Fred bent his upper body over the digital clock in the center of the dashboard. “There certainly aren’t ninety thousand minutes left anymore, are there?”
Klondi leaned forward. “What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Albert says, ‘In ninety thousand minutes I’ll be dead.’”
Klondi glanced over at Albert. “Is that what he says?” She laid a hand on Fred’s shoulder. “You’ll live much longer than that.”
Violet downshifted and stepped on the gas. “I’m not so sure you should say that.”
Albert, who didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, lifted up his chess notebook, in which he’d recorded a few becauses over the past years, in front of his face.
Because this woman is perilously stupid, she believes nothing can happen the first time you do it. And then, of course, it happens. As I enter the world, I want to tell her: Do something clever for the first time in your life and keep me, I’m pretty smart, I can give a little of that to you. I’m trying my damndest to make her hear me, I’m screaming. But she’s too dumb. She thinks screaming is nothing but noise. And dumber still: she believes that if she runs away, she won’t hear that screaming anymore.
Or: This woman thinks a mother’s role is overrated because she didn’t have one of her own, and after all, in the end she made something of herself, didn’t she?
Or: According to this woman, “pregnancy denial” is nonsense, how could there be such a thing, every woman knows when she has a bun in the oven! No, in her opinion it’s just indigestion. Until, suddenly, there I am. And what does she do then? She says thanks a lot, washes herself off, gets dressed, and marches out of the hospital without me, glad that the indigestion has finally faded.
Or: For this woman, getting pregnant is simply part of life, like brushing her teeth. She can’t explain why it keeps happening to her of all people, miscounting now and then while taking the pill isn’t such a big deal, and it isn’t as if she’s entirely renounced condoms simply because it feels better for women, too, without them, she makes a genuine effort, hand on heart, in her opinion none of her girlfriends are as careful as she is, but then, none of them are so fertile. If she’d been around in the early forties, they would have awarded her the golden Mother’s Cross, at the very least. Can anyone really hold it against her that sometimes she loses sight of the big picture and forgets where exactly she’s scattered her genes?
Or: Somehow this woman understood it differently, when her man told her he wanted only the best for her. Many big, expensive things were what occurred to her, not a wizened parcel of flesh that shrieks reproachfully at you when you give it away.
Or: This woman thinks it’s a shame when pregnant women don’t take responsibility for themselves, but I’m not, strictly speaking, her child yet. In her opinion, a child isn’t automatically your child just because you’ve been pregnant with him, no, it takes much more than that, a child only becomes your child when the mother and the baby have properly bonded, that is, established a rapport, and if that doesn’t occur—which, regrettable as it may be, can happen—then the child is indeed related to you, it has a place on the family tree, but really, what does that mean, and anyhow, you can’t love everybody, our social behavior is selective, and if that holds for friendships and life partners, it would be backward to claim that it’s heartless for the same principle to apply to children. Mothers should finally buck the idea that they have to accept supinely everything that life sets before them!
“So there aren’t ninety thousand minutes left?” asked Fred.
“Maybe a few less,” Albert added now, trying to keep the peace.
Violet smiled into the rearview mirror.
Klondi rolled her eyes, then said, “Fred’s told me about the two of you. How long have you been together?”
For a fraction of a second, the Beetle crossed the road’s center line.
Albert looked Klondi in the eye, and shook his head.
She raised both eyebrows. “Oh. What happened?”
Albert didn’t answer that, and to his great relief, Violet kept silent as well.
Fred said, “My nose is tickling.”
Albert was grateful to him for the distraction.
Klondi and Violet answered at the same time: “Then scratch it.”
Albert looked straight ahead, and was reminded once again that Fred was one of those very few people the back of whose skull he could make neither head nor tail of. A pair of hair whorls twisting in opposing directions lent it an aristocratic note, which otherwise never came to the fore.
Violet shifted to a higher gear. “Have you ever been to Saint Helena?”
“Me?” asked Klondi.
“You,” said Violet.
“Never so far,” answered Klondi, and presented her teeth to the rearview mirror, which Violet quickly twisted to the right without looking, removing Klondi from the reflection.
“Do you have children?” Violet asked.
The way Klondi’s chin trembled for a moment before she answered in the negative didn’t escape Albert, and it made him think of her ex-husband, the bus driver Ludwig, and her daughter in the moon-white dress.
Violet glanced over her shoulder: “Something wrong?”
“No,” said Klondi. “No, no.”
“How’s your internship going?” Albert interjected.
Violet nudged the rearview mirror back into position, and cleared her throat. “Totally great.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Yeah, me, too. I’ve gotten to know so many exciting people. It’s cool.”
“My nose tickles,” said Fred.
Albert: “Then scratch it.”
