29

I heard the dogs. Their howling seemed to rise from every direction as it bounced off the rocks. A shiver fluttered up my spine. I carried the package wrapped in paper in my right hand. Soon the headlamp dimmed ever so slightly. I shut it off. Whether I closed my eyes or kept them open, I was picking my way forward in the same utter darkness. I would carefully put a foot down to test the ground while moving my right hand in front of me to make certain nothing blocked my path.

I stopped as my hand touched a smooth surface. I flicked on my light and saw a tall doorway made of white marble. Immediately beside it another white doorway stood framed in the black rock. The howling of the dogs came closer.

I pushed the door on my left. Light blinded me as I stepped through it. I threw my arm over my eyes and only very gradually adjusted to the brightness. Above me was a vast expanse of white, like the skin of an albino. It was not sky. There was no sun. On the ground in front of me, lit by this light that had no discernable source, I saw burial markers.

I had once been to Normandy and seen the cemeteries for the soldiers. The white crosses went on and on in rows as neat as strong, young men aligned in a vast formation. Here, before me, was a cemetery reminiscent of that, except that each grave had a marble headstone. Still dazed by the brightness of the light, I wandered on the lawn among the headstones. After a while I stopped here and there to read an inscription, but most of the stones were written in languages I didn’t know. I could identify French, Spanish, Italian, even Latin and Greek. And I could at least guess at the countries represented by Cyrillic and other characters. But there were other markings—like hieroglyphs, runes, and even stranger symbols—of which I could make nothing.

I tried to understand the reason for this vast cemetery. Who had created it? Why bring together remains, not only from every region of the world but also, as the inscriptions indicated, from vastly different times?

I walked on and on until I realized that this burial ground must have no boundaries. I might walk forever and never come to where the headstones ended. The grass was perfectly manicured, like a putting green or the infield of a major-league baseball stadium. Perhaps every thousandth headstone had an inscription in English. I lingered over these. The first one simply said, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I moved on and found another that said, “Thy will be done.” When I read the entire inscription, I saw that this little girl had died in the third year of the Civil War. I could feel the grief of her parents in the brief epitaph and the careful record of her age—two years, two months, and eleven days. But, I thought, even if she had lived a full life span, she would have died long ago.

Another inscription said, “Sacred to the memory of my mother. As a wife devoted, as a mother affectionate, as a friend ever kind and true.”

“’Tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death to die,” I read while kneeling in front of another headstone, and the next one I found said, “Each lonely scene shall thee restore.”

“To know him was to love him,” wrote a wife.

A husband said, “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Tired at last, I sat facing a headstone on which the epitaph read, “Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.” I felt something vibrate in my memory. I had come here to find something or someone. Why no image shaped in my mind, telling me what or who, I don’t know. If I looked at a thousand headstones, I might see a name that would waken me to my purpose. I rose and moved among the tombstones more quickly. If I found a familiar name, the right name, I might know why I had been compelled to come here at all. I walked farther and farther, looking left and right for names that might spark my memory. Finding none, I began to run along the rows. When I could run no more, my face wet with sweat or tears, I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. Carefully I began to retrace my steps. Several times I feared I had lost my way, but at last I pushed against the door and returned to the darkness on its other side.

Now I opened the door on the right. The same light flooded over me, and I shaded my eyes. I could see no difference in the long rows and columns of headstones that, as in the first cemetery, filled the landscape, seemingly without end. I sighed and shifted my package from one arm to the other. I looked for headstones with inscriptions in English. Everything about this cemetery suggested that it was identical to the first.

The first headstone in English showed me my mistake. There was a name and a date of birth, but no date of death. It had to be an oversight. I walked farther, but even the headstones in foreign languages showed only dates of birth. There were no inscriptions, no epitaphs. Studying the birth dates, I realized that all of them were relatively recent. Because no date of death appeared, I could only assume these people were living. If I searched far enough, I would find headstones for myself and everyone I knew.

Fatigue sapped me. Though only a short distance from the entry, I didn’t know if I could return to the marble door. Slowly I placed one foot after another, like a man in a storm leaning forward against the violent shove of the wind. When the door slammed behind me, I collapsed in an exhausted stupor.

I woke to the sound of chewing, interrupted by snatches of conversation.

“He’s coming around,” said a shrill voice.

“How are you, my friend?” asked a deeper voice.

“Who are you?” I replied, struggling to move my arm and turn on my light.

“Thanks for the meat,” said a voice in between the other two.

“Yes, thanks.”

I finally managed to flick the switch. At first I imagined I saw a dog with three heads—a dachshund’s, a golden retriever’s, and a German shepherd’s. But my vision steadied, and I realized that their heads were only close together over the torn paper of the package I’d been carrying. I could see their separate bodies as they tore at the red meat.

“This is very good,” said the golden retriever. “It reminds me of the delicacies that turned up outside a butcher shop I used to frequent. How I looked forward to pawing through those trash cans.”

“Are you all right?” asked the German shepherd in his deep voice. “You look as if you’ve had a shock.”

“Do you know what’s behind these doors?” I asked, gesturing toward them.

“You weren’t supposed to get in,” said the shrill dachshund. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I can’t remember the last time somebody came,” said the retriever with his mellow voice. “So we’re not always here. We like to get exercise, go for a run.”

“You were supposed to keep me out?”

The German shepherd nodded, and all three of them looked abashed.

“Why doesn’t one of you guard the doors while the other two run?” I asked.

“It’s more fun if we all go,” said the retriever.

“It’s just better,” agreed the dachshund.

“But …,” I started to protest.

“How can we help you?” asked the German shepherd.

The dachshund stretched, his small front paws extended and his spine curving from low between his shoulders to where his brown rump reached upward. “I’m getting sleepy.”

“What’s up ahead?” I asked.

“You don’t really want to know.” The German shepherd punctuated his response with a large yawn.

“I’m going there anyway.”

He shook his head. “We can’t allow that.”

“But why?”

“It’s for your own good.”

“Let me decide what’s for my own good,” I answered sharply.

“You can’t go,” he answered, and yawned again.

“Are you sleepy?” asked the dachshund.

“Yes,” said the golden retriever.

“I am too,” agreed the German shepherd.

“This happened before,” said the retriever, “quite a while ago. Remember?”

“You’re right,” said the dachshund. “We ate and then we had to sleep. We simply couldn’t stay awake.”

The dachshund closed his eyes, and the German shepherd kept showing his long teeth as he yawned ever more widely.

“It’s such an effort to stay awake,” he said as the retriever lay down to sleep beside the dachshund. “Look, I can’t stop you, but I’m asking you not to go forward.”

“I have to go,” I repeated, feeling the compulsion that had brought me this far.

“Listen to me. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“Will you be all right?” I asked, concerned to see him getting groggy like the others.

“We’ll be fine. It’s you I’m concerned about.”

“I’m sorry about the meat,” I said.

“You won’t reconsider?”

“No,” I answered.

“Maybe,” he said, his eyes fluttering in his efforts to keep them open, “it will all work out for the best.”

“But why would you want to stop me?” I asked.

“You’ll see. She’s in her kitchen. That’s where we went on our last run.”

“Is it straight ahead?” I asked.

“You can’t miss it. All the paths end there. Take care, my friend,” he said with a sad glistening in his dark eyes. He walked a few times in a circle and at last curled up to sleep beside his comrades.