Lincoln in the Bardo(31)
hans vollman
And return with us, to save your boy.
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It did not seem to be working.
hans vollman
The gentleman just sat, combing the grass, rather blank-minded.
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It seemed we must be more direct.
hans vollman
We turned our minds, by mutual assent, to a certain shared memory of Miss Traynor.
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Christmas last, paying a holiday visit, we found that, under the peculiar strain of that blessed holiday, she had gone beyond the fallen bridge, the vulture, the large dog, the terrible hag gorging on black cake, the stand of flood-ravaged corn, the umbrella ripped open by a wind we could not feel—
hans vollman
And was manifesting as an ancient convent, containing fifteen bitter quarreling nuns, about to burn to the ground.
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A girl-sized convent in the style of Agreda, the little nuns inside her just embarking on morning vespers.
hans vollman
Suddenly, the place (the girl) is ablaze: screams, shrieks, grunts, vows renounced if only one might be saved.
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But none are saved, all are lost.
hans vollman
We willed ourselves to see it again, smell it again, hear it again: the incense; the fragrant wall-lining sage-bushes; the rose-scented breeze wafting down from the hill; the shrill nun-screams; the padding of the tiny nun-feet against the packed red clay of the town-bound trail— roger bevins iii
Nothing.
hans vollman
He just sat.
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Now, together, we became aware of something.
hans vollman
In his left trouser pocket.
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A lock.
hans vollman
The lock. From the white stone home.
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Heavy and cold.
Key still in it.
hans vollman
He had forgotten to rehang it.
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An opportunity to simplify our argument.
hans vollman
We focused our attention upon the lock.
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Upon the perils of an unlocked door.
hans vollman
I called to mind Fred Downs, raging in frustration as those drunken Anatomy students tossed his bagged sick-form on to their cart, horses rearing with alarm at the smell.
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I pictured the wolf-rended torso of Mrs. Scoville, tilted against her doorframe, one arm torn away, little veil fluttering in what remained of her white hair.
Imagined the wolves massing in the woods even now, sniffing the breeze— Making for the white stone home.
Snarling, drooling.
Bursting in.
Etc.
hans vollman
The gentleman put his hand into that pocket.
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Closed it upon the lock.
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Shook his head unhappily: How could I have forgotten such a simple—
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Got to his feet.
hans vollman
And walked off.
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In the direction of the white stone home.
hans vollman
Leaving Mr. Vollman and me there behind him on the ground.
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LIV.
Had we—had we done it?
hans vollman
It seemed that perhaps we had.
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LV.
Because we were as yet intermingled with one another, traces of Mr. Vollman naturally began arising in my mind and traces of me naturally began arising in his.
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Never having found ourselves in that configuration before— hans vollman
This effect was an astonishment.
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I saw, as if for the first time, the great beauty of the things of this world: waterdrops in the woods around us plopped from leaf to ground; the stars were low, blue-white, tentative; the wind-scent bore traces of fire, dryweed, rivermuck; the tssking drybush rattles swelled with a peaking breeze, as some distant cross-creek sleigh-nag tossed its neckbells.
hans vollman
I saw his Anna’s face, and understood his reluctance to leave her behind.
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I desired the man-smell and the strong hold of a man.
hans vollman
I knew the printing press, loved operating it. (Knew platen, roller-hook, gripper-bar, chase-bed.) Recalled my disbelief, as the familiar center-beam came down. That fading final panicked instant! I have crashed through my desk with my chin; someone (Mr. Pitts) screams from the ante-room, my bust of Washington lies about me, shattered.
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The stove ticks. In my thrashing panic I have upended a chair. The blood, channeled within the floorboard interstices, pools against the margins of the next-room rug. I may yet be revived. Who has not made a mistake? The world is kind, it forgives, it is full of second chances. When I broke Mother’s vase, I was allowed to sweep the fruit cellar. When I spoke unkindly to Sophia, our maid, I wrote her a letter, and all was well.
hans vollman
As soon as tomorrow, if I can only recover, I will have her. I will sell the shop. We will travel. In many new cities, I will see her in dresses of many colors. Which will drop to many floors. Friends already, we will become much more: will work, every day, to “expand the frontiers of our happiness” (as she once so beautifully put it). And—there may be children yet: I am not so old, only forty-six, and she is in the prime of her— roger bevins iii