Burial Read online

  Amelia sipped her coffee. ‘I can’t stay very much longer,’ she said. ‘Was there any particular reason you wanted to talk to me? I mean, apart from old times’ sake?’

  ‘There was something,’ I said, cautiously. ‘Kind of a favour, really, for a friend of a friend.’

  ‘A girlfriend, no doubt.’

  ‘You know her, Karen Tandy. Well, Karen van Hooven these days. She’s divorced, too.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Amelia, with a warning note in her voice.

  ‘It’s hard for me to explain. You really have to see it for yourself. Karen has some friends called the Greenbergs. They live on East 17th Street, not a particularly salubrious area but their apartment’s okay. One Friday evening about three weeks ago Mr Greenberg went off to the synagogue, and when he came back he found that something strange had happened.’

  ‘Harry, if this is something weird, then I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Amelia, I don’t know who else to ask!’

  ‘I don’t care, I don’t want to have anything to do with it! Don’t you think the last time was bad enough? It took me years to get over the nightmares, you know that. I still can’t look at a table without feeling frightened of what might come out of it — even now, even today!’

  I sat back and lifted my hands in surrender. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t even have come here.’

  ‘Harry,’ said Amelia, ‘You seem to think that you can use people like characters in your own TV series. You seem to think that when you ask me a favour, I’m going to come running. In spite of how you treated me; in spite of the fact that for fifteen years you haven’t written or telephoned or even sent me a Christmas card. In spite of the risks, too. Especially in spite of the risks.’

  I looked down at my coffee, trying to appear as chastened as possible. To tell you the truth, I would have done anything not to have had to ask Amelia to help me. But whether I liked it or not, there was nobody else. She was the only person I had ever come across who could do for real what I could only pretend to do — contact the spirit-world. She was spiritually sensitive to the point where she could hear whispers when she walked past cemeteries. The dead, if you can believe it, whispering to each other in their sleep.

  Amelia said, ‘You can’t ask me, Harry. It’s simply not fair.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘I should have tried to find somebody else. It’s just that we don’t know where to turn next.’

  ‘Did you tell Karen you were going to ask me?’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t want to raise her hopes. Or Michael Greenberg’s hopes, either.’

  ‘How is Karen these days?’ I could sense that Amelia was circling around this conversation, anxious to know more, yet equally anxious not to commit herself.

  ‘Karen’s fine.’ I touched the back of my neck. ‘She still has a scar there, but that’s all. I guess we all carry some kind of scar.’

  ‘You said she was divorced.’

  ‘That’s right. She couldn’t face the idea of having children. I guess it’s understandable.’

  ‘And these friends of hers — what’s this strange problem they’ve been having?’

  I touched her hand; her long pale fingernails. It’s very unsettling, touching somebody you used to hold so intimately, after so many years of separation.

  ‘Amelia, if you don’t want to get involved, I’d rather you didn’t know.’

  Amelia eyed me narrowly through the ribboning sunlit smoke of her cigarette. Out in the street, a young Hispanic kid pressed his face to the window and made a squint-eyed, mouth-blown-out expression. ‘Nice neighborhood,’ I remarked, nodding to the kid; who didn’t run away, but pulled ever-more grotesque faces.

  Amelia smiled. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can make some suggestions. Maybe I can recommend somebody.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess the most accurate way of describing it is to say that it’s a poltergeist manifestation. When Michael Greenberg got home that night from the synagogue, his wife didn’t answer the door. He had to call the fire department to rip it down. He found his wife in the dining room clinging to this single chair, and the rest of the furniture up against the opposite wall.’

  ‘The furniture seemed to have moved by itself?’

  ‘Not seemed, did.’

  ‘How can you be so sure? It’s possible that she moved the furniture herself, isn’t it?’

  ‘Amelia, I’ve seen it for myself. It’s up against the wall and every time anybody tries to move it away from the wall it just slides back again. On its own.’

  Amelia frowned at me. ‘I don’t understand. The furniture’s still up against the wall?’

