The Dogs of Babel (13 page)

These are the notes I made during my talk with Caitlin, and they tell me more than anything she said. She told me I had faced great sadness in my life. (And who, I wanted to ask her, who hasn’t? Who, at least among those willing to pay three hundred dollars an hour for advice, hasn’t faced some misery they don’t know how to bear?) She told me things would get better. She told me she saw a woman in my future, and when I balked, when I told her I couldn’t imagine such a thing ever again, she told me she saw a man. Granted, I didn’t give her much to work with. I told her my real birthday and my real name, but when she asked if I was married, I said only, “Not anymore,” and I left her to draw her own conclusions. I resisted her attempts to draw my story out of me; if she’s being paid to be a psychic, I thought, then let her figure it out. Part of me, I admit, wanted her to tell me something true; part of me wanted her powers to be real. It’s a strange role they play, these “psychics,” part priest-confessor, part therapist, and I was half hoping she would tell me something that would make everything make sense. I was half hoping that somehow she would save me. But in the end, she was just some woman from Ohio sitting in her living room, talking to a stranger in the middle of the night. And me, I was just some schmuck paying for a phone call he couldn’t afford.

Now, outside, the dawn is breaking. It’s been a very long night. I feel empty now, too tired to think anymore about Lexy and her call to Lady Arabelle and what it all means. When I go into the bedroom, I find Lorelei sleeping across the foot of the bed, and I decide not to shoo her off. I crawl between the sheets, curling myself into a ball so as not to kick her, and almost immediately, I am asleep.

I
run into Maura today. The ex-wife. Or, well, when I say I run into her, I mean I run into her on my front porch. I open the door to get the newspaper and there she is. It’s quite a surprise. She hasn’t knocked. She has a note in her hand, and I guess she’s trying to decide whether to leave it. She jumps when I open the door.

“Hi,” I say. I’m a little taken aback to see her there.

“Oh, Paul,” she says. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“Well, here I am.”

She smiles and goes into a kind of artificial sympathy mode. “I just heard about Lexy,” she says. “Paul, I’m so sorry.”

I nod and smile sadly and look at my feet and mumble my thanks. I’m still not very good at accepting condolences from people, especially people who didn’t know Lexy.

“Well, would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” I ask finally. It’s strange to see Maura standing on my porch smiling at me. We didn’t part on very good terms, as I think I’ve mentioned. But it’s kind of nice to see her. I realize I haven’t spoken to an actual human being in two days.

“That would be nice,” she says.

Don’t worry. This isn’t headed where you might think.

As she comes in, I look around the house and see it as she must see it. It’s a mess. There are dishes everywhere, and stacks of books piled precariously high. I’m sure I look rumpled as well. I am certainly unshaven.

It’s not until Maura is already inside the house that Lorelei comes barreling in, barking. She must be losing her watchdog touch, I think. There was a time when she would’ve known Maura was standing on the porch before I even opened the door. It occurs to me for the first time that Lorelei is getting older—she must be eight years old by now—and that I may not have unlimited time to conduct my research. Or to enjoy the quiet pleasure of her company. I will lose her someday, that much is certain, and it makes me ache to think of it. But, as all dog owners must, I put the thought quickly out of my mind.

Maura backs away and shrinks against the wall when Lorelei comes into view. She never was a dog person.

“Down, girl,” I say in my most commanding voice. “It’s okay.” To Maura I say, “Let her sniff your hand. Don’t worry, she won’t bite.”

Maura holds her hand out uncertainly. Lorelei sniffs it avidly and thoroughly and gives it a tentative lick. Satisfied, I guess, that the situation is under control, she turns and walks away.

“So,” Maura says. “I guess that’s Lorelei.”

“How do you know her name?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Paul. Matthew Rice called me.” She brightens for a moment. “He told me he’s head of the department now. That’s great. Good for him.” Then she puts her concerned face back on. “He’s worried about you, Paul. He thought maybe I should talk to you.”

I feel a flash of annoyance at Matthew Rice. He knows how I feel about Maura. And I have work to do. This unexpected visit is quite a disruption.

