by Diane Wald
“I think it’s great.” he said. “I mean, I like you both an awful lot, and I can only guess about your home situation—which is none of my business—but I just think it’s great that you’re making each other happy, that’s all. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment how lonely keeping secrets could be. It was wonderful having someone know and approve. It was all I could do not to divulge to him right then all the wonders of Sarah Bowe—I wanted to talk and talk and talk about her—but I knew it was more important at that moment to find out what he was going to tell me about Wally Mussel.
“Thanks, Don.”
“Don’t mention it. And don’t worry about me mentioning it, either. I know it’s got to be hush-hush. I’m very good at that, as you know.” He chuckled.
“Yes, and thanks again. And I want to know everything you know—about Sarah’s situation that is—but not right now, okay? What were you going to tell me about Mussel? “
“Oh, him. Do you remember reading last year about a fellow named Richard Collins-Spear?”
“No, I don’t think so. Who’s that?”
He gave one of his little laugh-coughs. “Richard Collins-Spear is an Englishman who performed open-heart surgery on some of the richest and most noble figures in Great Britain, including, if memory serves, some minor member of the Royal family. A few years ago, it was discovered—1 forget how—that Collins-Spear had never even completed grade school!”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. All of his patients lived to tell the tale too. Apparently, he was just some kind of a bright unscrupulous guy who’d picked up a lot of medical knowledge in the army and on odd jobs in hospitals, and was able to concoct a bogus vita and references and land a surgeon’s position in a country hospital. No one ever bothered to check up on him. He succeeded there, gained some experience, and worked his way up to the top. When the story finally came out, of course, he was arrested, but I think he got off with a strangely light prison term. I forget the details, sorry. Isn’t that amazing?” Rath looked at me with a satisfied gaze, as if he’d just told me exactly what I wanted to know. It confused me, the whole thing.
“Crazy,” I said, “but every now and then a story like that pops up. What’s that got to do with Mussel? Aside from the fact that I’d like to have someone who’s never even seen a scalpel perform a little surgery on him?”
By this time, we’d left the cafeteria and were sauntering slowly back across the quad. Don stopped next to the library; it appeared he intended to go inside. He laughed hard at my last remark. “Mac, Mac,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m trying to tell you that I sincerely suspect—no—I pretty well know—that …” and here he pulled me down suddenly by the necktie and whispered in my ear, “Mussel doesn’t have an academic degree! Not one! Not a single fucking college degree!”
He let my head snap back up, slapped me on the back, ran up a couple of steps toward the library, ran back down, slapped me again, and gasped through his laughter. “Isn’t that a kick?” He looked like a faun leaping jauntily through fountain waters.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” was all I could get out. I was stunned by his statement. “Wait, Don, you’ve got to tell me more!” I tried to follow him, but he was already running up the stairs again.
“Can’t now,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ve got a research-methods class in the library lounge, but I’ll call you tonight, okay? Okay? Hey, Mac, are you all right?”
“Yes, fine. Call me tonight. I can’t wait!” I had a huge smile on my face. I turned and, as the gods would have it, ran smack into Wally Mussel, who gave me a sneering grin. He must have been delighted to see me cavorting so publicly with his favorite homosexual.
“Wally,” I beamed. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” and left him in my smug and happy dust.
21. A Lousy Proposal
It’s hard to say how Eliza and I separated, for the simple fact is that we really never have. But we did lose earthly touch, and I find that a particularly difficult thing on which to meditate. After our initial unsuccessful attempt at lovemaking, there were several more similar encounters, all ending ignominiously for me and with the greatest confusion for Eliza. I was afraid lest she begin to blame herself for my physical limitations and decided to have a frank talk with her about my illness—for that reason, and for the more general reason that I felt it only fair that she know the whole story.
We had never had real “dates,” Lizzie and I. On those sunny, cumulus-bedazzled New Jersey afternoons, when I had no classes and when she was free (she had a somewhat flexible schedule too; she had just graduated from NSU and was substitute teaching in a local high school) she would sometimes drive us around in the Caddy until we’d found some quiet spot to explore or some scenic area we both enjoyed. I could still see fairly well, but I loved hearing Eliza describe things; she talked about everything in a highly original and almost impressionistic way and seemed to enjoy the process. We visited my Thompson Park swans many times, feeding them pieces of the ice cream cones or popcorn we often bought to make our little excursions more festive. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that kind of food wasn’t good for them.
We’d sit on the shore of the pond, or in the car if it were cold, my head on Eliza’s lap and her fingers smoothing away what had become an omnipresent, though as yet not crippling, headache. We talked a lot about Eliza’s past—her family and her years in school—but I don’t feel that I should report much about her. Both of us believed that one of the true tenets of love was that you kept each other’s secrets. Sometimes we just got silly, and Eliza would make up stories for me about “the lavender swans,” childhood creations of hers who inhabited a castle-laden landscape and who derived their unusual color from eating violets and wisteria and “little pots of lavender eye shadow pilfered from the pocketbooks of princesses.” I know it sounds saccharine and ridiculous. If you haven’t been deeply in love like that, you will think us demented. I loved her so much then that I could not imagine dying.
