George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo

roger bevins iii

No doubt you are feeling a certain pull? Mr. Vollman said. An urge? To go? Somewhere? More comfortable?

I feel I am to wait, the boy said.

It speaks! said Mr. Bevins.

the reverend everly thomas

Wait for what? Mr. Sheep-Dumpling said.

My mother, I said. My father. They will come shortly. To collect me Mr. Sheep-Dumpling shook his head sadly His member also shook Sadly

They may come, said the many-eyed man. But I doubt they will collect you.

Then all three laughed With much clapping of the many-eyed man’s many hands And waggling of Mr. Sheep-Dumpling’s swollen member Even the Reverend laughed Though, laughing, he still looked frightened

In any event, they will not stay long, said Mr. Sheep-Dumpling.

All the while wishing themselves elsewhere, said the many-eyed man.

Thinking only of lunch, said the Reverend.

It is soon to be spring The Christmas toys barely played with I have a glass soldier whose head can turn The epaulettes interchangeable Soon flowers will bloom Lawrence from the garden shed will give us each a cup of seeds

I am to wait I said

willie lincoln

I shot Mr. Bevins a look.

hans vollman

These young ones are not meant to tarry.

roger bevins iii

Matthison, Aged Nine Years ? Tarried less than thirty minutes. Then dispersed with a small fartlike pop. Dwyer, 6 yrs & 5 mos ? Was not in the sick-box upon its arrival. Had apparently vacated in transit. Sullivan, Infant, tarried twelve or thirteen minutes, a crawling squalling ball of frustrated light. Russo, Taken in Her Sixth Year, & Light of a Mother’s Eye ? Tarried a mere four minutes. Looking behind stone after stone. “I am investigating after my schoolbook.”

hans vollman

Poor dear.

the reverend everly thomas

The Evans twins, Departed This Sorry Vale Together at 15 Years, 8 Months, tarried nine minutes, then left at precisely the same instant (twins to the end). Percival Strout, Aged Seventeen Years, tarried forty minutes. Sally Burgess, 12 Years & Dear to All, tarried seventeen minutes.

hans vollman

Belinda French, Baby. Remember her?

roger bevins iii

The size of a loaf of bread, and just lay there, giving off a dull white light and that high-pitched keening.

the reverend everly thomas

For fifty-seven straight minutes.

hans vollman

Long after her mother, Amanda French, Lost Bringing Life to a Fair & Yet Unlucky Childe, had gone on.

roger bevins iii

They lay together in a single sick-box.

hans vollman

A most touching sight.

the reverend everly thomas

But in time, she went.

roger bevins iii

As these young ones should.

the reverend everly thomas

As most do, quite naturally.

roger bevins iii

Or else.

the reverend everly thomas

Imagine our surprise, then, when, passing by an hour or so later, we found the lad still on the roof, looking expectantly about, as if waiting for a carriage to arrive and whisk him away.

hans vollman

And pardon me for saying so — but that wild-onion stench the young exude when tarrying? Was quite thick already.

roger bevins iii

Something needed to be done.

the reverend everly thomas

Walk with us, lad, Mr. Sheep-Dumpling said. There is someone we would like you to meet.

Can you walk? said the many-eyed man.

I found that I could

Could walk Could skim Could even walk-skim

A little walk-skim was bully by me Something was lying untoward below us, in a box inside that little house

Untoward ly

May I tell you something?

It had the face of a worm

A worm, I say! A worm the size of a boy Wearing my suit

Horrors.

willie lincoln

The lad made as if to take my hand, then seemed to think better of it, perhaps not wishing me to think him childish.

hans vollman

And we set off, making our way east.

roger bevins iii

Hello, kind sirs. If you wish, I can tell you the names of some of our wildwoods flowers?

mrs. elizabeth crawford

Mrs. Crawford fell in behind us, assuming her customary posture of extreme obeisance: bowing, smiling, scraping, flinching.

roger bevins iii

Thare is, for example, the wild sweet William, wild pink ladyslipper, wild roses of all types. Thare is butterfly weed, thare is huny suckle, and not to menshun blue flag, yellow flag, and A grate many other kinds that I cant recollect the Names of at this time.

mrs. elizabeth crawford

Being harassed all the while by Longstreet, that wretch who resides near the askew bench.

roger bevins iii

Mark you, gentlemen, my subtle understanding of the significant aspects of the costuming: the hooks-and-eyes, the Ellis-In, the intricate Rainy Daisy skirt, I tell you, Scudder, it’s like peeling an onion: unlacing, unhooking, cajoling, until one gets, at last, hardly at a fast pace, to the center of the drama, the jewel — as one would say — its bosky dell—

sam “smooth-boy” longstreet

Who groped and pawed her continually as we went along, Mrs. Crawford remaining blessedly oblivious to his disgusting attentions.

the reverend everly thomas

The lad, overawed, followed close behind us, looking this way and that.

hans vollman

Well now I will give you A part of, or all of, if you like it, a Song my dear husband used to sing. Cauld it Adam and Eaves wedding Song. This Song was Sung by him at my sister’s wedding. He was much in the habit of making Songs and Singing of them and—

Oh no, I won’t go no closer.

Good day to you, sirs.

mrs. elizabeth crawford

We had reached the edge of an uninhabited wilderness of some several hundred yards that ended in the dreaded iron fence.

hans vollman

That noxious limit beyond which we could not venture.

roger bevins iii

How we hated the thing.

hans vollman

The Traynor girl lay as usual, trapped against, and part of, the fence, manifesting at that moment as a sort of horrid blackened furnace.

roger bevins iii

I could not help but recall her first day here, when she uninterruptedly manifested as a spinning young girl in a summer frock of continually shifting color.

the reverend everly thomas

I called out to her and asked her to speak to the lad. About the perils of this place. For the young.

hans vollman

The girl was silent. The door of the furnace she was at that moment only opened, then closed, affording us a brief glimpse of the terrible orange place of heat within.

roger bevins iii

She rapidly transmuted into the fallen bridge, the vulture, the large dog, the terrible hag gorging on black cake, the stand of flood-ravaged corn, the umbrella ripped open by a wind we could not feel.

the reverend everly thomas

Our earnest pleadings did no good. The girl would not talk.

hans vollman

We turned to go.

roger bevins iii

Something about the lad had touched her. The umbrella became the corn; the corn the hag; the hag the girl.

hans vollman

She gestured for him to step forward.

roger bevins iii

The lad approaching cautiously, she began to speak in a low voice we could not hear.

hans vollman

Younge Mr Bristol desired me, younge Mr Fellowes and Mr Delway desired me, of an evening they would sit on the grass around me and in their eyes burned the fiercest kindest Desire. In my grape smock I would sit in the wikker chair amid that circle of admiring fierce kind eyes even unto the night when one or another boy would lay back and say, Oh the stars, and I would say, O yes, how fine they look tonight, while (I admit) imagining reclining there beside him, and the other boys, seeing me looking at the reklining one, would also imagine going down to recline there beside me.