by Paula Champa
She moved toward me. “He might not have wanted you to see this, Beth. He was perhaps trying to protect you.”
I felt some strangulation in my nerves, my head popping every few seconds like the individual sacs in a sheet of bubble wrap. In their own Morse code, they were stamping my brain with the information:
Omega.
Infinity.
Two men wearing bright blue rubber gloves were trying to get past me with the stretcher. With Emerson. I kept my place, blocking their way.
“Where are you taking him?”
“City medical examiner, on Fifth.”
“And then what?”
“Then we write a death certificate and you call whatever funeral home you want.”
“Let me come with you,” Hélène said as the men nudged past me.
I shook my head, mute with confusion. I had more questions for her than I could possibly articulate. But the men were vanishing with Emerson. My only instinct was not to let him out of my sight.
I heard her calling: “I’m concerned about you, Beth.”
My legs followed automatically as the crowd with the stretcher moved down the corridor. The hotel manager escorted us into a brightly lit service elevator, where the men in uniform and I arranged ourselves into a horseshoe around the stretcher in order to fit inside. As the elevator descended, my eyes traced the lines of the infinity symbol stamped above Emerson’s chest, following it around and around like a racetrack.
“Why is that there?” I asked the man at the front of the stretcher.
He glanced down. “He’s our eighth case this morning.”
The faces around me resumed their surveillance of the ceiling.
“Did he really just show up here?” I asked them. “This morning?”
The manager nodded. “The doorman said he was very polite.”
When the elevator opened again the manager led us to one of the unmarked exits at the rear of the hotel. No sooner had the police disappeared down 43rd Street than the men with the stretcher extended its folding legs and left Emerson just inside the doorway, sheltered from the view of passing pedestrians.
“We have to lock up our van on this street,” one of them explained.
“Right back,” said the other.
The unexpectedness of their departure left me speechless. I wondered if they were having a cigarette. It seemed like a breach of protocol, but I wasn’t about to leave Emerson to find out. Alone with him now in the half-light, I stared down at the trough between his hips. The shape of his body was alarming. Was his head twisted to the side? One thing was clear: However Omega had occurred, he had avoided being delivered out the door of his own building on a raft of muddy take-out menus.
At the morgue, I functioned in a calm stupor, overcome by the signal-jam of emotions and questions running through my head. Where was he the previous day and night? And why was he at the hotel this morning? Hélène was his competitor, not his teammate, as I was. If he had wanted to see her so desperately, why hadn’t he gone to the Royalton in the first place? Then I recalled that she claimed to have been out the previous day. It was true that there had been no answer when I phoned. Had he gone to see her earlier and failed? The thought led me back to my original question.
My speculation was overridden by administrative duty when I was led into a room to identify the remains of my employer, archived in a metal drawer like one of his own photographs. It was but an intake of breath to identify him, to register the parameters of the crude storage system where his flesh and bones were temporarily filed, a system of archiving in which I could claim no expertise. His body did not disturb me—I saw it as an empty vessel. What haunted me was the pose: He was twisted like a Rodin bronze, his gums bared like a monkey’s. A thought went through my mind as they walked me out of the room, a thought I would despair of repeatedly during the events to follow: that Emerson had crossed the threshold burdened by some agony I could not know.
Outside the room, an attendant offered me Emerson’s eyeglasses, his leather jacket and the two items found in his pockets: his wallet and, hanging from a leather fob adorned with a golden lighthouse, what I could only assume was the key to the Beacon.
“It’s in writing, Beth, of course,” Bruce Kingston explained over the phone. “But he was also clear in his conversations with me that he didn’t want any kind of funeral.”
I sighed into the receiver. “I know. He said it was too Sleeping Beauty to ride in a glass station wagon filled with flowers.”
Bruce confirmed that his office had contacted Emerson’s father and faxed him a copy of the death notice they’d provided to the New York Times.
“Emerson’s written wish was to be cremated,” Bruce informed me.
“Yes, that’s my understanding, too.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s prepaid.”
“Did he specify what to do with the ashes?”
“No,” Bruce said mildly. “We don’t have anything on that.”
“Did his father say anything about it?”
“Only that it was in your hands.”
Like me, Bruce had received a telegram from Mr. Webster in Taipei. Mine came to me in care of Emerson’s address:
Profound sadness. Thank you for working with my son’s lawyer to carry out his wishes.
I took the slip of paper with me down Charles Street and crossed over to the river, unable to get past profound sadness. I walked long enough for my head to fill with the riot of gulls’ screeches and wind. Contrary to the watery landscape surrounding me, I had the sensation of standing in a bombed-out field, and curling up from the blackened earth were the smoky tendrils of what was lost: Emerson, who had been true to his word and not said goodbye. Miguel, who didn’t want me, and who had somehow slotted himself in as Mr. Webster’s son even before Emerson was gone. There were no doctors to speak with; there would be no more nurses coming by. The home healthcare workers had already been assigned to new patients, as of that afternoon. Dr. Albas, Tisa, Zandra, Brian, Maria-Sylvana, all of them . . . gone.
