The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  First I asked him about his paper. A hopeful look flashed in his famous dark eyes. He began to make excuses—travel, his wife giving him problems, the culture shock of being at a white law school, as he called it, which, I suppose, makes Lem and Shirley and me white professors, sort of—but I cut him off. I told him coolly that he could have another month. If the paper was not in, I would flunk him. Lionel nodded and started to move off down the hall, certain, no doubt, that this threat was subject to later negotiation, as, these days, most things are. I held him in place with a light touch, the way police officers do, and he began to look alarmed. Glaring up at Lionel, I noticed the words DUKE UNIVERSITY stitched into the black leather of his jacket and remembered how he twice took his college team to the Final Four a decade or so ago. Although he has had his troubles in law school, I recalled from ages past the broadcasters’ reminding us all that he was an honor student.

  Then I pressed on.

  I told Lionel we had another matter to discuss. I asked him, point-blank, why he was following me around. I waited for him to confess that his secret girlfriend, Heather, asked him to do it, some kind of bizarre favor for her father. His response was puzzlement. He assured me he would never do such a thing, so I rephrased the question. What was he doing in front of my house last week? And in the woods out back a few weeks ago?

  Now Lionel met my eyes, and even before he spoke, I knew I had guessed wrong, so terribly wrong. He was not my enemy after all, not, at least, in the way I had assumed. And he had obviously been in this situation before, because he knew exactly what to say, the worst words imaginable: It isn’t personal, Professor Garland. I like you. I admire you. Then he followed it with: I just like your wife, too. And the million-dollar smile at last.

  But by that time I already knew that Lionel had nothing to do with the arrangements or the pawn delivered to the soup kitchen or my beating in the middle of the Quad. I knew I was coming late to knowledge widely shared. I knew whose voice it had been on the telephone, calling my wife baby on the day she was supposed to be working at home and I was supposed to go to my office. I knew he called because he didn’t see the BMW in the driveway, where she always leaves it, and he wanted to know if their rendezvous was on. I knew why the students gave us a wide berth just now, allowing us to discuss our business in privacy. I knew what Dean Lynda must have thought was the unmentioned and unmentionable explanation for my irrational behavior, and why she decided to cut me a little slack. I realized that even Dear Dana Worth, from whom no gossip can quite be concealed, must have been aware of the truth, which was why she was so startled when I asked her about Lionel and Heather, and why she tried to pass it off as a joke when we saw the Porsche on the street outside of Post, so that her screechy, slightly wild laughter was meant to cover her pain at realizing that I had no idea, and she was not about to tell me, that it was the world-famous Lionel Eldridge, and not Gerald Nathanson, who was having an affair with my wife.

  CHAPTER 50

  AGAIN OLD TOWN

  (I)

  I AM ENDING MY MYSTERY WHERE IT BEGAN: in a cemetery. Was it really four months ago that Jack Ziegler emerged from the shadows on the day of the Judge’s burial to tempt me into this nightmare? Or was it only last week? In my recent confusion, not only truth and justice but time has seemed to turn in on itself, curving dutifully in the direction of gravitational pull—the pull, in this case, exerted by the mission, the desperate need to know.

  I am once more on the grounds of the Old Town Cemetery, but not to see Samuel, for it is after eight and after dark, and Samuel is long gone. I did not scale the wall or the gates. I did not crawl through the tunnel. I simply strolled in around five, headed off to one of the marble benches in a far corner—invisible from the entrance—and waited. I brought along a backpack, from which I withdrew a copy of Keegan’s book on the history of warfare, and I read about the way armies used to be organized, when the soldiers in the front lines knew they were going to die but marched off to battle anyway. Pawns, expendable pawns. I read and pondered and waited. Samuel locked the gates and disappeared and I kept on waiting. From my perch next to a mausoleum, I cannot see the gate, but I can see the only path that leads to my little corner of the cemetery. If anybody came in after I did, he has not followed me to the bench. Yet I am certain I am not alone.

