30 Pieces of a Novel (34 page)

He drops them off at the burial site. Nobody's there yet, not even the van or the prayer reader he called the cemetery for late yesterday. A secretary in the cemetery office tells him how to get to town and says there are two bookstores there—“Lots of people must read around here, and perhaps there are two stores because the nearest mall is fifteen miles away”—and he drives there in five minutes. Both stores are on the main street. The first is really just a used paperback shop, with mostly romances, spy fiction, mass paperbacks of every sort, and the only poetry is religious; St. Augustine is in this section, plus several of the same editions of a book of poetry by the pope. The second store has an anthology of twentieth-century American poetry and books of poems by poets like Hardy, Whitman, and Blake but no Dickinson. “I know we had one,” the salesman says. “The Everyman edition: hardback, complete works, and only eleven dollars—a steal. Ah, it was sold, it says here,” looking at the inventory record on the computer screen by the cash register. “Last week, May third. I could order a copy today,” and he says, “No time; I need it right away.” “Try the library; they should have it if Miss Dickinson hasn't been assigned as a class project at one of the local schools,” and he says, “Great idea, why didn't I think of that?” and at the library down the street he locates a volume of Dickinson poems with the one he wants in it and goes up to the main desk and says, “Excuse me, I don't live in this area; I'm not even a resident of New Jersey. But I'd like to borrow this book just for an hour or so,” and the librarian says, “If you want to sit here and read it, that's fine, but we can't loan a book to a non-New Jersey resident.” “Let me explain why I need it,” and he does, points out the poem, and she says, “I'm sorry, I appreciate your reason and offer my condolences, but it's a bylaw of our town's library system I'd be breaking if I loaned you the book. In the past we've had every excuse imaginable for loaning books to nonresidents, and if we see a fifth of them returned we call ourselves lucky. Try to imagine what that figure would be if—” and he says, “Believe me, I'll return it. I'll drive back here right after the burial. You can even call the cemetery—I have the number here—to see if my mother's being buried today,” and she says, “Whether you're telling the truth or not—” and he says, “I
am,”
and she says, “Then even though you are telling the truth, which is what I meant to say, it's strictly prohibited to give loaning privileges to people without valid library cards of this town. If they have cards from other New Jersey localities, then that town's library has to request the book for them and it's sent to that library through the state's interlibrary loan system.” “Look, I have people waiting at the cemetery for me; the burial service was supposed to start five minutes ago. Not a lot of people—I don't want to lie to you—but my wife and daughters and my wife's cousin and her family from Brooklyn—they drove all the way from there to come—and other people; cemetery personnel, et cetera. Again, it was among my mother's favorite poems and to have it read at her funeral was really one of her last wishes. But because I was so upset over her death yesterday—confused, everything—I forgot, and we didn't—I didn't; I'm the only surviving child—have a regular funeral; this is the only ceremony we're having. And when I was driving to the cemetery I suddenly realized—” and she says, “I wish I could. What if I photocopied the poem for you?” and he says, “I thought of that as a solution. But I want to hold a book—not a Bible, not a prayer book, since she didn't go for that stuff at funerals or really anywhere, but a book of poems—and read from that. Look, I'll leave a deposit. Ten dollars, twenty, and when I return the book I'll donate the money to the library,” and she says, “This book”—turning to the copyright page—“is more than forty years old. In excellent condition for a book that's been circulating that long. Maybe it's the delicacy of the poetry that makes readers handle the book delicately, though I don't want to engage in that kind of glib speculation here. I don't know what it originally cost, nor do I know what this copy's worth now. Fifty dollars, perhaps, though more likely five, but around twenty to replace. I'm not a rare book collector, so that's not my point. We simply can't be loaning works to out-of-state residents because they're willing to give money to the library. That policy would mean only the more privileged among you can borrow from us, which wouldn't be the right perception for a library to give.” “Okay, okay, I'll try and get the book somewhere else,” and starts back to the poetry shelves with it, and she says, “You can leave it here, sir; I'll reshelve it,” and he says, “Nah, I've put you through enough already,” and she says, “Thank you then, but please make sure it's in the right classificatory order,” and once there he thinks, Take the photocopy; better than nothing. Have her copy two or three different Dickinson poems; they're all there in that last Resurrection-and-something section he just saw…. No, you want what you said you did and that's a book to read from and not some flimsy photocopy sheet, and this edition particularly because it has a real old-book look, and he looks around, doesn't seem to be anyone else here but her, and sticks the book inside his pants under the belt. Feels it, it feels secure; he'll take it for the day, return it by mail tomorrow with a donation and his apologies, won't give his name or a return address, of course. Though she can probably find out who he is, if she wants, from the cemetery, for how many burials can there be there at this hour in one day? and he gave her enough information to give himself away. But what is she going to do, get the police to arrest him in Baltimore or New York for stealing a book for a day after he sent it back carefully wrapped and in the same condition and with a ten- or twenty-dollar bill?