Among the words of condolence from museum people that I found on the answering machine back at the loft was a message from Hélène, of all people, asking about the details of Emerson’s funeral service. I stabbed at the buttons of the answering machine to erase her voice, but I was trapped when she phoned back that afternoon and interrupted me in the middle of another call.
“There’s nothing,” I informed her brusquely. “No funeral, no memorial.” It felt good to shut her out. “It’s over,” I added for emphasis.
“How are you, Beth?”
“I’m here by myself, and I have someone on the other line.”
“I’m sorry. If you’d like to talk . . .”
“I don’t think there’s anything to say.” I was about to hang up when I heard my voice continuing, as if by its own will: “He was bleeding internally. You have no idea how hard it must have been for him to get himself to your hotel.”
“I could see how hard it was for him, Beth. I saw.”
“Why was he there with you? It was about that car, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Very little. There was very little time—we didn’t exchange pleasantries. He was holding himself against the wall when I opened the door. I tried to help him sit down. I only saw it briefly, Beth, the expression in his eyes—his departure was already there. It was primal, this communication.”
My jaw was trembling. I pressed the phone against my ear and swung my head to make it stop.
“But what I felt was love,” she said.
“You felt what?”
“Love,” she said. “His face was lit up like a little boy’s. He said, ‘We have the engine.’”
“The engine?”
“Yes. It was plural: ‘We have it.’ He wanted me to know you had won it on his behalf.”
“He knows you were there in Monterey,” I said, too embarrassed by what she was implying to say any more
.
“He was proud of you, Beth.”
I trusted nothing Hélène had to say, especially when it came to Emerson. But as much as I tried to disregard what she was suggesting, it saddened me to admit that the behavior she’d described was not incongruous. It wasn’t enough for Emerson to have won. His final act had been to gloat over his victory.
The thought of it was so disappointing, I heard myself yelling into the phone: “I don’t care about that car! I would rather have him here with me than the car.”
“Of course,” she said evenly. “So, wanting to bring someone back to life is not an impulse you are immune to after all.”
I slammed the phone down, cutting off both Hélène and the other caller. The last thing I needed was to listen to her clever logic.
For days I did not leave the loft. The funeral home wouldn’t have his ashes ready until Monday, and I was only planning to store them anyway, until I could figure out what to do with them. I drifted between the kitchen and the office, answering condolence calls from museum curators and other beneficiaries. I assured my parents there was nothing they could do; I honestly could not think of anything. Now that I was alone again, I did not want to see people or talk to anyone beyond what my responsibilities to Emerson required. Hélène did not call again or leave any messages, and I was grateful for her restraint. I assumed I would never see her again.
At some point I became aware that my ulcer pain was easing—due, I reasoned, to a release of stress. Within a few days it had nearly vanished. This physical relief was the only positive change in the immediate aftermath of Emerson’s death. When the new week began, I found myself busier than ever as the first pebble dropped in an avalanche of paperwork related to his estate. What had seemed so simple once . . . Emerson’s accountant, Wayne, called not long after, and when I had gathered all of the bills that had come through during the previous month they formed a small mountain on my desk. There were hundreds of checks to write and phone calls to make, faxes to send and death certificates to file with banks and insurance companies. Then the word could go forth from the great electronic bullhorn that another human being could be deleted from the program.
It was during that time when I was summoned by Emerson’s lawyer to administer the proceeds of his trust—a significant sum that Emerson himself had assigned to beneficiaries before his death. Bruce Kingston passed a copy of the list across his desk to me: a total of three organizations.
“It’s only a suggested list, Beth. As trustee, you can apply the funds for such purposes and in such amounts as you may, in your sole discretion, determine.” Bruce finished reading from the document and scratched the gray stubble of his beard, ruminating over something, before looking up. “That’s a recent amendment. He made that change not long before he died.”
I looked at the list of organizations. “I recognize the first one. It’s a group that works for the preservation of Modernist architecture.”
“Yes, that’s straightforward enough. The second one, the New York State Division of Licensing Services—that one he’s specified as a fund for licensed beauticians. Scholarship money for college educations. It also funds a literacy program.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “The idea here is a lump sum, dispersed annually. Albany will take care of administering it to the individual applicants.”
“Emerson was well attended to by some of New York’s nail technicians,” I explained.
“Evidently,” said Bruce. “And he is directing the majority of the funds to the third organization, Auxiliant and Co.”
“What do they do?”
“Research, according to the prospectus.”
“What kind of research?”
“Technology, from what I understand—what else is there?”
“It’s a for-profit company?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying this is what he wanted? These three organizations?”
“This is his list.”
“Fine. Let’s do what he asked.”
Bruce stared at the paper in my hand.
