I, Daniel Quinn, neither the first nor the last of a line of such Quinns (of this I was hopeful), would, with the courage false or real that comes with an acute onset of hubris, create a world before which I could kneel with awe and reverence as I waited to be carried off into flights of tragic laughter.
I did not write Magdalena’s obituary but I did compose the notice of her death and carried it to town to have it printed as a handbill for distribution throughout the city. It read:
NOTICE OF PROXIMATE DEATH
The social leader and former international theater star Magdalena Colón Griswold, with all sincerity and affection, invites the visiting and resident citizenry of Saratoga to a viewing of her last remains, so to speak, this evening at her home, Griswold Gardens, on the eastern shore of Saratoga Lake. Her passing will take place on the Griswold lawn, and so, to facilitate the viewing, it is suggested that visitors carry with them either candle or lamp. Dinner and libations will be served, and dancing on the lawn will begin sharply at eight o’clock.
Magdalena had not anticipated anything more than a solemn parade of mourners filing past her, uttering condolences, shaking her mortal paw. But when John McGee arrived he put an end to such thinking.
“We’re having a party,” he said. “You can’t spoil everybody’s evening just because you’ve decided to die.” And so the final sentence was added to the handbill’s invitation.
The guests began to arrive by seven. Those invited to the birthday were received in the mansion; those invited to the wake were directed to the lawn. John, when present at the mansion, clearly became the man of the house, Obadiah no more than a potty little wisp in the cosmos. John took up the welcoming position at the front gate, just as he had at the track, but now he turned away no one, including known thieves.
“Just stay outside the house,” he told the thieves he recognized, “or I’ll eat your gizzard for lunch.”
Champagne, Bordeaux wines, squab, and lobster were served to the birthday guests; beer, oyster stew, and crackers to the mourners on the lawn. John had ordered a stage built at the edge of the reflecting pool and at seven sharp Adolph Bernstein’s orchestra from the United States Hotel began the music of the evening with a Chopin medley. John also asked Jim Fisk to bring his German band to the party, Fisk said he would, and did, and so music was continuous for Magdalena’s presumably farewell performance. Milo, the Master of Magic from Albany, performed hat and animal tricks at an intermission, and when the music resumed Milo waltzed with a dancing bear, who was actually Cornelius Gómez, an idiot-savant Mexican dwarf, who told fortunes for a quarter afterward on the veranda.
Magdalena watched it all from her vantage point at the cusp of the lawn’s principal slope, Maud beside her dotingly, responding to all her whims, which grew fewer as the line of strangers who came to wish her a pleasant passing grew longer.
“What a lovely idea inviting people to your wake. . Are you dead yet, Magdalena?. . When do you die?. . Will we see it happen?. . Have a good time in heaven, Magdalena. . We’ll miss you. . Will there be a party for the funeral, too?”
“You’re all such dears to come,” said Magdalena. “I hope we don’t run out of food. Maud, will we run out of food?”
“No, Auntie.”
“That’s nice, dear. Keep them moving.”
No one mentioned the mockery of the afternoon to Magdalena, this warning passed on to all in line by order of John McGee, who said that if anyone talked of the thing to Magdalena he would break both their legs. Of the mockery, John discovered through informers that the two Negroes were both transient stable hands who had no knowledge of what they were doing and earned three dollars apiece for what they thought was entertainment for the crowd.
Gordon Fitzgibbon grew so pensive and melancholy over the mockery that Maud could not bear his presence and sent him away to elevate her own spirits. She told Gordon to cure himself of gloom and come back to the party in jubilation or else she would have nothing to do with him for the entire evening. Gordon went off and drank gin at the United States bar and returned at sunset with a rakish angle to his tall hat and a crooked smile on his face, the first time Quinn ever noted anything likable in the man.
Gordon arrived on the arm of his cousin Phoebe Strong, whose horse had also suffered humiliation during the afternoon, finishing a ridiculous number of lengths behind the winner. What Gordon did not know, nor did Quinn, was that Phoebe had been the architect and executrix of the mockery, and of the letter penned by Purity Knickerbocker — these facts unearthed by John McGee and his Hawkshaw network of social spies. John told only Maud of his discovery, and so Phoebe arrived at the wake with the serenity of a criminal who has committed the perfect crime.
Humanity arrived in great droves to mourn for Magdalena and grieve in its free beer. The lawn was asprawl with a vast multitude, the night a wash of flickering brilliance from a thousand lamps, lighting up the lawn more brightly than a full moon. John took it upon himself to summon a Presbyterian cleric, who was part of Magdalena’s social set, to utter a prayer on behalf of the imminent decedent’s soul, but the uniqueness of the occasion thwarted the man and instead he uttered a homily on the therapeutic quality of night breezes. Magdalena lost patience and shooed him away.
“Daniel,” she said, “you say a prayer for me.”
“No,” I said, “I can’t do that sort of thing anymore. But I shall write about you as one of the great philanthropists in the entire history of sensuality.”
“He’s so brilliant,” said Magdalena. And then she pulled me to her and kissed me on the lips.
“I envy Maud,” she whispered.
“You are the queen of the night,” I told her, and she feigned a swoon.
The mourners’ line undulated across the entire lawn, and at the level area atop the slope the dancing began.
“I should like to dance,” said Magdalena. “It may help me die. I should like to dance with John McGee.”
“And so you shall,” I said, and we organized the bearers, who carried Magdalena and her chaise longue across the lawn to the dancing area. I summoned John and told him he was wanted. He had never stopped being Magdalena’s lover, even after her marriage to Obadiah — their assignations, whenever John was in range, being an open secret, and always conducted on Wednesday afternoons, Magdalena’s preferred day of the week ever since a young lover told her Wednesday had been named for the god of poetic frenzy.
And so we danced: Magdalena and John, Gordon and Phoebe, Maud and I, and several hundred others, all waltzing to the music of “Beautiful Dreamer,” so very popular at this moment. Seeing her dance I did not believe Magdalena would die. She looked irrepressibly radiant. How could such a vivid creature cease to be?
“I think we should change partners,” Maud said, and she broke from me and went to Gordon. “I would like to dance with Phoebe,” she said.
“With Phoebe?” said Gordon, stunned.
“With Phoebe,” said Maud, and she grasped a reluctant Phoebe in a waltzing position and moved her forcefully away from Gordon, all of us suddenly turned into spectators. But dancing was not Maud’s intention, as she proved by spinning Phoebe around and ripping her dress down the back. Phoebe tried to turn and strike Maud but Maud was far stronger and quite ready for the countering. She then flung Phoebe onto the floor, face down, and sat on her back. Gordon and another man started to intervene but John stopped them.
“Let them be,” said John. “History needs elbow room tonight.”
Maud continued ripping Phoebe’s dress, and then her petticoat and fluffy netherings, Phoebe squirming and screaming to the death, of course, howling for help. I thought Maud must have lost her reason, and yet her method exuded such control that a purpose was obvious.