Evidence of the widow’s innocence.

  Cherish the letter. But not read the letter.

  In a few days you will pack away the (unopened) envelope into the carry-on suitcase you will bring with you on the return flight to Boston. This envelope forgotten in a pocket of the suitcase where (perhaps) it will remain unopened and unread. Long after you’ve returned Monroe Street, Cambridge.

  Discovered one day among your things in the bedroom of the house by the heirs of the house.

  Except you have no heirs. Gerard was your only heir.

  You will not discard the envelope from Simon Khraw entrusted in your hand but you might lose it and if it is (hypothetically) lost you will feel a pang of regret, yet relief: for you will not then know what Simon has written to you, that seems to have meant so much to him and might tear at your heart if you knew.

  If unread, the letter will disappear utterly from your consciousness.

  Possibility cut off at the source.

  “HELLO? HELLO . . .”

  Your wan voice, in the empty house echoless.

  In mimicry of Gerard who would return home calling Hello? Michaela? Are you home?—a note of urgency in his voice.

  Though at more ebullient times—Hello hello hello, darling! I’m back.

  You’d hurried to greet him. No matter how briefly he’d been away.

  A pleasure to greet a returning husband as if anticipating a time when the husband will not return, thus such returns are precious.

  Such thoughts, plaguing you tonight. Staring into the (lighted) rooms to assure yourself that you are alone, there is nothing to fear.

  But it is aloneness, that is fear.

  Disappointing, the flowers aren’t so beautiful now. Hardly any point in bringing them home. If you’d meant to boast to Gerard, how popular you are with your students, the ruse has fallen flat.

  Might’ve tossed the vase and the flowers into the trash, with the surpassingly ugly leather stag’s head.

  Now, a stink of brackish water on your hands, clothing. Somehow, dripped onto the carpet.

  Thinking—Is it Death that has entered this house . . .

  Pour out the remains of the discolored water into the kitchen sink, run cold water to flush away the smell. Dispose of the vase, flowers in the sturdy green trash container by the side of the house.

  So many weeks, you haven’t yet adjusted to the thin cold air of Santa Tierra. You haven’t adjusted to the high desert. And how cold it has become, since midday the temperature must have dropped fifty degrees . . .

  Prepare for bed by kicking off your shoes beside the bed. Sleeping in your clothes, or most of your clothes, a habit you’d acquired when Gerard first entered the hospital in anticipation of a ringing phone interrupting your sleep—Mrs. McManus? Your husband is in critical condition, come to the hospital at once.

  In fact, this call never came. For you were already in the hospital at the final days of your husband’s death.

  Lying very still on the bed. Willing your breath to continue, not to cease, for there is much that Gerard expects of you even now.

  Yet gradually, you weaken. Your eyelids quiver, your fingers lose their grip. The phone rings, you are paralyzed to reach for the receiver even as you hear a low rapid machine voice— . . . did not die after all . . . transferred to a rehabilitation clinic . . . records (temporarily) misplaced . . . please call this number to arrange for bringing him home . . . But you can’t decipher the number, the message breaks off.

  Lying on the bed, hands clasped over your chest. Not in, but on the bed. As the crucial distinction might be made between lying on, and not in, the grave.

  . . . please call this number to arrange for bringing him home . . .

  Your brain has gone blank. If you move your thoughts will spill over tasting of brackish water.

  Dare not move and dare not allow yourself to think of the next day. It is night now, a starless night. The prospect of the next day fills you with horror.

  And after that day, the next. And the next.

  An interminable future. Your vision will fail, the horizon is so distant.

  For now, your teaching has ended. Now, you are cast adrift upon a brackish sea.

  You try to recall the pleasure of teaching. Only a few hours ago, in Albuquerque. And your pleasure when Letitia Tanik approached you declaring herself alive.

  A pleasure not without a certain degree of nervous excitement, yet riveting, mesmerizing. Thrumming with life as an organ is engorged with blood.

  Your hope that, for all the misery of your (secret) life, you have touched the lives of some individuals who would otherwise be strangers to you.

