Beyond the Grave Read online

  A man climbed up on the platform, set a sheaf of papers on the podium, and began to shuffle through them. He was short, somewhat tubby, totally bald, and dressed in a red shirt and loud red-and-blue-plaid pamts. The auctioneer? I wondered. He wasn't what I had expected. Actually I didn't know what I had expected, but this refugee from a golf course wasn't it. As I stared at him, the last-minute browsers began to drift over and find seats, and there were a few moments of chairs scraping and catalogs rustling and people coughing before all quieted down.

  Finally the man looked up. He had little piggy eyes and a cherubic mouth, and his bald head was shiny with sweat. He surveyed the crowd for a moment and then said, quiet as a college professor, “Good afternoon. My name is Al Doolittle, and I'm your auctioneer here at the Cabrillo Auction Center. Before we get under way with today's sale, I'd like to fill you in on how I'm going to run things.”

  I stifled a giggle. He reminded me of a waiter in a trendy restaurant, the kind who introduces himself and then begins to reel off the list of specials that he's frantically memorized fifteen minutes before. Instead of dinner choices, the auctioneer presented us with a set of rules and then began describing Item Number One, a ten-piece lot of Early-American glass novelties that included hats, a lady's slipper, something called a “witch ball,” and a milk-glass chicken. I checked the catalog and was disappointed to see that the first of the items I'd marked to bid on—the convent chairs—would not come up until Number Eighteen.

  I was not bored in the meantime, though. Al the Auctioneer kept the bidding moving, and after some spirited offers and counteroffers, a dapper-looking gentleman with white hair became the proud possessor of the box of oddly shaped glass objects. I then watched an elderly couple claim an equally aged Singer sewing machine in an oak cabinet. Two obviously gay men chortled over their success in purchasing a Sheraton chest of drawers. A young woman beamed at her new set of pink Depression glassware. A couple barely out of their teens lovingly stroked a carved Chinese chest that I suspected would do duty as a hope chest. When the convent chairs finally came up, I was first with the opening minimum bid of a hundred dollars. However, after several quick exchanges, I was bested by a man in a tan suit. I comforted myself with the thought that anyone with such a cool manner and flinty, appraising eyes could only be an antiques dealer, and thus more practiced at bidding and better financed than I.

  Number Twenty-seven, the dining table, also went to the “gentleman in tan,” as Al the Auctioneer called him. When I turned to look at the successful bidder, who lounged against a pillar directly behind the last row of chairs, I could have sworn that he smirked at me. I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, annoyed. From the types of bids the man in tan was making, he obviously dealt in Hispanic antiques and would probably bid on the marriage coffer, too. My marriage coffer. Well, we'd just see if he'd get his hands on that!

  When the little chest was brought to the platform for the bidding, I studied its fine carving and lustrous dark wood. The crucifix pattern was sharply defined, and the brass fittings had the natural patina of age. Yes, I wanted this piece for the museum—and I was not going to blunder in as I had before. Cleverly I held back, allowing the man in the tan suit to make the opening move—the minimum bid requested, fifty dollars.

  “We have fifty,” Al Doolittle said. “Do I hear seventy-five?”

  I hesitated, to see if anyone else was interested.

  Al said, “Come on, folks, don't get me nervous. We can't let this honey of a chest go for the minimum, now can we?”

  “Seventy-five,” I said.

  “We have seventy-five. Do I hear one hundred?”

  I glanced back at the man in the tan suit and saw him raise his catalog.

  “One hundred now. We have one hundred,” Al said. “Let's go for one-twenty-five. Come on, folks, let's get this auction moving.”

  Casually I raised my catalog.

  “The little lady in the front row bids one-twenty-five. Any advance to one-fifty?”

  A woman in the third row said “One-thirty-five.”

  Al looked so stunned that his pudgy features quivered. “One-thirty-five? Is that all we hear for this honey of a chest? Come on, let's get this auction going!”

  “One-fifty,” I said.

  “Thank you, ma'am. One-fifty, folks. You heard it. Any advance on this bid? Ah, yes, the gentleman in tan is indicating he'll advance to one-seventy-five. Any further advances?”

  I looked down at the scribbled notes in my catalog, which said I'd decided not to go higher than two hundred-and-fifty for the marriage coffer. I said, “Two hundred.”

  Al the Auctioneer looked elated. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, his double chins jiggling. “We have two hundred!” Then he turned to the chest and ran his hand over its dark satiny finish. “Look at this piece, folks. It's a beauty. At two hundred, we're practically giving it away.” He paused, looked around. “Ah, the gentleman in tan will advance to two-twenty-five.”

  I turned to look at the man. This time I was sure he smirked. Quickly I said “Two-fifty.”

  “Now we're going again. Two-fifty. Do I hear an advance to three hundred?”

  “Advance,” the voice from the back of the room said firmly.

  I looked over my shoulder and glared. The man smiled and nodded at me. No way, mister, I thought. There's no way you're getting my marriage coffer.

  I looked back down at the catalog, at the figure “$250” printed in ink. But that figure was based on what I'd decided to pay when I'd hoped to buy not only the chest but also the chairs and dining table. Surely now I could go higher….

