Twenty-Seven Bones

3

Talk about your heart leaping to your throat: Emily couldn’t have swallowed a poppy seed when she and Bennie returned from shopping Thursday afternoon to find a police car parked under the bay rum in the driveway.

Nothing to do but face it out. Emily whispered to Bennie to go around the back way and get his machete, then mounted the front steps, whispering a short Niassian prayer, which translated as Watch over my house, watch over my pigs, as she turned left at the landing. The front door was open-she saw Phil standing just inside the vestibule, talking to a fat black man in a cheap suit.

“Here she is now,” said Phil. “Detective Hamilton, this is my wife, Dr. Emily Epp. Em, this is Detective Hamilton. He wanted to know if we heard or saw anything unusual last night.”

“Not a thing. Did something happen at the Great House? There have been police cars coming and going all afternoon.”

“Meeyain’ at liberty to say, Missus Doctah.”

Just then Emily caught sight of Bennie tiptoeing across the living room, in the direction of his bedroom. She waved him over. “Here’s our houseman, Bennie. Bennie, did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary last night?”

Only Emily could have caught the twinkle in his eye when he said, “No, Ina Emily.”

“Thank you, Bennie. Is there anything else, Detective Hamilton? I don’t mean to be rude, but I still have so many things to do to get ready for tomorrow. We’re going to San Juan for the annual meeting of the Association of Anthropologists and Archaeologists of the Americas this weekend. If we have your permission to leave the island, that is,” she added.

“How long do you plan to be gone?”

“We’ll be back Sunday evening at the latest.”

“Meeyain’ see no problem, Missus Doctah.”

“Meeyain’ know me ass from me elbow, Missus Doctah,” chortled Emily a few minutes later. “Did he look stoned to you?”

“They all look stoned to me,” replied Phil. “But we seem to be in the clear for the time being.”

“What were you doing when he showed up.”

“Typing. I was so flustered I left the manuscript out on the table. All I could think of, the whole time I was talking to him, was please don’t let him ask to look around.”

“I told you it wasn’t wise to put things down on paper.”

“Punctiliously speaking, Zep, you asked me if it was wise. I said it was important. I still think it is.”

“Just let’s not push our luck. That’s all I’m saying here: let’s not push our luck.”

“I agree,” said Phil-this was how most of their arguments ended.

Phil’s bedroom was spartanly furnished. Single bed, rolltop desk, folding chair, card table for typing. He picked up the typescript to see how far he’d gotten, reread the last page, crumpled it in disgust, then quickly retrieved it from the wastebasket and tore it into strips. Once again, he’d reached the heart of the matter and found it indescribable. It was fun to write about the sex, challenging to trace the development of the ritual through the years-wrong turns, punctured lungs, the ehehas that escaped them, Bennie’s brilliant suggestion that they dispatch the subjects by severing their right hands-but the correct words with which to convey the feel of the ritual remained elusive.

Phil retrieved the crumpled paper from the wastebasket, reread it before tearing it into strips, then tore the strips into confetti. Have to buy a shredder, he reminded himself as he inserted another piece of paper into the trusty old Remington, and started typing again.

In many ways, subject H represented the apotheosis of the experience. Everything had proceeded optimally, including the fatal stroke. B was by then a master of the machete and they had all mastered the timing involved. The subject’s suffering was minimal, her spirit strong and vibrant for an islander, thanks no doubt to her youth, and the transfer went smoothly. But the crux of the matter, the transfer of the eheha, remains experiential, ineluctably inexpressible, and

Rip, crumple, retrieve, confetti-ize.