  You smile. Try to smile. A grimace distorts your mouth.

  He’d thought you were beautiful. He’d gazed at you with loving eyes. He’d never seen the widow’s ghastly smile, at least he has been spared such a sight . . .

  Yet more pitiful, a widow’s vanity.

  You are hearing: a harsh chuffing sound somewhere in the house.

  Uneven breathing, an impatient sound like rushes being shaken. In fact you have been hearing this sound for some time but have wished to think it was only the wind.

  Where is this sound? Inside the house or possibly in the ravine behind the house?

  Restless wings, churning wings. A murmuration of black-feathered birds.

  Fully awake. Fists rubbing your eyes. The chuffing is a kind of laughter. A kind of scorn. The pathos of your hope, your naivete in imagining that you might find consolation in work.

  As if a life lived with strangers could compensate for the emptiness in your heart.

  Muffled laughter, you are so pathetic.

  A softer laughter, you are so pitiful.

  Rise from the rumpled bed which you’ve scarcely changed in weeks. For what purpose, what defiance of futility, fresh-laundered pillow cases and sheets without a husband. Staggering on your feet stunned to see that it is 4:00 A.M.

  Haven’t you slept, all these hours? Your brain is buzzing like fluorescent tubing. The harsh labored breathing coming from somewhere nearby.

  “Gerard?”—your voice is low, guarded.

  You are seized with fear, yet hope. It has been very hard to accept that Gerard has abandoned you.

  Of course: you understand that it isn’t likely to be Gerard in the house for since April 13 Gerard is considered to be deceased. There are multiple copies of “his” death certificate. “His” ashes are stored in this very room in an urn inside a soft-cloth bag.

  Yet, the breathing that assails your ears very closely resembles Gerard’s breathing in the final terrible hours of his life.

  Understand: Gerard’s breathing has never ceased. Though escalating in difficulty, with ever more pauses between breaths, it will never cease.

  Cautiously you leave the bedroom. Open the door to the corridor, the sound of the breathing is immediately louder.

  Alarmed to see a thin band of light beneath a door at the farther end of the corridor, where there’d been no light earlier when you’d gone to bed. That room once designated as Gerard’s study, rarely used, since Gerard preferred to work at the Institute when he’d been well enough to work at all.

  “Hello? Is someone there? Who—who is there?” Your voice is faint, tremulous.

  On shaky legs making your way toward Gerard’s study. The band of light beneath the door. Trembling convulsively, shivering with cold, rivulets of sweat dripping down your feverish face which is a face of shame for out of cowardice you have abandoned your husband who has only you to bring him to the other world.

  An adulteress, basking in the adoration of strangers. A widow, hoping to deny her responsibility to the dead.

  As you approach the room at the end of the corridor the breathing inside is becoming louder and more labored like the breathing of a great wounded beast. Lengthy pauses between breaths, gasping for air—hoarse, hissing, excruciating to hear.

  Terrified of approaching the door yet you must approach the door. Gravity pulls you toward the door. Halfway there your knees begin to buckle. Stagger forward to kneel in front of the door, dare not open the door but only press your burning forehead against it.

  Forgive me, Gerard, I am not strong enough.

  I am going home. I am going away from here.

  HOURS LATER WAKING DAZED and stiff on the hardwood floor, partly dressed, barefoot. No idea why, what has drawn you here. Your neck throbs with a foolish sort of pain. Your eyes are tender and raw as if you’d been staring for hours into a blinding light.

  Surprised to see that the time is so late, past 7:30 A.M., usually you are awake before dawn unable to return to sleep. But there is relief this morning—the house is very still. Except for the cries and calls of birds outside, and the dull drumbeat of your blood, all is silence, calm as a sky of the most airy feathery cirrus clouds.

  57

  The Approach

  Come to me, Michaela. I am waiting.

  This is the crossing-over place.

  LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS REMAINING in Santa Tierra.

  Transfixed by the (digital) clock moving in one direction only.