Alarm goes off as he's leaving. She's looking at him from behind the main desk. “Oh, Christ,” he says, “who the hell thought you'd have these books electronically coded in such a small library. Here, take it, will ya?” and sets it on a chair by the door, and she says, “Oh, no, mister, you're not getting off as lightly as that. I don't believe your mother-burial story one iota now. And don't think of bolting or I'll follow you outside and take down your license number,” and dials her phone and says, “Officer Sonder? … Anyone, then, though he's the one I've dealt with so far for this particular problem. Amy LeClair at the library. I have a man here whom I caught stealing one of our items …. A book, but a potentially valuable one, and I believe he knew it …. Thank you,” and turns to him and says, “He says for you to wait; a police car will be right over,” and he says, “Call back and tell him I can't; to catch me at the cemetery on Springlake,” and she says, “Leave now and you'll be in even deeper water. We've lost too many books and documents as it is, and this is the only way to stop this kind of petty crime that tallies up for us to grand larceny.” What to do? Take the book, read the poem at the burial, and then tell everyone what he did and wait for the cops there, or leave it and go and just hope they don't come after him, or wait for the cops here? Surely they're not going to arrest him. “Do you mind, while I wait, if I call the cemetery to hold up the burial?” and she says, “If that is whom you'll call,” and he says, “Then you dial for me—I have the number right here, or get it out of the phone book,” and she says, “I'd rather not waste anymore of the library's money by using the phone, even for a local call. We have restrictions regarding that too. We're barely surviving, you know. People aren't exactly putting this institution in their wills.” “Then will a dollar cover the phone cost?” and she says, “I'd also rather not take money from you. Who knows what that'd imply.” Just then a policeman comes in. Gould explains quickly. She says, “Nothing for me to add; whatever his reasons for the theft were, he just admitted he was caught walking out with one of our books,” and the policeman says to him, “Looks like I'll have to write out a summons or even arrest you if Miss LeClair insists I do,” and she says, “I don't think we have to go that far, but certainly a summons.” The policeman starts writing one out. “This means you'll have to appear in county court in a number of weeks. Unless you check the ‘no contest' box on the court notification you get and request to be fined through the mail and the judge accepts it,” and he says, “Okay, but please hurry it up. I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but there are all those people waiting at the cemetery for me, and I still have my mother to bury,” and the policeman says, “No disrespect meant either, sir, but I can do it much faster with machines at the station house if that's what you want.”

Only his wife and children are at the cemetery when he gets there, sitting on a bench several plots away; casket's on a few planks above the open grave. “By the time your message got to us,” his wife says, “Rebecca and everyone else had left. They all had to be somewhere later this afternoon and didn't know when you'd get back. They were concerned about you, paid their respects to you through me, and said a few words of their own to your mother. You'll tell me everything later, all right? Now we should get the cemetery people to help us get the coffin in the ground.” “Did you get the poem, Daddy?” his younger daughter says, and he says, “Oh, the poem; Jesus, I even forgot to get it photocopied. I could have before but this librarian, you can't believe it, she gave me the option to, but I wanted to hold the whole book, this beautiful old hardbound copy of Dickinson, as if it were a religious book, rather than read from this skimpy transient sheet—” and his wife says, “What are you talking about?” and he says, “The poem. ‘Because I could not stop for Death.' There's a capital
D
in Death. The prayer guy ever show up?” and she says, “He waited awhile, then said he had to go to another gravesite, and made some prayers over her coffin and left.” “So let's do it ourselves, though we'll have to get the cemetery workers to lower the box once we're done. Maybe that's all it should be anyway, since we're the only ones left of her family who are still semisound.”

He drives to the office, returns with a cemetery official and two gravediggers in a truck behind him, and standing in front of the grave says, “Please, now let the funeral and burial and service and everything else begin. Sally, do you have anything to say?” and she says, “Just that we all loved you, Beatrice, very much. You were always wonderful to be around, wise in your ways, delightful to the girls, and, because you're Gould's mother, special to me, and we're profoundly sorry to see you go. Kids?” and the older shakes her head and starts crying and the younger says no and then, “Yes, I have something. Goodbye, Grandma. I wish I knew you longer and when you were younger, and I feel extra bad for Daddy. And I love you too and am sorry to have you die and be buried.” “Thank you, dears,” he says. “As for me, if I mention the word love and how I feel I'll blubber all over the place and won't be able to continue. So to end the service, because I've kept everyone here way too long, I'd like to read something—I mean, recite—and very little because it's all I know. I tried to get more but that's another story, Mom, so just two lines of an Emily Dickinson poem you like so much. ‘Because I could not stop for Death' … what is it, Sally?” and she says, “‘He kindly stopped for me.'” “Right. ‘Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.' Amen. Now if you gentlemen will lower the coffin, we'll go home.”

