The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

by Joyce Reardon

  I am forced to wonder now about my musings put forth in my first entry to these pages. Was what happened to-day at the grand house the sense of foreboding danger that I felt so strongly? The end of it, or just the beginning? The manifestation of some dark power greater than can be imagined? Am I a part of this darkness, or separate from it? Controlled by it, or instead by my prayers? The pen trembles under my grasp as I search for these answers. Am I, in fact, already possessed? Dare I think that? Dare I write it? Dare I keep it to myself, for fear of spoiling the arrangements already under way between my beloved and me? But oh, there I go again. Back to the day, and the tragedy that befell us.

  The cavernous hole cut into the earth on that forested slope so far from the warmth of my family home forewarns of a structure, in scope and size, that challenges even one’s imagination. I admit fully that I had never visited any construction site prior to my journey this day, and that perhaps because of this lacking I write with what borders on ignorance, but I am no stranger to architecture. I promise you that. Furthermore, I now intend to immerse myself in the study of this science, along with that of construction, so as to appreciate fully the efforts being undertaken on our behalf. The sheer enormity of it! (I can only hope this does not match my future husband’s ego or conceit, for if so, I am in for a formidable challenge in the years that lie ahead!) To my eye, it rivals in size the university building that occupies the hill to the south overlooking the city, that building that newcomers nearly always mistakenly attribute to be the statehouse. I believe John’s house—our house!—will dwarf this structure by such proportion as to render it insignificant, will so dominate that clearing where it will stand that it may be seen for miles. Miles! I tell you! A landmark for generations to come. Why, the hole in the ground, the foundation, is a marvel of excavation. I watched as four-mule teams carved and cut the thick wet soil with blades, followed by workers busy with shovels to fill wagons. Wagon after wagon, hour after hour, and barely a dent in the giant cavity. The scale of this project defies description. I can only say that nothing like it has ever been built. Perhaps even, that nothing ever will be.

  The event of the day, to which I wish to address myself, however, was one of horrific consequences, something no person, certainly not a woman such as myself, should ever have to endure. But first to our arrival.

  As we studied the magnificent goings-on, the laborers with their shovels, the teamsters with their wagons, the supervisors working their crews with disciplined patience (for the hand laborers are almost entirely Chinese or Negro and need much supervision), I was struck by the militarylike organization of it all. An easy analogy given the sharp tongue of Williamson.

  This man Williamson was given to large bones and a massive head; he had a commanding presence. Shouting and gesticulating, he seemed to possess a language of hand signals known to all who worked for him, but especially those supervisors immediately his junior. He lorded from the porch of a rough-hewn shanty, calling names and then waving his arms like a frantic bird, directing deliveries, the removal of mud and dirt and the efforts of the teams. Perhaps John’s attendance contributed to this man’s nerves, fixing him in an agitated state. Having not met Williamson previously, on this I cannot comment. However, I must tell you, Dear Diary, that on no terms would I have wished to be employed by Mr. Williamson on this day. His bilious, perfunctory tone carried clear across the construction site, often heard echoing right back at us, as if from the mouth of God. (Not an insignificant reference, given the events to follow.) Enough!

  John and I made our way to the edge of the giant pit and were witness to the first of the stones being laid for the grand home’s foundation. This, as it turned out, was the cause of our delay these many weeks. John had wanted us to witness a momentous occasion, not simply a hole being dug into the earth (although I must confess here that the hole alone would have surely impressed me as well). And there below us, a group of ten or more Chinese ran—not walked—to and from a large pile of stone, inspecting every angle before running—not walking—that stone to a cutter who smacked it with a hammer and chisel that rained stone chips in small showers all around him. From there the stone was whisked to one of several Scottish-looking gentlemen (it was difficult to discern ancestry, given our perspective) who examined the rock, nodded his approval and, applying mortar, positioned it in place. Stone by stone, the first of many of the grand home’s walls began to grow, as the Scots worked as a team. (I am told seven thousand stones will be used in the foundation alone!) I found myself mesmerized by the sight. John, as I recall, had several conversations, but I scarcely heard his words. What beauty. It seemed almost alive to me, not as if it were being built, but instead, growing all of its own. The thrill of witnessing this is hard to explain here in these pages. I found it consumed me, awakened a heat in me, not unlike what John Rimbauer is capable of with simply a touch or a whisper. Dare I say I was moved by this? The pleasing fluidity. The sweating Chinamen, some bare-chested, flexing and glistening as they bore their burden. I could not take my eyes off of this activity. Not until, that is, Williamson’s voice arose like an ill wind, cursing a string of profanities that forced such a blush on my part my face must have looked like a ripened cherry.

  A large, overstocked wagon belonging to John stood in front of the foreman’s shack, the driver equally as big as Mr. Williamson, and equally verbose. It was clear, even from a great distance, that Mr. Williamson did not approve of the quality of the items being delivered. I cannot tell you exactly how I discerned this, distracted, even repulsed as I was by the language involved, but the conversation between them went something like this:

  “This is not what we ordered, Mr. Corbin.”

  “This here is what I was told to deliver.”

  “You should have checked your ***** load.”

