All My Relations by Christopher McIlroy Page B

ritual.
    â€œYou don’t belong there,” she says. “I don’t either. But you don’t.”
    â€œSo by logic we should go together.”
    Dooley shakes her head. Maybe at dawn, she says, for goodbye. That’s when the spirit leaves the body.
    Night is falling as we reach Alav. I peck Dooley’s cheek and go to change.
    The gymnasium is a looming old hulk. Inside, light, concentrated on the casket heaped with flowers, dissipates into a gloom of struts and the invisible ceiling. Rows of mourners in straight-backed metal folding chairs recede into darkness. A woman, gray hair wildly flying, rigid arms ending in fists, upbraids the gathering in a raw, tearful singsong.
    The principal, balancing a paper plate, is eating solemnly. Sheglances up sharply, eyes reddened and blurry. “No briefcase?” she says. “I thought you came to sell her an IRA.” Her head nods toward the bier.
    â€œWhat’s the woman saying?” I ask.
    â€œIt’s the oldest daughter. ‘You never heard my mother in your hearts when she was alive.’”
    The speaker’s lamentation cuts the air thrillingly. Flowing, colorful dresses are tacked across the front wall. The one in the center, behind the casket, is most noticeably empty.
    â€œâ€˜She looked at us, the Hualapai, and saw what we have been. Who will see that now?’” the principal translates. Thumbing toward a window in the back wall, the principal says, “Eat.”
    The square of light is so radiant I can scarcely discern the kitchen help, whose bustling shapes are shifting densities of brilliance. I’m glimpsing the sphere of the blessed, long-departed ancestors, industrious, bountiful. Hands emerge from the glare, a floating face, offering a flat cake like a thick tortilla, beans.
    I’ve stepped through a slot in the earth, into the underworld. The speaker’s keening washes over me, like the river’s echoes splintering off the gorge hours ago. Mourning. Suddenly the word catches my chest, fills my throat. It becomes Dooley standing shocked, beltless, in the water. It is our bodies exchanging stiff caresses in a dim motel.
    I’m in a town at the edge of the world, whose inhabitants speak another language, trying to sell them devalued paper, which they reject. I’m sneaking handjobs and humiliating the girl who gives them to me—but she disappointed me! she didn’t measure up!—but these thoughts are wrong, they are part of my grief.
    This is all I know to do. I’m thirty-three and have no memories of anything. When I try to think of home, Flagstaff is no more than those companions of today, magnificently healthy animals scudding across rapids in yellow balloon-boats.
    Nothing is the way I want it. I can’t imagine how I wouldwant it. The sobs around me are too powerful to resist. My own throat is jumping. I concentrate on the paper plate of food.
    A bald priest, the only other white, leads a women’s chorus in a tremulous hymn. Another eulogist takes the floor. As new arrivals cluster, a group rises and, single file, shakes hands across the front row of mourners, then exits. With each departure, singly, in pairs or threes, entire rows, the handshaking is repeated. The openings and closings of doors stir the empty dresses.
    The bereaved family, the principal explains. “When you leave, you do the same.”
    â€œBut they don’t know me from Adam.”
    â€œYou don’t ignore the family. That’s a bad mistake. They’ve noticed you. You’ve got yourself in a spot, coming here. Go on over, give them your Midas touch. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”
    I’m honored to commiserate with them. As I approach from the aisle, the row of bowed heads is interminable, men, women, elders, children, crew cuts, braids, long bangs. Nearer, the heads are lustrous, redolent of shampooing. Holding out my hand, I see a startled upturned