INVENTORY
North basement, niche 3, lower level.
Box 1 of 14. Reinforced cardboard, standard, 40 × 30 × 25. No visible moisture. Location: north basement, niche 3, lower level. Log started at 07:15. Smell of wet stone and something sweet, persistent, that I don’t want to identify.
Contents: eight femurs. Six complete, two fractured at the distal third. Uniform ochre coloration. No adhered tissue. I label each piece with white adhesive, sequential numbering. SNB-001 through SNB-008. My block letters came out well today.
Box 2 of 14. Same location. Contents: fourteen ulnae, nine radii, an accumulation of phalanges I won’t count individually because the form says “estimate.” I estimate: one hundred and twenty. Rounding up because some have broken and could be one hundred and ten or one hundred and forty, doesn’t matter. For transfer purposes, one hundred and twenty.
It’s cold down here. The rector left a thermos of coffee on the stairs. Coffee with sugar, in a plastic cup. The Archdiocese wants the full inventory before Holy Week because they’re doing work on the crypt — waterproofing, I think. Or converting it into an exhibition hall. He didn’t explain it well, nor do I care. I get paid per box.
Box 3 of 14. Contents: skulls. Five. One with articulated mandible, the rest without. The second from the left retains three molars; I photograph for the record. Flash. The empty sockets don’t bother me — haven’t bothered me for years. What bothers me is the condensation on the wall, which dampens my form and makes the ink run.
Box 4 of 14. Contents: pelvis, rib fragments, a nearly complete scapula, and one non-osseous object. Record: medal of the Immaculate Conception, bronze, 3 cm diameter, cord decomposed. I set it aside with forceps and place it in a separate zip bag. Not my field, but the style is nineteen-sixties.
Boxes 5 through 9 follow the pattern. Long bones, minor fragments, dust. Box 8 contains an unusual quantity of loose teeth. I count them because I have time: sixty-four. I’d like to say it’s because they belong to different individuals, and that’s true, but some show extraction marks. Not post-mortem extraction. Professional extraction. Silver amalgam fillings in four pieces.
I note in the margin of the form: “consult odontologist.” The rector comes down at eleven and brings me a ham sandwich. He asks if everything’s all right. I tell him yes. I don’t tell him about the fillings.
Box 10 of 14. Smaller. 30 × 20 × 15. Contents: bones consistent with subadult individual. Femoral length 18 cm — I’d say between two and four years old, but I’m not an anthropologist. I label them the same: SNB-087 through SNB-104. The adhesive is too large for the bone; the white edge sticks out on all sides. It’s colder now, or it’s just me.
The rector’s coffee is gone.
Box 11 of 14. Same as 10. Same size. Same age estimate. Two subadult individuals, possibly three. One cranial fragment with unfused sutures. Another with a clear perimortem fracture on the right parietal. Clear to anyone who’s seen a perimortem fracture, and I’ve seen twelve or thirteen thousand over the course of my career, and I always recognize them because living bone breaks differently from dead bone. Living bone bends and snaps with clean edges, like a green branch. This one is green.
I note: “perimortem fracture, subadult individual.” Five words. The form has no more space.
Boxes 12 and 13 return to the adult pattern. I note, I label, I photograph. My handwriting is back. My hand still trembles a little — from the cold, I tell myself.
Box 14 of 14. Contents: a single item. Wool jacket, child’s size, exceptional preservation — folded, clean, inside a transparent plastic bag closed with a knot. The bag has a handwritten label, in blue ballpoint pen. The date is October fourteenth, 2012.
The form says: “Description.” I write: “Textile item.” The form says: “Condition.” I write: “Good.” The form says: “Observations.”
I leave the space blank, close the box, and walk up the stairs.
The rector asks if I’d like more coffee.
I tell him yes.