The car left the woods, and Violet didn’t slow down when they passed a highway sign, so Albert could make out only the second half of the name of the town they were going through. He’d always made the trip to Saint Helena by train, plus a couple of miles on the bus. He felt as though they weren’t traveling toward Saint Helena at all, but some other, unfamiliar place. Reason urged him to remain calm; two or three hours more, then they’d arrive. He’d find Sister Alfonsa, and she’d share what she had to share, and after that they’d head home. That was all.
“My nose …,” said Fred, and his head fell sideways.
A Stranger
Violet slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street. Albert, like Klondi, was thrown back in his seat; they had both leaned forward to look at Fred, whose taut seat belt had held him upright. Violet went to open her door without checking the oncoming lane, and Klondi screamed to stop her from stepping out into the path of a minivan that blew past them, honking. Albert had trouble unfastening his seat belt, and Klondi had to help him. One after another they leapt from the driver’s-side door. The last one out, Albert ran around the Beetle, shoved Violet aside, tore the door open, and saw the blood streaming from Fred’s nose, flowing over his lip, his chin, down his throat, staining his shirt rust-red.
“Fred?” said Albert, and louder: “Frederick?”
No reaction.
Albert bent over him and undid his seat belt. Someone laid a hand on his back, and he heard whispering—but it was all far away. Here in his head his pulse was thudding, and the sweetish-metallic smell of blood filled his nose, and he knew that the time had come. Fred was dying.
Small, rough hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away, and he inhaled the fresh air. Klondi slapped him and spat a torrent of words into his face: “PullyourselftogetherAlbertpullyourselftogetherthisgod damnminute!” Then she turned away and, with Violet’s help, wrestled Fred from the car. Together they dragged him over to the curb, then laid him down on the sidewalk. Albert clutched his makeup compact, knelt beside Fred, and checked his pulse: weak. Klondi grabbed Albert by the collar and told him not to move, before hurrying off toward the next house on the street. Violet wiped tears from her face, ran back to the Beetle, and started the motor. Albert yelled, “Hey!”
“What is it?” asked Fred. His voice was muted, as if he
were speaking from the far side of some thin membrane.
“Quiet.” Albert laid a hand on his chest, which felt warm and damp. “You shouldn’t talk.”
“Am I going dead?”
“No.”
“I still have to say good-bye.”
“You don’t, you certainly don’t,” he said, and saw that Violet was turning the car’s wheels to the right. There was a bump as she went up onto the curb. The car was left aslant on the sidewalk.
Warmth pressed into Albert’s side: Klondi was back, and nodding in the direction of a terraced house, whose front door stood open. She gripped Fred beneath the arms: “Let’s go!”
Panting and taking many tiny steps, they carried Fred to the house’s entryway. Albert had slung Fred’s right arm over his shoulders, his thigh muscles were shaking. Klondi’s breath rattled. Violet tried to help her but couldn’t get a firm grip on Fred.
Fred said that he was dirty.
Just before they reached the threshold, a man stepped out of the house to meet them. He wore jeans and a plain white T-shirt that contrasted sharply with a salon tan. Klondi and Albert wanted to carry Fred farther, but he struggled and slipped loose, and hit the ground. More blood ran from his nose; he wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt. “Not in there!”
“Why not?” asked Klondi.
“That’s a stranger!”
Klondi, who was leaning against the wall of the house with one arm and struggling for breath, shot Albert a questioning look.
“What’s your problem?” said the man, and planted himself in front of Fred, who repeated: “That’s a stranger!”
Violet laughed the way one laughs to defuse a situation; she stepped over to the man and whispered something in his ear. He looked at Fred, Violet, back at Fred, and his furrowed brow smoothed itself, and he squatted and extended his hand. A yellow-toothed smile: “My name is Clemens.”
Fred shook his head in slow motion.
“Give him your hand,” ordered Albert. “Now.”
To Albert’s amazement, Fred complied. “I am Frederick Arkadiusz Driajes!”
“What are you so afraid of?”
Fred snorted. “I’m never afraid!”
With a welcoming gesture, Clemens pointed to the doorway: “Well, come on, then.”
Everything’s Okay
Clemens, Klondi, Violet, and Albert drank lemon tea at an oval plastic table. The kitchen reminded Albert of illustrations from a furniture catalog—it was too coherent, too tidy. No coffee stains, no personal snapshots of weddings or office parties pinned to the walls, no chipped edges or notepads lying around or, for that matter, windows with Zorro-esque initials. Even Albert, with his impoverished past, would have been able to breathe more warmth into a kitchen than this one had.
“Do you live alone?” asked Albert.
Clemens slurped at his tea louder than necessary. “Is it so obvious?”