  “I loaded this ***** load, mister. I didn’t have to check it—I loaded it.”

  “Look at this quality. It’s horse***t. Pure horse***t, and you’re telling me I’m supposed to use Mr. Rimbauer’s money to pay for it? I would ask you to reconsider that position, sir.” (I might add that this reference to John inclined me to believe that our presence there to-day may have influenced Mr. Williamson’s response, as well as his aggressive nature.)

  “I ain’t reconsidering no **** position. And it ain’t ****, and I’d thank you, sir, not to call it such.”

  “It is ****.”

  “It is the goods you ordered. These are them. Right here in Mr. Rimbauer’s wagon. Now sign the receipt, get your Chinamen to off-load the wagon and let me get out of this hellhole of a stinking construction site. Never seen so much yellow skin in one place, except maybe the railroad. And I don’t like railroads!”

  “You will lose your job for those comments, sir. You will never be a teamster again, with that attitude and that mouth of yours. You just wait until—”

  “Unload the *** **** wagon. I got me a date with a beer at the Merchant Café, and you’re getting in the way of that, and that there is unsettling me a good deal. That there is what you want to do right now, mister. Unload the **** wagon, or prepare to eat some horse***t!”

  “That’s it! Enough of you! Turn this team around. Return the wagon. It’s the last run you’ll ever make.”

  I recall the teamster—Mr. Corbin—reaching into the back of John’s wagon, beneath a tarp, almost as if he were digging for something. And then he turned toward Williamson. From a distance where I stood, I saw a puff of blue-gray smoke, like a tiny cloud. Then felt a punch in my stomach as a dull boom filled the air. Another small puff. Another boom. The first of these reports actually lifted Mr. Williamson off his feet. He looked as if someone had tied a rope to the back of his trousers, the other end to a horse, and then slapped that horse’s behind. The second of the two shotgun blasts caught Mr. Williamson in the neck and face, a bloody spectacle so horrific that I was immediately sick to my stomach.

  He lay there on the porch, as still as a statue, rose-colored and dead. I’d never seen a d
ead person. I didn’t know the effect it would have on one. The finality. The awareness that I too shall follow Mr. Williamson to that place. Heaven. Hell. I don’t have the vocabulary. Those two offerings don’t help me. I believed in Heaven and Hell before to-day. Now, I’m not convinced there are only the two places, the black and white of afterlife. I’m of the opinion that gray must exist. Mr. Williamson convinced me. I can’t imagine a man with that foul disposition in Heaven as I write; but what man who dies at the hands of another deserves Hell? And what of Mr. Corbin? Where will the afterlife place him?

  Did I tell you where they found Mr. Corbin? At the Merchant Café, of course. His beer. They found him bent over that beer, nursing it. They say he didn’t know where he was, or what he’d done. Didn’t remember any of it. They say he must be crazy. “Half out of his mind,” John said to me. But of course he means fully out of his mind. There are many of us walking around with only half a mind. They don’t lock you away for that. You need to lose it all before they take you, and Mr. Corbin lost his. And they took him. Off to jail, still wondering what it was he’d done.

  I’ve heard the term “possessed” before. I’ve heard it used as an explanation for someone “half out of his mind.” A Christian woman, I have never given such claim much weight. Possessed by what? I wondered. But—dare I write this, when writing seems so final an act?—now I better understand the term, now I am inclined to accept it. It pertains to the gray in the afterlife. It pertains to tragic people like our Mr. Corbin. Not empty, as “half out of one’s mind” implies, but instead filled, but with the wrong element. The bad. Evil. Filled with tainted fish, the stomach is already informed but has not yet signaled the brain to retch. Filled with the gray. The other side. Possessed.

  Mr. Corbin was possessed. In this regard, who do we blame for the vicious act perpetrated upon poor Mr. Williamson? The possessed, or the possessor? Was Mr. Corbin merely an instrument of the gray?

  It won’t matter now. He’ll never be back among us. He will hang. Possessed or not, he will hang. And he will die—legs twitching in the wind.

  The grand house will never be the same, of course. Mr. Williamson’s blood is spilled upon the earth, is mixed with the mud and the mortar, is part of that place. And I can no longer think of it as I have. The blood is spilled. I saw it with my own eyes. Someplace between Heaven and Hell. Some color between black and white. And I find myself wanting a name for the place, seeing Mr. Williamson lying there. He can’t have died at the grand house. He died someplace more lyrical than that. I will talk to John about this, for it is his house. But the color I remember so vividly is the color rose. Rose red. Blood thinned by a falling mist.

  On the way home in the car, John pulled off the road, came around and opened my door. He apologized for all that had gone before us that day, as if we’d encountered a delay or bad service at a restaurant. I recall being amazed by his apparent indifference to the fate met by Mr. Williamson. He begged my forgiveness for the “aggravation” of that day, whereas I certainly bore him no blame for it whatsoever. Then he dropped his right knee into the mud, and I knew what was coming, and I must admit to both elation and revulsion. John is pragmatic. I told you that, didn’t I?

  This was on his schedule, and he refused to allow a small murder to derail his plans. As he explained it, he regretted very much the events of that day, but his heart and passion would not allow another minute, not another second to pass without voicing his intent.

