World And Town Part 43

"Of course, they were weirded out by the tower," she goes on. "And no phone. They wanted to know why he didn't have a phone." She stamps her patent leather boots in the cold. "I tried to tell them there were things even I didn't know, but it wasn't what they wanted to hear." She looks thoughtful.

"Just think," observes Grace, "in another couple of months he'd have had cell service."

"I think that's what you call irony," says Greta.

"I think it's what you call sad," says Hattie.

Judy nods and, for once, says nothing.

Where no one's seen Bry and Bets for a while, people would love to say h.e.l.lo at the wake. The way they stand with Ginny in a three-pack, though, no one dares.

"Sophy!" calls Ginny. "Come meet my kids."

But Sophy melts out of the room-taking, it seems, something of Ginny with her. Though she fluffs her hair and smooths her dress, her movements seem empty even of vanity.

Bry catches the eye of various townsfolk as he escorts his mother back toward the casket. A chubby boy turned portly man, he seems at once weighed down and buoyed up as he half smiles at Jed Jamison, his old baseball coach. Bets, too, a wiry girl with cornrows, can't help but smile at Jill Jenkins, without whom she probably would've ended the world's absolute worst speller instead of only the second or third worst. They both hesitate as they pa.s.s Hattie, too-the last person to have seen their dad alive, they seem to realize, and yet off-limits for some reason. They knit their brows in exactly the same way, giving rise to twin radishes at the tops of their noses.

Everett's body, meanwhile, barely fits his new home. His hair pushes up into the lining; his shoes push down. And his dress uniform likewise strains, its b.u.t.tons tipped hard; even his skin is too taut and too pink-blus.h.i.+ng, it seems, at the sight of Ginny staggering up to him. The cat crying at the mouse's death, Hattie's father would have said, as she kneels beside the coffin. And yet Ginny sobs so like a widow-so like someone riven and cracked wide-that Hattie feels for her all the same. She remembers what it is to see a husband, dead, after all; the impossibility of it, the unacceptability-the sheer searing, numbing nonsense of it. If only Ginny did not rummage in her pocketbook as she stands, producing a good-sized cross! But there she goes, placing the thing in Everett's hand; people are still shaking their heads as her children take their turns kneeling. First big Bry, his knees leaving dents in the kneeler when he stands; then thin Bets, lost in her heavy dress. Her many little braids end in s.h.i.+ny black beads; they clack as she weeps, her hands to her eyes.

They leave the way they came, arm in arm in arm-banding together against this evil town, though Ginny does pause as they pa.s.s Sophy again. Ginny's face is strangely girlish; her lips part as if she is going to ask something. But then she doesn't; for there stands a stone-faced Sophy, so solidly closed that Ginny involuntarily looks to Hattie as if for rea.s.surance or explanation. Their eyes meet; and for a second time Hattie feels sympathy for her fellow teacher: a woman displaced, after all. A woman betrayed, a woman widowed.

And yet all she's contributed to the lives of others. Hattie closes her face like Sophy and turns away.

For thine was the power and the hogwash.

Ginny and her kids pa.s.s through the front door. There is a long pneumatic wheeze as it shuts automatically behind them; people stare at its glossy white panels. Outside, Ginny's car motor turns over and over-a weak spark.

"Where is she going to live?" wonders Greta. "Where is she going to go?"

No one knows, but there is Grace, kneeling by the casket. Her old black dress has gone brown; the banded tops of her knee-highs show.

"Forgive me, Lord," she murmurs. "Forgive me."

And as she stands, she takes the cross back out of Everett's hand, and pockets it.

It would've made him madder'n h.e.l.l to wake up in heaven with that thing in his hand," says Beth the next morning. "That is just a fact."

Candy cuts her pancakes into sixths; her maple syrup s.h.i.+nes. "It was an act of mercy," she agrees finally.

Greta grins. "It was brilliant."

Only Grace worries. "Is that stealing? I hope it wasn't stealing," she says. Her snowflake sweater is all wrinkly, as if she just took it out of storage.

"It was perfect," says Hattie.

As for what to do with the thing, no one thinks Grace should return it to Ginny. On the other hand, she can't just throw it out; it's a cross, after all.

"Maybe send it to one of the kids?" says Candy. "Or keep it yourself?"

But in the end they agree that Grace should s.h.i.+p it off to a cloister she knows.

