Gideon's Corpse

77

Gideon turned off North Guadalupe Street, driving the Suburban through the ancient Spanish gate and onto the groomed white gravel entryway of the Santa Fe National Cemetery. A dozen or so cars were parked before the Administration Building and he pulled in beside them, then exited the vehicle and glanced around. It was a warm summer morning, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains dark green against a porcelain sky. The orderly rows of small white tombstones stretched ahead of him, running from the shade into brilliant light.

He walked east, his shoes crunching on the gravel. This was the older part of the cemetery—originally built for the Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Glorieta Pass—but he could see, through the pines and cedars, the distant newer section, climbing the low flanks of the nearby ridge, where the desert had been newly covered with turf and transformed into Technicolor green. Partway up the hill, he could make out a small group of people gathering around an open grave.

He gazed over the neatly ordered files of white crosses and stars of David. Before long, I’ll be in a place like this, and people will be gathering around my grave. This unexpected and unwanted thought was quickly followed by another, dreadful yet irresistible: Who will come to mourn me?

He turned up the path that led toward the group of mourners.

The details of Simon Blaine’s involvement in the terrorist plot had been kept out of the papers. Gideon had expected to see a much larger crowd at his burial. He had been, after all, a well-known and well-regarded novelist. But as Gideon made his way through the severe white rows, he realized there were no more than two dozen people circled around the open grave. As he approached, he could make out the voice of the priest, intoning the older, formal Episcopal version of the Burial of the Dead:

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints,

where sorrow and pain are no more,

neither sighing, but life everlasting.

He moved forward, stepping out of the shade of the trees and into brilliant sunlight. His eyes searched the crowd and found Alida. She was dressed in a simple black dress, with a veiled hat and white elbow-length gloves. He took an unobtrusive place at the back fringe of the group and surreptitiously studied her face across the grave. The veil was pinned back across the hat. As she stared down at the coffin, her eyes were dry but her face looked ravaged and utterly desolate. His own eyes remained on her face, unable to look away. Suddenly her gaze flickered up and met his for one terrible second. Then she looked back down, into the grave.

What was that look? He tried to parse it. Was there any feeling there? It had been too quick, and now she resolutely refused to raise her head again.

Into thy hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy servant Simon…

In the week following Fort Detrick, Gideon had tried repeatedly to contact Alida. He had wanted—needed—to explain: to tell her how desperately sorry he was; to say how terrible he’d felt about deceiving her, to express his condolences about what had happened to her father. He had to help her understand he’d simply had no choice. That her father had done it to himself, something she must of course realize.

Each time he’d tried calling, she had hung up. The last time he called he found she had switched to an unlisted number.

Then he’d tried waiting outside the gate to her father’s house, hoping that, by seeing him, she would stop just long enough for him to explain… But she had driven past, twice, without a look or acknowledgment.

And so he had come to the burial, willing to endure any humiliation to see her, talk, explain. He didn’t expect that their relationship could continue, but at least he would be able to reach out to her one last time. Because the idea of leaving it like this, raw and unresolved, full of bitterness and hatred, was something he simply couldn’t imagine. He had so little time left—he knew that now.

Again and again he had replayed in his head their time together: their horseback escape; Alida’s initial fury at him; the slow morphing of her feelings into something else, culminating into love—his first real love, thanks to the incredible generosity of her heart and spirit.

In the midst of life we are in death;

of whom may we seek for succor,

but of thee, O Lord,

who for our sins art justly displeased?

Gideon began to feel like an intruder, blundering in on something private and personal. He turned away and walked back down the slope of the hill, past grave after grave after grave, until he reached the older section of the cemetery. There, in the cool shade of a cypress tree, he waited on the white gravel path, where she would have to pass by on her way back to her car.

Even if you only have a year, let’s make that year count. Together. You and me. We’ll roll up a lifetime of love in one year. Her words. He found himself haunted by the image of her, naked in the doorway of her ranch house, beautiful as a Botticelli maiden—that day he’d driven away in her car, hell-bent on ruining her father’s life.

…Why was it so important for him to speak with her? Was it because he still hoped, against all hope, that he could make her see things his way, understand the awful bind he had been in, and—ultimately, with the boundlessness of her big heart—forgive him? Or did part of him already guess that was impossible? Maybe he needed to explain simply for his own peace of mind—because, though perhaps he could never again hope Alida might love him, at least he could help her understand.

He watched the service from afar. The shifting breeze brought the priest’s faint voice to his ears from time to time, a distant murmur. The coffin was lowered. And then it was over. The tightly clustered group around the grave loosened and began to disperse.

He waited in the shade as they made the long, slow, straggling procession down the hill, his eye fixed on her, her alone, as people offered her their condolences, hugged Alida, took her hand. It all took an excruciatingly long time. First came the cemetery workers; next a knot of women of a certain age, talking animatedly among themselves in low tones; next, various young people and couples; and then came the priest and a few of his assistants. He gave Gideon a professional smile and nod as he passed.

Last came Alida. He had assumed she would be accompanied by others, but she had drifted back from them and was the last to leave, all alone. She approached him, bowed by her loss but still walking proud, her head erect and staring straight ahead, moving slowly along the long, narrow pathway among the graves. She didn’t seem to see him. As she drew closer, Gideon felt a strange hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Now she was almost upon him. He wasn’t sure what to do—whether to speak, step in front of her, reach out—and as she drew alongside he parted his lips to speak but no sound came. He watched, struck mute, as she passed by, walking the same slow walk, her eyes straight ahead, without the faintest flicker, the faintest change of expression, to acknowledge his existence.

He followed her with his eyes as she continued down the path, her back to him now, never deviating in her deliberate, icy stride. He continued watching her dwindling black figure for several minutes more, until she had disappeared around the distant edge of the building. He waited until she was long gone, until all the cars were gone, and then waited some more. Finally, with a deep, unsteady breath, he made his own way out along the narrow pathways between the gravestones, down the graveled path, to his car.