“Well, come and sit down then and talk to me,” I say. I’m sure the irritation is clear in my voice.

I lead her into the living room. She stops to look at a picture on a side table, a photograph of Lexy and me taken on our wedding day.

“So this is Lexy,” she says. There’s a brittleness to her voice that she doesn’t quite manage to hide. “She was pretty.” She sounds as if she’s accusing me of something.

“Yes,” I say. “She was.”

I clear the couch of newspapers and notepads and gesture for Maura to sit down.

“God, Paul,” she says. “Look how you’re living.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting company,” I say shortly. “Did you want some coffee?”

She eyes a pile of dishes on the table with a kind of horror. “No,” she says. “That’s all right.”

I sit down in a chair facing her. “So,” I say. “How have you been?”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“How’s work?”

“Fine.”

“Are you… seeing anyone?” The question sounds absurd.

“No. Not at the moment.”

“Okay,” I say. “Well, let’s get down to business. What’d you come here to say?”

“Paul, Matthew thinks you’ve lost your mind. He says you’ve stopped interacting with people, and you didn’t show up for dinner at his house…”

That’s true. It was on a day when I felt I was very close to making some headway with Lorelei—it was the day of the
wa
breakthrough, as a matter of fact—and I simply forgot I had made plans with Matthew and Eleanor. I called the next day and apologized, and I thought I had explained the situation perfectly well. Matthew himself is extremely single-minded when it comes to research. I thought he, of all people, would understand.

Maura’s still listing my shortcomings. “And he says you actually think you’re going to teach that dog to talk. I mean, really, Paul, you don’t believe that, do you?”

“I believe that interspecies communication is an area that has not been fully explored,” I begin. “And I think that we have much to learn —”

“Jesus Christ,” Maura breaks in. “Paul, do you hear yourself? You need help. Look, I’m sorry Lexy died, that’s a tragedy, but you have to get over it. You’re ruining your life and you’re ruining your career.”

I stand up. Haven’t I spent enough of my life already listening to this woman? So she thinks I’m crazy. Fine. I’ll give her something to take back to Matthew.

“Lorelei,” I roar. I’m surprised at the ferocity in my voice.

Maura looks nervous. “Paul, what are you doing?” she asks.

“Lorelei,” I yell again. Lorelei appears in the doorway. “Sic!” I say, and point at Maura. Lorelei just looks at me.

Maura jumps up. “Oh, my God,” she says.

“Get her, girl!” I shout. Lorelei looks from me to Maura and back again. She lets out a single bark, responding, I suppose, to the loudness of my voice.

“Are you nuts?” Maura says to me.

“Apparently,” I say. “Go on, Lorelei! Get her!”

“I’m leaving,” Maura says. “You’ve really lost it, Paul. Let me out of here.” She grabs her purse and walks quickly to the door, giving Lorelei a wide berth.

I follow her and stand in the doorway as she retreats down the front path.

“And stay out!” I yell after her. It’s strangely satisfying. I start to laugh. I watch Maura drive away, and then, laughing, I walk back into my cluttered living room to continue my research.

L
exy and I had been married six or seven months, I think, when she got the call to make the mask of the dead girl. She called me at work.

“Hi,” she said. “Do you know where Van Buren’s Funeral Home is?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” I said. “Why, did somebody die?”

“No. Well, somebody did, but it’s not anyone I know.”

“What?”

“I just got this call, out of the blue,” she said. “It was from a woman whose daughter just died, and she wants me to make a mask from the girl’s face.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “And you’re going to do it?”

“Well, I was a little put off when she first started telling me what she wanted, but the more she explained it, the more sense it made. I guess this girl—she was nineteen, she was in college—it sounds like she had some kind of cancer. Her mother sounded very calm and rational; I think they knew this was coming for a long time. Anyway, this girl was a theater major, and she was kind of quirky, and she wasn’t afraid of death, her mother said. Her parents think she would’ve approved of this. They think it would be a nice way to remember her.”