"Maybe it can get a new start there," says Beth.

"Kind of like a retread," says Hattie.

Everyone nods solemnly until Grace starts to laugh. Then, one by one, they allow themselves to smile.

To smile, perchance to gloat just a little, Lee would have said.

The honor guard ceremony takes place at the town cemetery. The kids don't have winter coats, only incongruously bright ski jackets that contribute, oddly, to the gravity of the occasion: Their faces are so sad and pale in comparison. They cry during the folding and presenting of a flag to Ginny; they cry during the playing of taps by a real bugler. (How lucky they are not to have gotten a recording, people say.) They cry as they throw handfuls of dirt into the grave. Then they bury their hands in their jacket pockets. Their heads are bent; their eyes are swollen; they are surrounded by people and yet alone, it seems, with the coffin. They do not want to leave. The crowd parts, though, finally, making way for them; and though they look at no one, they do proceed tearfully down the path granted them-accepting it with sad grace. People wave as their old Ford turns over a few times but finally starts, and heads down the street. It stops at the stop sign by the field, then takes a left. Headed somewhere-Florida, say some. Others say Arizona.

It is an overcast day.

Hattie stops with Carter at the new extension to the already huge Hatch family plot-a stand of pines, really, in which the family has placed a small stone wall with a bronze sitting ledge that Hattie remembers from Dr. Hatch's burial. Dr. Hatch's stone-engraved with his name, John Wiktor Hatch-was one of just two markers in the patch then. Now it is joined by a number of rocks and names. The ground is covered with needles; a small metal stabile, made by an artist cousin, twirls and tumbles, then switches direction, then switches direction again, a masterpiece of indecision.

"I wish Reedie were here," says Carter, perched on the ledge. His elbows are bent, and his shoulders raised up. One hand sits to either side of his hips.

Hattie folds her arms. "You'd be a fool to have your ashes anywhere else," she says.

"Sheila wouldn't let us have so much as a pinch of him, that n.i.g.g.ardly Ignoriah." He scratches his head.

"Couldn't he have a rock here all the same?"

"You're right. Why not. Why not." He gives her a sideways look. "An excellent suggestion." He nods, his eyes warm. What hair he has is neatly trimmed to cleave close to his head; he's had a haircut. "You're right."

It is quiet-all the birds having finally gone south-and starting to snow so lightly, the flakes seem to be headed up as much as down. They fly and drift and swirl as if there is nothing the least bit certain about their ending up on the ground; one makes an asterisk in Carter's eyebrow.

"Because clearly Reedie belongs here, doesn't he?" Carter goes on. "As well as there. Clearly. Wouldn't you say?" Carter blinks and clears his throat. "Speaking of which"-he clears his throat again-"is it at all conceivable that you'll want your name on a rock here, too, someday? That is, eventually? I don't mean to be morbid."

He asks casually, and when she doesn't answer right away, leans his head back to catch some snowflakes in his mouth. His asterisk is still there.

She looks around at the beautiful woods. Where are her distance gla.s.ses? In truth, she does not see so well without them. And yet, she sees well enough; perhaps it would break her heart to see better: The stabile moves; the pines rise as if to heaven, their bushy boughs interlaced. Everything will be white soon. How she wishes she could say yes. But da gun-she feels she belongs elsewhere, somehow. Nowhere. The pet cemetery, she supposes, or in a flower garden, like Lee. She is not like Reedie. She was always a guest in this family: welcome, then-as she will always remember-welcome to leave.

Carter tilts his head back down; flakes melt far more quickly on his warm bald head, she notices, than they ever did on his hair. Droplets form. Rivulets.

A rustling.

"Look-moose," he whispers.

And sure enough, a full-grown bull moose with an enormous rack is making its way toward some young-growth forest not far from them. He stops a moment, and looks straight at them with his small eyes and camel face, but then goes on eating. How Hattie misses her distance gla.s.ses now! For what an ungainly, k.n.o.bby-kneed wonder he is. His dewlap is preposterous, and his coat unkempt; he is fantastically humpbacked and graceless. An anti-weasel, an anti-cat. He appears to have no tail. Yet his pace is his own, his peaceable ways; he is a walking event, with his own strange command. A beast.

"Moose can move their eyes independently of each other, you know," offers Carter, once the moose turns away. "They can see two directions at once."