  As darkness gathers, I continue to ponder.

  A cemetery is an affront to the rational mind. One reason is its eerily wasted space, this tribute to the dead that inevitably degenerates into ancestor worship as, on birthdays and anniversaries, humans of every faith and no faith at all brave whatever weather may that day threaten, in order to stand before these rows of silent stone markers, praying, yes, and remembering, of course, but very often actually speaking to the deceased, an oddly pagan ritual in which we engage, this shared pretense that the rotted corpses in warped wooden boxes are able to hear and understand us if we stand before their graves—and would not hear these same messages (“One day soon I’ll be with you, darling” or “I’m doing everything you told me, Mom”) if we merely took the time while, say, driving a car to project our thoughts into the next world. Unless we are here present, facing the appropriate gravestone, the messages do not get through—or so our behavior signals.

  The other reason a cemetery appeals to the irrational side is its obtrusive, irresistible habit of sneaking past the civilized veneer with which we cover the primitive planks of our childhood fears. When we are children, we know that what our parents insist is merely a tree branch blowing in the wind is really the gnarled fingertip of some horrific creature of the night, waiting outside the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, to let us know that, as soon as our parents close the door and sentence us to the gloom which they insist builds character, he will lift the sash and dart inside and . . .

  And there childhood imagination usually runs out, unable to give shape to the precise fears that have kept us awake and that will, in a few months, be forgotten entirely. Until we next visit a cemetery, that is, when, suddenly, the possibility of some terrifying creature of the night seems remarkably real.

  Tonight, for instance. Tonight, I know some terrifying creature is abroad. I pause, my flashlight pointed down at the ground, and raise my head, listening, sniffing the air. The creature is nearby. I can sense it. Probably, the creature is human; possibly, the creature has done violence; certainly, the creature has betrayed me.

  As has my wife. I do not even know if I am married any longer. After church on Sunday, the day before I began spreading around the law school the intelligence that I was about to put an end to the search, I finally confronted Kimmer with Lionel, sitting with her in the kitchen while Bentley played with his computer in the next room. She sat there for a while in a light-blue dress, lovely against her maple skin, and then said what spouses always say: I never meant to hurt you. We were very civilized. She told me bits and pieces of the story—yes, it began last summer, yes, I tried to stop it, no, he wouldn’t go away, and we were just supposed to talk that day when you saw him at the house—but it swiftly dawned on me that Kimmer was talking around the actual issue at stake. So I stopped her and forced her to look at me and asked one of two relevant questions. Is it over between you? She said she didn’t know. So I asked the other. Are you leaving? She held my gaze and told me she thought some time apart might be the best thing for us. We had, she said, a lot of issues to work through. When I had my voice back, I mentioned Bentley, and how hard this would be on him. She nodded sadly and said, But you can come and see him whenever you want. It took me a moment to get the point. I asked her if she was taking our son. He needs his mother, she answered. And, besides, he is accustomed to this house. As I sat there, flummoxed, Kimmer just shook her head unhappily. I asked if she was really leaving me for Lionel. She told me no, I was missing the point. Lionel wasn’t the issue. My behavior was. I didn’t want it to come to this, Misha, I really didn’t. I do love you. But you’ve been too weird lately, and I can’t deal with it any more. We j
ust need some time. Time apart, she meant. Time during which she gets the house and I move out. It’s not an ideal answer, but custody fights can be hard on children.

  She gave me one week. That was two days ago.

  I went to see Morris Young. I was unreasonably accusatory. He waited for me to calm down and reminded me that my wife’s fidelity was never the issue. The promise I made to him was a promise of Christian duty, my obligation to treat her with love as long as we were married. I asked if the promise still holds. He asked if we are still married.

  I keep walking.