“Uck,” I said. “I think it sounds creepy. Don’t you think? It doesn’t sound like a very healthy way to grieve, to keep a mold of your daughter’s dead face around. What are they going to do with it, display it on the coffee table?”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “It’s kind of weird. But there’s something about this that appeals to me. It’s important work, you know? More important than most of the things I take on. I mean, this is the last chance they have to capture their daughter’s face the way it really looks.”

“The way it looks
in death.
Don’t they have any pictures of her, pictures of the way she looked when she was
alive?
”

Lexy sighed. “Maybe I’m not going to be able to explain it to you,” she said. “But I think I understand. You know, death masks have been around for thousands of years. And I read once that back when photography was new, people used to have pictures taken of their loved ones in their coffins. Or mothers would take their dead babies to be photographed. It would be the only thing they’d have to remember them by.”

“That’s very sad. But I still think it’s a strange request.”

“I don’t know. I think there’s something sacred about capturing the human face in the moment of death. Think about this—if no one ever wanted to remember the way their loved ones looked after they died, then why would we have open caskets at funerals?”

“Well, I’m not too crazy about that either,” I said.

“I think there’s something comforting about it,” she said. “You know, death is this big mystery, and it’s something we’re all afraid of, but when you see someone who’s actually dead, they look peaceful. It doesn’t look so bad. Especially if it’s someone who’s been through a lot of pain and is finally at rest. Maybe that’s what this girl’s parents want to capture.”

“I suppose,” I said. “But are you sure you want to be a part of this?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”

At the time, I found the whole business unsavory. It seemed to me an act of desperation on the part of the girl’s parents, an unwillingness to let go. Even without knowing this dead girl, I doubted she would have chosen this as the way she wanted her parents to grieve. To keep her dead face in their home, always in sight? To keep them rooted forever to the moment of her death? If the goal of grief is to learn to move on, I thought, to learn how to inhabit the same space as absence and to keep living anyhow, then surely these sad people were doing a disservice not only to themselves but to the memory of their poor lost daughter.

But now, having come to know grief as intimately as I have, having lived in its bare rooms for so long and walked its empty halls, I’m not so sure they were wrong.

When Lexy died, I admit I took some cloistered comfort in seeing that her face had not been bruised in the fall. And in spite of what I may have said, when the time came I did have an open casket at her funeral, and every time someone said to me, “Oh, she looks so beautiful,” it was like a balm to me. When I knelt by her coffin, my mind wiped suddenly blank of all my childhood prayers, and I reached out to touch her cheek, I stared as hard as I could bear to and I fixed in my mind every detail of the way she looked, because I knew it would be the last time I would ever lay my eyes on her. Would I want a mask of Lexy as she looked in death, to hang on the wall, perhaps, next to the mask of Lexy as she looked in life? No. But I would not presume to tell any other grief-sick wanderer that what he needs is wrong. I would not dare.

I was afraid that embarking on such a morbid project would throw Lexy into a fit of melancholy, but when she came home she was glowing.

“She was beautiful,” she said. “Very gaunt, from the illness, but you could see she had really beautiful features.”

I tried to picture the dead girl, waiflike on the slab. I could not quite imagine beauty there.

“They hadn’t put the makeup on her yet, you know, for the funeral, so her skin was very pale. I had to work quickly—they needed me to be done by this afternoon. But it didn’t take me very long to make the mold. Not to be morbid, but it’s easier when you don’t have to keep telling the person to stay still.”

“Was she cold?” I asked. I hadn’t spent much time around dead bodies. Even when my father died, I had kind of kept my distance at the funeral.

“Not ice-cold. But cool. Cooler than a living person.”

“Did you talk to the parents?”

“Yeah, of course. I sat down with them to discuss what they wanted the end product to be like.”

“And what were they like?” At this point, I still couldn’t imagine a healthy-minded person doing such a thing.

“They seemed very normal. Sad, of course. The father started crying at one point. But they were very grateful that I was willing to do this for them. They were afraid they wouldn’t find anyone.”