"Is that right."

"And they're tamable. People've harnessed them and gotten them to haul carts and logs."

"Really."

"The astronomer Tycho Brahe had one for a pet. One day the moose drank too much beer, though, fell down the stairs, and died."

Hattie laughs, delighted-isn't that just the sort of thing Carter would know. She dries off his head a little with her hand. And yet she finds she cannot take his arm as they leave.

"Maybe I'll try taming a moose myself," he says, nonchalant. "When I've completed my boat." But he has drawn his elbows in toward himself, and when he tilts his head back and opens his mouth to catch some more snowflakes, they all seem to land in his eyes.

The church holds a reception, with cider and coffee. Hattie and others have brought hermits and penuche and chocolate-chip meringues; there are gingersnaps and fudge puddles, too, and Russian s...o...b..a.l.l.s and chai mousse bars and Oreo-decorated cupcakes, made to look like owls. A treat feast, such as should not go to waste. People do their duty.

As Beth is organizing the Cabin Fever Follies this year, she's giving everyone who doesn't have one already a kazoo, including Sophy and Mum, of course, and Gift (who loves his), and Sarun, too; a neck brace, Beth says, is no excuse. He looks nonplussed, but Greta immediately starts to play a duet with him, then ropes some high school kids into taking her place. This, naturally enough, brings a change of tune-"When the Saints Go Marching In" giving way to some sort of kazoo rap.

"I want you kids to do a number of your own in the show," says Beth. "Would you do a number of your own?"

As they're not too crazy about the idea, she has to bribe them into it-she won't say, later, with what. Even Beth is hesitant to approach Chhung, though.

"He just looks so dazed," she says. "Doesn't he look dazed?"

"As if he's realizing how lucky he was," says Greta. "As if he's realizing how close he came to a different fate."

"Or how he's just gotten reborn again, maybe?" says Grace.

To which Hattie nods, explaining to whoever doesn't know how Chhung always believed he was reborn into his brother's life after Pol Pot.

Candy frowns. "Does that mean he thinks he's been reborn into Everett's life this time?"

"Oh, no no," Hattie insists. "That's not how it works."

And yet she worries that that is exactly what Chhung is thinking even as, sneaking up behind them, Carter breaks in with, "We are going to have to keep that man busy."

All agree. Beth blushes but stays in the huddle as Greta lays out how Chhung could contribute to the town hydro dam project; and when Judy Tell-All comes to report that Jed Jamison's wife has left him, no one elbows Beth until Judy is safely across the room. Neither does anyone comment on the redheaded boy doing card tricks for Sophy, though who doesn't notice? Sophy is careful to stay out of Chhung's line of sight; but what a lot of tricks that boy knows! And how many faces Sophy makes as she laughs. She's folded up her arms demurely in front of her, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s spill over them as if out of a corset; Hattie smiles.

It's only the second town function the Chhungs have attended-the wake being the first-and yet already they seem to have always been there. People pour them cider and play peek-a-boo with Gift; and when the eats unaccountably run low, Mum volunteers that she's brought something for the party, too: whole wheat baguettes! With chocolate in them, no less. By the time things break up, there isn't a person in town who hasn't tried them. Baguettes with chocolate! Made in a turkey roaster! How did she know folks up here like whole wheat? And is that a Cambodian combo? A French? Anyway, what's clear is that it's a new town tradition; already people're talking about next year's farmers' market. And can Mum make other things? Do Cambodians do stir-fry? Or if that's too pigeonholing, here's another idea: What this town really needs is a good bagel. Can Mum do bagels?

Hattie pulls Sophy over to translate; Mum nods.

"A-nih-ting," she says.

And Hattie beams, though she knows the Chhungs've been talking about maybe moving. Mum needs a temple and misses the holidays "like really bad," Sophy says. And they all miss other black-hairs, and Cambodian food, and Chinese food, and the Asian supermarket; and Sophan has e-mailed to say she is not sure she could ever get used to the cold. Sopheap, though, knows at least one other Cambodian family willing to go anywhere. And if that's true, and if they really do move to Riverlake, well, even that would change things. Though what if after that family comes another family, and after that, another? Then, the Chhungs know, there could be trouble. Or that's what Hattie's told them-not wanting it to be true, but telling it like it is anyway. Especially as there are more Mexican workers up here all the time, she says, some of them legal and some of them not; the dairy farms can't run without them. Which might not seem to have anything to do with the Chhungs, says Hattie.

