My Famous Brain

by Diane Wald

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. I immediately went to sleep. Everything exhausted me, even happiness.

  When we arrived back at my little home in the hills, Don did indeed “settle me in properly”; in fact, I found he’d already made some preliminary arrangements. The kitchen was supremely stocked, there were cut flowers in several vases around the living room, and, wonder of wonders, my old bed had magically been replaced with an automatic one. It wasn’t exactly a hospital bed, but it had lots of bells and whistles. I joked about the bed a great deal, but after a day or two I was devoted to it: such comfort, and such sweetness on Don’s part.

  But that was not the last—or best—of the improvements Don had made to my domicile. We’d arrived back rather late in the day, and after a quick snack and an inspection of the premises, we’d both gone quickly and gladly to our rooms, so I did not notice Don’s fabulous present until the next morning. I woke and turned on the radio, which announced that it was after ten o’clock, and I lay there a few minutes with my eyes closed, half-dozing and thoroughly enjoying the experience of being home again. Then I noticed a peculiar sensation in my left foot, which seemed to be moving involuntarily, and there was an intermittent “pinching” sensation in the big toe. Oh no, I thought, the beginning of a new symptom: would my legs become numb now, and then paralyzed? My heart sank. The strange feeling began creeping up the leg, which lay half-uncovered. It felt as if a huge spider with fuzzy feet were doing the cha-cha there. Experimentally, I moved the leg: success. I could still control it. The weird sensation stopped. But then in a moment it began again, this time closer to my groin.

  Spider or no spider, I had to find out what was going on. I opened my eyes and looked down, and much to my amazement I spied a small dark shape near the top of my left thigh. My heart was beating fearfully, but I was delighted to realize that something outside myself had been causing my symptoms. I could not, however, make out what the thing was. I put my hand down cautiously, and it hopped away. I sat up. The thing had moved to knee-region.

  I reached for the control panel on the side of my magic bed and sent the lower portion of the mattress into action; as my knees rose, the little dark shape rolled suddenly into my lap.

  “Meeep,” it said.

  I picked it up—cradling it in both hands, it was so small—and held it very close to my face. It placed a tiny paw gently on each of my cheeks and bit my nose. I laughed and yelled for Don, who arrived so quickly that I knew he must have been watching the whole scene from the hallway. “What,” I said, holding my catch out to him, “is this?”

  “This is a Tillie,” he said, taking the little package from me and addressing it solemnly. “Tillie, I’d like you to meet Dr. MacLeod, who will be living here with us. He’s a little cranky in the mornings, so you’ll have to take care not to munch on his toes.” He paused, handing Tillie back to me. “And Mac,” he went on, “This is Tillie. She’s the lady of the house now, so I’m afraid there will have to be a few changes made to your bachelor routines. How do you like her?”

  While he was speaking, Tillie had fallen instantly asleep against my chest in that hilarious manner of kittens, who can drop off in the middle of the craziest antics—or even their dinners. She weighed next to nothing and was as soft as air itself. I stroked her fur, which was slightly longer than that of the average house cat, and looked down at her curiously. She was calico technically, I guess, but sported an unusual color scheme: very dark orangey-brown, with a darker face and ears, and a white-tipped tail. Don filled me in.

  “I don’t know if you can make out her feet the way she’s curled up now,” he said, “but they’re black. Her eyes are green, but I don’t know if they’ll stay that way. She’s box-trained of course, and she’s already shown a great talent for dancing. She seems to have taken to you.”

  I felt a sudden twitching of the heartstrings as he described the little cat. “My God,” I said, suddenly identifying the chord that had been struck within me. “She looks like Cybèle!” I’d told Don the Cybèle story while I was in the hospital and was comforted by the sympathy he’d shown me. It was often difficult to gauge just how people would react to stories about animals, but Don had obviously felt the terrible injustice of Cybèle’s death just as I had. And now this.

