David’s hands still shake. At the dinner table, between each mouthful of food, he presses his palms together, as if in prayer. I watch as he separates his hands and blows lightly on each open palm, as if he can still feel the burning coarseness of the rope against his fingers. I have given him sedatives but he does not take them. He is on his own. There is nothing I can do.
It was David who found him. It was David who untied the rope and felt the weight of Josh’s body against his. It was David who knelt at his side when the paramedics ceased resuscitation. And it was David, not me, who first ran his hands down Josh’s limp arms, tracing with his fingers the myriad lines, some healed as the faintest of scars, some cut only days before. I was still at work, attending to my patients. I didn’t know. David hadn’t phoned me. By the time I got home it was all over. My son’s illness and death were over.
Does it matter now? Of course David was in shock. He didn’t think. It was only fifteen minutes—twenty, at the most—before he called to let me know. Would it have made a difference if I had been there earlier? Having failed for sixteen years to save my son, could I have saved him then? These questions hang in the air between us, echoing through every room in this house of horrors. In my silence, I ask them of David. In his silence, he reproaches me for asking. Never before has it mattered that I am a doctor and David is not. Does it matter now? It’s the only thing that matters.
Why, then, do I stay? Because I have come to believe in the possibility of ghosts. Because I must stay until I no longer believe.
Memories are ghosts of a kind: specters that haunt without sound or vision, terrorizing our sleep, tormenting our waking hours. In my work, I have seen what damage memories can do. I have one memory—of course there are many—but one that haunts me most of all. I recount it to my psychiatrist at each weekly visit. She, in her dispassionate way, tells me I am imbuing the story with added meaning; that, in short, I am overreacting. I do not believe her.
It was early autumn: the faintest of chills in the afternoon air, the leaves of the plane trees just beginning to turn. I’d picked Josh up from kindergarten and as we walked home I asked him, as all mothers do in their less inspired moments, “So, what did you do today?”
He kicked at a stone on the path and did not reply. I persisted. “Who did you play with? What did you make? Did the teacher read a story?”
He looked at me, then, with those wide blue eyes that could appear almost vacant: a trick of his, a way he had, from an early age, of deflecting the outside world. “You are asking all the wrong questions,” he said. He was three years old.
I used to tell this as a humorous anecdote, an example of my son’s precociousness, a gentle ribbing of myself as the distracted, inattentive mother. Because, at the time, I didn’t really believe I was inattentive. But now the story seems glaring in its omissions. Now it is a story of negligence. Surely you see what is missing. The question I now ask myself every hour of every day, because I never thought to ask it of him: “Tell me, Josh, what are the right questions?”
What, my darling boy, were the right questions?
Tahirih
LEAH KAMINSKY
I stand at the entrance to the waiting room. Tahirih looks up and smiles, waiting patiently for me, hands folded in her lap.
“Come in, Tahirih,” I say.
Tahirih smoothes the creases from her tailored navy skirt. Her eyebrows sculpted, her graying hair scraped back into a neat bun, she wears a silk blouse and her pumps are white. Silhouetted against the sunlight bleeding in through the wooden shutters of the waiting room, she looks like she is wearing a halo.
“I don’t mind waiting,” she says. “You can take that man in before me. He is so distressed.”
“Thank you, Tahirih, but let’s get started, shall we?”
The morning they called Tahirih to the morgue in Tehran, she asked the caretaker if she could wash Fouad’s body. She told me that her husband had always been such a clean and elegant man and she could not stand to see him lying on a steel table, covered in blood and excrement. The caretaker brought her a bucket of water and an old rag. This was the body that belonged to her all those years, the body of which she had once been so shy.
Tahirih was seventeen when she first met Fouad. Her mother called her away from piano practice to introduce her to some visitors. She was annoyed at the interruption. When she walked into the living room, she saw him seated beside his mother. They were all sipping cherry juice, a delicacy served only on special occasions. It was a hot day and Tahirih was feeling a little faint as she stood before everyone.