  “Three-fifty,” I said.

  Al nodded approvingly, hobbling his chins at me. “The lady in the front row says three-fifty. Do I hear four hundred?”

  I sucked in my breath and glanced back at the man in the tan suit. There was no way I could go higher than four hundred.

  The man paused for a moment, then smiled at me and remained silent.

  I let out my breath in a long sigh.

  “Three-seventy-five,” a female voice said.

  Outraged, I swiveled in my chair. The woman in the third row who had bid earlier—a well-dressed matronly type—sat primly clutching her rolled catalog. I'd done all the work, and now she wanted to reap the rewards!

  “Four hundred,” I said.

  This time Al danced a little jig. “The lady in the front row is determined. Do I hear an advance on four hundred?”

  Silence.

  “This is an extremely fine piece for only four hundred dollars. Do I hear an advance to four-ten?”

  The only sound was the whir of the electric ceiling fans.

  Al's smile faded. The fleshy folds of his face drooped. He looked like a big baby getting ready to cry. “Do I hear an advance to four-ten?” he repeated.

  No one spoke.

  Al sighed. “I am going to sell it,” he said heavily. “For the second time … and the third time … and the final time….” Then he looked down at me, and his features did a quick reversal, into a huge, delighted grin.

  “Okay, little lady,” he said, “you're going to take it away!”

  TWO

  “AND THEN,” I said to Mama, “the dealer had the nerve to come up and congratulate me on my successful bid on the marriage coffer—even though I had paid too much for it! Can you imagine?”

  Mama's lips twitched in a pale imitation of a smile.

  “Dealers,” I said in disgust, sounding for all the world like a jaded auction-goer.

  Mama was silent.

  I frowned and glanced at Nick, who was leaning against the wall next to the window. He shrugged and peered through the slats of the blinds at the parking lot three stories below. Nick didn't look as confident or cheerful as when I'd left for the auction. That worried me more than Mama's unaccustomed silence and was the reason I'd been chattering on about the auction.

  It was after four o'clock, and the light that filtered through the blinds had a ric
h, golden quality. Mama lay on her back, her long gray hair coiled against her pillow, her covers pulled as taut as those on the semiprivate room's other, empty bed. There were flowers on the bureau: a large arrangement of pink and white carnations from Mama's friends at the trailer park, yellow roses from Nick, and my own spray of violets. From time to time Mama's eyes would stray to them, and an expression of bewilderment would cross her face, as if she were wondering how they—and she—came to be here.

  The silence in the little white room was making me nervous. I said, “I tried to call Carlota again before I came over here, but she still wasn't home. I think that conference in Duluth was this weekend. I could check with University information up there; maybe they'd know—”

  “You must not bother Carlota while she is working,” Mama said.

  “Working!” I laughed, but even to me it sounded hollow. “I know what those sociologists do at their conferences: eat and drink too much, and swap lies about … about deviant social groups,” I finished lamely.

  “Carlota works hard,” Mama said.

  “Yes, but she also plays hard.” My sister is one of the most energetic people I know. She throws herself into everything—teaching, research, writing, beer-drinking—with total abandon. And as proof that this all-or-nothing approach works, she'd earned her Ph.D. in three-and-a-half years and had gone on to a good job at the University of Minnesota. This fall she would be up for her associate professorship, and, true to form, Carlota was fully confident of receiving the promotion.

  Mama continued to stare at the ceiling.

  I said, “Anyway, when I get hold of her, I'm sure she'll want to come out. It'll be good to see her again—”

  “No,” Mama said.

  “It won't be good to see her?”

  “I do not want her to come.”

  “What, you expect her to stay in Minneapolis when you—”

  “I do not want her to come.” Mama enunciated every word clearly, as if she were speaking to a small child. “Enough fuss has already been made. I do not want Carlota wasting her money on airplane fare.”

  I glanced at Nick. He shrugged again, his brow furrowed, his eyes watchful.

  “If Carlota wants to come,” I said, “I don't think we can stop her.”

  “You will find a way,” Mama said.

  “I will?”

  She turned stern eyes to me, and for a moment she looked almost herself. “You will.” Then she went back to her contemplation of the ceiling.

  I watched her for a moment, and then shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair, looking at my watch. We were waiting for the doctor to arrive and give us the test results. He'd promised to be here at four, but he was late.

  Again the silence was making me nervous. Nick was no help; he kept looking out between the slats of the blind, as rapt as if one of the nurses were doing a striptease in the parking lot. After a minute I got up and went to read the card that had come with the flowers from the people at the trailer park. They had all signed it: the Walters, Mary Jaramillo, Nick's gang of “old fogies” with whom he jogged every morning, even the new park manager. Someone—probably Mary, who was clever with sketching—had drawn a caricature of Mama above the sticky-sweet preprinted get-well message and had written, “We have a beer cooling for you, Gabriela.” I was glad that in her retirement my mother had found such staunch friends—to say nothing of a nice boyfriend.