  “Where on earth did you find such a treasure?” I was nearly overcome. The little package on my chest was now kneading my pajama top in a lazy, contented motion. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “I ordered her from Sears,” he said smugly. “Never mind. You don’t need to know where she came from. She’s just here.” He paused, then in a little-boy voice, said, “So, Dad … can we keep her?”

  I guffawed, the movement of my chest sending poor Tillie into a literal tailspin. She whirled and twirled and got herself all tangled up in the bedclothes, until Don and I were reeling with laughter. We played with Tillie for another ten minutes or so, until she fell asleep again on top of one of my hands. I felt a fan of tiny whiskers move as she breathed, like the silky undulations of a fingerprint brush. Then something Don had said returned to my mind.

  “Don,” I said, as he fiddled about the room picking up slippers and such, “Did you say, ‘can we keep her’? Was that a figure of speech?”

  “Yes, I did say that,” he answered, sitting down on the clothes hamper, “and no, it was not a figure of speech.”

  Good God, I thought, how should I handle this? It had been in the back of my mind all along. During the drive home the night before, I’d questioned Don about what sort of nurses I’d be having, when they would arrive, etc. He’d skirted my questions skillfully, and I was too groggy to pursue the answers. I remembered thinking, briefly, that it was absurd to imagine that Don was thinking of staying on with me himself. He had a full life elsewhere: a live-in lover, a decent job, a host of friends. I’d put the idea out of my mind, but there it was again. He really was planning to stay, and I had to stop him. But I couldn’t hurt him. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Listen, Mac,” he began, coming over to sit on the bed and holding my foot awkwardly, as if it were my hand. “I know you think you ought to argue with me, but why bother? You know I’m going to win in the end.” He emitted his laugh-cough and went on. “I’ve had it all planned out since you went in for surgery, and you’re in no position to argue. It’s all arranged. I’ve taken a little leave of absence from school, that’s all—it’s no big deal. In fact, I can really use a change of scene. There’s no problem with Denny either; we’ve worked it out, and he’ll come up to visit once in a while—if that’s all right with you, of course. You need more than a nurse now, you need a friend, and as for the actual nursing part of it, don’t forget my medical training—like you, I almost became an MD.”

  I just looked at him.

  “So what’s the problem? There isn’t any. This is the perfect solution. I’ll stay around a while until you don’t need me anymore, then I’ll move on. Can you honestly tell me you’d rather have a stranger living here? And can you honestly say, if the tables were turned, you wouldn’t do the same for me? If you accept it now, old boy, you can save us both a lot of drama.”

  Tears betrayed me. Don was right, the whole idea of living for months at the mercy of strangers—however kind—had been making me quite miserable, though I had mentioned this misery to no one. In my deepest heart, I wanted him to stay. Was that so terrible? True, it would be the biggest gift I had ever accepted from anyone, but if Don were telling me the truth, if his staying on for a while really wouldn’t disrupt his life irreparably, and if he honestly wanted to do it (which I did not doubt) shouldn’t I be humble enough to accept it? I’d been willing once to throw a large part of my burden onto Eliza’s shoulders, and it would have been a far greater sacrifice for her than the one Don was making would be for him. I reached out a hand to him. I could say nothing. He took my hand for just a second.

  “Right-o, then, that’s settled,” he said briskly. “I must say you handled that rather well. I wa
s prepared to beat you senseless, but that would have been difficult to explain to the good Dr. Bitterby. Now for some lunch.” He made for the doorway.

  “Lunch?” I said. “I just got up, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you lazy bastard, you did. But I, and Tillie the little powderpuff there, have been up for hours. We’ll have lunch. You’ll have bruncheon. Come on, Tillie-girl,” he said, scooping up the now yawning kitten from the bed, “let’s let old Dr. Mac get all primped for his appearance in the kitchen. I’ll whip up some nice fat little shrimpies for you or something, okay?”

  “You’ll spoil her,” I called after him.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he sang out happily. “Dr. Don Rath the Spoiling Machine. I spoil fox-faced cats, bandage- headed shrinks, and other freaks of nature. Call our 800-number for the juicy details.” In a minute I heard the blender buzzing in the kitchen.