“Come sit with us,” her mother said. “I want you to meet Mrs. Faizi and her son Fouad. They are here visiting from Tehran for a short while.” Tahirih sat down on the edge of an armchair.
“Would you care for some fresh dates or figs?” her mother asked, passing a tray of delicacies across to Mrs. Faizi. Fouad stared at Tahirih. She looked away. Two red roses stood in a vase on the coffee table. Her mother had cut some of her prize flowers from the garden. That signaled that these visitors were very important. Tahirih had certainly heard of Mrs. Faizi before. Her husband was a member of the Baha’i Spiritual Assembly in Tehran, but Tahirih had never known that they had a son.
“Fouad is an engineer,” her mother said. “He is visiting his parents for a few days, and they have kindly come up to see us today.” Tahirih nodded, thinking only about her piano exam the following week. Her mother handed her a plate of almonds to offer the guests. She smiled politely and placed it on the table in front of Fouad. Their eyes met briefly again, and this time he smiled. He had a dark mustache, streaked with gray, which made him look quite handsome.
“I heard you playing before,” he said. “ ‘Für Elise’ is one of my favorite pieces.”
Tahirih picked up her glass and brought it to her lips before realizing that it was empty.
“Would you play some more for me?” he asked.
“Oh, um …” were the only words she could push past her tongue before her mother interrupted.
“Of course she will.” Tahirih could see that her mother was eager to please this man. “It would be an honor, wouldn’t it, Tahirih?” She urged her daughter to get up, holding her hand out in the direction of the parlor.
Tahirih stood up and turned to go. At the same time, Fouad rose from the sofa.
She felt him following her as she walked slowly into the other room. He closed the curtain behind them and stood leaning against the wall. The music rose up, breaking the awkward silence. Minute after minute passed as her fingers pawed at the keys, the tune a muted drone in the background compared to her pounding heart. As she finished playing the last bars, the notes sank away into silence and Fouad sighed. He walked over to where Tahirih was seated and stood behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. She felt his warm breath on the back of her neck.
“You are lovely,” he whispered.
Tahirih remembers the day her daughter Bahiya was born, how her tiny fingers curled around her mother’s thumb, her head tossing as she rooted around for the nipple. She once told me that they sent her a bill for the bullets the firing squad used to execute her husband. They came in the middle of the night and dragged him out of bed. The last time she saw him, a sliver of moonlight shone between the slats of the shutters onto his back. She remembers thinking that she should have mended the hole in his pajama shirt. Her mind still clutches at that loose thread, as if it still ties their destiny together. It is as long as it needs to be, winding through her years like an intricate, silken web across the globe. She never thought then that it would lead her to Haifa.
She hid the account for the bullets in the hem of her dress when she was smuggled out of Tehran after Fouad was killed. She still keeps it in a special box in the top drawer of her bedside table, opening it from time to time, usually just before she goes to bed. She runs her fingers over the faded print. She has to touch it, to prove that it is real. Ten bullets fired into his chest. The bill was dated 4/21
/1979 and sent by the Iranian Ministry of Finance, account payable in thirty days. She also received monthly bills for “food and accommodation.”
Here in Haifa, she tells me that people are kind to her. The Arab girl at the kiosk blesses her in Hebrew every day. The tiny Jewish lady in the apartment opposite greets her every morning as she beats a rug over the balcony rail.
“Ah’lan!” her neighbor shouts. “Everything will be fine, God willing.” Tfoo, tfoo, tfoo, the woman spits to ward off the evil eye.
She has a job in archives at the Baha’i World Centre. Baha’is visit from all over the world to work as volunteers, and each one has a tale to tell. They treat her well and look after her every need. She repays their kindness by working hard. She believes that work is worship.
