.
– from the diary of Jacob Ascher,
proprietor, Deadfall Hotel, 1969-2000
RICHARD SHUDDERED AWAKE, the dream falling away like rotten gauze. He’d been in the morgue, making the identification. But the face revealed as the sheet pulled away wasn’t Abby’s, but Serena’s, lips chapped and blue, face pale as a fish’s belly.
I want her to go to Heaven, Richard. He remembered the way Abby had said that, looking at him as if he were denying their baby medical care. She has to be baptized.
Their disagreement had made him so angry – he wasn’t sure why. But Serena had only been in this world six months and here Abby was talking about her possible death. And Abby seemed to have no conception as to why that might upset him. We start to die the minute we’re born. Another jewel. Apparently Abby’s religion made her feel better about the grim possibilities. But that wasn’t for him.
He wasn’t proud of himself for it, but now he couldn’t see any benefits Abby had gotten out of her religion. She was here, wasn’t she? And the Deadfall was hardly Heaven.
Sometimes he wondered if Abby hadn’t believed in Heaven, she might have been able to hold on, in the end. If she believed that was all there was, and she was about to lose it. But she left both of them. Here she was but a breath, half a dream away, in the next room, just up that staircase. But for him to go to her now would simply mean pain and sorrow for all of them.
But Richard had let Abby take their baby down to the local church. Let her be baptized, as long as Richard didn’t have to witness it. Anything to make Abby feel better. Perhaps that showed a lack of principle on his part, he didn’t know. But why would he care, really? Most of what people did to assuage the simple pain of being human was just a bit of hocus pocus, wasn’t it? Psychology, religion, nationalism, a belief in ‘ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night’ – it was all pretty much the same.
Back then, bottom line, he believed Abby was the better parent, so he almost always went with whatever she wanted, eventually. He didn’t really know what to do with a baby. What would a baptism mean to a baby anyway? He didn’t understand how infants thought – he wasn’t even sure they did think, at least not in the way he understood thinking. Kids felt like pets, really, until a certain age, until they started showing their own personalities and desires, and understood what they wanted out of the world, out of their fathers, out of their mothers.
But whatever it was Serena wanted out of her mother, he couldn’t, shouldn’t make it happen.
Richard’s fondest memory of his own mother, the grandmother Serena never knew, was when she’d come in to say goodnight, and he’d been reading in bed as he did every night, and she’d leaned over, kissed him, whispering, “Books are safer than dreams.” Later he’d wondered if she’d actually meant “nightmares,” but that wasn’t what she’d said. So maybe even a good dream was a risky thing. You could always close a book, but dreams had their own engine – they could keep you asleep even as you struggled to awaken.
Once, when she was eight, Richard had found Serena in bed reading, and he’d been so touched, it seemed in so many ways she was becoming just like him, and he’d said that same thing. He’d leaned over and kissed her, said, “Books are safer than dreams.”
She’d stared at him solemnly before replying, “Oh, but Daddy, they shouldn’t be.”
The Deadfall was like a dream you lived in, a hotel for castoffs, wayward thoughts and desires. What you saw in the mirrors that lined its hallways was both utterly strange and exactly as you expected. It made sense only now and then, but this was your house, so you made the best of it. After all, your head made sense only now and then, but you were pretty much stuck there, as well, weren’t you? It was by far your most precise address.
“Daddy, I can’t sleep. Could you please find that picture of the sheep? Soon?”
Richard moved his head on the pillow. He hadn’t heard her come in, but there she stood in her pajamas, looking not much different from when she was eight, except she didn’t carry Teddy anymore.
“Can’t sleep?” She shook her head. He got out of bed and took her hand, guided her back to her room. “I’ll look tomorrow. I promise.”
More and more like him every day, and now an insomniac. He didn’t know if he should apologize, or blame it on the hotel. Their first couple of weeks here, neither one of them had gotten much sleep, but that was hardly surprising, being in a strange place, the strangest of places.
Abby, too, was up, not requiring sleep. He caught just a glimpse of her in the hall as he led Serena through the bedroom door: a floating bit of that rotten gauze, the flesh of dream, shedding gray filmy pieces of itself as it swept above the ornate carpet, always moving, looking for whatever it was the dead always seemed to be looking for. Restless in anger. She did not speak it, but he heard it just the same. Now and then, he’d seen her pause in front of one of the mirrors, and he always wondered what she expected to see, but from the flickering expression playing over her transparent features it was clear, whatever it was, that it terrified her.
He touched the edges of his daughter’s hair, leaned closer to smell it. Sometimes he couldn’t remember the simplest things about Abby: how her hair felt, how it smelled, a particular expression, a specific gesture. This floating phantasm might have her face, might have something reminiscent of her personality, but more often than not it was just a bad photograph. If something happened to Serena, would he remember precisely what she looked like? Would he be able to conjure up her smell? Could he have collaged it together from smelling her books and
toys and clothing, mixing her memory with his tears?
But Richard wasn’t haunted by Abby, however resentful she might be. He was haunted by impermanence.
In the halls beyond, lights flickered, glowing yellow, then brown. They highlighted the deterioration of the walls and ceiling, a rash-like spread of brown and gray spots, a steady decline into shabbiness. He’d seen the phenomenon of these shorts and surges before – as if the Deadfall’s poor wiring were in sympathy with Abby’s deadened mood. Or maybe she did it just to aggravate him. He was supposed to be in charge now – couldn’t he at least make the lights burn steadily?
He tried to make some gentle, romantic interpretation of Abby’s presence near Serena’s door: she was watching out for her daughter, she was craving some sort of contact. But he had learned better. The dead were full of their own concerns and destinations, and although she had come here when they moved, it was no doubt only because she had no other place to go. And because of him. Because she wasn’t done with him. She hadn’t yet forgiven him his mistakes. How he had fantasized about other women, how he had let her slip from his thoughts until their marriage had become drained and bloodless.
For his part, she might as well leave. Memories, eventually, become just another part of the household goods.
WHEN THEY’D FIRST moved into the Deadfall, Richard hadn’t wanted to store their things in the cellar, despite the fact they couldn’t fit all their possessions into the manager’s family quarters. The cellar was a vast, underground place, walls both earth and stone, and he hadn’t wanted to bury what he had left in that enormous grave. He and Abby had acquired those things together, and until their remodeling was done they’d stored them in the garage. Now the house they’d worked on all their married life was ash and cinder, and these remainders had made this trip into a new life: the antique china cabinet, the depression glass, chairs and tables and eccentric-looking paintings. He and Serena could have used the money more, but Richard just couldn’t bear to sell them.
Deadfall Hotel Page 25
