Deathbed

by William Kienzle

  She felt as if she should somehow protect this nun. But there was no way of doing it. As long as she remained in this hospital, Sister Eileen would be vulnerable to anyone here who wished her harm. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  * * *

  “Father in heaven, through this holy anointing grant Alice Walker comfort in her suffering. When she is afraid, give her courage; when afflicted, give her patience; when dejected, afford her hope; and when alone, assure her the help of your holy people. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  This was nice, Father Koesler reflected. For almost the only time in his priestly career, he had the comparative leisure to minister properly to the sick.

  In his early years as a priest, he was rarely called to a sickbed without its also being a deathbed. Back then, the sacrament was known as Extreme Unction—a last anointing. And, while the rite contained several prayers for a return to health, popularly it was looked upon as a one-way ticket to eternal life in the hereafter. So, although priests periodically instructed parishioners to inform their clergy when anyone became ill, generally, it was a useless plea. Catholics, by and large, continued to view Extreme Unction as a final statement that they tried to postpone as long as they possibly could. Thus, Koesler was accustomed to anointing people who were apparently dead.

  Then came the Second Vatican Council and, among other things, liturgical renewal. And the sacrament that had been known as Extreme Unction was modified and given the more updated name of the Anointing of the Sick. However, by that time, most sick people died not at home but in hospitals, where they were ministered to not by their parish priest but by chaplains. And that was the role Koesler found himself playing now as he substituted for his classmate.

  Of course this was a little more than Alice Walker had bargained for. All she had asked of Sister Rosamunda was confession. Indeed, Alice had confessed her few sins of impatience, anger, and borderline despair in the early portion of this rite. But Koesler correctly judged that a woman of Alice Walker’s advanced years, facing major surgery, was entitled to the Anointing of the Sick. And, after her initial apprehension that this priest was trying to slide her into eternity with Extreme Unction, Alice admitted she felt consoled by this rite. Until now, she had never heard of the Anointing of the Sick.

  But then, there were many interesting things going on in Catholicism of which even most Catholics were ignorant.

  “God of compassion,” Koesler continued with a prescribed Prayer Before Surgery, “our human weakness lays claim to your strength. We pray that through the skills of surgeons and nurses your healing gifts may be granted to Alice Walker. May your servant respond to your healing will and be reunited with us at your altar of praise. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  Koesler continued with the rite of Communion, then prayed the concluding blessing: “May the God of all consolation bless you in every way and grant you hope all the days of your life. Amen.

  “May God restore you to health and grant you salvation. Amen.

  “May God fill your heart with peace and lead you to eternal life. Amen.

  “May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Koesler’s right hand traced the sign of the cross.

  “Is that it?” Alice Walker asked.

  “That’s it,” Koesler confirmed as he removed the stole from his shoulders.

  “That was nice.”

  “Yes, I thought so too.”

  “I didn’t think I was going to get all this when I asked Rosie—uh, Sister Rosamunda—for confession.”

  “I know. But I didn’t think you’d mind the sacrament of Anointing too.”

  “Oh, I didn’t. I was afraid to ask for more than confession. I was afraid you’d come and give me Extreme Unction. And that would have been it.”

  “It?”

  “Yes. Then you’d’ve prayed me right into the next life.”

  Koesler smiled. “I wouldn’t have done that. We need you too much right here.”

  There was a slight pause as Koesler folded the stole and gathered up the pyx that had contained the consecrated wafer.

  “They didn’t fool me, you know,” Alice Walker said in a knowing tone.

  “Huh? Who didn’t fool you?”

  “Those two last night.”

  “What two last night?”

  “The two in the next bed.”

  Koesler glanced at the empty bed near the door. It was made up with customary hospital care. There was no doubt that it was not being used by any patient. He knew that Alice Walker was of advanced age and that she was ill. But he was not conversant with her mental state. For all he knew, she might have a touch of Alzheimer’s. Or possibly she had been just hallucinating. In any case, no one was occupying 2218-B.

  He decided to try a little reality therapy. “Mrs. Walker, there’s nobody in the other bed in this room.”

  “There certainly was last night.”

  “There was?”

  “Yes, two.”

  “Two? It’s a single bed.”

  “Not when one is on top of the other. “

  “On top? Mrs. Walker, what happened last night?” Koesler was mystified. What did she think happened last night?

  “Well, I was havin’ my evening snack—graham crackers and milk—when I heard them. There was two of them. I couldn’t see who they was right off. This curtain was pulled around my bed and the only light was this one at the head of my bed. They was whispering, but I could tell it was a man and a woman. At first they was just sparkin’, but then they went into the act.”

  “The act?”

  “Yes, you know what I mean. What could I do? I couldn’t stop ’em or cheer ’em on. Besides, they got through it rather rapid. So I just kep’ eatin’ my snack. But then they started in again. I never heard nothin’ like it. I mean it wasn’t ten minutes after they finished the act the first time when didn’t they start all over again. Well, I tell you, nothin’ surprises me much anymore. But that surprised me. And a bit of the snack went down my throat the wrong way and I started chokin’. The next thing I know, the man fell out of the bed and, I guess, rolled across the floor until he hit my bed. Wham!

