Heaven Has No Favorites: A Novel (5 page)

Clerfayt swallowed. So he had not been wrong. “Here?” he said. “Why do you have a crematorium here?”

“For the hospitals, of course. For the bodies.”

“You mean to say you need a crematorium? Do so many die?”

The boy leaned on his shovel. “Not so many any more, sir. But
in the old days—before the war, before the first war, I mean, and after it, too—there were an awful lot that died. We have long winters here, and in winter it’s hard to hack open the ground. It’s all frozen hard as stone, meters deep. It’s a lot more practical to cremate the bodies than bury them. We’ve had this one for almost thirty years.”

“Thirty years? So you had one before crematoriums became really modern. Long before they were used for mass production.”

The boy did not follow Clerfayt’s reference. “We’ve always been right up front when it comes to practical things, sir. Besides, it’s cheaper. People don’t want to spend too much money nowadays. It used to be different. Lots of times the families used to want the bodies shipped home in sealed zinc coffins. Times were different then!”

“I suppose so.”

“And how! You ought to hear my father tell about it. He’s been all over the world.”

“How so?”

“Going along with the bodies,” the boy said, with amazement at such ignorance. “In those days, people had a certain amount of respect, sir. They didn’t let their dead travel alone. Especially not overseas. For instance, my father knows South America like the inside of his own pocket. People there are rolling in dough, and they always wanted their dead brought back. That was before airplanes were all the rage. The bodies went by railroad and by ship, in a dignified way, as it ought to be. Naturally, the trip took weeks. It was a real experience for the undertaker’s man who went along. The meals they serve on those ships! My father collected the menus and had them bound, you know, like an album. On one trip, with a high-class Chilean lady, my father put on more than thirty pounds. Everything was free, even the beer, and besides there was a big tip for him when the coffin was delivered. Then—” the young
fellow cast an unfriendly glance at the small squarish building whose dome now expelled only a wisp of smoke—“then they installed the crematorium. At first it was only for people without religion, but now it’s become the modern thing to use.”

“That’s so,” Clerfayt agreed. “Not only here.”

The boy nodded. “People no longer have any respect for death, my father says. Two world wars did that; too many corpses all over the place. Millions of them. That ruined his job, my father says. Now even people in South America who can afford better have their dead cremated and the ashes sent by plane.”

“With no one to go along?”

“That’s right, sir.”

The smoke from the crematorium had stopped. Clerfayt lit a cigarette and held out his pack to the talkative young man. “You ought to have heard about the cigars my father used to bring back,” the boy said, scrutinizing his cigarette. “Havanas, sir, the best cigars in the world. Boxes of them. Dad always felt they were too good for him to smoke; he used to sell them to the hotels here.”

“What does your father do now?”

“Now we have this florist shop.” The boy indicated the shop in front of which they stood. “If you need any flowers, sir, we’re cheaper than the robbers in the village. And we often have some really fine things. Just this morning a fresh shipment came in. Couldn’t you use some?”

Clerfayt reflected. Flowers? Why not? He could send some over to the sanatorium to the rebellious young woman. It would cheer her up. And if that Russian friend of hers found out about it, so much the better. He stepped into the shop.

A thin, high-pitched bell tinkled. A man appeared from behind a curtain: he looked a cross between a waiter and a sexton. He was dressed in a dark suit, and was surprisingly small. Clerfayt studied him with some curiosity. He had visualized a more muscular
person—but then it occurred to him that the man had not had to carry the coffins himself.

The shop looked miserable, and the flowers were ordinary, except for a few which were far too beautiful for the place. Clerfayt noted a container full of white lilac and, in another vase, one long spray of white orchids. “Fresh as the dew,” the little man said. “Just came in today. Something special, this orchid. It lasts at least three weeks. A rare type.”

“You know orchids?”

“Yes, sir. I’m something of an orchid fancier. I’ve seen many varieties. In their native habitat, too.”

In South America, Clerfayt thought. Perhaps, after delivering his coffins, the man had made little expeditions into the wilds, so that he would have stories to tell about the jungle to gaping children and children’s children. “I’ll take them,” he said. He drew Lillian’s black velvet glove from his pocket. “And would you put this in the box along with them. Have you an envelope and a card?”

