Norman Rush - Mortals

“It’s fine. We buried him here. I’ll show you the grave. And this place is on a topo map, so it can be found again, his grave. I’ll show you.”

“And did you say anything, did you say a word, a farewell or anything?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t because I didn’t know what to say. I know I should have. Kerekang said something. In Setswana. I couldn’t hear it because he mumbled it, but he did. And another guy spoke.”

“Show me the grave, then.”

“And don’t worry about finding this place. It has a name, something knob, it’s a knob, it’s very prominent. I’ll show you. Come on.”

There were three graves, three patches of darker earth with a small boulder sited at what would be the head end, Ray supposed, of each. The graves were laid out close to the base of the monadnock. They would fade into the landscape so rapidly it would be a genuine task to find them again. Ray was going to try to fix in his mind anything particular about the configuration of the monadnock that would mark the spot. The stones marking the graves could shift or be rolled away.

Morel followed along uneasily while Ray studied the monadnock. It was an abrupt feature, a roughly pyramidal jumble of stones, some of them huge, with thorn brush growing out of crevices, especially lower down. The monadnock was about a hundred feet high, Ray judged. It wouldn’t take long to walk all the way around it.

Morel said, “Don’t keep it on. Shut it off once you’ve seen what you need to.”

The pressure was making it impossible for Ray to make out anything distinctive, anything he was likely to be able to remember. In order to do that he needed to be in a more composed state.

“I need a hatchet,” Ray said.

“A hatchet for what?”

“Look I need to chop a mark, an X, into the rock above where his grave is, just to be sure. In case these boulders you put there happen to get moved.” Boulders was hyperbole. The markers were stones the size of soccer balls. They were half buried. It looked good. But they could be exposed if there was a downpour, which sometimes happened, if not very often. He wanted to chop a mark onto something huge overlooking the graves that was not going to be affected by any freak weather event. The earth around the monadnock was soft, not hard. He didn’t know why that was.

Morel said, “Nothing’s going to happen to the markers.”

“But it might. And by the way, which one is Wemberg’s? It matters which one gets buried next to Alice.”

Morel hesitated, it seemed to Ray, before indicating that the middle grave was Wemberg’s. That was intolerable.

“Aren’t you sure which one it is?”

“The middle one, right here. I told you.”

“You hesitated like you didn’t know.”

“I fucking did not . You’re being crazy. It’s the middle one. Calm down.”

Ray couldn’t. Things were getting him excited more than they should. It didn’t matter. He was feeling urgency and anyone who wanted to say it was undue was welcome to.

Morel said, “Kevin helped us. I’ll get him and he’ll confirm it. Just wait.”

That seemed to tally wrong. Morel clearly intended to go and get Kevin, get him out of Ray’s sight, get him and fix it so he would say whatever Morel told him to say because Rra Finch was going mad. And it would be like Morel getting to Iris first, to warn her to say this, say that, because he knows, her husband knows, and the two of them cooking up what to say. He knew what was going to happen, if Morel had his way, which was that somehow they would be traveling back together, somehow either in the Cruiser or some other way and at some point it would happen that Morel would say Wait here a minute I have to pee and he would disappear and there would be a call made and Iris would be forewarned and there would be an exculpating scenario devised that he would have to use his last ounce of strength to penetrate. What he wanted was the naked truth. He wanted to surprise her. He wanted to look her in the face and see if she would lie. He didn’t want to know in advance she was going to lie. She had always been truthful with him.

“I’ll go get Kevin. You stay here,” Ray said.

“You can’t get Kevin.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you look over there, where the light is, Kevin is in there. We can’t go in there. They told me. It’s the cadres, talking. They said we had to stay away until we get a sign. That’s what they said.”

“I need a hatchet or a crowbar or something hard I can gouge with and I need Kevin. I mean it. I’ll tell them.”

“Then go ahead and ask. You want me to stay here, I’ll stay here.” Morel was dealing warily with him.

The blackness around them felt irregular, like a fabric being shaken. It was bats at work, swerving and fluttering their ugly wings.

Ray wandered toward the light and the food and the murmurs.

An armed man came out to stop him.

He saw where the cadres were. Tarpaulins had been thrown over the crests of two low thorn trees growing in the midst of an isolated group of tall boulders, making a false cave. There was a Coleman lantern burning and there was also a small bright fire and meat of some kind roasting over it. There were sleeping bags on the ground. It was cozy, in there. He could see Kerekang. He thought, They have no idea how hungry I am. There were others in the faux cave.

Ray said, “Kea batla Kevin.”

The armed man said “Nyah.”

Ray raised his voice. “Kea batla Kevin. Kevin can you come and help? Kevin.”

Kevin appeared.

Ray said, “I’ll need a hatchet, rra. And can you come with me and point out Rra Wemberg’s grave?”

Kevin was hesitant.

“Just tell me which one it is, of the three.”

“He was put in the middle.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“I think it will be okay. I think it is deep enough. I think so, rra.”

That meant he was doubtful if it was deep enough and that some beast of the wild could come and dig the body up. The picture filled Ray with horror and a renewed exhaustion. The task of exhuming Wemberg and putting him in a deeper hole was beyond him and it was something he couldn’t ask for help with. People were doing their best. He had to think.

Kevin was chewing.

I need to eat immediately, Ray thought. The need was connected to what he had to do next while there was time, which was to make a cairn over Wemberg, collect stray stones and pack them over the grave to create a good-faith impediment to the beasts of the wild. He would do it himself to the best of his ability, after he’d eaten. And whoever wanted to join in could. And he would put stones on the plots of the men buried on either side of Wemberg, too. He was ashamed that he was only thinking of that now, that he hadn’t inquired who they were, their names, paid attention, any kind of attention, to them.

It was meat he needed. There was something ultimate about meat on an open fire. Barbecuing was supposed to be bad, and it was possible Iris was right and it was, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t ultimate. There was the story by Jack London about a Mexican revolutionary who came to the United States to raise money for the revolution by fighting for prizes, prizefighting. And the Mexican had somehow been unable to get a steak to eat before the fight. He hadn’t been able to afford it. The title of the story was blunt, “A Piece of Meat.” And then the fight had taken place and the Mexican had fought like a demon as hard as he could and had almost won, then he had lost because he hadn’t been able to get his piece of meat. Rex had been a fan of Jack London’s stories. And there was the one about the guy struggling to build a fire to save his life someplace in the Arctic and getting the fire going and the fire melting snow stuck in the branches of a tree overhead and killing the fire, and him. Rex seemed to love stories where you struggle with all your might and then at the end you lose.