“That house over there, with the light in front, with the clock.”
The house, to my surprise, was a large neo-Georgian funeral parlor with a lighted clock in front crowned by a legend discreetly fashioned in Gothic gold on black: Whittaker and Dormer, Funeral Directors. A dozen cars had been parked closely together in the street and I was forced to park nearly a block away.
We walked along the sidewalk, street lamps behind trees cast shadows thick and intricate upon the pavement. “Is there any particular significance?” I asked. “I mean in the choice of meeting place?”
She shook her head. “Not really, no. We meet wherever it’s convenient. Mr Dormer is one of us and has kindly offered his chapel for the meetings.”
“Is there any sort of ritual I should observe?”
She laughed. “Of course not. This isn’t at all what you think.”
“I think nothing.”
“Then you are prepared. I should tell you, though, that until this year when a number of patrons made it possible for him” (already I could identify the “him” whenever it fell from her lips, round with reverence and implication) “to devote all his time to teaching, he was for ten years an undertaker’s assistant in Oregon and Washington.”
I said nothing. It was just as well to get past this first obstacle all at once. There was no reason of course to scorn that necessary if overwrought profession; yet somehow the thought of a savior emerging from those unctuous formaldehyde-smelling ranks seemed ludicrous. I reminded myself that one of the more successful messiahs had been a carpenter and that another had been a politician ... but an embalmer! My anticipation of great news was chilled; I prepared myself for grim comedy.
Iris would tell me nothing more about the meeting or about him as we crossed the lawn. She opened the door to the house and we stepped into a softly lighted anteroom. A policeman and a civilian, the one gloomy and the other cheerful, greeted us.