He went back to the village. As he walked, he had the feeling that he could still smell the repulsively sweetish smoke of the crematorium. He knew that this was impossible; even though the föhn had pressed the smoke down, he was now much too far away to be able to smell any of it. It was only the recollection of furnaces that had burned day and night—furnaces not far from the camp where he had been kept. Furnaces he wanted to forget.

He stepped into a bar. “A double kirsch.”

“Why don’t you try a pflümli,” the bartender said. “We have really good stuff. The kirsch you get nowadays is mostly adulterated.”

“Plum brandy isn’t?”

“It’s less well known and isn’t exported. Why don’t you try it?”

“All right. Give me a double.”

The bartender filled the glass to the brim. Clerfayt drained it. “Pretty good,” the bartender declared. “But can you taste anything that way?”

“I wasn’t interested in tasting anything; I was interested in driving away a taste. Give me another, this time for the taste.”

“Double?”

“Double.”

“Then I’ll take one along with you,” the bartender said. “Drinking is a contagious disease.”

“In bartenders, too?”

“I’m only half bartender; I’m half artist. I paint in my free time. I learned how from a painter who was up here for a while.”

“Good,” Clerfayt said. “Then let’s drink to art. It’s one of the few things one can safely drink to nowadays. Landscapes don’t take pot shots at you. Cheers!”

He went to the garage to see about Giuseppe. The car stood far at the back of the big, dimly lighted place, its hood facing the wall.

Clerfayt paused at the entrance. In the semi-darkness he could make out someone sitting at the wheel. “Do your mechanics play racing driver?” he asked the owner of the garage, who had come up to him.

“That isn’t one of my mechanics. It’s someone who says he’s a friend of yours.”

Clerfayt peered, and recognized Hollmann.

“Isn’t he?” the owner asked.

“He is, all right. How long has he been here?”

“Not over five minutes.”

“Is this the first time?”

“No. He was over earlier this morning, but only for a moment.”

Hollmann was sitting at Giuseppe’s wheel, his back to Clerfayt. There could be no doubt that he was dreaming he was racing. The soft click of gears as he shifted could be heard. Clerfayt stood for a moment; then he went out, signing to the garageman to follow him. “Don’t tell him I saw him.”

The man nodded.

“Let him do whatever he likes with the car. Here …” Clerfayt took the keys from his pocket. “Give these to him if he asks for them. If he doesn’t ask, leave them in the ignition after he leaves. For next time. Understand?”

“You want me to let him do as he likes. Even take the car out?”

“If he wants to,” Clerfayt said.

Clerfayt met him at the sanatorium for lunch. Hollmann looked tired. “Föhn,” he said. “Everyone feels rotten in this weather. Hard to get to sleep, and when you do, you sleep like you’re drugged and have crazy dreams. How do you feel?”

“Normal hangover. Drank too much.”

“With Lillian?”

“Afterward. It must be the altitude up here—the liquor doesn’t affect you while you’re drinking, but apparently you pay for it next morning.”

Clerfayt looked around the dining room. There were not many people there. The South Americans were seated in a corner. Lillian was missing.

“In weather like this, most of us stay in bed,” Hollmann said.

“Have you been outside today?”

“No. Heard any news of Ferrer?”

“He’s dead.”

They remained silent for a while. There was nothing to say about it. “What are you doing this afternoon?” Hollmann asked at last.

“I’ll sleep and tramp around a bit. Don’t worry about me. I just enjoy being in a place where there are hardly any cars, aside from Giuseppe.”

The door opened. Boris Volkov looked in, and nodded to Hollmann. He ignored Clerfayt, and shut the door again without entering the dining room.

“He’s looking for Lillian,” Hollmann said. “Heaven knows where she is. She ought to be in her room.”

Clerfayt stood up. “I’ll take a nap. You’re right about the air here being tiring. Can you stay up tonight? Have dinner with me again?”

“Of course. I don’t have any fever today, and I didn’t put yesterday’s down on the chart. I’m a real trusty around here: the nurse lets me take my own temperature. That’s making the grade! How I hate thermometers.”

“See you at eight, then, right here.”

“Seven. Unless you want to eat somewhere else? This place must begin to bore you.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve seldom had a chance for a good solid stretch of prewar boredom. A pity. Boredom’s become the rare luxury of our time. Only the Swiss can afford it, at least in Europe—not even the Swedes, ever since their currency went to pot. Shall I smuggle anything up from the village for you?”