  “Well, my bed hit the wall and I pitched out of it and onto him on the floor. Knocked the morsel right out of my throat. Saved my life, I guess. But what a way to do it!

  “Next thing I know, the nurse—’cause that’s who I think it was—was gettin’ herself and him dressed. They got me back in bed. I guess they didn’t think I knew what was goin’ on.

  “Then all hell broke loose. People comin’ in here makin’ a fuss over me. Shoot, I was okay by then. And while they’re makin’ this fuss over me, this man—turns out he was a guard . . . at least he had a guard’s uniform—is tellin’ everybody this cockamamie story about how he heard me chokin’ and came in and saved me. I mean, I’ve lived a long and eventful life, but that’s the first time anything as weird as that ever happened to me.”

  Koesler was unsure what to believe. It was a wild tale. A bit too wild, he thought, to have sprung out of whole cloth. Perhaps it was true.

  “Have you told this to anyone else, Mrs. Walker?”

  “No, just you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell somebody? The people who were in here last night? Or someone this morning?”

  “Don’t want to make any enemies. I’m goin’ into surgery, you know. I want to have at least an even chance to come out of it okay.”

  “So why did you tell me?”

  “I can trust you. God! If you can’t trust a priest, who can you trust?”

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

  “Whatever you want. I don’t care. It ain’t my responsibility anymore. If you tell, they can’t blame me. It’s your responsibility. Or if you don’t tell anybody, that’s okay too. I don’t care anymore. It’s your kettle of fish now.”

  Koesler shrugged. “Glad to be of help.” He made ready to leave.

&nb
sp; “One more thing,” Alice Walker said.

  “Yes?”

  “Pray for me and my operation.”

  “I just did—in the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.”

  “I know. But keep it up. It couldn’t hurt.”

  “Right.”

  * * *

  Father Koesler made six consecutive calls on new patients on his floors, each of whom was otherwise occupied, either with tests, therapy, or being examined by doctors. Time, he decided, for a coffee break.

  The cafeteria coffee had its usual severely strong character. So as usual he was more warming his hands from the cup than drinking it. The people who complained about his coffee-making should be made to sample this coffee, he thought. That would teach them to better appreciate his efforts.

  While he sat by himself in the nearly empty cafeteria, two nurses seated themselves at a neighboring table. Evidently, they were also on coffee break. They were actually sipping the coffee. Koesler wondered if it just took time to get used to its industrial strength.

  The two nurses began chattering away, seemingly oblivious of Koesler’s proximity.

  In order to distract himself, Koesler weighed what he might do with the information he had been given by Alice Walker. It all came down to: to tell or not to tell.

  Before Mrs. Walker’s revelation, Koesler had heard something of the event. The version he’d heard was considerably less titillating than Alice Walker’s account. He had overheard some talk of the rescue. But the emphasis was on the coincidence that a guard should be passing by a room at the exact moment a patient happened to be choking. Beyond that, there was some comment about the guard’s being able to execute the Heimlich Hug. It was, Koesler had been led to believe, not so outstanding or newsworthy an event.

  If one could rely on Mrs. Walker, there was a far more colorful aspect to this rescue now celebrated in the lore of this ancient hospital. Which were it known would undoubtedly trigger a couple of dismissals. Was it worth it to reveal the story and cause a couple of people to be fired?

  Probably not, Koesler concluded. Security in this hospital was not the best, to say the least. It would not be improved with the revelation that one of the guards had been horizontal when he should have been vertical. Same for the nurse—or aide, whichever.

  Peripherally, he noticed the two nurses changing position preliminary to leaving. “What’s the hurry?” the blonde asked. She seemed to be down to the dregs of her coffee, but not ready to leave.

  “I gotta get back,” the brunette answered. “One of the gals in 2214 is having problems.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. No one can figure it out. Just took a bad turn. I promised to cut my break short and get back. I gotta go.”

  “Okay, okay. Hold your horses. I’ll be right with you.”

  The two nurses departed, leaving Koesler wondering. Something about that room number . . . Ordinarily, there was no reason a particular room would strike any chord in his memory. But, for some reason, Room 2214 stood out. Of course it must have something to do with the patients in that room. But what?

  So absorbed was he in trying to recall the patients of 2214 and why the memory should disquiet him so, that he was oblivious to the arrival of someone who seated herself at the table directly across from him. Thus, her greeting startled him.

  “Father . . . Father!” Ethel Laidlaw felt as if she were awakening someone.

  “Oh . . .” Koesler’s attention came back to the scene. He smiled. “Hello. Sorry; I’m afraid I was distracted.”

  “It’s okay,” Ethel said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have sat down here. I didn’t have any appointment or anything like that. I just needed to talk to somebody. Probably a priest. And I kinda thought you might be the one who’d understand.

  “Sure, that’s fine. You certainly don’t need an appointment. For the time being, I’m chaplain at this hospital and I am quite literally at your service. But I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Father. No, we haven’t. I’m a nurse’s aide here. I’m Ethel Laidlaw.” Ethel offered her hand. As she did so, she knocked over the saltshaker, spilling salt on the table. “Oops,” she said, “got to avoid bad luck.” With that, she picked up the shaker as if to flip a little salt over her left shoulder. Instead, she lost her grip and the shaker sailed across the room, landing with a smack against the wall.

