John the Posthumous Read online

  Ax mannikins, for surgeons, are said to resemble nuns. Thorns can replace the eyes, surely, though seams are customary. Pinholes suggest a gloomier room, later in the year. The lips are black specks—grime or tar or soot.

  Skeletons, on maps of the towns—such figures often replace annotations. In Bonelawn, as Bethlehem was once known, torches mean retreat or flight. In Mildred, there are rowboats for drownings. In Townsend, shovels and pickaxes for disease. Maps of the battlefields use red circles for smallpox and red dashes for blood. Bodies are shown as dots at the bottom of the sheet.

  My recipe for tripe requires a slip of buff paper, a woman’s name embossed at the top. A fold, lengthwise, should hide nine words. The hand should slant.

  Calf’s liver, potted, is better in winter. Calf’s heart is simpler, despite the veins and clots. Sheep’s lights, beaten and trimmed, and then plunged into boiling water, drained, dredged with flour, and baked for two hours—these are garnished with parsley.

  Score in squares or present handsome gashes.

  Silver should be placed one inch from the edge of the table—the knives, turned in, sitting below the glass, which will topple, or perhaps crack in your hand.

  The plate should be white and without ornament. Address the left side first, except when crooknecks or parsnips are in evidence. Remember that the meat can sometimes bleed too amply.

  The napkin will fall by the end of the meal.

  To remove objects correctly, begin with your wife’s position. If this is empty, begin with the child’s. If the child’s position is empty, carry the carving knife to the sideboard.

  Gather the scraps in butcher paper or a tall jar.

  III.

  Disposition of the remains, in an upper room, as nighttime arrives—this accounts for the houndstooth pattern. A flannel housecoat (pointed yoke, open neck) and a gentleman’s possessions (we have few, alas) do seem pleasant facts, certainly, save for the question of the insects. Bluebottles are more likely than houseflies, especially about the mouth, while beetles (carrion, for instance, and bark) are often seen beneath the sleeves.

  Removal from the room, in the morning, assuming two bronze clocks, a lampshade, and a rope—but let us neglect the plan of the staircase, please.

  The dissection tables display bell chains, dowels, twine. The rat-tail hinges are a bit too stout. Names are written out on the near side—brown letters for orphans, blue for Jews.

  The clouts rust well, or stand at a charming slant.

  The implements, brass and otherwise, are missing from some depictions.

  In Germantown, a wooden arm falls afoul of the rail. In Red Bank, organs are replaced with artifacts—and, on occasion, rocks. In Pike Fork, widows are painted gray.

  Measurement of the dead, like measurement of a bride, occurs as per local practice, and may require a catlin knife.

  The horses and dogs are destroyed behind the morgue.

  To examine the left atrium, posterior aspect, cut along the septum, ignoring the middle cardiac vein (awfully narrow and black, in this case) and the pulmonary trunk (or the remnant thereof)—and then hold the heart aloft. To examine the right atrium, cut out the lateral wall, disclosing the eustachian valve—though this is often absent in the adult heart. The arteries are best observed from above, except in the event of certain defects, such as those known to afflict widowers in cities. A cross section will show four holes (rather resembling a face, I am afraid) and two appendages, dark at the far end.

  To examine the ventricles, in a frontal section, use fingers or shears. Discard in parts.

  The embalming tables are adorned with gilt figures. Some later examples are famous for their claw-and-ball feet. What a pity, however, about the torn ribbon.

  A porcelain basin sits beside a porcelain chamberpot. The cabinets favor eyebolts, strap hinges, white paint.

  The jars of arsenic account for the cats.

  If drams replace barn-gallons, and nails replace hands—doubtless this will ruin the view of the wounds. The first, at the throat, suits the room. The second, at the jaw, is perhaps too extravagantly red.

  Superstition dictates that the head face west, and that the frame and grates form a cross. The slats are covered with matting—burlap, presumably, or stammel.

  The mold grows best at night.

  To prepare the remains, use equal parts turpentine (or ammonia, in summer) and mutton tallow (or rottenstone, if need be)—though scalding water will also suffice. Soak the brush in a tin pail. Males require straight-razors with dull blades and pearl handles—except, of course, in cases of decollation. To shut the eyes, use birdlime and wax. Suture the mouth with a length of wire.

  The incision at the neck, just above the collarbone, on the right side—this should measure one inch across, keeping in mind the condition of the flesh and the size of the child. Locate the carotid artery. Introduce the solution, which should include, in addition to the usual elements, wormwood and gray sour—the latter in the absence of dye. Drain the blood through a cast-iron pipe.

  Engravings after 1800 favor the more familiar sign, or something akin to it, though this is easily mistaken for a dead mouse or a bloody hand. A split-head teaspoon of about 1810, then, common in coffins, may startle one. A carving knife of roughly the same moment, such as the specimen found at the New Street house, will likely display letters and numbers—or, to be exact, a name and a date.

  In various woodcuts, the heart appears as a crutch-cross or a pitchfork. The former, given this configuration of spikes, also means lightning—and fire, when events warrant. A Devil’s staff, pointing east—perhaps this will remind you of Philip. Inverted, it means murder.

  Portraits of the corpses indicate a different predicament, naturally, given the character of the town. In a parlor, red words on a dress. At a cannon, a bit of spittle on a lapel. In a wagon, which collapses, rats atop a claw-hammer coat.

  Tradition calls for charcoal or black ink. The letter Y, imprinted on the skin, may suggest a thorn of some sort. The letter H is three blades. There is usually a name, too, I understand—the wife’s, in blue dye.

  Engravings on certain rings, in 1860—these reverse the initials, among other errors. The platinum items are a consolation, it turns out, though the ardent phrases appear in the wrong places. A copper trinket of about 1880, found with the garments, resembles a hatpin or a knitting needle, and omits the heart altogether.

  TEN

  My wife arranged the knives in a tidy row. Sometimes a game is made of such formations—don’t you find? And so she collects the needles and he extracts the hairpins as—observe—the blanket turns black. Or so goes our conjecture, as quaint as the names of the places. Or the ax in the pattern of the house. It catches the light or dispatches a shadow—though this is more often the case for widowers, I think.

  In certain histories of the romantic tale, ritual dictates a trembling of the hands.

  Dowagers swallowed rings, silver and otherwise, on such occasions—though I have this point on poor authority. They would trace the initials and burn the pages. Sometimes they hung them on hooks. Yes—oh, well, no. Hers sat—once, that I recall—on the windowsill. The panes and the blinds, a woman in a gown. A geometry of nuptial detail. Which does put it grandly.

  My wife kept the knife box. Caskets are also used for jewels—is this not pleasant to remember? Spinsters hung theirs on nails—though spikes were more common, I take it. The wall is white, the table blue, the door as clean as a hatchet. To claim an old phrase. Set yours in the drawer, please, or beneath the bedsheet. Wear the ashes, in the manner of a widow. Say the name.

  In certain histories of ritual, romantic tales are nailed to caskets in the square.

  The wife burns the husband’s clothing. The husband stands at the end of the corridor, on every floor. We do embrace our examples, sometimes, with undue devotion. The town—it had been founded by a benedict. Commencing with burnt posts on a lawn. Our house was quite plain, I am afraid. Pause here, at the door. Present yours
elf at the window, as she had, and now remove yourself from view.

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