F&SF July/August 2011

by Fantasy; Science Fiction

  When he finally lapsed into silence, she studied him for a long moment. He had no idea what he was expecting her to say. Finally she did speak, and what she said surprised him greatly:

  "Where's the note?"

  "Note?" he said, and then understood. "Oh! The note! The one from—"

  "Death."

  "Right." He reached into his pocket where he had shoved the note. His hand came up empty. The note wasn't there. Bronsky attempted a smile that he knew must have looked incredibly weak. "Uhm...."

  "It's gone, right?" She didn't sound the least bit surprised.

  "Yeah."

  She folded her hands in front of her. "You hate my meat loaf, don't you."

  "What? No!"

  "If you didn't want to eat it, you could have just said so."

  "It has nothing to do with your meat loaf!" said Bronsky with such intensity that he slammed his fist on the table. The jolt was so violent that it upended his plate and the meat loaf, along with the green beans, clattered to the floor. He stared down at the mess, and then back to his wife.

  Without a word, she went into the kitchen, came back with a dust pan and brush, and cleaned up the mess. He said nothing the entire time until finally she returned to her chair, sat down once more in a manner resembling a queen sitting on a throne, and she said, "You need to talk to someone, because this is getting out of hand. You have an unhealthy obsession with death."

  "I don't have an obs for hundreds of years. c. She hession with it! It is what it is!"

  "You keep talking about dying."

  "That's because I'm too old to talk about living."

  "You need to stop talking about it."

  Bronsky wasn't entirely sure he understood. "You want me to talk to someone about it... so that I can stop talking about it?"

  "Exactly."

  "That makes no sense to me."

  "It does to me and that's what matters."

  "Uh-kay," said Bronsky.

  So she made an appointment for him with a psychiatrist. Bronsky didn't know how she happened to pick this particular one, but she seemed quite fixed on the notion that he was definitely the ideal person to sit down with Bronsky and cure him of this annoying acceptance of death. So off Bronsky went, his wife driving the car and him sitting in the passenger seat with his hands neatly folded in his lap as if he were a recalcitrant child being shepherded to the principal's office.

  She brought him to a nondescript office building in an area of town that he hadn't been to before and would have been perfectly happy never to go to again. An elevator brought them up to the eighth floor and she led him into a tidy, if sterile, outer office where a tidy, if sterile, woman in a blue dress informed him that the doctor would be right with them. Bronsky was a bit concerned because the woman in the blue dress appeared to be suffused with a certain radiance. The receptionist was, in fact, transcendent. But his wife wasn't giving her a second look, instead burying her nose in a magazine with a cover date from six months previously. So Bronsky kept stealing sidelong glances at the receptionist but otherwise tried to focus on just about anything else in the room.

  The glowing woman finally told him that it was his turn to go in. Bronsky found this a little odd, because no one had emerged. If it was his turn to go in, shouldn't someone else have gone out? He said as much to his wife, but she just blew air impatiently between her teeth, so he simply got up and headed for the door. His wife followed directly in his heels, but the woman behind the desk said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. It's not your time yet."

  This struck Bronsky as rather curious phrasing, but his wife sat down with such obedience that she could have been trotted out at a pet show as an example to all the others. Bronsky then walked into the adjoining room, shutting the door behind him.

  A man was sitting behind a desk and he stood when Bronsky walked in. There were two chairs set up facing each other. No couch. Bronsky had thought there would be a couch.

  "I thought there would be a couch," said Bronsky. He tilted his head and studied the man, whom he took to be the doctor. The doctor was in his sixties, rail thin, wisps of brown and gray hair, an overlarge nose whereupon thick black glasses were perched. He looked like Woody Allen. "You look like Woody Allen, you know that?"

  "You're killing me, Bronsky. You're absolutely killing me," said the doctor. He didn't move toward either of the chairs, nor did he indicate that Bronsky should sit. He just stood there, looking forlorn.

  Bronsky stared at him. "Death?"