But it was true that I would die in the not-too-distant future, and we had to discuss it. After one of our Thompson Park excursions, we went back to my apartment for a rest—not a real rest of course, although we did end up on the couch. Eliza and I had long passed the point of trying anything romantic in the bedroom but spent a lot of time “necking” in the old-fashioned sense. In an unexpected way, it was very satisfying: there was a closeness to it that was indescribably sweet, and sometimes, cradling Eliza close to me with her head under my chin and her young hips nestled into my traitorous lap, I found it hard to imagine that a sexual encounter would have brought us any closer—except, I suppose, for those fleeting moments of sharing an exquisite physical pleasure.
While we sat there that day, I said to her, “Lizzie, my love, we ought to have a serious talk about my illness.”
I knew she would make it easy for me if she could, but I had no idea how easy.
“I know you’re very ill, Jack,” she said. “I worry about you all the time: I wish I could help you. Tell me whatever you need to tell me. I’ve been waiting for you to be ready. I didn’t want to hurry you.”
I felt a little rocky. I couldn’t see Eliza’s face where it rested on my chest, so I checked for tears with my fingers. Her eyes were dry. I moved my fingertips down over her nose and lips, and she kissed them. She said, “This isn’t going to be about sex again, is it?”
“No, not exactly, but you know how bad I feel that I can’t—”
“Jack, don’t be boring—we’ve had that discussion a hundred times.” She pulled my arms around her and held them very close.
“All right, I know. You’re a dear, and I love you.”
“You too, MacLeod.” She smiled. In the back of her mind, I know I would always be “the professor,” and she would always get a little kick out of speaking to me “disrespectfully.”
“I’ve never even really told you what’s wrong wi
th me,” I said, half holding my breath. I suppose some part of me thought she might bolt for the door.
“A brain tumor?” Her voice was very small.
“How did you know?”
She shrugged, and turned, and hid her face deep in my shirt. “I don’t know,” she said. I just put things together. I guess it wasn’t too hard to figure out.”
“I’ve had it a long time now,” I said, “and there’s no telling how long it will go on like this.”
“Tell me the worst part.”
“The worst part?” I was happy to let her keep questioning me; I found it impossible to ad lib.
She sat up and pulled away from me gently and clutched a fuzzy throw-pillow to her chest. “Can they operate?” she asked. “Is it malignant?”
“They can’t do surgery, dear; it’s in a tricky place. The tumor is involved quite deeply in the brain tissue,” I said, sounding as if I were giving a medical lecture. “Right behind the optic nerve. That’s why I have all this trouble with my eyes, and the pain.”
She sighed. “And what else?”
I let her hand go. I knew we each had to be alone for this. “And then, sooner or later, I’ll die of it, Lizzie.”
“When?” Her voice sounded the way sand looks after the tide’s gone out.
“There’s no telling. A few years at best, I’d guess, but the doctors don’t much like to make predictions. I’ll become gradually weaker; the pain will increase—but don’t worry so much about the pain, sweetheart, they can control that pretty well, and—”
Eliza suddenly interrupted me with a sort of low howl of grief. She’d finally begun to cry into the pillow and pulled away when I reached for her.
“Darling,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I really am. It should have been different for us—for you. You’re young and strong and healthy and wonderful. You deserve better, you …”
She hit me with the pillow, hard, and then began battering me, weakly, with her fists. All it took to stop her was to hold her wrists for a moment; she collapsed then against my chest and cried wretchedly for a long time. I just let her. I didn’t try to soothe her. I held her as one holds a child who’s having a bad time. I knew she would exhaust herself soon.
When she did, her recovery was sudden and complete. She sat back, reached for some tissues in her sweater pocket, dried her eyes, blew her nose, then excused herself to go to the bathroom. I heard water running noisily, some clattering of brushes and combs (she’d begun keeping a set of everything at my place, accusing me of “mussing” her up all the time), then, in quick order, she was back at my side.
“I think,” she said, “I’ve finished feeling sorry for myself, for you, and for both of us. We’re just going to have to take it one day at a time I guess.” She was speaking very rapidly, as if she were afraid I would stop her. I didn’t.
“What worries me most,” she went on, “is the pain. I don’t want you to be in pain. I want to know everything we can do to stop it. What are you taking now? You’ve got to tell me everything, Jack, you know? You’ve told me this much, so now you’ve got to keep me informed. What are you doing for the pain? How bad is it? Is it constant?” She took a no-nonsense tone that I’d never heard before.
“Percodan, at the moment,” I said. “It’s really pretty effective. Also I do a little self-hypnosis, which helps in between pills. I’m pretty good at that. And there are stronger drugs, or higher dosages, they can give me when things get worse.”
“We’ll have to look into acupuncture and things like that,” she said, sounding very businesslike. “There are always a lot of remedies regular doctors don’t explore.”
“We’ll see,” I said, wearily. “I’m not really up for a lot of experimentation.”
“You just leave all that to me,” she said. “Now, what about lunch?”