  ‘That’s right. And nobody can shift it Naomi Greenberg’s sitting on this one chair, keeping it anchored by her own weight in the centre of the room, and she’s not going to let it go for anything. She’s been sitting on it for nearly three weeks, God damn it. Eats on it, sleeps on it, won’t let it go.’

  ‘Can’t they move her?’

  ‘Michael’s arranged for regular visits from two different psychiatrists. They’re both worried that she’ll have some kind of catatonic fit if they try to move her.’

  ‘So what on earth can I do? I’m a sensitive, not an exorcist.’

  ‘Naomi says she saw shadows on the wall … some kind of creature.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think I may have seen it, too.’

  Amelia rearranged the sachets of sugar again. ‘I have to tell you, Harry, this doesn’t sound at all like poltergeist. Poltergeist don’t pull things across the room like that; and they certainly don’t keep them there. They’re very erratic and temperamental. They’re the spiritual expression of somebody’s anger. Nobody stays angry for three weeks, do they? Not unless they’re a very disturbed character indeed.’

  I didn’t want to tell Amelia about the way in which Naomi had covered her face with her hands. It was too strongly reminiscent of the events that had taken place at the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital; especially since Naomi had insisted over and over that I knew what she was trying to describe. It gave me too deep a feeling of dread to think that there might be any connection. I didn’t really believe that there could be any connection. But all the same, I didn’t want to frighten Amelia and I didn’t particularly want to frighten myself, either.

  What I had seen at the Greenbergs’ apartment had already been frightening enough.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ I asked Amelia.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard about anything like it before.’

  ‘Maybe it’s nothing to do with spirits,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s just some kind of electrical fault.’

  ‘Electrical fault?’ she asked me, in the tone of voice that she probably used when one of her less bright remediais asked her the difference between cartoon characters and real life. I remember we had a kid at school who insisted that Mr Magoo lived at home with him, but I guess that’s another story.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t spirits,’ I said. ‘That’s why I threw caution and good manners and human decency to the winds and came round to ask you a favour.’

  Amelia unfolded a paper napkin and took out a pen. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there’s a man I know who lives on Central Park West. His name’s Martin Vaizey. He’s very sensitive, and particularly good at contacting wayward spirits. I think he may be able to help you even better than I could.’

  I tucked the napkin in my pocket without reading it. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I knew I could count on you.’

  ‘Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Martin. He’s very, very good. He’s talked to John Lennon a few times. Of course they were practically neighbours.’

  ‘He’s talked to John Lennon? You mean after he was shot?’

  Amelia nodded.

  ‘Did he get his autograph?’ I asked her.

  ‘Harry — don’t underestimate Martin, please. He’s kind of eccentric, but he’s a brilliant man. He’s a
better sensitive than me. He can tune himself, almost It’s fantastic to watch.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll give him a try.’

  ‘Don’t look so disappointed.’

  ‘I’m trying my damndest not to.’

  She checked her watch. ‘I have to get back to my class. It was good to see you again, Harry. Sorry I couldn’t help you personally.’

  ‘Well, me too. How about dinner sometime? They opened this terrific Korean restaurant on 52nd Street, close to my office. Have you ever tasted ojingu chim?’

  Amelia gave me a long, level look. ‘Why do I have the feeling that ojingu chim is going to be something awful?’

  ‘Come on, Amelia. What’s awful about squid’s bodies stuffed with pickled cabbage and chopped-up tentacles?’

  She stood up and went to the door, and waited for me smiling, one hand shading her eyes. I paid the check and came out after her and stretched.

  ‘I still miss knowing you,’ she said, lightly kissing my cheek. ‘But not that much.’

  I called back at the Greenbergs’ apartment before I attempted to get in touch with Martin Vaizey. When he answered the door, Michael looked sweaty and yellow, like a man with malaria. Karen was sitting by the window with a freshly-brewed jug of iced tea.

  ‘Any luck?’ Michael asked me.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Amelia wouldn’t do it, she said she gave up mysticism years ago. But she gave me the name of a sensitive on Central Park West. Highly recommended, that’s what she said.

