Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll

help until she was ready to walk back into her life again. We didn't need to be her friends; only to continue for a while our friendship with the man who'd loved her.
    In his will he had asked to be cremated, but first they held a memorial service at his favorite building in town, the Otto Wagner-designed church on the grounds of Vienna's largest insane asylum, the Steinhof. That was in the will too, but I could never figure out whether the request was serious or another sly Nicholas joke. No matter. The Jugendstil church was filled with people. What was most heartening, the mourners came from everywhere to say good-bye to him. He would have loved to see the array.
    He'd made films about old Russians, sexy spies, a foolish tour group that got lost on its way to Venice. Some of his movies were dull, others superb. But all of them were made with the greatest love toward whomever he was picturing, and that was evident everywhere. As we were walking out of the church, an old woman with a thick Ottakringer accent and an old loden coat on said to the man next to her, "Nicholas Sylvian knew us. That's why I came. He knew what was in my refrigerator, you know what I mean?"
    We drove Eva to the Zentralfriedhof where the cremation would take place. It is an enormous cemetery and you can easily get lost in it if you don't know where you're going. Eva went into the crematorium and we started walking back to the car.
    "What do you think of cremation?"
    "Not much. I read somewhere that your soul gets destroyed if you do it.
    That scares me a little. I want to be buried in a nice simple box."
    She stopped and looked at me. "In Vienna?"
    "I don't know. I love it here, but a small part of me thinks I should be put down in my own country. If there's any life after death, I'd be able to understand the language better."
    She put her arm around my back and we walked in silence. On reaching the car, she stopped and said she wanted to wander around the place for a while by herself, if I didn't mind. She would catch a tram home. I understood because I
    felt like being alone too. We made a date to meet for dinner and I drove off with a quick glance Page 39

    at her in the rearview mirror. I would go home, she would look at gravestones, Eva would wait while her husband slept in flames.
    The phone was ringing in my apartment when I opened the door. Dashing to catch it, I narrowly missed stepping on Orlando, who'd come to the door to say hello. I scooped him up and took him along to the phone.
    "Hello?"
    "Walker, it's Maris. You've got to come back here. You've got to see something. You _have_ to.
    It's incredible!"
    "Right now? I just got in this minute. I really don't feel like driving anymore, Maris."
    "Have you ever heard of a man named Moritz Benedikt?"
    "No."
    "All right, I'll take a picture. I've got the Polaroid with me, but it's not the same. When you see this picture you're going to drive out here in the middle of the night, believe me. Can I come over after?"
    "Sure. I'll probably be asleep, so use your key."
    Real sadness either keeps me up all night or punches me to sleep. This time it was all I could do to put the receiver down and get to bed before going out as if I'd been conked on the head. I dreamed of Nicholas sitting naked on a scarlet stallion twenty hands high in the middle of a beautiful pond. He looked very happy and called out to me, "Bathing the red horse!"
    When I awoke, Orlando was asleep on my stomach and Maris was lying by my side. The room was completely dark and warm and smelled of her distant, hours-old perfume. It took some time for my mind to land back on earth. While it was circling the airfield, I gently combed her soft hair with my fingers.
    It had grown much longer since she'd been in Vienna.
    "How long have you been here?"
    "About an hour. I'm glad you're up. I've been dying to wake you. You've got to see what I found. Can I turn on the light?"
    "Uh huh."
    The light burst the air like a flashbulb. I closed my eyes