  He asked for my hand in marriage. Clouded in rose. Clouded in gray. I am to be a wife. John’s wife. (For I quickly said yes!) But truth be told, he picked the wrong day to ask, the wrong time. I am quite surprised, in fact, that he could not see clear to delay this engagement. Even a day or two might have helped. And after so long, what difference is in a day?

  But there was a difference in John Rimbauer. I wonder if it took another man’s death to create in him a desire to extend his lineage, or if one had nothing to do with the other? With life so seemingly fleeting, did he rush to judgment to marry? I feel certain we will discuss Mr. Williamson’s demise for many months, even years to come. I believe that I saw in John a fascination with death. I know that for me, Dear Diary, life will never be the same. I wonder where it is that Mr. Williamson has gone. Is there any return from there? So many unanswered questions.

  What, if anything, does John’s hesitation to include me in his thoughts tell me about the upcoming marriage, this voyage on which I’m about to embark? How far, how smoothly, can this ship sail if Captain and First Mate are not sharing their thoughts? Are we doomed to the rocks? Or is there some lighthouse yet to be seen around the next spit of land? Captain, oh, Captain. My breast swells with thought of my marriage and all the new experience it will bring to me, I tingle head to toe. And yet my heart goes cold at the thought of John’s carefully kept secrets and his refusal to let me in. He is so reluctant to share his thoughts. Will I ever gain entry, or am I doomed to live in isolation despite our union? I fear this is how it’s to be, and I dread the thought of a life spent in a lie. I dread the thought of this marriage as much as I am thrilled by it.

  18 AUGUST 1907—SEATTLE

  As the future Mrs. John Rimbauer (it’s the only plausible explanation for this) I was invited to join to-day an elite group of twenty-three women, led by Anna Herr Clise, to address a health care crisis in our great city, namely the lack of a facility to treat crippled and hungry children. Over an extravagant lunch at Anna’s home, we all agreed to contribute twenty dollars each to launch the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital. The press gave us great attention, both because of our sizable personal donations (John provided me the twenty dollars, thank God) and because our board is to consist entirely of women, unthinkable to the bankers downtown.

  I have subsequently invited all twenty-two of my fellow founders to our wedding, this November, and expect all to attend. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a crippled child, and I hope and pray (yes, even to my darker god) that I shall never have to endure such a hardship. John and I plan on a large family, and I, for one, can’t wait to get started—though not without a great amount of nervousness do I approach my wedding night, quite afraid as I am of the actual physical union of our love. (The idea of a man inside me both sickens and excites me.)

  I wouldn’t have bothered to even mention the fete at Anna’s except as a way to preface my anxiety over one Priscilla Schnubly, a ferret of a woman with an exacting manner, pinched face and scandalous tongue. Yes, I invited her and her husband to the wedding out of proper social intercourse, but my how this woman vexes me! When I mentioned John, Priscilla Schnubly snickered for all to hear. She then whispered into the ear of Tina Coleman, who blushed as rose as the spilled blood of Mr. Williamson and went on to refuse to share with me the exchange that had transpired there between them. And yet I know in my woman’s heart that whatever it was had to do with John and the rumors of his nighttime activities.

  Do I dare condemn John for actions taken prior to our marital union? Does such an eligible man owe me his chastity before we are officially wed? All these questions circulate in my mind, with me knowing nothing of the truth to begin with. Would I not prefer my future husband sow his oats prior to his promises than to break those promises later? Am I personally humiliated in social circles for his actions, as the snickering Priscilla Schnubly would have me believe? Am I to be the laughingstock of Seattle’s prominent women because my husband may prove incapable of being a devoted husband? Am I willing to trade that for the wealth and privilege he is certain to bestow upon me? I am nearly dizzy with consideration. Consternation. Concern.

  Is John merely entertaining other women, or, Heaven forbid, is he taking advantage of them? Was this the reason for the snickering? And why on earth do women like Tina Coleman think that their silence somehow protects me? Indeed it does not. I have invited Tina to tea this very afternoon. We shall see.

  Tina Coleman is a gorgeous specimen of a woman. Tall. A brunette like myself. Flaming blue
eyes. I find myself quite taken by her beauty. She is the wife of an orthopedic surgeon, famous in these parts, and therefore a perfect board member for our new cause. She speaks slowly and calmly, and rarely moves her head left to right, as if her spine were fixed.

  We sat down to tea in my mother’s parlor. Earl Grey tea was served with cucumber sandwiches and huckleberry scones. I recall our conversation vividly.

  “What a lovely home you have,” Tina Coleman said.

  “I have lived here all my life. When I leave to marry John, it will be the first time out of this house, except for our family travels overseas and six months I spent in finishing school in Brookline, Massachusetts, outside Boston.”

  “I know Boston well,” she said, maintaining her airs.

  “Tina, we have been raised in the same city, and had our parents shared the same circles, we might have been closer friends. I’ve known of you, of your beauty, of your fine manners, your intelligent speech, for many years, as I believe we were both courted by Jason Fine, that most peculiar, insolent man, who in my opinion will be lucky to ever find himself a wife.”