HE'S
WITH
HIS
mother in the park. He's on a bench; she's facing him from her wheelchair, drinking ginger ale through a straw. “Cold enough?” and she says, “It hits the spot.” She looks around, then at him. “Excuse me, but you
were
talking of my soda?” “The ginger ale; yeah.” “Hits the spot. It's my favorite drink on a warm day and always has been, even when I was a girl. That's so far back, nobody but me could remember. Ancient times.” She looks at the trees behind her. “They look like shadows.” “The trees?” he says. “Like shadows, but not scary ones. Those I wouldn't like. Even at my age, I get afraid.” They do; he can see what she means. Silhouettes, at least. “Why do you think they paint them black?” she says, pointing to the trees. “What do you mean black? The tar they sometimes put on them, or whatever that substance is, so when the tree's slashed or something—a limb sawed off—the sap won't run?” “Aren't all the trees there painted black?” “No, they're just dark: the bark is. Elms or some others. I used to know trees. I can't tell what these are by their leaves, though I know they're not maple or oak.” “My eyes, I suppose, playing tricks on me again. One eye I can't see with almost at all. The other eye lets me see things but very darkly. Together they're practically of no use. And even worse than that, ugly, because I'm sure people, especially children, who look straight at them, cringe. The soda's good,” she says, sipping. “I'm glad you like it. Better than the orange flavor, I thought.” “Oh, the orange would have been good too.” “So, the next time.” “If I'm lucky and live that long, though sometimes I wonder.” “What? That you'll live till the next time I take you to the park? I take you almost every day. This isn't a one-time thing.” “No. I meant ‘ancient times.' You can't expect me to live forever, you know.” “Yes, I do. Now let's stop talking about it.”

A woman walks past, young, maybe around twenty-five. Tank top, shorts cut high, flapping a Frisbee against her thigh. The kind of body he loves: thick strong thighs, compact high butt, small waist, flat stomach, large breasts. Blond hair but seems dyed, and a pretty face and not dumb-looking. Looks at him as she passes, and he looks back and she looks away. She's alone, and she sits on the grass in the shade about thirty feet from them, shakes her head hard so her hair falls in front of her face, parts it away from her eyes, and looks at him. He smiles at her, she just stares and then looks away; he turns to his mother, who's looking at the tree covering above them as if she's studying it, then back at the woman. She's stretched out now, leaning back on her forearms, facing front, one knee up, other leg extended out, hair now in a ponytail. How'd she tie it so fast? Must be one motion—ah, he's seen it done by his wife and his older daughter, so he knows: pull the tail back with one hand, other already has an elastic band stretched wide for it to go in, and, for women with straight hair like his wife and this one, done in a matter of seconds. But what was with that shaking-her-head motion, then, after the hair fell over her face, parting it and looking what seemed coquettishly at him? On the last he might be wrong, but doesn't see the sense of the head shake. He looks at her long enough, without her once turning to him, to imagine her with no clothes on, on a bed, legs like that: one knee up, other leg straight out though turned a little toward him so part of her inner thigh's exposed, breasts hanging over the sides of her chest as the outline of them (or just the one he can see) against the tank top makes them appear to be doing now. She grabs the Frisbee off the grass and turns it around clockwise between her fingers while looking at him, then looks at it and continues turning it, but faster, till it's practically spinning. A good show, but for him? and why's she looking at him so much? Maybe because he's looking at her and she's using the spinning motion as some sort of thinking trick while she wonders why he's looking at her; and why is he? Wife's in the apartment, he'll be picking up the kids from day camp in two hours, he's with his mother, and he'll have to wheel her to her home and maybe wait with her and make her comfortable till the woman who looks after her gets back from a movie, so it's not as if he's going to make a move on the woman. If his mother sees him eyeing her, what'll she think? That he's a bit of a fool, eyeing someone so much younger and who's dressed in a way to provoke those kind of looks, or that something's wrong in his marriage, or some connection between the two, or simply that it isn't right, staring at a woman that way, no matter how she's dressed or what the disparity is between their ages—she knows because she was a beauty and must have got plenty of stares—and she'd be right, but it's hard to stop: the woman attracts him, he's sitting rather than really doing anything, it's also that she reminds him of someone he went with twenty years ago (her breasts, though, were small, but everything else including her height was pretty much the same); wanted to marry her, even. Looks at his mother; she's resting with her eyes closed, may be napping. “Mom,” he says, almost so softly that she wouldn't hear; she doesn't respond. He also raises his hand to touch hers, but doesn't want to disturb or wake her; right now he'd rather look at and fantasize about the woman. She looking at him now? Take a guess: she is. Looks: she is but quickly turns away, looks straight up at the sky, shuts her eyes, and smiles the way people do when they face the sun contentedly: the pleasure of the warm rays, especially on your closed eyelids. But she's in the shade. So she's just feeling content, maybe from the coolness of the shade. But why would she close her eyes while smiling like that? A breeze she's getting and he isn't, or something she thought of that made her smile, and she only looked at the sky to look away from him: didn't want him disturbing her thought? Fun she had last night? Sex she had this morning? A guy she likes, just met, something somebody recently said? Or just that he's looking at her, this much older not very attractive man, and that he in fact looks sort of funny with his unruly wiry hair made more unruly by the humidity, and is probably going through some big sex fantasy about her, and she finds that amusing though also a bit pathetic. Then she gets up—Well, see ya, honey, he says to himself—and sits on the grass in the sun about ten feet farther away from him, which could still be thirty feet; he's not too good at gauging distances. So maybe she had been thinking of the sun before when she had her eyes closed in the shade, but forget it, forget her, will ya? He can if he wants; it's just that before he didn't want to.