  I nodded towards the dining room. ‘How is it in there?’

  ‘Awful … cold, scary. She keeps singing some song. The psychiatrist said that if she doesn’t show any signs of recovery by the end of the week, they’re going to have to pull her out of there whether she throws a seizure or not.’

  Karen came up. She was wearing a loose silk shirt of saffron yellow and a loose pair of silk pajama pants. Her hair was clipped back with yellow plastic barrettes. ‘Do you want some iced tea?’ she asked me. She knew I didn’t really want any; she was simply trying to show how concerned she was.

  ‘I’ll find somebody, don’t worry,’ I told Michael, grasping his shoulder. ‘I guaranteed that I was going to clear your apartment, one way or another, and I will.’

  I was on the point of leaving when I heard Naomi singing from the next room. Her voice was shrill and keening, with loud ululations at the end of every line. It went on, and on, echoing a little, and every line seemed to be different. I approached the half-open dining-room door and listened hard, but I couldn’t make out a single word she was saying.

  ‘Is that Hebrew?’ I asked Michael.

  Michael shook his head. ‘It’s no language that I ever heard before.’

  ‘How about you, Karen?’

  Karen said, ‘Me neither.’ But the singing went on and on, high and insistent; until at last Michael came forward and closed the door.

  ‘She was doing it all night,’ he explained. ‘I can’t take too much more of it.’

  ‘Will you do me one favour?’ I asked him. ‘Will you record it for me? You have a tape-deck, don’t you?’

  ‘You think it’ll help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. It can’t hurt, whatever.’

  I gave Karen a peck on the cheek, squeezed Michael Greenberg by his sweaty hand, and then left the building and hailed a taxi. The cabbie had just arrived in New York from Swaziland or someplace like that, and he drove backwards and forwards across midtown for almost fifteen minutes before I discovered that he was looking for ‘Sanitary Parts Waste.’

  ‘Central Park West, for Christ’s sake,’ I snapped at him. I told him to stop on the corner by Radio City, climbed out, and gave him some interesting physiological ideas about what he could do with his blatant request for a tip. I walked the rest of the way. By the time I reached the Montmorency Building my shirt was clinging to my back and my boxer shorts had twisted themselves into a sumo-wrestler’s loincloth. A dense hot sour-smelling smog covered everything. The park was bronze. Up above me reared the forbidding bulk of the Montmorency Building, an uglier cousin of the Dakota, all red brick and mansard roofs and cupolas and gargoyles. A plaque on the wall announced that it was the first apartment building in New York to have been wired for electric light

  Inside the mahogany swing doors, I was met by semi-darkness and a deep refrigerated chill. A large circular table stood in the centre of the brown-and-white mosaic floor, and in the centre of the table there was an extravagant arrangement of huge white arum lilies. I had the feeling that I had entered the foyer of a funeral parlour, rather than somebody’s home. On the far side of the foyer, there was a small niche in the panelling, in which a sallow potato-faced man with ears like a troll was smoking a bright green cigar and reading the sports section.

  I approached the niche and rapped on the ledge. ‘Can you help me? I’m looking for Mr Vaizey.’

  The man took the cigar out of his mouth with an exaggerated flourish. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But if you call him and say that I’m a friend of Amelia Wakeman, then I don’t think there’ll be any kind of problem.’

  ‘Mr Vaizey don’t see nobody without no appointment. Strict instructions.’

  ‘Will you just call him, please?’

  ‘Well I don’t know. He’s not too keen on being disturbed none.’

  I leaned on the ledge. ‘You want a shit-hot tip for the 4 o’clock or what?’

  The concierge narrowed his eyes and blew smoke out of his nostrils. ‘Who are you?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Harry Erskine, Erskine the Incredible — palmistry, card-divining, tea-leaf interpretation, astrology, phrenology, numerology, bumps read, sooths said.’

  The concierge rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, presumably in the general direction of Martin Vaizey’s apartment ‘You’re another one of these clairvoyant characters, huh? What’s this, the annual fortune-teller’s get-together?’