  "Of course Death. Who else but Death? I look like Woody Allen because under these circumstances, that's how you see me. It's very subjective."

  Bronsky realized he should have been surprised. Instead he was not; somehow it all seemed to make perfect sense. "Oh, hey: Do you know what Woody Allen said about death?"

  "He's said a lot of things. He's almost as bad as you in that respect. What did he say in particular?"

  "He said," and Bronsky grinned at the recollection, "'I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.'"

  Death did not so much as crack a smile. "He's a riot," said Death flatly.

  "So what are you doing here?" said Bronsky as if greeting an old friend.

  "What am I doing here?" said Death, thumping himself on the chest. "What are you doing here? What are we |up orTordoing here? I told you. I told you not to talk about me. What part of 'don't talk about death' did you not get?"

  "I got it all. But people keep asking me how I am, or what I'm up to, or how things are going with me. And I have to tell them. I can't help it. And frankly," Bronsky said with growing impatience, "I don't get any of this. I mean, you said you were like a cat. Wrong side of every door and like that. But you're not a cat now. So if you're going to take me, then just take me. Right now." He thought of his wife in the outside office and how she'd react upon discovering that he'd just keeled over right then and there. It should have daunted him. It didn't.

  Death was very aware of this. "You're not at all afraid."

  Bronsky shrugged. "No. I know maybe I should be, but I'm not. I'm thinking maybe that part of my brain got shot off, too, and I'm only just now finding out about it. It's not like I don't care whether I live or die, but, you know... life. Nobody gets out alive. Right?"

  "Right," said Death, looking more uncomfortable with every passing moment.

  "Okay then, so... just... make it quick so it doesn't hurt. I got a low pain threshold."

  He met Death's gaze evenly, his head held high.

  "Stop watching me," said Death.

  "What?"

  "You're watching me. Stop it. You're making me nervous."

  "I'm making you nervous? You're Death! What do you have to be nervous about?"

  "Just stop looking."

  "Jeeez," said Bronsky, but he obediently turned around. He couldn't fathom what Death's problem was. It wasn't as if he didn't have job security. People had to die, after all.

  He closed his eyes and waited. "Is my life going to flash before my eyes?" he said. "I always wondered about that. And is it just the memorable parts, or is it more or less everything? Or would you know that? Can you actually read people's minds when they—"

  " Shut up! "

  "Okay, fine," said Bronsky, and he made a "zipper lip" gesture. Then he waited. And waited. The clock on the wall seemed stuck at 11:37. He glanced at his own watch. It had stopped moving as well.

  "Why'd my watch stop moving?"

  " Oh, for God's sake! " Death cried out. Bronsky could hear the crunch of leather and knew that Death had sunk into one of the seats. "Can't you stop talking for five minutes?"

  "Well," said Bronsky reasonably, turning around, "I'll have eternity to stop talking, right? So what's wrong with using my last few moments to make myself heard? Am I really so out of line?"

  Surprisingly, Death chuckled ruefully. "No. No, you're not. And it's not you. It's me."

  "You wanna talk about it?" said Bronsky, sitting in the opposite chair.r />
  Death shrugged. A housefly directly overhead stopped buzzing, fell, and bounced off the desk. Death ignored it. "You'll think it's stupid."

  "I'm sure I won't."

  Death didn't continue immediately; Bronsky waited patiently.

  "It's not just the cat thing. That's not it at all, really. It's just... I get nervous if somebody's expecting it. Expecting me to, you know... do my thing. I stand there and nothing happens."

  "You mean it's like, whattaya call it, electoral misfunction?"

  "That's erectile dys— no ! It's not like that at all," Death said defensively, his back stiffening. "It's just... it's hard to describe. It's like...."

  "Nervous bladder?"

  "What is it with you, Bronsky, that you think everything has to do with that part of the body? Okay, look," and suddenly he was holding two small horseshoe-shaped magnets. "Look. See how they resist each other?" He tried to push them together but they fought him. "It's because they're alike. Positive to positive, negative to negative... they resist each other. When they say 'opposites attract,' they're talking about more than polarity. They're talking about the metaphysical setup of the universe. I can do my job because people either aren't thinking about me or wondered what acnostb h actively don't want me. The more you think about me, the more you talk about me, the more you drive me away."