The lady in a fur coat steps slowly off the bus every morning, carrying a mop in her hand. Winter or summer, she smiles at her and walks on. This land of contradictions is Tahirih’s home now. Her friend Katya has thrown away her wedding ring. She told her she stood completely naked in front of the mirror one morning and felt that part of her had been born while another part had died. After throwing away the golden band that had been part of her body for twenty-five years, she felt free.
And as Tahirih tells me this, I clutch onto my own wedding band, while Tahirih fiddles with the invisible thread tied to her ring, forever joined to Fouad. But somehow, the more she tugs, the further the thread unravels. Tahirih remains married to a dead man.
Tahirih said they came in the night, knocked loudly, then kicked the door in just as she was about to get up. She was home alone with Bahiya. Fouad had already been in prison a month by then. The tall one was chewing sunflower seeds. He smiled at her and ran his fingers through his black, greasy hair. One of his front teeth was missing, and through the gap he spat the cracked shells onto the Persian rug in the living room. He motioned with his right hand to the guard who accompanied him. The young soldier left the room and went outside.
The ugly one stayed. He walked his huge hand over the spines of the books on the bookshelf, like a concert pianist practicing his scales.
“It seems that you are very clever,” he laughed, pulling Bahiya’s favorite book down from the shelf: Little Red Riding Hood. “Is this one of your filthy infidel books?” he asked as he stroked the picture of the little girl on the cover.
The ugly one was still smiling as he slowly tore each page. He ripped Little Red Riding Hood to pieces and threw her severed head onto the floor. He ran his fingers along the spines of the books on the shelf again, and pulled one out, asking her to read him the title.
“Don’t dare lie, you prostitute,” he said quietly, “or I will kill you here and now.”
“God is my witness that I will not lie to you.”
“Shut up!” He shoved her to the ground. “Don’t mention the name of God with your filthy mouth.”
He lowered his black army boot onto her hair. He kneeled down and smiled at her, like someone had flicked a switch in his brain. He turned away, his attention wandering back to the bookshelves. He lifted the butt of his rifle this time and pointed to the Koran.
“Why is this on your shelf?”
“It is a Holy book,” she began, “the Baha’is honor its wisdom and—”
“Bow down to Allah and save your soul.”
She stared down at the rug. He continued looking through the books. That particular evening, the third time they had visited unannounced since her husband’s arrest, it was to be one of Fouad’s textbooks. The guard pointed to a paragraph and sat down on the couch, patting the cushions and motioning for Tahirih to sit next to him.
She started to read out loud, just as if little Bahiya was seated by her side and they were reading a bedtime story. The phenomenon called migratory crystallization consists in the growth of large crystals in a group, at the expense of small ones. The response of the system to invasion by ice molecules determines the immediate and long-term effects of freezing.
“It is such a warm and pleasant night,” he said.
Her heart was pounding. He slowly tore out the page she had been reading and scrunched it up into a ball. He handed it to her and said: “Eat it.”
She did not move.
“Go on. Eat some ice to cool you down.”
She took the paper from his outstretched hand. She was trembling so much that she accidentally dropped it on the floor.
“Pick it up.”
She bent down, and he suddenly grabbed her wrist and forced her down onto her knees. His right hand held the back of her head firmly by the roots of her hair. He rose above her, unzipped the trousers of his dirty uniform and forced himself into her mouth, thrusting as she gagged and choked. When he finished, he threw her back onto the floor and she landed on top of a photo of Baha’u’llah. She vomited bile and semen onto his Holy face.
She looked up for a moment toward Bahiya’s room and thought she saw a tiny shadow disappear back into the darkness of the hallway. The books on the shelf started to whirl around her head; the guard’s laughter echoed in her ears.
I ask Tahirih to lift her blouse and place my cold stethoscope on her skin. “Breathe in,” I say automatically.
Usually the air rushing in and out of healthy lungs sounds like waves washing up onto shore then receding. Sometimes I lose focus when I examine a patient’s chest, and don’t seem to register what I am actually hearing. Today, the gurgling rattle of Tahirih’s lungs won’t let my mind wander very far. I put down my stethoscope and scribble out a form for a chest X-ray.
