"The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts."
~ Italo Calvino, The Literature Machine
The Churchview apartment building stands on the corner of Oak and Lake in Evanston, IL. It is, indeed, in view of a large, stately church. It is an old, pre-war building, with curious details and old-fashioned layouts. The floor tiles in the foyer have swastikas on them. Those tiles were laid years before Hitler turned an otherwise peaceful symbol into one of death and hate. Until the Nazis took it as their own, the swastika was used by many cultures for thousands of years to represent life, power, strength, and luck.
My then-boyfriend (now-husband), Justin, and I moved into the Churchview building in 1998. Our apartment was a long, railroad car space that ran the length of one leg of the horseshoe shaped building. Directly below us were the swastika-tiled foyer and the dark, dank basement and laundry room. The basement was unfinished and divided into several storage sections. Heavy, creaking doors separated the different spaces and damp, narrow passages led from one area to the next. It was every child's worst nightmare, an early-1900's world of haunted corners, cobwebbed ceilings, and clanking pipes. It was freaking scary down there.
At the end of the apartment, off of the kitchen, was a tiny room and bathroom that was once used as a maid's bedroom. It was a quaint, quiet room designed for a different way of life, for a time when apartments were built with servants' quarters. It was directly over the heart of the basement, and it was in this room that I first heard someone whisper my name directly into my ear. The word was said quietly, but clearly. There was no malice in the whisper, no ill-intent. It was not a question, nor was it was not a demand. It was a simple statement.
Marie.
It occurred to me that we might not be alone in our apartment. Shortly after the whispering incident, our neighbors Andrew and Julie invited us to a wine-tasting class at a local wine shop. We didn't know each other well at that time, but both of them were open, intelligent, funny people that I felt comfortable with right away. I can't remember a single thing that I learned about wine that night, but I remember in vivid detail the conversation that Andrew and I had afterward. While our significant others shook their heads and rolled their eyes at us, Andrew and I discussed Churchview's ghost. We had both felt the presence before, and we both felt the same things about that presence. We were in agreement:
- The ghost was most present in our shared basement and in the back of our side-by-side apartments
- The ghost was an elderly man with grey hair
- The ghost was foreign and had an accent
- The ghost was lonely
- The ghost was wearing something that looked like a plaid flannel shirt and denim overalls
- The ghost's first name started with the letter M
We named him Max, but we wouldn't say his name, just like no one in Harry Potter will say ... you know. I don't know how long we spent comparing notes and coming up with stories about Max's past, but eventually we knew that something more had to be done about the situation. While Justin and Julie laughed behind our backs - actually, in our faces - Andrew and I made plans to descend into the basement armed with a camera and camcorder. We eventually persuaded Julie to work the camcorder; we probably told her we needed her film expertise, but in truth we were scared silly. Somehow, we suspected, a nonbeliever would protect us; if not from the ghost, then from ourselves.
We wandered through the sprawling basement, peering into empty storage lockers, opening creaky doors, calling for Max to make himself known to us. Julie and Andrew took camcorder footage and I shot 35mm black and white photographs. We called to him. We told him that we just wanted to talk. We said that we knew he was there and we knew he had been trying to communicate with us, and that we wanted to help him. Could he tell us what was wrong (other than, you know, being dead)? Could he tell us how we could help him?
Max didn't come forward. No doors slammed, no lights went out, no one whispered our names from behind us. Eventually, unsure of what to do next, we told Max that it was OK, that he could go. Go on, we said, you can go. It's OK to leave here. I think we stopped just short of telling him that we had things covered. I hope we didn't tell him to go toward the light.
Andrew and Julie reviewed the tape. At one point the recording wavers for a moment, and then a red light flashes briefly. Julie reassured us that the red bit was the camcorder's power light reflecting in a window. I developed my film and we studied each print. No glowing orbs, no shadowy shapes, no plaid flannel shirts. No Max.
A few months later Justin and I went on vacation and asked Julie and Andrew to take care of the cats and plants while we were away. When we got back Julie gave us the rundown on life at Churchview while we'd been gone. "And, oh," she said quietly, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but once, when I was in the back room feeding the cats, I heard it. I heard someone whispering behind me. There was no one there." It's oddly unsatisfying to say, "I told you so," when the telling so has to do with otherworldly spirits living in your maid's room.
Except for Julie's one encounter, none of us ever felt or heard Max again. I'm not sure if we sent Max on his way, or if there never was a Max. But even as I write this I know there was a Max. I drive by Churchview sometimes and I think about the swastika tiles that stood for power and life and strength, and about the shadowy, haunted basement. I'd like to think that Max isn't there anymore; I'd like to think that he found in his spirit self the way out to a better place, to some place where there are others like him. I'd like to think that he's at least out of the basement and on the sunny third floor.
Maybe some day I'll stop and ring the bell of my old apartment and ask the current tenants if anyone ever whispers their names in the maid's room. I'll bring Andrew and Julie with me, but I won't go back in the basement.