  "You're saying I could wind up living forever just because I'm talking about you?"

  "No," said Death with concern on his face. "That's not going to be allowed to happen. I mean, eventually you'd slip into a coma and then I'd take you, but 'eventually' won't cut it here. These things run on a schedule. The longer you're around, the more you set the schedule out of whack, and that isn't allowed to happen. You're a nice guy, Bronsky. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

  "You have a worst enemy?"

  Death didn't respond at first, and when he did, it wasn't to answer the question. "Stop talking about Death, Bronsky. Stop telling everyone you're ready to go. If someone says, 'How do you feel?' just say, 'I feel fine. Couldn't be better.' Don't say, 'I'm winding down, getting ready to die.' Do this for me. Do this for yourself. Okay?"

  "I'll try," said Bronsky, "but I'll probably fail."

  IV.

  BRONSKY WAS as good as his word. He tried. In short order, he failed. Spectacularly.

  It lasted as long as it took for his wife to go down with him to the car. She turned on the ignition and said, "So how did it go with the doctor?"

  With absolutely no hesitation, Bronsky told her.

  She didn't drive so much as an inch. She just sat there in the parking garage with the engine running and listened. When Bronsky was done talking, she turned off the ignition, said, "Wait here," and exited the car.

  She was gone for a good long time. So long that Bronsky was starting to worry about her before she finally returned with an expression so grim that it would have made the Grim Reaper nervous. She sat down in the car once more but did not turn on the engine.

  "He does not look like Woody Allen," she said with no preamble. "He looks nothing like Woody Allen."

  "Who does he look like?" Bronsky said with interest.

  "It doesn't matter. What matters is that he said he sat there and talked to you and talked to you but you said absolutely nothing."

  "What's he going to do? Tell you the truth?"

  She had been looking straight ahead; now she fixed her gaze upon him. "Yes. Because he has no reason to lie."

  "But you know I never lie."

  "I know," and now there was unutterable sadness in her voice. "I know."

  Then she said nothing else, which was disturbing to Bronsky because as voluble as he was, his wife was no slouch in that regard and was rarely at a loss for words. In this case, though, that seemed to be exactly what she was. She looked like she wanted to say a great many things and could not bring herself to utter any of them. And so she remained silent and thoughtful, and Bronsky coaxed her and cajoled her the entire way home but she said nothing more.

  She dropped Bronsky off at home and said firmly, "Stay here. Do not go anywhere until I get back."

  "Where are you going?"

  She didn't reply. Instead she pulled out and left Bronsky standing at the front door. He was glad he had his house keys in his pocket.

  His wife did not come back that evening. This worried him a bit, but not a lot. He reasoned that she just needed some time to herself. He even wondered if this would somehow satisfy Death's preference that he not discuss life's end. Perhaps his wife would return and find him slumped over in his chair, thus solving everyone's problems.

  "That would solve everyone's problems," said Bronsky. "That would be fine with me. Let death come and take me right now. I'm ready. It would mean I don't have to stand up again, with my hip hurting and my back is bothering me now. I have all my affairs in order; it wouldn't be that big a deal. And I know, I know, that sounds self-pitying, but it's not really meant to be. I just have a reasonable expectation that the world will go on fine without me, since it did fine before I got here. Which makes me for hundreds of years. c. She h think that—"

  He went on like that for hours, talking to himself, until his throat got sore and he tilted his head back to rest for a bit, and then he fell asleep.

  Death swung by and looked in on him, but Bronsky was muttering in his sleep about dying, shmying, so what, big deal, and Death rolled his white, empty eyes and left again.