  39. As Long as You Live, or Longer

  There was a long period in my present existence (I think it was long, though I really can’t tell you how long it was) when I did not “see” Eliza at all; it seemed for quite a while that my visions centered mainly on my early youth, and while they were very interesting and instructive for me, they would probably only bore you. I must admit, however, that even while I was absorbed in these meditations, I often hungered for another glimpse of Eliza, at any time in her life. It didn’t have to be about me; I just wanted to learn all I could about her. At last, I was rewarded, and rewarded grandly.

  Without the usual dreamy sense of introduction that generally preceded these sightings, I was suddenly watching Eliza sunning herself on a lovely beach. It appeared to be New England, probably Cape Cod, if memory serves: the height of the dunes, the scrub-pine crawling along their rims, and the texture and color of the sand looked familiar to me, for I had spent some time there as a boy and had loved every inch of the place. At any rate, it was a sunny, windy day, and there was Eliza.

  She was sleeping, or appeared to be, lying on her back near the water’s edge on a brightly striped beach towel, and she was wearing a modest black bathing suit that, on closer look, was so old it was turning a shiny, darkish green. Her hair was tied up in a scarf, and she was wearing huge sunglasses, but it was unmistakably Eliza. I could even see the odd birthmark on the instep of her foot that had so appealed to me: a little constellation of many-sized freckles and pigmented streaks all pooled together crazily in what she called “my Jackson Pollock.” I remembered the first time I’d seen it, when she wore her sandals to class one warm afternoon, and how many times I’d kissed that constellation. Scattered about her on the sand were various objects that made it obvious she had not come to the beach alone, chief among them a sand-chair and a beach umbrella. I knew that Eliza would never have brought along such encumbrances on a solo trip to the ocean.

  I did not have to wait long to see her companion. A young woman, taller than Eliza, very blond, and wearing a bright tropical suit, emerged from the waves and approached Eliza’s towel. Dripping, she shook some water over Eliza’s sleeping form. Eliza sat up quickly and smiled.

  “Mmmmm,” she said, yawning. “That felt good. I’m baking out here! How long have I been asleep? I’d better get out of this sun. How’s the water? Is it lunch time? God, I’m so hungry. Do you want to go in again?”

  No one I’d ever known could go from sleeping to waking as rapidly as Eliza. She could fall asleep anywhere, at any time, and go directly into the deepest of dreams, but she would wake up perfectly clear, and usually talking a blue streak. Her friend, now toweling herself off, laughed at her. “Slow down, will you?” she said. “I can’t keep up. One, you’ve only been asleep about a half hour. Two, the water is pretty damned cold, as you might have guessed. Three, it’s not even close to lunch time, but there’s a lot of fruit in the cooler if you’re hungry. And four, no, I’m not going back into that ice-cube tray again right now. Any more questions?”

  Eliza laughed too, and took off her glasses and scarf. She moved the sand-chair under the umbrella and began brushing her hair. I could see now that she was no longer twenty-three or -four, but I knew I’d have to wait for other clues to fix her actual age at the time of this sighting; as I’ve told you before, I always had trouble with her age. The other woman, though, looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, so I assumed that Eliza was too. That would mean it was near or just after the time of my death. I knew it was conceited to think that way, but I couldn’t help interjecting my own interests into the scene on the beach.

  For a while the two young women just chatted about little things—making observations about other sunbathers, commenting on a film they’d recently seen—and it was clear to me that they were very fond of each other indeed. They were perfectly comfortable with one another, and I was glad Eliza had enjoyed such a friendship.

  But then the conversation lapsed into a long silence as they watched the breakers taper off closer and closer to their feet. Eliza’s friend suggested they move back up the beach a little, but Eliza just sighed.

  “What’s the matter, Eliza? You’ve been a little off for days.”

  Eliza sighed again. “Oh, I’m sorry, Charlotte. I hope I’m not spoiling anything for you. I am a little down, but it’s nothing so terrible.” She gave her friend a bright smile. “Let’s move our stuff back a little, before we get wet.”

