Conrad Aiken: King Coffin

— They don’t answer, shall I—

— Try them again, please, there should be someone there.

— I’ll try them again.

The little lost bell went on crying in its widening wilderness; with each repetition of the doubled sound the universe seemed vaster and emptier; it was as if Jones’s front room had become the seed of a world. To be the cause of this, to be sending into the void the small sharp signal from which should radiate such an expansion of significance, was both imposing and frightening. This act of creation-at-a-distance perhaps involved responsibilities: and the wider the expansion of the universe before one provoked an answer, the more freighted with consequences might eventually be the answer itself. Listening, with the receiver loosely held against his ear, he looked out through the small windows towards the garage at the back of Hampden Hall, noted the wrecking car which stood at the top of the concrete runway, and the strong curve of the steel crane, and then suddenly there was a cessation of the ringing, a faint sound as of clearance, and a voice.

— Hello? Karl Jones speaking.

The voice was flat, soft, tired, he smiled affectionately as he heard it, it was as if Jones had come into the room and were about to be greeted with the very warmest of reassurances.

— Ah, Mr. Jones. Perhaps you’ll remember that I called you up a little while ago about some advertising, political advertising.

— Yes?

— Well, now, I’ve had time for a careful discussion with my partner, our plans are fairly definite, and before we go any farther I’d like very much to have a talk with you.

— Yes—

— Now, my partner lives out in the country just beyond Bedford, near Concord, and I wonder if you would care to let me drive you out there, say tomorrow afternoon or evening sometime, to discuss it!

— Not tomorrow, no, I’m sorry—

— No?

— No. You’ll have to excuse me, I can’t talk to you now—

— Oh—

— You see, everything is upset, we’ve had an accident, my wife has just had a stillborn baby — just this evening—

— Oh, I’m very sorry — I’m extremely—

— And tomorrow is impossible, as the funeral is in the morning at Mount Auburn—

— I see, of course—

— Yes, I’m sorry.

— I suppose not for a day or two then—

— No, I’m sorry.

— In that case of course I don’t want to detain you, but would Friday perhaps be all right, do you think?

— Perhaps Friday. Yes, Friday would be all right.

— Suppose then I give you a ring at your office Friday morning, and we’ll arrange a meeting.

— Yes, very well. You’ll have to excuse me now—

— Certainly. I’m afraid I—

— Good night.

— Good night.

He hung up the receiver on its hook, in imagination he listened to the retreating footsteps of Jones, the footsteps hurrying quickly up the stairs to that bright and dreadful bedroom on the third floor, on the ceiling of which the shadows were perhaps now again in motion. The footsteps were running up the stairs, the conversation on the telephone was already forgotten, Jones was returning to that sordid and huddled little human scene. The woman lay on a bed in the corner, a raised hospital bed, perhaps raised on wooden blocks, she was naked, her lifted knees were apart, beside the bed was a white enameled pail, a table with an enamaled tray on which were bloody cloths, steel instruments, forceps. Jones was returning to that stupefying smell of ether, to that hurried and meaningful silence, to the dead child and the unconscious woman, the doctor and the nurse. Sometimes, in such cases, didn’t they use artificial respiration? In another room, in one of the other rooms, one of the bedrooms at the back, the doctor was perhaps working over the small body of the child, blowing into its blue mouth, trying to warm it to life. Outside the door, Jones, as he passed, could hear him working, knew already that it was useless, went on to the front room to help the nurse. The woman lay on the bed in the corner, unconscious, she didn’t yet know, later she would have to be told. In the meantime, the pail must be emptied, its contents must be burned in the furnace. While the nurse stayed with the woman, Jones took the pail and went down to the cellar. In the cellar, he noticed that some one had spilled the wastebasket on the concrete floor, had left it lying there amongst the litter. He paid no attention to it, went slowly towards the furnace.…

The front door of Hampden Hall creaked slightly, Jack was coming in with the dustcloth in his hand. The scene in Jones’s house suddenly became as small and remote as the picture in the finder of a camera, tilted brightly off and vanished, like a drop of light sliding off a leaf. He passed Jack on the stairs, and without sensible lapse of time was reading his father’s letter in the elevator. The glib phrases were sickening, were like a sickness. Wash my hands of you. Grateful if you’d be so considerate as to keep my name out of the courts. The writer of this anonymous letter says—

The lights in the apartment were turned on, he must have forgotten to switch them off, he dropped the envelope and the letter under the table on the floor and without thinking went straight to the whisky bottle in the kitchenette, poured half a wine glass full, and drank it straight. The writer of this anonymous letter. Who could this be but Sandbach, who but Sandbach — behind whom was Gerta no doubt, and perhaps Toppan as well. But perhaps not Gerta? No, not Gerta, Gerta would have given him a more specific warning, she would have said something tonight if she had known, after all Gerta was honorable. Honorable? He began to laugh, laughed louder and louder, putting both hands down flat on the butterfly-table; his head hung lower and lower over the table as he laughed, the spasms of laughter wheezed into silence, and he found himself studying carefully the grain of the table, on the waxed surface of which two tears had fallen. It was extremely funny.

But it was impossible to stay here.

He could perhaps go up on to the roof, look down from there at the traffic in Massachusetts Avenue.

Or down to the river and the stadium.

Instead, a few minutes later, he found himself walking into Harvard Square, bought a paper, went into Gustie’s and had a quick drink, crossed the street to the delicatessen place and had another. He held the paper before him with both hands and gazed at it without reading it, listening half-consciously to the talk.

— well, I should worry, I told him if he didn’t come by half past ten it would be gone, and it’s gone.

— served him right.

— Sure. It’s his own funeral. Next time—

— crazy as a bedbug.

— and two whisky sours, that’s three to come!

— and besides I don’t think he could really afford it. No, I don’t.

— You don’t think so.

— No, I don’t think so.

— can’t make out what his position is there, he’s always coming in, every evening, and they give him a handout—

— I heard he was unfrocked for something.

— poor themselves, too; Ada, she’s the oldest, working as a cigarette girl at the Palace—

— No. It’s a local beer. Only local .

He turned away from the counter, rising, went out, proceeded along Boylston Street till he came to the river, stood on the bridge and looked down at the dark luster of the water. Two men were standing close together on the float of the boathouse, talking intermittently in low voices: one of them stooped, put his hand into the water, then stood up again and wiped it with a handkerchief. They went slowly up the gangway into the club, which was dark, he heard the door close behind them, and at that moment he felt a single drop of rain on the back of his wrist. The sky was covered with broken clouds, ragged and hurrying, it was like a disordered mind, like a flight of disordered thoughts: with his hands on the parapet of the bridge, he tilted his head back and watched them, so long and so intently that at last he felt it was not the clouds which were moving but himself. And when he turned away, it was with such an acute feeling of giddiness that for a second he thought he was going to fall.