“Take a seat,” the accountant says, approaching the podium.
“Is Celia in the coffin,” Simon says.
“It’s her funeral, isn’t it?” The accountant does not pause or turn around to respond.
“Can I look?”
“Look later.”
Simon chooses a seat in the first row, center. He pictures every chair in the trailer occupied, except for those in the front row because the other funeral attendees, in awe of the depth of his grief, have left the front row empty.
People stand in the back, but nobody dares sit in the front row with Simon. He can almost hear the people whisper,
“That man loved her,” and “She loved that man,” and
“True love found them,” and “Even now, I long for what they had,” and “It’s always like this.”
Simon turns in his seat, first caught in his daydream and then by the empty chairs. Family and friends are not here.
The accountant clears her throat.
He faces her.
“Celia Conk is survived by her husband, Simon Conk.”
He clenches his right hand in his lap.
“The records of her birth and early life are contradictory and incomplete, and are therefore unworthy of repeating. In recent years, she graduated from Gramercy College with a Bachelors of Science in Ornithology. She was employed by the St. George Free Zoo from the month of her graduation until April of this year. At the time of her death, Celia Conk was $1,916 in debt. She had not made a payment toward nullifying her debt since her termination from St. George. Her life was presumably a happy one, albeit short.”
The accountant sighs. She looks bored.
“Is that all?” Simon asks.
“Unless you have something to add.”
Simon rises and approaches the coffin. He kneels beside it, presses his right hand against the lacquered lid about where he estimates Celia’s face to be, and bows his head. He has never been to a funeral so maybe this is how all of them go, but it feels wrong to him. There must be something he can say.
Nothing rises. Maybe silence is best. No reason to fill her coffin with words. Words don’t help the dead.
“Do you have anything more to add?” the accountant says. Simon opens his eyes and looks at the accountant. He realizes that his face is wet. “That is all,” he says.
“Since it’s only the two of us, do you mind if we discuss payment here,” the accountant says.
“Payment?”
“Funerals aren’t free, you know.”
“Is there somewhere else we can go to discuss payment? I mean—” he gestures to the coffin.
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t have suggested that we have another option. My office is all the way across the property and I’ve got to bury yours and prepare the next body before my three o’clock appointment arrives. There’s really no time.”
The next body. Three o’clock appointment. These are the terms of death. Simon hates this old woman who calls herself the accountant.
She takes a black binder from the podium and steps off the plywood riser, comes and sits next to him. She opens the binder across her lap and clicks her tongue against her teeth, like a teacher attempting to show a failing student what they’re doing wrong.
“Total cost is $1,916.”
“How can it be that much? You hardly did anything.”
“The cost of a basic funeral is the debt owed by the deceased at the time of death. Had your wife owed nothing, her funeral would be free.”
“Nobody said anything about payment.”
“It’s in the agreement that you signed. Ignorance does not absolve responsibility.”
“Will Celia’s debt be cleared, or is this additional?”
“It’s additional.”
“Can I pay in installments?”
“There’s a monthly plan, but I warn you, the interest is steep.”
“Fine.”
“How much would you like to pay now?”
“Can you mail the bill? I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do today.”
The accountant studies his suit. She has a look on her face that says she’s registering the blood and sweat and mud for the first time. She seems to spend a long time studying the flop ping sleeve of his suit jacket.
“You’ve had a bad time of this,” she says. She shuts the binder and looks at her wristwatch. “If we hurry, I suppose there’s time to run over to my office.”
“Is there more to discuss?”
“The monthly installment form is in my office. If you take it with you, it’ll save me a stamp.”
“If it means that much.”
“It does.”
The accountant springs up from the foldout chair, knocking it to the ground as she charges for the door.
Simon picks up the fallen chair and hurries after her.
He has to sprint to keep up. He feels awkward and unbalanced, hustling down the stone path with one arm taped to his side.
About a hundred yards behind the trailer, they come upon another trailer. The accountant goes inside and Simon follows. Except for a white desk, three foldout chairs, and several rusting file cabinets, the trailer is bare.
“Sit down,” the accountant says.
Simon collapses in a chair and rests his forehead on the edge of the desk. He is breathless. His side aches.
The accountant opens a file cabinet and removes a green document. She sits across the desk from him, studying the document. “You have twelve months from today to pay for all funeral expenses, including interest,” she says, sliding the form across the desk.
Simon sits up. He creases the form down the middle and stuffs it into his inner breast pocket.
“Anything else?”
“Give me your hand,” the accountant says.
Simon places his right hand palm-up on the desk.
“The other hand.”
“I can’t. I taped my left arm to my side.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“It was acting up.”
“Let me look at it. Maybe I can help.”
“It won’t move.”
The accountant comes around the desk and stops behind Simon. She puts her hands on his shoulders. “Let me look.”
Simon shrugs. He is too confused to resist. Plus, maybe if he lets the accountant look at his arm, she’ll take pity and reduce the amount owed for the funeral.
She removes his jacket and rolls up the left sleeve of his shirt. She tears off a piece of electrical tape. Simon flinches. Hair and skin come away with the tape, but the pain does not alert his left arm into action.
The accountant lifts his left arm and lays Simon’s hand palm-up on the desk. She reaches above him, grabs the withered string that used to be attached to his left hand, and returns to her side of the desk. She opens a drawer, comes up with a little sewing kit, and removes a needle and blue thread. Simon is too shocked to get up and run out of the trailer.
“Be still and don’t speak,” the accountant says.
“But how can you—”
“I said shut up.”
Simon obeys.
The accountant grips his left hand string between her teeth while she threads the needle. After the needle is threaded, she loops it in and out of the severed end of his left hand string.
She lowers the string to the center of his left palm.
“This might hurt, but it won’t take long,” she says.
She weaves the needle in and out of his palm. Every time the needle enters his hand, it feels like a tattoo gun being pushed too deep. But she’s right, it doesn’t take long. As soon as his string is sewn back to his hand, she bites and ties the thread, and returns the thread and needle to the sewing kit.
Simon digs his fingers into his palm.
He can move his left arm again.
Although the funeral just ended, he suddenly feels very excited.
He leaps out of his chair and says, “You see them too.”