  She folded up the umbrella and began gathering their belongings together. In a minute the two of them had moved everything back a good thirty feet. Eliza spread her towel out again and lay down on it, face skyward. Charlotte did the same.

  “You’re not spoiling anything for me,” Charlotte said. “I’m having a lovely time; I’m so glad you thought of our corning here for a few days. But I was a little worried about you, that’s all.”

  Eliza said nothing for a while; Charlotte turned over on her stomach. Then Eliza began speaking. “Char,” she said, “do you remember I told you the story once about that psychology professor I knew in college?”

  Charlotte said she thought she remembered.

  “It was a long time ago—that I told you, I mean. It seems like only yesterday that I knew him.”

  “I have to admit, I forget some of the details. Wasn’t he sick or something?”

  Eliza sighed a third time. Without getting up, she reached into her bag and took out her sunglasses and scarf, tying the latter loosely across her brow and putting on the glasses. “Yes,” she answered. “He was very, very ill. In fact,” she paused, then went on slowly, “I found out recently that he died last month.”

  Charlotte sat up and looked down at Eliza, who did not move.

  “God,” she said, “that’s really awful. How did you find out?”

  “A lawyer called me,” Eliza said. “It was really strange. Jack’s lawyer—that was his name, Jack MacLeod, and said I’d been named chief beneficiary in Jack’s will. He asked if I could come to his office to discuss the details.” Eliza got up and moved to the chair under the umbrella. She poured a cup of something from a glass jug, and offered it to Charlotte, who shook her head. After taking a long drink, Eliza continued.

  “So I went there, last Thursday. As it turned out, there was no money left to speak of, but I’m to receive some of Jack’s papers and all his books. I’m still stunned. I can’t believe any of it happened. I’ve been walking around in a daze, not understanding anything. That’s why I wanted to come up here this weekend, and with you. For the first time in my life, I really felt afraid to be alone.” She sat up, removed her glasses, covered her eyes with her hands, and turned her head toward Charlotte, who came over and hugged her.

  “You poor thing,” Charlotte said, gently. “I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to spill the beans. Keep talking; I think you’ve got to talk, okay?”

  Eliza blew her nose and smiled. “Okay. Yeah. But I don’t know where to start.”

  “Anywhere,” Charlotte said. “For example, what did he die of? How old was he? Had you kept in touch over the ye
ars?”

  “Now you sound like me,” Eliza said, laughing a little. “All those questions! That’s good, that’s okay; it’ll get me going.” She paused and took a long breath.

  “He had a brain tumor,” she said, finally, “and I guess that’s what he eventually died of, though I didn’t ask the lawyer any details. I should have, and the lawyer seemed like a nice man, but I was so shocked I could hardly speak to him at all. I think Jack would have been forty-something when he died; I can’t quite figure it out exactly. But young. God, Char, he was so young. And so brilliant and funny and kind. It’s so unfair, I can’t tell you how angry it makes me.”

  She was sniffling again, and Charlotte handed her tissues.

  “Go on,” she said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “He had really blue eyes,” my Lizzie said. My soul sang. Then she went on. “Well,” she said, “those are the only facts I have, really. The rest of it is really all in my head. How much of what I told you about Jack do you remember? I don’t want to bore you with some long story you’ve already heard.”

  Charlotte patted her hand. “Don’t worry about that. You know my memory is like a sieve. And anyway, you should just tell it the way you want to—whatever way feels good. I’ll prompt you if you get stuck.”

  “I’m stuck already,” Eliza said. “Char, I’m really all screwed up about this—it’s really gotten to me. Ever since that lawyer called me, I’ve done nothing but think about Jack. I always thought about him a lot anyway, but now it’s more like an obsession, and it frightens me a little. I think if I still feel this way when we get back to town, I’ll have to look for someone to straighten me out, you know?”

  “That’s a good idea, honey,” Charlotte told her, “I know just the person to recommend: that shrink Bob saw last summer. But I wouldn’t worry; if I know you, you’ll snap out of it. You’ve just been alone with it too long.”