suppose, but it all makes perfect sense. When the first Europeans came here, they tried to bury their dead underground, but New Orleans is too low and too wet. Whenever the river would rise, or after a good rain, the water table would come up and the coffins would float out of the soil. Pretty gruesome. So they had to start burying aboveground. You just build a little house, put your departed in there, brick up the door, fait accompli. Perfectly sensible.'
He put the car into gear and drove on for half a block more, then turned onto another street to continue along the wall of the seemingly endless graveyard. 'You see some of those bigger crypts?'
Cree could see a few larger structures, rearing square topped above the gabled roofs. Their flat facades held many panels, three or four rows tall and six or eight wide. Each panel was about the size of an oven door, just big enough to receive a coffin.
'They look like apartment buildings in a neighborhood of single residences.'
'Yeah, exactly! Those're society crypts – kind of burial cooperatives. There are society crypts for fire departments, nurses' organizations, fraternal clubs, you name it. Say you were of Italian descent, you might have yourself buried in the Sons of Italy crypt along with a few dozen of your compatriots. Saves space and burial costs. And the wall here? Can't see it from this side, but it's crypt, too, with hundreds of vaults in it. That's kind of the low-rent district.'
Paul turned again onto another, smaller street.
'Where are we going?' Cree asked.
'I'm hoping we'll get lucky,' Paul said mysteriously. He was obviously enjoying playing the tour guide. He drove slowly, glancing often toward the cemetery wall. 'This is Metairie Cemetery, now, biggest one in town.'
Cree looked out the window, spellbound. 'You said a few dozen could be buried in the society crypts. But that would have to be a pretty huge one. I don't see any with that many vaults.'
'Aha! But the peculiarities of the tradition don't end with aboveground burial. See, space was at a premium in the old city – not much room in this swampy terrain for the living, let alone the dead. But they discovered that if you build an aboveground, closed masonry structure in this climate, it turns into an oven. In summer, lots of sun and hundred-degree heat every day, it gets very hot in those things. Reduction and decomposition are very fast, it's actually almost a form of cremation. So back when, they came up with the 'year-and-a-day' law, which is still in effect.'
'What's that?'
Instead of answering, Paul yanked the wheel and pulled the car to the curb. They were at a break in the cemetery wall – a service entrance, Cree realized, judging from the functional shed and big Dumpsters ranged to the side of the iron gate. Sticking at odd angles out of the Dumpsters were several rectangular shapes that looked familiar but were so incongruous it took Cree a moment to recognize them.
Coffins, she realized. Lidless coffins, plush interiors open to the city night. A couple more lay on the ground, lids stacked nearby.
Paul watched the involuntary start she gave at the realization. 'Yeah coffins. Used coffins. We practice multiple burial here. After a year and a day, you can bury someone else in the same crypt. You just pull out the old coffin, rake the remains into a plastic bag, shove the bag back in there, and you've got room for a new customer. Like I say, aboveground burial is more like cremation, all that's left is dust and chunks of bone. Doesn't look like there'd be room, but behind each of those doors are the remains of several people. All those individual crypts you saw? Whole families, many generations, are in some of them. Very cozy, very efficient. And since nobody's too keen on reusing a coffin, they go into the Dumpster.'
Paul gazed with satisfaction at the scene: stained, shadowed coffin interiors emerging from the Dumpster in the streetlights, the eerie miniature city disappearing into gloom behind. Caught up in his narrative, he seemed oblivious to how nightmarish it might look -the Gothic, funereal elegance of coffins juxtaposed with the crude, industrial functionality of the garbage containers, all in the harsh mercury-vapor light.
'Do I detect a note of civic pride?' Cree asked.
Still smiling, he thought about that. 'I guess so. We're fond of our own peculiarities hereabouts.' He looked at her face for a moment and must have seen her fatigue there. 'I'm sorry, Cree. I shouldn't have taken this detour. I guess I got carried away – 1 don't often get to initiate an out of towner to our quirkier traditions. Provoking that appalled and astonished look – it's kind of irresistible.' He looked back to the coffin scene. 'You're right, this probably isn't the best thing to show you right now. It's different in sunlight, really… I am sorry.'
He resumed driving. The city flowed past and Cree was thinking and then she realized she must have dozed because suddenly the lights were bright and they were pulling up at the hotel. She stirred, momentarily disoriented.
Fitzpatrick turned to her. 'I know you're kaput. But can I ask one more personal question?'
'I think so.'
He hesitated, then reached out and with his thumb swept her hair up off her forehead, out of her eyes, and tucked it behind her ear. His touch was gentle, yet the contact startled her with what seemed an electrical charge. He looked at her, considered, then shook his head, smiling. 'I changed my mind. No questions. Just, thanks for dinner, Dr. Black. This has been really fine. A real surprise. That's all.'
Cree found her purse. She gave him a tired smile, opened the door, and got out without saying anything. She'd made it all the way through the glass doors and the BMW had pulled away before she realized she had leaned over and kissed him, quickly, good night.
18
Monday morning, Cree awoke disoriented, momentarily not sure where she was. When she looked over at the clock she saw it was nine-thirty; she'd been down so deep that even the jackhammers on Canal Street hadn't penetrated her sleep.
She'd been exhausted when she'd gotten back to the hotel, but she'd felt an irresistible desire to check in with home. She had called both Deirdre and Mom and had nice but somewhat stilted talks, as if they'd both been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Cree to confess some catastrophe. Cree had compensated by forcing cheerfulness. It wasn't until she'd talked to Dee for a few minutes, unable to tell much about why she'd called, that she'd realized she wanted to talk about Paul. She wanted an excuse to say his name to someone close to her, not make a big thing of it, but just touch that connection ever so lightly. But she didn't. Too soon. Instead, she talked about the way the city looked, about the food. She told Dee New Orleans was great and so far not too scary. Dee told her the twins missed her and that she should take care.
Mom was different. Cree had been thinking about her anyway, and then meeting Charmian had begun a cascade of thoughts. What was it between Lila and Charmian – the love, the distance, the distrust?
Janet sounded tired when she answered, reminding Cree that even on the West Coast it was getting late. Cree told her she was dealing with a mother-and-daughter relationship. 'I guess I want you to be my oracle after all.'
'Great,' Janet said unenthusiastically.
'About mothers,' Cree clarified. 'This woman, she seems so… hard. About her kids. Mom, what do mothers really want for their kids? What's the most important thing?'
'I can't speak for anyone else, Cree. I want my kids to be happy and healthy and live good lives.'
'Could a mother not love a daughter? Just want her to, I don't know… make her proud, or keep up the family image? Could it really be that simple?'
'Aren't you the one with the Ph. D. in psychology?' Janet blew out a breath. 'My answer is, maybe that's possible, but I've lived sixty-four years and I've never yet met a mother whose first motivation wasn't to protect and nurture her kids. Every mother chooses different strategies, that's all. And each kid needs a different approach.'
Cree thought about that. 'Do all mothers keep secrets from their kids?'
'Of course!'
'You?' Teasing.
'I sure as heck hope so! If you don't have anything you want to keep private, you must not have lived much
