Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories

If the rail yard had been built instead in the northern spot, zero pilgrims would have died. But the engineer who had vied for the southern rail yard had been the more charismatic, resolved one—surely she would have won, even without a coin toss, even without me skewing the result.

—

I waited until nightfall to mend the mummy. Inside the tomb, I kept the lights off to avoid attracting attention; a nearby streetlamp provided just enough illumination and, for the finer work, I was armed with a key chain flashlight. Glue at the ready, I reached into my pants pocket for the saint’s teeth, but found only a small hole where before there had been none. I searched the other pants pocket, then all four pockets of my coat. My hand returned to the first pocket, to confirm the teeth were still missing.

If the hole had already been there, before the teeth, surely I would have caught it—the pants were my last remaining pair presentable enough for work, and I was vigilant about identifying and repairing any damage—and I would not have used a compromised pocket for valuables. For a moment I entertained the possibility that the teeth had chewed their way out. But no, I told myself, this was simply a case of bad luck, even if I did not believe in luck, bad or good.

I dreaded explaining the saint’s disfigurement to Konstantyn Illych. I could not keep it hidden under the linen for much longer—Konstantyn Illych had asked to check on the saint the next morning, and I’d lied and said I’d temporarily misplaced the sole key to the case. If he saw that the teeth were missing, perhaps he’d think I gouged them out, and sold them on the black market. On occasion, relic hunters did visit the tomb. They were easy to spot. They’d kneel the lowest, pray the loudest, before offering money for a tuft of holy hair, a sliver of ear. From their corner-mouth whispers I had learned that five heads of St. John the Baptist were in circulation; thirteen palms, nineteen feet, and twenty-one skull fragments of Jezebel—whatever the dogs didn’t eat; the foreskins of Christ and His footprints were particularly popular, as were the moans of David, the shivers of Jehovah.

Just then, between two floor tiles, an incisor twinkled in the lamplight.

I fell to my knees, ready almost to kiss this relic. This time I wrapped the tooth in one of the rental kerchiefs from the counter, and stowed it in my double-lined breast pocket.

Another tooth, longer, fanglike, winked at me by the exit. I collected it, stepped outside. One by one the saint’s teeth appeared like stars in a darkening sky.

The third tooth glowed from a crack in the pavement.

The fourth and fifth teeth sat at the rusty foot of a seesaw.

They led me further and further from the tomb. I expected the teeth would retrace the route I’d taken earlier that day from the bazaar, but instead they led me in the opposite direction, toward an unlit park, as though someone had rearranged them as a sinister joke. It was imprudent to be out after sunset, when only thieves and thugs stalked the streets, but I kept on. I tried to imagine myself as a lover, following rose petals to a bed, but couldn’t help feeling like a rodent, lured by crumbs to a trap.

The sixth tooth lounged on a tree root.

The seventh spilled from a half-eaten bag of chips.

The eighth bounced between a stray cat’s paws.

I stopped there. I’d reached the perimeter of the park. Its patchy lawn sloped down to a copse of oaks and a well that had run dry. I needed that last tooth, but was afraid of where it might appear—at the bottom of the well? Under a sleeping pack of dogs? I inhaled the cool night air, tried to compose myself. These were only teeth, after all; I’d been living with a set of my own for forty years. I set off at a trot, down a paved path. When I spotted the ninth tooth roosting in an old flower bed under the oaks, lucent as its siblings, the tightness in my chest broke into laughter. Was this where the teeth had been leading me? To a patch of weeds? Carried by a senseless impulse to catch the tooth before it got away, I lunged forward. My foot caught a notch in the pavement. As I hurled to the ground, my screaming jaws bit into the concrete rim of the flower bed.

I do not know how long I lay in the dark, swallowing blood.

My heart climbed into my head and pounded at my eardrums, seeking escape. My jaws ground at the hinges. I spat out what I hoped was gravel. I clutched the saint’s last tooth. Its claw sank into my palm.