  The boarding pass bearing your name has been printed and is laid out on the bureau beside your passport. House keys, car keys you will need when you return to the house on Monroe Street, Cambridge. Clothing you will wear on the flight is laid out on a chair in your bedroom. You have even engaged a hired car to pick you up at Logan Airport as ordinarily Gerard would have done. In a giddy sort of excitement your heart beats at the prospect of the return.

  A return executed by Michaela McManus, alone. A wife who has rarely traveled alone since becoming a wife. Who has never alone executed a return.

  Gerard’s books have been carefully boxed, shipped via UPS. Boxes of clothing shipped. More than half the suitcases packed—Gerard’s, and yours. Today you will finish emptying drawers, closets. The house will be cleaned—you insist upon cleaning it yourself.

  The demon-gods—prank gods, as Iris Esdras has called them—you plan to return to their original places in the house on the morning of your departure; until then, they will remain out of your sight.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  Out of mind, out of sight.

  Out of mine, blindsight.

  Yes! Soon you will be free of the prank gods, and will never see them again.

  MICHAELA, COME!

  Midday must leave the house, can’t breathe.

  Drive to the Arriba County Historical Museum twelve miles north of Santa Tierra. One of several sites marked with an asterisk in Gerard’s Guide to New Mexico.

  One of those places likely to be crossing-over places if such places exist.

  Despite the sweltering summer sun you are feeling hopeful. Soon, soon!

  This terrible loneliness must end, Michaela. It is time.

  Alert and aware of being (possibly) observed. When a human presence is nowhere it is everywhere.

  (If he is observing you—what does he see?)

  At the Arriba County Historical Museum you must park a quarter mile away since the parking lot is partially under construction. Half-jog through sunshine quivering like the heat-waves of a kiln so that by the time you arrive at the museum rivulets of sweat are running down your forehead, sides and you are panting.

  Hurry, hurry! You have delayed so long.

  At the museum entrance, a wheelchair ramp beside the stone steps. Your attention is drawn to a man of Gerard’s approximate age, in a wheelchair, stiffly erect as if in pain or in the anticipation of pain, being pushed up the ramp by a sulky boy of about eleven; something about the man in the wheelchair is familiar to you, the set of the shoulders, the high-held head, even his casual clothing, short-sleeved plaid shirt and khaki shorts. His face is partly obscured by a visored white cap that seems new to you and fits his head oddly.

  Seeing that the boy is having difficulty pushing the wheelchair up the ramp you inquire—“May I help?”

  Risky, interfering in the lives of strangers. The scowling boy surprises you by muttering Thanks!

  Curious, the wheelchair isn’t motorized. Or its mechanism is malfunctioning. With effort you push the (heavy, bulky) wheelchair up the ramp and into the museum through automatic doors. You are grateful to be of use. So frankly and without ambiguity of use. As you have not been of use, in recent memory.

  Recall Gerard having been transferred to a rehab clinic, not deceased but wrongly discharged from the Cancer Center and (somehow) wrongly placed in a rehab clinic unknown to you. A simple (if egregious, unconscionable) mistake of the kind common in an era of computerization. Astonishing that all along Gerard has been alive without your knowing in a parallel world inaccessible to you . . .

  Which is only logical: if Gerard had not ceased to exist on April 13 of this year but had continued existing, his appearance now will differ to a considerable degree from what it had been on April 13.

  Yet—with a pang of disappointment, but not actual surprise—you see that the man in the wheelchair is not Gerard after all. The man scarcely resembles Gerard, a decade younger, thirty pounds heavier, lacking Gerard’s gentlemanly manner, something insolent about him but (still) you feel a frisson of emotion guessing how strangers who happen to glance at the three of you in this (fleeting) moment will be led to think—Wife, husband, son.

  In that fleeting moment, a rush of pride. That you are not alone, you are not unloved, you are not a pathetic left-behind wife but indeed someone’s wife, yes and someone’s mother. Only look!

  Unlike the boy who thanked you for coming to his assistance the man in the wheelchair barely acknowledges you: a shrug of his shoulders and a grunt as he takes possession of the wheelchair himself, turning the wheels with deft hands rapidly and impatiently, speeding away.