  I had just returned to my chair when the doctor, George Ruiz, came in. He was an older man, close to sixty, and I'd known him all my life; Dr. George had delivered both Carlota and me in the back bedroom of the little stucco house where I still lived. He'd made us laugh at our childhood chicken pox bumps, counseled us through the teenage acne stage, and—reluctantly—prescribed the Pill when we'd been in college. Just seeing him standing there in his rumpled white coat, with a stethoscope hanging out of one pocket and his gray hair tousled, made me feel better about Mama. She was in good hands.

  Dr. George nodded to Nick and me, then went over to the bed and looked down at Mama. “How are you feeling, Gabriela?”

  “All right.”

  “Mmm. Any pain?”

  “No.” But her voice was close to a whisper, and her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. She didn't demand to know when she could go home, or chide him for keeping her here, or do any of the other things I normally would have expected of her.

  Dr. George consulted the chart he held and said, “Well, Gabriela, we're going to have to keep you here a little longer. The ulcer is bleeding, and it could perforate. It should be taken care of right away.”

  Mama turned her head slowly. “You mean, I have to have an operation?”

  “Yes, and as soon as possible. I've scheduled it for tomorrow morning.”

  Mama's face seemed even whiter, her eyes very large. “How did this happen?” she asked. “I've never been sick a day.”

  “You've had frequent indigestion attacks, haven't you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You've probably had the ulcer for years. A lot of people wrongly attribute the burning sensation it causes to simple indigestion. Have you been constipated?”

  Mama glanced at Nick. As far as she was concerned, ladies didn't talk about such things in front of gentlemen—not even close gentlemen friends. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “Sick to your stomach a lot?” Dr. George asked.

  “Well, sometimes.”

  “You see?”

  “I still don't believe it. Isn't an ulcer one of those … psychological things you do to yourself?”

  “You mean psychosomatic. Stress is a factor in it, yes.”

  “Then, I can't have one. I don't have any stress.”

  Dr. George's eyes moved to me, and the laugh lines around them crinkled. “Nonsense, Gabriela. You've had plenty of stress in your time. You raised Elena and Carlota, didn't you?”

  “But they're grown now, and all right—so far.”

  “You see?”

  “I don't worry about them. Except when Elena gets mixed up in murder.”

  “And that's happened twice in the past year. No wonder you have an ulcer.”

  “Oh,” I said, “so now I'm to blame for Mama's condition.”

  Dr. George grinned. “That's what children are for.”

  “What, for getting ulcers?”

  “No, for blaming our own problems on.”

  I didn't know how to take that, so I got up and went over by the bureau to sulk. Mama didn't seem to notice.

  Dr. George continued to talk with her for a few minutes, describing the procedure and the recovery period. Mama watched the ceiling the whole time; I wasn't sure if she comprehended what he said or not. When he finally left, the silence in the room stretched so taut that I thought I might scream.

  Instead I said, “Mama, it won't be so bad. By this time tomorrow it'll be over and …”

  She looked at me, and I saw bewilderment in her face. “I do not understand how this could happen,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have never been sick a day.”

  “Mama, Dr. George said—”

  “I have never been sick.”

  And I have never been able to argue with my mother. I just nodded.

  “I think,” she added, “I would like to be alone now.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Do you want me to stay, Gabriela?” Nick asked.

  “Thank you, no. I want to be all alone.”

  Nick went over and kissed her on the forehead, then crossed to me, put a hand on my shoulder, and began steering me toward the door. “We'll come back after dinner, then.”

  “No.”

  He stopped. “Gabriela—”

  “No. Come tomorrow before the operation. Tonight I wish to be by myself.”

  “If that's what you want,” Nick said, “we'll wait until then.”

  We went out and down the hall to the elevator. Nick pushed the button, and we waited in silence. When we had go
tten on the car and its doors had shut, I said, “Nick, she's in terrible shape.”

  He nodded, looking very worried now.

  “Nick, what are we going to do?”

  “Be here for her tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  “Let it be, Elena. It's out of our hands.” He touched my shoulder again, his fingers warm and comforting.

  When we stepped out of the hospital into the waning spring sunlight, I said, “What are you going to do now?”

  “Go home and have a run. It'll take my mind off things. What about you—what do you plan to do?”

  “Go home.”

  “And …?”

  “Just go home.”

  THREE

  I'D PLANNED TO drop the marriage coffer—which at present was wedged into the passenger side of my VW—at the museum before going home. But after leaving the hospital I was much too depressed to bother. Instead, I drove to my house; the chest could spend the night there with me.

  The house is an old green stucco in a quiet residential area in the flatlands, below the dividing line where Santa Barbara's terrain and the property values rise. In the hills above me are the comfortable homes with splendid vistas for which the city is renowned. From up there on a clear day you have a sweeping view of the channel and its islands, undmimed by the pall of smog that most people associate with Southern California. In contrast, I don't have any view at all—except for old Mrs. Nunez across the street peering through her curtains, usually at me. But I do have a giant fuchsia plant cascading gracefully over a newly repaired trellis on my front porch, an ancient pepper tree to sit under in the backyard, and five rooms that, while small, are mine alone. Owning the house in which I was born always gives me a comforting sense of roots—and comfort was what I badly needed that night.