Behind the door to the living room—a sofa-, book-, and plant-free zone, remarkably bare, even for a bachelor’s house—Fred was sleeping on two air mattresses set end-to-end, since Clemens’s bed had turned out to be too short for him. The recommendation of the local doctor—a man in his early fifties whose beard, and the heavy bags beneath his eyes, made him look like a man in his late sixties—had sounded to Albert like the result of a self-diagnosis: rest. Shouldn’t they at least take Fred to the hospital? Shouldn’t they hook him up to an IV and inject him with vitamins? Monitor his pulse? The doctor’s answer: “You could do that.” Albert had never heard anyone put such an emphasis on the word but without actually pronouncing it. His memory supplied scraps of dialogue from the prime-time hospital TV shows that Violet’s father had produced: But don’t get your hopes up.—But enjoy the time you have left with him.—But just look at him.—But try to keep calm.—But make arrangements.—But tell him the things you’ve always wanted to say.—But accept that things are going to run their course.
Clemens gestured toward the living room: “If you don’t mind my asking: what do you call what he has?”
Albert answered the way he always answered this sort of question: “Fred is simply Fred.”
“Has he always been like this?”
“Yes,” said Albert, annoyed, “yes,” and, setting his cup down, splashed some tea on the table.
“It was only a question,” mumbled Clemens.
Klondi suggested stepping out for a smoke, and Albert, who’d been longing for a cigarette, declined, while Violet, the nonsmoker, eagerly accompanied her.
Clemens slipped both hands around his teacup. “Please don’t imagine I haven’t noticed how completely stressed out you all are. Are you related to him?”
“He’s my father.” Even in his irritation Albert registered how uncommonly easily the words passed through his lips.
“I’m sorry,” said Clemens.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you sorry? Why does everyone always say that?”
Clemens leaned back, holding the teacup defensively in front of his chest. “Because it certainly can’t be easy.”
“And why should anyone be sorry about that? It isn’t your fault, right? You have nothing to do with it, you have no sense of what it’s like—easy or hard or whatever. You don’t have the faintest idea.”
Albert was thinking—and not for the first time—that people said that they were sorry only because they were glad. They were expressing how goddamn happy they were not to be dealing with the same shit. People like Clemens, who lived all alone in their awful terraced houses and wanted only to fit in, to dress their little girls in pink and their little boys in sky-blue, and sort screws on the weekends in their very own garages, just like everybody else; Clemens, all of them, were so goddamn glad that they’d finally found someone whose life was even shittier than their own, and that’s what they were celebrating with their stupid I’m sorries.
“My father’s sick, too,” said Clemens. “Parkinson’s.”
Albert shut his eyes and let his head droop. “Now you must really think I’m an idiot.”
Clemens set his cup down and turned it slightly counterclockwise. “Right. But I understand. Someone you love is dying.”
And with that Clemens left the kitchen. There was something shockingly clear in his bluntness. Because Fred was dying, Albert was feeling bad. It was as simple as that.
It wasn’t long before Violet came back in.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied.
“Everything okay?”
Albert nodded, and, feeling tears in his eyes, looked quickly into his teacup. “Yes.”
A soft hand touched his neck, and Albert slowly turned to her. They hugged. Albert held her tight, he’d never held anyone so tight before, and he couldn’t remember the last time something had felt so good, and he wept and made noises he couldn’t recognize, they were flowing out of him, frightening him, and he held Violet even tighter.
Where To?
In the twilight even the Beetle’s solar yellow was merely bright gray. Fred sat huddled in the backseat, wrapped up in wool blankets that Clemens had given them, his head propped on Klondi’s shoulder, while she hummed him a lullaby. Violet stood by the open driver’s-side door, looking over the top of the car as Albert gave Clemens a good-bye handshake. “Thanks for everything.”
“Take good care of him.”
Albert cast around for a decently worded valediction, but couldn’t come up with anything better than “Sure.”
Clemens pointed to Fred. “Your mother must be proud of the way you look after him.”
Again Albert rummaged his head for a suitable answer—and again had to settle for “Sure.” From the corner of his eye he saw Violet signaling him to break it off: snipping her middle and index fingers like a pair of scissors.
After a few more insubstantial good-byes, Clemens went back into the house, and Albert slipped into the passenger seat.
“Kids,” said Klondi, “we need to
decide where we’re going.”
Albert ran both hands across his face. “Maybe we ought to turn around.”
“No!” shouted Fred. “No, we have to go to the church!”
Albert turned to him. “You aren’t doing so good. And I don’t want anything to happen because we pressed on.”
Fred gave a booming laugh, as if someone were tickling him. “But a church is a totally great place to go dead!”
Violet looked sidewise at Albert, as if to say, “When he’s right, he’s right.”
Klondi nodded.
Albert laid a hand on Fred’s shoulder. “All right: on to Helena.”
To the Moon
The less-than-attractive smile (asymmetrical teeth) with which Alfonsa greeted Albert corresponded almost exactly to the sort she’d marshaled for him whenever he returned to the convent after one of his escape attempts: a combination of the motherly and the know-it-all. Without uttering a word, she was saying, “Lovely to see you!” as well as “I knew you’d come back.”
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