  Because he does not love you. He does not even know you.

  At the ticket counter purchase a single ticket. But when you are about to enter the first exhibit you realize that you’ve been given two tickets, you are holding two (adult) tickets in your hand not able to recall if you’d paid for two, or only one. No way of knowing without going back and asking the ticket seller, you’d scarcely noticed the price and hadn’t troubled to take the receipt.

  One ticket you present to a museum guard, the other you crumple into a pocket, abashed.

  The historic museum with its exhibits, installations, and endlessly looping videos of rough-hewn frontier life is a popular tourist destination, its major exhibits crowded with visitors, families with children including very young children in strollers. The most-watched videos reenact battle scenes, skirmishes involving volleys of arrows, gunfire. Clashes between dark-skinned indigenous people and colorfully costumed Spanish conquerors. Uniformed U.S. soldiers pursuing Indian adversaries, firing rifles. Videos of cowboys on horseback, cattle roundups. Rodeos. Stampedes. Galloping horses. Find yourself staring fascinated at fellow museum visitors. You feel envy, awe. Strangers bound together by the simplest urgencies—tending to the (endless) needs of children. But also by random remarks, glances, frowns, smiles as if nothing were so crucial in life as the rapport between family members, a soft-sticky cobweb joining individuals together who otherwise might have little interest in one another; indeed, might be repelled by one another.

  No other single individual in sight. Only you.

  And in the eyes of these others, you are invisible.

  Not loved, no one. Nowhere.

  If Gerard were here, he would explore the least crowded exhibits first, on the third, top floor of the museum: archival materials including treaties, maps, and diaries; displays of primitive knives, spears, bows and arrows, arrowheads; rusted implements, beaded ornamentation, leather moccasins, feather headdresses once belonging to chiefs of Apache, Navajo, Pueblo Indian tribes. He would study daguerreotypes of Indians, white settlers, U.S. military, Pueblo villages, and burial sites. Works of art, sculpted objects, frayed woven things, life-sized replicas of tribal dwelling-places complete with steam rising as if it were smoke from woodfires. He’d look skeptically at a waxworks display of melancholy vacant-eyed mannequins, red-stain-skinned males and females, adults and children, in a diorama meant to represent Fort Still Apache Village Life circa 1847.

  Gerard would take time to read information posted on museum walls, he would rent headphones to listen intently to audio recordings. When you became restless with the need to move on to another room, Gerard would linger.

  Sometimes, you became impatient. You are stricken with the keenest envy, if only you could become impatient again with your husband . . .

  Reach impulsively for his hand, only inches away from yours. Clasp his slow-responsive hand in yours, grip it tight.

  How is it possible, you are alive and I am still dead!

  But no: you mean to say How is it possible, you are dead and I am still alive . . .

  In the next exhibit you read of millions of indigenous persons slaughtered by Spanish conquerors, colonists. You read a lurid history of exploitation, enslavement involving the Roman Catholic Church. Jesuit priests, Catholic missionaries, Spanish missions, churches erected in the wilderness, to tame the wilderness. You read of Indian children removed from their families, forced to live in Catholic orphanages, tribal names changed to Christian names, forbidden to speak their native languages. You read of Indian children escaping the orphanages, returning home or trying to return home. Killed while escaping, or suicides. An untold story of American colonial past: the suicides of children. Military-led massacres, lynchings. Scalpings. Villages burnt to the ground. Deaths by contagion: smallpox, measles, syphilis, tuberculosis. In 1491 there was believed to be a population in North America of 145 million indigenous people, by 1691 the population had been reduced by 95 percent.

  That is, 138 million indigenous people exterminated.

  Genocide! Centuries before the word came into existence.

  None of this is surprising to you. None of this should be surprising to you.

  Known to you but forgotten, in a haze of the approximate and the guessed-at like the distance between Earth and the sun measured in light-miles you’ve memorized only to forget, in that category of the known-forgotten, or rather the forgotten-known.