“No, I can’t think of anything I need. There’s going to be a party here tonight. An Italian woman is giving it, Maria Savini. Secret, of course.”

“Are you going?”

Hollmann shook his head. “They always throw this kind of party after somebody’s left. Meaning: died. The idea is to have a good
time to work up fresh courage.” He yawned. “Time for the prescribed siesta. Lie flat and no talking. For me, too. See you tonight.”

The coughing had stopped. Lillian Dunkerque lay back exhausted. She had offered her morning sacrifice; the day was paid for, and last night as well. She waited for the nurse to come for her. It was time for the weekly fluoroscopy. She knew the routine to the point of nausea; nevertheless, it made her nervous every time.

She hated the intimacy of the X-ray room. She hated standing there naked to the waist, feeling the assistant doctor’s eyes on her. She did not mind the Dalai Lama. To him, she was a case; to the assistant, she was a woman. It did not bother her so much that she was naked; it bothered her that she was more than naked when she stepped behind the screen. Then, she was naked beneath her skin, naked to the bones and to her moving and pulsating organs. To the eyeglasses twinkling in the reddish dusk, she was more naked than she had ever seen herself, or ever could.

For a while, she and Agnes Somerville had come to the examinations together. There she had seen Agnes Somerville converted from a beautiful young woman to a living skeleton in which lungs and stomach crouched like ghostly animals, expanding as if they were consuming her life. She had seen the skeleton moving, to the side, forward, seen how it drew breath and spoke, and she knew that she must look the same. Hence her feeling that it was more than obscenity to be looked at by the assistant doctor through the fluoroscope.

The nurse came. “Who is ahead of me?” Lillian asked.

“Miss Savini.”

Lillian put on her housecoat and followed the nurse to the elevator. Through the window, she saw the gray day. “Is it cold?” she asked.

“No. Forty degrees.”

Spring will be here soon, she thought. The sick wind, the föhn, the wet, splashy weather, the heavy air, semi-suffocation in the mornings. Maria Savini came out of the X-ray room. She shook her black hair back. “How was it?” Lillian asked.

“He won’t say a thing. He’s in one of his vile humors. What do you think of my new negligee?”

“Wonderful silk!”

“You really like it? It’s from Lizio in Florence.” Maria made a comic grimace. It looked odd, with her wasted face. “What the hell! We can’t go out in the evenings, so we concentrate on our negligees. Are you coming over tonight?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Miss Dunkerque, the doctor is waiting,” the nurse admonished her from the door.

“Come,” Maria said. “Everyone else is coming. I have new records from America. Fabulous!”

Lillian entered the dusky room. “At last!” the Dalai Lama said. “Will you ever learn to be punctual, Miss Dunkerque?”

“I’m sorry.”

“All right. Temperature chart.”

The nurse handed it to him. He studied it, and murmured with the assistant. Lillian tried to catch what he was saying. She could not. “Light out,” the Dalai Lama said at last. “Turn right, please—left—once more—”

The phosphorescent glow of the screen glimmered on his bald head and the assistant’s glasses. Following the orders to breathe and not to breathe, Lillian felt somewhat nauseated; it was like being on the verge of fainting.

The examination took longer than usual. “Let’s see that case history again,” the Dalai Lama said.

The nurse switched on the light. Lillian stood beside the screen
and waited. “You’ve had two bouts of pleurisy, haven’t you?” the Dalai Lama asked. “One through not being careful?”

Lillian did not answer at once. Why had he asked? It was right there in the case history. Or had the Crocodile complained about her, and was he warming over this old business in order to give her a new lecture? “Is that right, Miss Dunkerque?” the doctor persisted.

“Yes.”

“You were lucky. Almost no adhesions. But what’s this—?”

The Dalai Lama looked up. “You can go into the next room. Get yourself ready for refilling the pneumo, please.”

Lillian followed the nurse. “What is it?” she asked. “Fluid?”

The nurse shook her head. “Perhaps the temperature variations—”

“But that has nothing to do with my lungs! It’s only emotional. Miss Somerville’s departure. The föhn. I am negative! You know I’m not positive! Or am I?”