“It was always hard to read him, Beth, but that recent amendment says he is inviting you to contribute your judgment and discretion in handling his estate. It’s as if he were asking for your participation—on an ongoing basis.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, it says you will act as him, effectively. There’s nothing to prevent you from stepping in and doing things differently. If you wish.”
It was an unsettling thought, but more immediately unsettling was the fact that, in the documents Emerson had drawn up in great detail, the fate of the Beacon had received no special mention. By default, Bruce explained, the car fell into the catchall category of household items, including his appliances and furnishings—a hodgepodge that Emerson had bequeathed to me, along with his loft and the nominal amount of cash left in his personal bank accounts.
It was up to me to decide what to do with the Beacon, then. On hearing this, I had an unwelcome vision of Hélène’s pink, swollen eyes turning away from me that afternoon in Monterey. A renewed sense of gloom came over me like the stench of rotting leaves. She had some right to the car, by her history, by what was written on the engine. It was this knowledge that had made me her proponent, once upon a time. But the restored vehicle was my victory with Emerson—the trophy of our last months together. As he had told Hélène himself, we had it. His quest to reunite the car and the engine had taken root in a desire I might never understand, but through it I had lost my separateness for a time. With a shock, I realized that when I had tried to argue in Hélène’s favor—when I had asked Emerson if he was thinking about leaving the car to someone else—the other party all along had been me. Whatever it had meant before, the restored Beacon meant only one thing now. It was our shared accomplishment. My memory of him. I would never relinquish it.
I pressed my fingers to my eyelids and cradled my head in my hands, hoping Bruce couldn’t tell that I was trying not to cry in front of him.
“Do you have questions about any of this?” he asked softly, as if I would disintegrate if he spoke any louder. “The organizations listed here aren’t aware of Emerson’s bequest, because they’re set up anonymously. This would be an ideal chance for you to make changes, if you were considering any.”
I didn’t know anything about managing estates. I’d thought that being an executor would be a simple matter of paperwork, a morning’s worth of signatures. Instead, Emerson had entrusted me with an enormous responsibility. I pushed my face between my palms, desperate to squeeze an answer out of my brain. When I looked up, Bruce was regarding me inquisitively.
“Do I have to decide today?”
“Oh. No, no,” he said. “Not at all.”
I let go of my cheeks and felt the blood filling my face again.
“Give it some thought. How you handle his trust—and when—is entirely up to you.”
“How about, for now, if you set up some initial distribution to this list annually—in the percentages he instructed? We can talk about it again,” I went on unsteadily, “after I’ve had time to . . . you know? Would that be all right?”
“Absolutely. And very prudent of you, Beth. You have a lot on your plate.”
To judge from the charitable donation receipts I accumulated that fall, I kept myself busy for a time going through Emerson’s medical equipment and supplies, organizing anything reusable for donation. I found it difficult to dress for each day. The constant silence in the loft unsettled me. Whenever I came back from an errand, I readily inhaled the odors that lingered there, the closest thing there was to Emerson’s presence. Once the medical equipment had been cleared out I did what grievers have done for centuries: I tried to sort through his clothing and possessions, but I only moved them around; I could not bring myself to get rid of much. I was in the midst of reorganizing his closet when my brother called from London, wanting to gossip about Emerson’s funeral.
“My friends from home are bug
ging me to get the scoop,” Garrett said. “You’re the only one we know to ask.”
“There wasn’t a funeral,” I said, unable to mask the annoyance in my voice. To change the subject, I asked when he would be back in the States for a visit, but he wouldn’t let it go.
“Wait—the Emperor had no funeral?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t you find that strange, Beth?”
“No.”
“The Emperor didn’t have an exotic car bearing him off to heaven? With a private orchestra serenading him?”
He continued his taunts like a schoolyard tyrant.
“Do you know why he went to NYU, Beth?”
“No idea,” I answered impatiently. “Because he was smart?”
“Tom said Emerson didn’t want to go to a college with tailgates.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He hated it at prep school because he had no family to tailgate with.” He corrected himself. “Well, no mother. But the old man never bothered to show up either.”
Was this how he and his friends had treated Emerson? It was no wonder he’d changed schools.
“Go to hell, Garrett. You’re lucky you have a family.”
“It’s . . .”
“What?” I asked, wishing I could kick him through the phone line. “Are you reliving your glory days on a car bumper?”
“No,” he said, his voice deflated of bravado. “It just hit me . . . The guy’s dead.”
“Yes. And you’re never going to get that model car you wanted from him.”
I waited to see if his epiphany would produce any further insights, but he had already moved on.
“So. What are you gonna do, now that your job has been . . . eliminated?”
No questions, then, about how I was coping with losing my employer, how I might be feeling. I was so used to Garrett’s tunnel vision that I didn’t bring it up. I reminded myself: He worked for a bank.
“Mom and Dad keep asking me the same thing,” I said, making an effort to sound upbeat. “I’ve got some savings.”