“Always better to play it safe,” I say matter-of-factly, as she tucks in her blouse. I hand her the referral.
“Bless you, doctor, for squeezing me in,” Tahirih says, reaching out and touching my hand lightly. “I would be grateful if you would give me something for this cough, meanwhile, just to help me sleep a little at night.”
I pull my hand away from hers just a little too quickly, and try to cover up my embarrassment by scribbling out a prescription for some antibiotics. The infernal itch is back. Every month I douse the bastards and every month they set up shop in my hair. Oh, the joys of motherhood.
“Thank you, doctor,” Tahirih says. She is so accepting.
Most patients nowadays ask me endless questions, pull out some crap they’ve printed off the Internet, wanting to discuss the results of the latest trials of the inhibition of IM-9 leukocyte 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme, which I’ve never even heard of. They think their cybersurfing gives them an instant medical degree. I just don’t get it. Why are they so willing to swallow hocus-pocus herbs from some witch doctor without giving it a second thought, yet demand that I explain all the side effects and possible risks of anything and everything I prescribe? A simple thank you, doctor once in a while comes as such a relief. They have lost their faith in the profession, so that life in this room usually boils down to plumbing and pills. I am tired of listening. I am bloated with their stories. I have nowhere left to put them anymore. They spill out from me onto the pavement as I walk down the street, and I seem to be losing pieces of myself along the way.
I am beginning to forget myself lately as well. Maybe it’s the pregnancy? More often than not, while a patient is in the midst of unfolding his or her life to me, I doodle on prescription pads, or prepare shopping lists, my mind edging slowly toward the door and out. I am always waiting for the opportunity to go to the bathroom while a patient undresses. I leave the room and escape from those voices that constantly beg help me, mend me. I stand there, staring into the mirror at a face I barely recognize anymore. And as I turn away from the sink, telling myself to get a grip and go back in to the patient waiting for me, I catch a glimpse of someone else walking off in the opposite direction, into the depths of the mirror. This doppelganger of mine is never coming back. The Mirror Woman peels off her white coat like dead skin and heads down to the sea. I go back into my room and start searching for pathology.
Listen to me carrying on! I am supposed to dispense comp
assion and humanity along with the pills, to be a healer, a listener, a therapist, a fixer, a priest, a mother, a confidante, a bloody miracle worker for all of them. The truth is, I’m tired. I have been there for all the important milestones. I have stood beside freshly dug graves as they are buried, listening to the words of the Kaddish over and over again. I have walked alone in cemeteries and wept for those I could not save, or for those I could have saved, should have saved but didn’t. But the truth is, I am secretly weeping for myself, for my own mortality.
I move over to the washbasin by the window. I rinse my hands with chlorhexidene disinfectant; a well-programmed robot, I wash slowly, thoroughly, rubbing my palms together in a circular motion, cleaning meticulously between the fingers with the scrubbing brush. A tiny black louse is lodged under the nail of my right index finger. I quickly flick it out, and it drops into the basin. I watch it swirl around in the opposite direction to what it would in Melbourne, and finally it disappears down the drain.
How can I know how to help Tahirih? She is filled with forgiveness and love and understanding for everyone, even for the very people who hated and abused her.
“I did not want to trouble you again today, dearest doctor,” she says. “You are so busy with people who need your help far more than me. I am so sorry to bother you.”
She notices me shifting around on my chair.
“You are not comfortable?”
“I’m fine, Tahirih.” I hold a hand to my lower back and fend off her intrusion. “It’s just the pregnancy. I haven’t been sleeping so well lately.”
“Doctor,” she says, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you have been looking quite tired lately. I am a little worried.”
“I wish I was more like you,” I say. “Where can I buy such patience and acceptance?”
Writer, M.D. Page 20