But of course they already know from their old town how nothing having to do with the Latinos has nothing to do with them.

"The Goyas thought we had it easy," says Sarun, "coming in as refugees. You know, with a way to get citizens.h.i.+p and everything. They didn't care we had genocide. If they couldn't get jobs, it was because refugees got jobs. If they couldn't find housing, it was because refugees got housing."

Hattie agrees things are complicated. "Still, you shouldn't call them Goyas," she says. And even though Sarun says why shouldn't he, when the Latinos mutter, "A-nih, a-nih," at the Cambodians-"a-nih" being a rude Cambodian phrase-he doesn't argue too hard. Anyway, Sophy says, if they do move, she hopes Hattie will come with them. Even if they move back to Cambodia, she wants Hattie to come! Not that Sophy really thinks they'll do that; her own vote, she says, is to stay.

An e-mail from Tina: Dear Aunt Hattie, We hear from Lennie that you took the bones long time ago, but now no more news. Maybe we should not worry but still we wonder is something wrong. Maybe you change mind. Johnson say maybe you are worried your parents do not like to be moved, you are bring some bad luck to them.

Writes Hattie, Please don't worry. It's just been busy. I haven't had time to find a crematorium, but I'll find one soon. In fact, I'll look into it today.

Answers Tina, Why don't you just send the bones here? Let us take care of everything. We have many such places here in Hong Kong, all kinds of choice. Probably it is more convenient for us than for you.

Writes Hattie, How can I just send them? The bones or ashes, either, now that I am thinking about it. Doesn't someone have to accompany them? That's what my Nai-nai taught us. The oldest male in the family should do it. Though where these are modern times and I am the only member left of my generation, maybe she would forgive me for doing it instead. And for checking the urns as baggage, as I may have to again on the plane.

Writes Tina, Of course, you are head of family, so whatever you say is right, no one can argue ...

And no one does ever argue with her, Hattie's noticed.

However, if I may raise my opinion, your Nai-nai was right for that time. But these days people not so strict as before. After all, in the olden days some servants even got burned up to go with their master, right? We cannot follow every way like ancient times. Of course you can bring the bones yourself if you do not believe the spirit will go any other way, but Johnson say he know a monk can do a special prayer, ask the spirit to come along with the remains. Kind of like just follow anywhere the remains go, in a plane or boat, anything. Probably if one day some remains go on the s.p.a.ce shuttle, the spirit can go there too. Of course, there is extra charge. But anyway since you do not believe in feudal superst.i.tion, maybe you do not mind even the monk take the money and say nothing.

Writes Hattie, I would mind, but okay. If you are comfortable with it, I will send the bones as soon as I can. Please tell your monk they are coming air mail, special delivery, signature required.

Answers Tina, Fabulous! Thank you! Thank you!

Hattie stares at the screen, then stands to pour herself some tea; she is drinking more tea these days.

Tomorrow, the post office." Hattie holds a flattened cardboard box up to one of the urns-too small. A roll of bubble wrap rests on the reclin-o-matic.

"Will you miss them?" Carter hands her a box the next size up.

She tries it out. "It's been nice having them here."

"Why don't you keep them, then?"

"I think they would've loved being a help to the living. The whole idea that their bones could bring comfort to anyone, half a century later-they would've loved that."

"The immortality of it."

"I think the word is 'humanity.' "

"Ren, you mean. As the Confucians say."

She smiles a little. "Very good. Ren."

A mouse skitters across the floor; Annie retrieves it and, as usual, drops it live. As it starts to escape, though, Carter leans down and traps it easily.

"What do you think?" he says. "Shall we give it the lab snap? We can also make like a local and whack it with a shovel."

Hattie winces. "No shovels, please."

"Or I can let it go like a Buddhist scientist, if you like. Though the house mouse is, of course, a nonnative and notably prolific species that can prove unsanitary and is known to wreak havoc with wires."

"The lab snap," she says.

He pulls down its tail and jerks back its head in one expert move.

"I never did like doing that, you know," he says. He takes the carca.s.s outside.

"Thank you," she says, when he comes back in. And indeed, she is grateful: Annie, she has come to accept, will never be a mouser.

"So the Confucian graveyard is okay?" he goes on, sitting down.