receiving. She made me sit in the back seat of her car, explaining that she thought I should stretch out my injured leg. She took my crutches up front. Driving over to the western end of campus, where I lived in an untidy apartment, she chattered happily about everything except where she had been for the past two hours, or where we had been for the two hours before. Dropping me at my front door, Kimmer thanked me for getting her out of the Burial Ground, brushed soft lips over my cheek, and was gone into the night.
Some metaphors need no interpretation.
I told my father the story of escaping through the tunnel with Kimmer, I have been reminding myself over and over, ever since my meeting with Dean Lynda. I hold that fact in my mind. I told my father the story, I repeat, even though I didn’t. I tell myself again and again, hoping that I will not forget.
I explain to Samuel what I want, taking care to be clear, yet, at the same time, going on at length. He nods vigorously and tries several times to end the conversation, but I am a law professor, and therefore not so easy to shut up. Samuel at last stops trying and just listens, which is fine with me. Today’s is my fourth visit to the Old Town Cemetery in the past seven days. The first came a few hours after Dean Lynda’s ultimatum: the “walk” I was not prepared to explain to Kimmer. Two days later I was in Aspen. The next evening I was home. I have been here twice since. All my visits have had the same structure: a review of the records, followed by a cautious amble around the grounds. Nevertheless, I remind Samuel once more of the reason for my presence. I want him to remember our conversation. I want him to remember what I need. I want it to be the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks about me. Because I will require his help in the days or weeks to come if I am to bring this whole mess to an end, and his help will be useless if he forgets what I am looking for.
So Samuel busies himself at one end of the room and allows me to draw the dusty old registers from the shelves. For the third time since my chat with Uncle Jack, I sit at a hard wooden table that probably stood in this very spot when Lincoln was assassinated. I study the lists of the dead, turning pages two hundred years old to reach pages just filled in last month, adding to the copious (but, I hope, perfectly clear and easy-to-follow) notes on a small pad that I have been hiding in plain sight in the top drawer of the unlocked desk in my office. I sit, probably, for forty-five minutes, most of which Samuel spends watching me with unfocused eyes. Watching me is exactly what I want him to do-watching and remembering, in case he is ever asked. When I am done, I thank the smiling Samuel, who pumps my hand in both of his as though I have just won the grand prize. After extricating myself, I proceed out onto the cemetery grounds, where, for the fourth time, I brave the springlike drizzle to stroll the paths among the headstones, scrutinizing the map I have drawn on my pad, adding notes when necessary to be sure I have followed the proper route. I pass the mausoleum of the Hadley family, which has had a presence in Elm Harbor and around the university for well over a century; Marc is the family’s fourth professor here. I pass a small plot of old stones that was once a little Jim Crow cemetery-within-a-cemetery. The abolitionist town fathers of one hundred fifty years ago voted to allow free blacks to be interred, but not next to everybody else.
From time to time I look over my shoulder, a habit I suspect I will not shake for some while; I never see anyone but the occasional mourner, standing alone in the misty rain. I wonder if all of them are truly mourning, if any one of them might be following me, and how I would know.
I suppose that everybody is mourning somebody.
Several times I pause, making check marks on my pad as I read various tombstones, or noting where the gravel lanes intersect. I copy the names of the dead and the dates of their deaths. I draw squares within squares.
My notes finally completed, I leave the cemetery by the main entrance. None of the mourners stir. I wave farewell to the grinning Samuel on his bench and head back along Town Street toward campus, watching all the while for the invisible shadow I know is there.
Almost ready.
CHAPTER 47
“Dana?”
“Yes, my love?” Smiling girlishly over the lunch table at Post, pretending a bit, even though I could never, ever, be her love, for about six hundred reasons, even putting aside the obvious ones.
“Dana, look. I kind of need a favor.”
“As usual.”
“Seriously. I mean, it’s important, and… and I don’t know who else to ask.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” Dana is cautious, certain, I have no doubt, that I am about to ask her for money.
It is Wednesday, four days since my return from Aspen, and twelve days since my blow-up in the hallway with Jerry Nathanson, an event that has shrunk even further my already shaky standing around Oldie. I am lunching with Dana today because it is the first chance we have had to get our schedules synchronized. And also because I am running out of options. Earlier I planned to ask her help as a contingency. Now my need is urgent. If Dear Dana says yes, and all goes well, I will be able to get everybody off my back, and my family’s life back to normal, within a week, two at the most. My plan could put me outside Dean Lynda’s deadline, but close enough that I should be able to fudge it. If Dana says no, or if things go badly… well, then, so be it.
Munching my cheeseburger, I try to think how to put it. Over in Darien, Mariah is coming up on a deadline of her own, for her baby is due in less than a month. No more trips down to Shepard Street, but she is happy in her distraction. We speak on the phone almost nightly as the big day nears, and even Kimmer now and then gets in on the fun.
I envy my sister her joy.
Three tables away, Norm Wyatt, the architect, Dean Lynda’s blabbermouth husband, is lunching with a prosperous but somehow furtive client. I get a bit furtive myself, hunching down to get closer to Dear Dana. Correctly interpreting my motion, Dana shifts her head a bit closer to mine. As usual, I wonder what the gossip- mongers will think. I wonder why I chose to ask my favor at Post in the first place. Dana’s office would have been safer. Maybe I decided to come here because she tends to be more indulgent after meals. Or maybe because I am all at once worried about being bugged.
“Dana, look. What I’m going to ask… if you want to say no.. .”
“If I want to say no, Misha, I’ll say no. I’m very good at it.” A beat. “Except, now that I think of it, I’m not very good at saying no to you. You always seem to be asking me favors, and I always seem to say yes.” She smiles nervously. She glares at Norm’s broad back. She senses something amiss, and does not like the situation any more than I do. “I don’t know what it is about you. It’s not like you’re particularly charming or anything…”
“Gee, you’re sweet.”
“Seriously, Misha. When I think about it, it’s too weird. I can’t say why, but I never seem to be able to say no. You know what? It’s a good thing I’m not into men or we’d probably have had an affair by now.”
“If I weren’t married.” A smile. “And if I were into white women.”
“Touche.” She smiles back. “So, what’s the big favor? You want me to break Jerry Nathanson’s kneecaps? Sorry, I’m retired from that line of work.”
“No, but… well, when you hear it, it might seem kind of shocking. Scary, even. Not that there’s any real risk, it’s just not going to be easy to do. But it’s something that… well, it has to be done, and I can’t do it myself. And, if it gets done, maybe I can. .. um, put a stop to… well, whatever’s going on.”
“Well, thanks, my love, that certainly clears everything up for me.”
“And, the thing is, I won’t… I won’t be able to tell you why I need you to do it. Not now. I can explain later, but not now.”
Her smile slowly fades. “I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I should be scared.”