  When Bronsky awoke, vaguely recalling having dreamt of Ping-Pong balls staring at him, his stomach informed him that he was hungry. He groaned as he hoisted himself from his chair, meandered into the kitchen, and was just in the process of finishing up cornflakes in milk when he heard the car pull up into the driveway. His instinct was to run out there, to ask a hundred questions about where his wife had vanished to, but he decided to play it cool instead. He calmly finished his cereal, and then neatly placed the bowl in the sink after washing it out. Then, as if he had all the time in the world, he strolled in leisurely fashion into the living room.

  Penny was standing there, her cherubic face swathed in curls. She was holding a small overnight bag, which she set down. Bronsky's wife was busy hanging up her coat.

  "Hi, Dad," said Penny.

  He breathed out a sigh of relief; he could not recall the last time he had been quite so happy to see someone. In a flash, he was years younger, and she was an infant, no bigger than his forearm. He was lying on his back in bed one lazy morning, drifting in and out of sleep, his wife downstairs making pancakes, the smell wafting up the stairs. And Penny was sound asleep on his chest, the top of her head just under his chin, her feet not quite reaching to his navel. She rose and sank in perfect tandem with his breathing, and it was as if she had no weight at all. They lay heart-to-heart. And in her slumber, the infant started to half-turn, and even though she didn't have the upper body strength to flip over, it was enough to send her sliding to the side. Uninterrupted, she would have tumbled right off him, possibly off the bed and onto the floor. And Bronsky, who was ninety percent asleep, instantly became one hundred percent awake, and he brought up his arm and caught her before she'd slid much more than an inch. He slid her back into place. Her eyes remained closed and she slept on, blissfully unaware of the near calamity. "I'll always catch you," he whispered.

  He wished it was always that easy to keep her safe.

  Bronsky moved from one side of the living room to another so quickly that it seemed as if he'd just teleported without bothering with the steps in between, and he enfolded her into his arms. He felt her heart beating against his. It had slowed considerably from the hummingbird-like speed it had possessed back when she was lying on his chest, but it was strong and steady and, hopefully, would continue unabated for a good long time to come.

  "What are you doing here? I know! Time-shares. You finally—"

  "Mom asked me to come, and I had some time off coming, so...." She shrugged.

  He didn't understand. He would have if he'd given
it any thought, but he was so happy to see her that thinking about it just went right out of his head.

  Penny gave her mother a significant look, which her mother exchanged with equal significance, both of which went right past Bronsky. "Let's go somewhere and talk, Daddy," and she squeezed his hand once.

  "Oh," said her mother, "while you're out, could you pick up a couple of things at the deli?"

  "Sure, Mom," said Penny, and her mother handed her a list with a few scribbled items on it. Penny took it and tucked it into the pocket of her jacket.

  And Bronsky and his daughter went out for a walk, from which one of them would not come back.

  V.

  "AND IT WAS RIGHT THERE, right where you were sitting. That's where the cat was," said Bronsky.

  Penny, who was seated on the park bench, looked down as if the animal were under her. "The cat that was Death," she said. subsequentborTor

  "Right," said Bronsky, nodding.

  Bronsky had already told her the entire story. Now they were simply going back over the details because, Penny had said, she wanted to make sure she understood all of it. Bronsky was so pleased that what he was saying wasn't being dismissed out of hand that he was happy to go over it as many times as she asked. Why not? His little girl was there, and he drank in the presence of her as if it were a narcotic.

  "And he was a black cat with yellow eyes. And when he was the psychiatrist he looked like Woody Allen," she said.

  "To me," said Bronsky. "To you he might have looked like some younger actor who's kind of a nebbish. I don't know their names. I don't keep track of the new crop of actors. You ask me, there hasn't been a good movie made since Brando died. Streetcar Named Desire. The Godfather. Those were movies."

  "Daddy...," began Penny, something different in her voice.

  "Your mother asked you to come." He had figured it out by that point. "She thinks I'm lying."

  "No. We know you don't lie. That's what scares her. And me. We know you believe every single word you're telling us." She placed a hand on his. "Daddy... Mom's afraid that it's starting."