Without waiting for my answer, she went out into the kitchenette and began preparing something or other. I felt a little lost. I knew her bounce-back from the tears was a necessary mechanism that allowed her to go on functioning in the face of all this terror, but I wasn’t sure we’d really finished the conversation I’d intended to have. I followed her, cornered her up against the refrigerator, took a spoon and dishtowel out of her hand and kissed her repeatedly. She more or less melted then.
“Ooooh,” she said, sinking into one of the stupid little chairs. “What a terrible world.”
“I need you, Eliza,” I was horrified to hear myself say. “Lizzie, I need you now, and I’m going to need you more and more.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she answered.
“But no, darling girl, it’s much more than that.” I had to turn away so she could not see my face; I was ashamed of my need and my panic. I could not control what I was saying any more than I could control the pain behind my eyes, which was suddenly raging out of control. The doctors had warned me repeatedly that allowing myself to get into highly emotional states would only exacerbate my problems. But what the hell did they expect? That a man would just lie back quietly and die? I felt as if I were exploding, as if I couldn’t breathe, as if I had to say terrible things to Eliza that would save her from me—things that would push her away forever so she wouldn’t have to stand by me out of what could eventually, inevitably, become pity alone.
Instead, I said, “Eliza, I need you to marry me.”
She said nothing. I was so darkened by pain I could barely see her shape at the other side of the table.
“It’s a lousy proposal,” I said, “and if you’ve got any brains at all you’ll run for your life. It’s a crappy hand you’ve been dealt, old girl. You ought to just spit in my face. Why don’t you say something?”
Her voice was level. “It’s not a romantic proposal, no,” she said, “but it’s a perfectly good one. I knew it was coming.”
“And?” I said. But then at last I caught hold of myself. Was I really going to allow myself to sacrifice this girl to my illness, to ruin her best years, to saddle her with sorrows better wrestled in old age, to force her to confront what she ought, by rights, to avoid? I knew she loved me on some level—some truly glorious level—but I could not keep her with me. It would be the one thing for which I could never forgive myself. I wheeled around and grabbed her off the chair and leaned her up against the counter again. I spoke softly into her hair.
“Forget I said all this, Eliza. I apologize.”
“No,” she said, “of course I won’t forget.”
Some time went by while we simply held each other, standing there. Then she said, “You are going to need me. The question is, are you going to want me? I don’t think there’s any way to answer that now. I don’t think talking about it is going to help much—I think we’ll just have to live through it and see what it’s like.”
“No,” I said, absurdly. I had no answer that made any sense.
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, in that sure, quiet voice. “You think I’m too young, but I know what I’m about.”
“Do you, really?”
“I think so,” she said. “I do. Sit down and have some soup.”
22. Lined with Pine Boughs
Poor Cybèle: my fox-child, my little girl, my wild friend. The whole of my life, animals had meant a great deal to me. I held them in almost sacred regard; what money I had for charity I nearly always gave to humane societies and the like, a fact that infuriated Frances, whose alleged allergies precluded our having a pet at home—something I’d always wanted for the boys. It’s not that I felt coldly towards human causes—quite the contrary. My heart often bled for the foibles and plagues that beset my fellow man, and I struggled every day in my profession to better the human lot in some small way. But to my mind the animals had the worst of it. All their problems were our fault: human beings had beset them in every possible way since time began and had all but ruined the natural world for them, so that I felt the least I could do to offset my sense of universal guilt and to make up in some small way for the sins of the human race was
to donate what I could of my time and money to animal rights and animal welfare causes.
When last I mentioned Cybèle to you our friendship was only a close call; we had not yet established a true connection. But in succeeding visits to the cabin I had been able, with the greatest of patience and respect, to almost tame the little beauty (not that I ever wanted to truly tame her—taming can spoil so much), so that she would watch for my arrival from a post beyond the driveway on Friday nights. This vigil so touched my heart—her intelligence, her faithfulness, her quiet dignity—that seeing Cybèle soon became my main reason for frequenting the cabin. Perhaps you are thinking that it wasn’t me she waited for, but the food I would put out for her. Perhaps.
I would pull slowly into the drive on Friday nights whenever I could get away, and there in the bushes would be two bright little eyes gleaming in the darkness. I did not know how she knew I was coming, but she never failed me. I would go directly inside, open a can of Cybèle’s favorite dogfood, and arrange it on her red plate. This I would set out in a little clearing under some bushes in the side yard. I’d turn on the yellow bug-light—just enough for me to see by—and, can of beer in hand, settle down on the steps to watch for my friend.
A delicate, silent figure would step carefully from the shadows, lifting each foot daintily and carrying her gorgeous tail level with her back so that its full glory could be seen. Sometimes there would be leaves or other debris caught in her fur, but more often than not the yellow light from the bug-bulb would cast a coppery sheen on her beautiful coat, lending a mystical air to the already dreamlike scene. Just before reaching the plate, she would always stop and look directly at me for a moment, as if to say, “May I?” or “Thanks, Jack.” I was careful never to move at that moment. If there was a breeze, I’d be able to detect her sharp scent, which was quite remarkably and precisely “fox”—not like a doggy smell at all, or like anything else I could think of. I suppose there was blood in it, or simply the primitive wonders of the forest, forever unfathomable to man.