  ‘You want the tip or what?’

  The concierge didn’t answer, but punched out a number on his telephone. After a while, he said, ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Vaizey, but I got somebody called Bearskin down here, wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Erskine!’ I hissed, in a stage whisper. ‘A friend of Amelia Wakeman!’

  The concierge conveyed this revised message upstairs; waited; and then nodded.

  ‘He’ll see you,’ he said. ‘Apartment 717.’

  I walked toward the elevators, and pressed 7. The concierge stuck his head out of his niche and called, ‘Hey!’ in an echoing voice. ‘What about that tip?’

  ‘Oh … don’t bet on Perfect Favour.’

  ‘I wouldn’t’ve bet on Perfect Favour anyway. Everybody knows that nag is only one race away from the glue factory. I want to know what’s going to win, not what’s going to lose.’

  ‘Don’t we all, friend,’ I smiled, and rattled open the elevator gates. ‘Don’t we all.’

  To my surprise, Martin Vaizey was waiting for me in the corridor when I appeared. I had imagined one of those roly-poly asthmatic types with plastered-down hair and a purple silk bathrobe, rather like Zero Mostel in The Producers. Instead, I was greeted by a very tall, heavily-built man with wavy grey hair and a big open face, wearing a green plaid short-sleeved shirt, and jungle-green slacks and open-toed sandals.

  ‘Mr Erskine, come on in.’

  He led me into a large, airy apartment, decorated like a feature for Architectural Digest. You know the kind of thing — glass-topped tables with arrangements of marble pyramids and expensive books about artists you’ve never heard of, pale velvet drapes with fancy swags and tie-backs, exquisite flower-arrangements and a couple of inexplicable abstract paintings that look like somebody’s digestion rebelling against a double portion of crab claws in black bean sauce.

  ‘Attractive place,’ I told him.

  ‘I was lucky. It used to belong to my parents. Would you care for a drink? You look hot.
’

  ‘Is that a jug of margarita I see before me?’ I asked him, nodding towards a collection of elegant Swedish crystal on an elegant silver Swedish tray.

  ‘Sorry, no, it’s passion-fruit crush. I don’t drink alcohol. It disturbs my sensitivity.’

  ‘Yes, well, I guess it disturbs everybody’s sensitivity. That’s what it’s for.’

  Martin Vaizey sat down on the white hide couch opposite me, and crossed his legs.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Mr Erskine, Amelia called me from the school. She told me to expect you. She also gave me some idea of what it was you wanted.’

  ‘Did she tell you how serious it was?’

  ‘It’s obviously too serious for you to be able to handle it on your own.’

  ‘Mr Vaizey,’ I told him. ‘I’m a fortune-teller, — a freelance consultant in future options. The skills I have are showmanship, observation, a tireless ear, and the ability to tell anxious menopausal women exactly what they want to hear.’

  Martin Vaizey slowly nodded. ‘Those are not inconsiderable skills.’

  ‘I didn’t say they were. But they don’t include psychic sensitivity. I know that there are spirits all around us, just longing to get in touch, but whatever it takes to talk to them, I simply don’t have it. I’m like Alexander Graham Bell’s mother. How can I call him up and ask him if he’s invented the telephone yet? I don’t have the wherewithal.’

  Martin Vaizey steepled his fingers in front of his face and looked at me intently. He covered his face so that onlie ye Eyes look’d out. ‘You’re honest, at least,’ he told me, ‘and even on my side of the business, you don’t find much of that.’

  I didn’t know whether I should have been insulted by that remark or not. Probably yes. But right at this moment, I needed Martin Vaizey’s assistance a whole lot more than I needed my professional pride, so I decided to say nothing. I gave him my famous mail-slot grin instead, and nodded stiffly.

  ‘Do you know why Amelia wouldn’t help you herself?’ asked Martin Vaizey.

  ‘She said she’d given it up. You know, contacting the spirits, stuff like that. Besides, she and I had a thing going once. It was a long time ago, but it didn’t end too happily. I guess she didn’t want to risk an action replay.’