  For some reason, it reminded Koesler of the biblical incident of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus on the original Easter Sunday. In their walk they were joined by Jesus but they did not perceive who He was. It was only during dinner at an inn, “at the breaking of the bread they recognized that it was the Lord.” In this instance, it was the fiasco with a salt-shaker that jogged Koesler’s memory. This one was one of a matched pair. Koesler had watched the couple demolish a meal at least once. And he had been duly impressed with their clumsiness. Ethel’s performance with the salt confirmed the image.

  Clearly, she was embarrassed.

  “Just an accident,” Koesler assured her. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

  “‘Just an accident’!” Ethel mimicked reproachfully. “More like the story of my life. I wonder about that, Father: Do you suppose some people are born clumsy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Ethel. I suppose people have a greater or lesser degree of coordination. I don’t guess it’s any more than that. But that’s not what you wanted to talk to me about, is it?”

  “Not exactly, Father, but it’s got something to do with it. Actually, it’s a kind of complicated problem. I don’t know exactly how to tell you.”

  “Well, let’s start at the present. What’s the problem right now?”

  “The problem right now is I could get fired. In fact I probably will unless something happens.”

  “The unemployment rate in this town being what it is, that could be a pretty serious problem. What makes you think you may be fired?”

  Ethel shrugged. “Like that saltshaker. I break things. A lot.”

  “That many?”

  “I guess so. It’s kind of hard for me to tell exactly. I’ve been doing this sort of thing all my life. But, whatever, Sister Eileen said she’d have to fire me if it didn’t stop. Well, Father, I mean it can’t stop. I’ll probably find some way of falling out of my coffin and knocking over all the flowers. That is, if anybody sends flowers.”

  “Well, Ethel, if you can’t help being clumsy, you can’t help it. If that’s the way you are, it’s not your fault. But maybe you’re just working in the wrong job.”

  “The wrong job?”

  “Yes.” It was an opening for one of Koesler’s anecdotes. “Did you ever hear about the guy who went to New York to get a job? He got in a cab and said to the driver, ‘T-T-T-Take me to N-N-N-NBC in a hurry.’ You see, he stuttered very badly.

  “So, to make conversation, the cabbie asked, ‘What do you want to go to NBC for?’ And the guy says, ‘I’m going to an au-au-au-audition for a j-j-j-job as an a-a-a-announcer.’ When they reach NBC, the guy says to the cabbie, ‘W-W-Wait for me.’

  “After a while the guy comes back and gets into the cab. The cabbie says, ‘So, did you get the job?’ And the guy says, ‘N-N-N-No; they’re p-p-p-prejudiced against C-C-C-Catholics.’”

  Ethel laughed. “That’s funny. But, if you don’t mind, what’s it got to do with me?”

  “Just this, Ethel: There seem to be an outstanding number of things in a hospital that are breakable. Test tubes come to mind; thermometers; breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes; all the things that are used to carry specimens and medications around the hospital—the list just goes on and on. Almost everywhere you look in the hospital, there’s something breakable. Doesn’t it seem to you that this is not the best place to work for someone who . . . uh . . . has a problem with awkwardness?”

  “I suppose. But I gotta work.”

  “Well, then, not at a restaurant either. All those dishes. Maybe a dry-goods store. Something with a l
ot of cloth.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Father. I think I’ve tried them all. There’s no place where you can’t spill things, break them, damage them, rip them, and on and on. When I got this job here at St. Vincent’s, I decided this was it. This was where it was going to come together. I would work here till I retire. And now I’m on the verge of being fired.”

  “Well, we all have to alter our goals every once in a while, you know.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “There is?”

  “It’s a fella. My first real fella, would you believe that? Yeah, I guess you would.”

  “Not really . . .” Koesler attempted to dismiss her disclaimer.

  “Sure you would. Anybody would. I mean, look at me. I know you’re a priest and all that, but you’ve got to have at least looked at girls. Marilyn Monroe I ain’t. Not really bad looking, but no raving beauty either: Just barely good enough so that a few fellas have asked me out down through the ages. But once we get out on the date and I spill and break enough things, that’s it! One-date Ethel. Until now. Now I got a fella and I think this one’s gonna take.”

  Koesler felt himself desperately hoping that Ethel was right about this upswing in her love life. “Well, that sounds great. Just what the doctor ordered, as it were. If this works out—and you sound pretty confident—this job isn’t all that important. So what if you lose it? Your fella can bring home the bacon and you can gracefully retire and become a homemaker.” Koesler knew that by current standards this scenario reeked of male chauvinism. But for her benefit he was trying to conjure up a padded cell with as few breakables as possible.

  “But see, Father, that’s sort of the good news and the bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  “The good news is I think I got a man and I think I really love him and I think he really loves me. But the bad news is he’s as clumsy as me. That’s why we get along so good. We wouldn’t even think about complaining about each other. It’s more like looking in a mirror.