She was feeling light-headed. What relief!
Ridiculous errors happened all the time. No one had predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, for instance. All the brainpower of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, highly trained individuals whose entire careers had focused upon the two Germanys, and yet—no one had seemed to anticipate what would be described in retrospect as inevitable.
No, this body was not Gus Voorhees. Certainly, the (ruined, devastated) face was not his.
Not recognizably Gus Voorhees.
The remains of Gus Voorhees.
“Mrs. Voorhees?”
Her voice was very low, almost inaudible—“Yes.”
“Excuse me? Did you say—‘yes’?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, this is—Dr. Voorhees? Is that what you are saying?”
More clearly she said now, “Yes. It is Dr. Voorhees.”
“It is your husband, Dr. Voorhees.”
Not a question now but a statement. No further reply was expected of her.
Carefully the shroud was drawn back over the devastated face. The body on the table was very still, not breathing. With wonder she stared at the contours of the white shroud, that did not move at all even in the area of the torso where there might (presumably) have been breathing.
For what seemed like a long time then she stood, staring at the body on the table covered by the shroud. Something was unclear to her—what to do? What to do now?
It was an existential predicament. Gus would have understood.
Since there is no reason for doing anything it is difficult to choose which of (pointless) possibilities you will choose to do next.
Or, you will not choose to do.
Her legs were very tired, leaden. Her hands felt oddly heavy, to lift them would require an effort.
Perversely, her head felt light. The veins and arteries were shrinking to mere pencil lines, oxygen was being shut off in her brain.
“Mrs. Voorhees, we can leave now. This way—”
Gallantly an arm was extended, to support her at the waist if required.
“Yes. Thank you.”
They would treat her as if she were a convalescent. Or rather, an invalid.
A woman who has lost her husband is invalid, thus an invalid.
In reverse the little journey was repeated. Leaving the morgue, entering the elevator. Silence of her companions in deference to her condition of invalidism.
(Did they exchange glances? She did not see but perhaps she sensed.)
At the first floor the elevator stopped, the door opened. The friends who’d driven her from Michigan were waiting for her—for a fleeting instant she would wonder why they were here, in this strange place.
In her face that was taut and drained of blood and yet resolute they saw that some decision had been made in the netherworld below. A crossing-over, a point of no return.
Almost brightly she informed them yes, it was Gus. Of course. “And how surprised Gus would be, to see you here—in Ohio.”
She was staggering in a surf that had not seemed so threatening until now. She was keeping her balance by an exertion of arms, legs, uplifted head. She knew she must speak to their friends. She must console them, they’d had such a shock. It was a widow’s duty, at this awkward juncture.
“You know what Gus would say—exactly what Gus would say—seeing that you’re all here, let’s find a good place for dinner before we start back home.”
THE FACE WAS NOT a face but a raw wound. The mouth was gone, there was nothing to kiss. The eyes were gone. I think that I had planned to lie beside him and hold him if he was cold or frightened in this strange place but that was not possible. The terrible thing that had been done to him had torn him almost in two. If I had not known that this was Gus, I could not have identified him. But it was possible to see in the devastated face something of Gus’s face. He had been so handsome! In The Tibetan Book of the Dead it is said that the deceased soul remains in or near the body, in the Bardo state, for twenty days. And so, Gus might have been there, still. Though he would have laughed at me—he didn’t believe in the soul outliving the body. He was a materialist, a scientist. Yet he was an idealist. He did believe that we were spiritual beings—only that our spirits did not outlive our bodies.
Then, it was a sudden concern, that with Gus gone, the children would be taken from me. Under a state law, of which we’d known nothing beforehand. And I think—then—I began to break down, and may have begun crying, trying to explain to whoever it was, who was with me—trying to explain that the children were ours equally—their father’s and mine—and that they should not be taken from me, I would be a good mother to them—“Please believe me . . .”
REJOICE!
BABY KILLER SHOT DOWN IN OHIO
VICTORY FOR JESUS
REJOICE, THE BABY KILLER VOORHEES HAS BEEN STOPPED!