  I am angry still, but not at Dr. Young, for he is not the cause of my pain. No, I am angry at myself, and furious, finally, at my wife. I have passed from How could she do this? to How dare she do this! I am old-fashioned enough to think of the marriage vow not as a promise to stay as long as you want to, but a promise to stay whatever happens. Kimmer, obviously, believes otherwise—yet I love her still. There lies the true absurdity: if love is an activity, I find myself unable, or perhaps unwilling, to stop acting.

  Still seething, I shake my head. I cannot be distracted now, even by the wreck of my marriage. Maybe, when this is over, Kimmer will have a change of heart. I have five days left to persuade her, and perhaps I can start tonight. I have calculated the moves as a chess player must. I am reasonably confident that my gambit will defeat the unknown but omnipresent adversary who sits, wraithlike, on the other side of the board. When that battle ends, I will be able to focus on saving my marriage. I know that my own actions have helped drive Kimmer away from me. I will apologize, bring flowers, and, best of all, bring her the news that the search is finally over, no more craziness. I persuaded her to marry me a decade ago, surely I can persuade her to stay.

  Surely.

  Or else I cannot. A wave of fatalism sweeps over me, and I wonder whether I could have done anything differently, or if, once the Judge died, setting his awful plan in motion, and Jack Ziegler showed up demanding to know about the arrangements, everything else was fixed. Whether my marriage, even, was doomed from the day of the funeral.

  I remind myself to concentrate on the moment.

  In my notebook are several genealogies and a handful of carefully drawn maps. Each is a map of a part of the cemetery, each points the way to a different plot. A casual reader who came across my notebook and leafed through it would probably think I was trying to figure out which plot was the one I wanted. This would be literally correct, but not at all accurate. During my visits, I have studied the great majority of plots in the cemetery—not in person, but in the ancient books entrusted to Samuel’s care. I have been testing theories. I have been narrowing things down. Rob Saltpeter, the constitutional futurist, likes to refer to Supreme Court decisions as creating “plausible opportunities for dialogue and discovery.” That is the purpose of my map: to create plausible opportunities. I have held plenty of dialogues.

  The discovery part will have to take care of itself.

  The cemetery is divided by a series of straight lanes crossing at right angles, forming a pattern of squares, each square holding a number of plots.

  Kind of like a chessboard.

  Following the map in my notebook, the carefully drawn grid, I walk along the main road, passing shadowy headstones, some stark, some ornate, some with angels or crosses, and many no more than tiny plaques at ground level. I keep my flashlight beam low, pointed at the gravel path before me. I walk all the way to the far wall of the cemetery, opposite the main gate, not far from the tunnel through which Kimmer and I made our silly escape back when we were of the age when everything was yet ahead of us. I wait, listening to the sounds of the night. A crunch of gravel: a human being far away, or a small animal much closer? I strain my eyes looking for other flashlights. Here and there a glimmer: somebody searching for me, or the headlight of a distant automobile, glimpsed briefly through the gate?

  No way to tell.

  I have done this walk enough times now that I no longer need the map. I am in the southwestern corner, the right-hand corner from the perspective of the front gate. I stroll to my right—to the east—left as seen from the gate, passing one lane, then turning north along the second. The squares of a chessboard are numbered on an eight-by-eight grid, from A1 in the lower left corner on white’s side of the board to H8 in the upper right. Were the cemetery grid a chessboard, with the gate on the black side, the lane I am now walking would be the B file. I pass three crossing lanes, labeled in my notes as B1, B2, and B3, although they are actually named for various founders of the city. At the fourth lane I stop.

  B4, according to my notes.

  B4, if one accepts the cemetery as a chessboard, even though it does not have sixty-four squares, and if one arbitrarily takes the gate as the black side.

  Plausible.

