The Truth About Death Read Free Page B

healing power of great art, and years later she’d decorated his hideaway up in the octagonal tower, which she called a belvedere, with good quality prints—Lascaux, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet, Renoir, Pollock, De Kooning, and even a painting done by an elephant—so Simon would have something beautiful to look at when he wanted to get away from his work. She’d wanted him to see what she saw when she looked at Rembrandt’s Side of Beef or Pollock’s Alchemy , or a still life by Morandi, and she had wanted him to learn from Chardin to see the beauty all around us, to feel the emotional impact of colored pigments.
    She’d stopped short of framing them, but she had labeled each one with the painter’s name and dates. There wasn’t much wall space, just room for twenty-four prints, in columns of three, between the eight pairs of high windows.
    Now she was fifty-six years old, still attractive. One of her colleagues, a man Elizabeth had always admired, had propositioned her only last week. She hadn’t been tempted. She and Simon had been lucky in love. And lucky in their vocations. She was preparing a paper on a series of odd figures—figures that didn’t belong—in medieval and early Renaissance iconography, and would be presenting her paper at the CAA conference atNew York University in the spring. And Simon—well, people kept dying. The phone kept ringing. And like Hermes, the Greek god of transitions and boundaries, Simon kept on conducting the souls of the dead from this world to the next.
    She had a pork roast in the oven. All she needed to do was boil some baby potatoes and make a salad. Without Simon and Hildi there’d be nine—she counted on her fingers—including the kids. Eleven, if Simon’s brother Able and his wife, Marilyn, showed up.
    There’d be enough left over for sandwiches tomorrow. Elizabeth and Simon’s son, Jack, and Jack’s wife, Sally, would be coming from New York in the morning. They were going to rent a car at the airport in Peoria. She went upstairs to speak to Hildi.
    PART IV: HILDI
    Hildi was looking out her bedroom window, trying to picture the parking lot as a paddock, trying to remember Salty and Stormy, when her mother snapped a picture with a new digital camera. When Hildi heard the camera click, she turned around and smiled. She’d been rummaging through a suitcase, which was open on the bed, looking for something to wear on the removal.
    “You don’t have to do this, you know,” her mother said. “You’ve only been here two days. There’s no reason Morris can’t go.”
    “Uncle Morrie?” Hildi laughed. “Right.”
    Her mother handed her the camera so she could look at the image on the tiny screen. “You’re too nice,” her mother said. “You need to be tougher, stronger.”
    “I am strong,” Hildi said, flexing her muscles. “I don’t know why you don’t want me to go.”
    “I just don’t. That’s all. It’s not right.”
    “Uncle Morrie wouldn’t pick up a dead body in a million years,” she said. “Besides, it’s Mr. Johansen. Anders. He’s the one who sold Grandpa Bart the horses.”
    “I know about the horses. That doesn’t mean you have to pick up his dead body. Your brother never went on removals.”
    “Mah-ahm,” Hildi protested.
    “What are you going to do if he weighs three hundred pounds?”
    “He can’t weigh that much. Pop said he had cancer. Besides, Pop’s got the new Med Sled. He showed me this afternoon. It’s got a stairwell braking system, so you can attach it to something at the top of the stairway and just slide the body down without worrying that it’s going to get away from you.”
    “That’s wonderful, Sweetie. Now put on some dark slacks and a white blouse.” Her mother started to look through the clothes that had been piled up on the bed. “You need to look respectable. Like you know what you’re doing.”
    “I do know what I’m doing,” Hildi said.
    “I hope so.”
    “Maybe I’ll take