  B4, the first move of the Double Excelsior, with the knight, if black wins and white loses. I called Karl on the day of my argument with Jerry, because I wanted to be absolutely sure. He said yes, if the composer is an artist and a romantic. My father fancied himself both. Excelsior! It begins! If white loses, then it begins with the white queen’s knight pawn sliding two squares forward. That is why my father arranged for me to receive the white pawn first. Lanie Cross was surely right: the Judge wanted to fix it so black would finally win. The move is b4, the square is b4, the move is written b4, and I am here, at B4. Thin, but plausible, at least if I told my father the story of my escape with Kimmer from the cemetery years ago. Thin, but plausible, and plausible is all I have just now.

  I step off the path, following the cone of the flashlight beam, until I find the spot I am seeking, a family plot. I illuminate the headstones. Large ones for adults, smaller ones for those who died young. I range over the names and dates: most of the stones are from the nineteenth century, a few from the early twentieth.

  I find the headstone I am looking for. This is my fourth observation of it, but my first while in possession of a shovel. I might have come earlier armed to dig. But I had my reasons for waiting.

  I lift the light briefly to examine the marble headstone, confirming the identity of the person buried in the grave: ANGELA, BELOVED DAUGHTER. I look at the dates of her too-short life: 1906–1919. She died too young, but I already knew that, too.

  I step to the left, away from this family plot, and on to the next. Once more, a low iron fence surrounds it. Once more, a long granite wall in the back bears a family name. And, best of all, once more, a smaller marker appears in front. In the right front corner, quite close to Angela’s.

  Perfectly placed.

  ALOYSIUS, TREASURED SON. I examine the dates: 1904–1923.

  Right next to Angela.

  Perfectly placed.

  Almost certainly not Angela’s boyfriend. Not in real life. But close enough for a plausible opportunity for discovery. To be a man is to act.

  I check my map, check the name again, then examine the ground. It takes two or three minutes, but I find what I am looking for. In the shielded spill of my flashlight, a patch of dark brown earth next to the grave looks freshly turned. There is not even any grass on it. I am astonished that nobody has disturbed it, but things always seem more obvious when you already know they are there.

  Perfectly placed.

  I bend to my pack to remove the shovel, then pause, straighten, and look into the dark, distant mists. Too many sounds in the quiet. A foot on icy gravel, or a squirrel in a tree? I have no objective way to tell if anybody is out there, yet I am certain that somebody is. Somebody has to be. But I do not know which side of the cemetery wall he—or she—is on, or, for that matter, which side of the grave. Perhaps there are ghosts. But I cannot let them stop me.

  I put the flashlight on the ground, illuminating the muddy, grassless patch, and, with the spade I brought along, I begin to dig. The work is surprisingly light and easy. The earth is heavy, sodden with water on top and crisp with frost below, but it is not difficult to slide the shovel in. The harder part is lifting the soil out. Neverthe
less, within four or five minutes I have made a shallow trench at least eight inches wide. It occurs to me that this hole took time to make, and I find it remarkable that nobody noticed the original act. I shrug. Not my problem, not now. I bend to my work. After two minutes, I strike metal.

  Crunch.

  I stop again, this time swinging my light in a wide circle, probing the fog. Somebody is out there. Definitely. And there is no point in hiding the flashlight any longer, because the one thing I know is that the somebody who is out there already knows where to find me. For a second, I consider replacing the earth I have dug, refusing to follow the game to its end. But I have gone too far. I had gone too far when I got into the shoving match with Jerry Nathanson, when I visited Jack Ziegler, and when I asked Dana Worth for a favor.

  I had gone too far when I behaved in a way that may have cost me my wife.

  Dig.

  I widen the hole until I can see what I take to be the edges of the blue metal box, then I get down on my knees and try to pull it out. But my fingers can find no purchase in the wet earth, and I know I have to dig more. It never occurred to me that it would be easier to dig the hole than to remove the box. Perhaps there is some special tool that people use for tasks like this one.

  I decide to dig further out from the edges. I stand up and grip the shovel, and that is when a slight, pale ghost materializes from the darkness, and I cry out and raise the tool as though to strike.