Sweet Jesus

by Christine Pountney

It was awful, Hannah said and collapsed onto one of the beds. Apparently, the more he gets to know me, the more he likes me.

  Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?

  Not really, Hannah said, because I kind of feel the opposite. I don’t think he’s ever really been interested in me. He’s just been fascinated, all this time, by all the things I made him feel about himself.

  Sounds a bit adolescent, Connie said and her cell phone rang. It was Rose. When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? We had to hear it from Dad. She paused. Then, What do you mean, the hospital? What happened? Connie took the address down and said they’d be there right away. She hung up, shaking her head, and explained how Rose had had an asthma attack, passed out, cut her head open, and had to have stitches.

  What is it with her? Hannah asked in wonder.

  The sisters were amazed at how often Rose’s drama overtook anything else that might be going on. This is, like, so the last thing I want to do right now, Connie said, pulling her sweater on again.

  Hannah was digging in her bag for the keys to the truck. It’s so typical the way Mom’s just totally managed to hijack this entire trip. And as usual, irritation got the better of whatever concern they may have been feeling about their mother.

  I’ll go get her, Zeus said, and the sisters looked at him, then at each other.

  Connie said, If you want to.

  Hannah said, Will you recognize her?

  It hasn’t been that long, he said. So Zeus went to get their mother, and Connie and Hannah were thoughtful and a little repentant as they got undressed and ready for bed. Maybe we should’ve gone with him, Hannah said in the doorway to the bathroom. Do you think she’ll mind that we didn’t?

  No, it’ll be good for them to have a little time together, Connie said.

  I suppose, Hannah said and went in to take a shower. When she came out, Connie’s blue cashmere sweater was arranged on the table so the cuffs of both sleeves were soaking in their own glass of water. What’s with the sweater? Hannah asked.

  Connie looked embarrassed. Sometimes I soak my sweater cuffs before going to bed at night, she confessed. So they’re tight again in the morning.

  Hannah let this sink in like the marvellous thing that it was. Then she said, You know, the best thing a family member can give another is the privilege of not having to worry about them. When you tell me something like that, for some reason, I don’t worry about you, Con. I find it reassuring.

  You’re so weird, Connie said, but you can make my heart feel light and happy.

  That sounds like a direct translation from the Chippewa.

  Connie smiled and wrung out her cuffs and hung her sweater over a chair.

  Sitting alone in the truck, Zeus thought of the day he’d driven Fenton to the lake. His death announcement. Where are you now, Fenton? Where did you go when you died? Zeus felt a movement like the stroking of a thousand soft, tiny feathers down the front of his torso. I don’t want to cry, he thought, and out came a mournful hoo hoo hoo. It was dark outside and there was no one around, but he felt exposed. He took out the directions the guy at the reception desk had drawn on a piece of paper and put it on the seat beside him. Pull yourself together, he said out loud, and began driving towards the woman who’d adopted him fourteen years ago out of the sheer goodness of her heart. His stomach was in knots.

  The hospital, when he pulled up, was bright as a spaceship. He parked near a neon red cross, got out of the truck, and walked into Emerg, activating the enthusiastic welcome of the automatic doors.

  Immediately there was a ruckus around a gurney as an old man was pinned down and sedated. A nurse lifted an IV bag into the air, filled with silvery liquid. A woman was being held back by a strong-looking male intern and asked to let the doctors do their job now. The antiseptic smell had its own encoded memory bank, and it made Zeus feel a little panicked.

  He walked into the Emergency waiting room. It wasn’t very crowded. On a row of seats sat a woman with greying hair, reading a magazine, wearing a mask attached to a portable compressor, a faint mist coming out of the side ports, like she was bubbling. At her feet a small red suitcase on wheels.

  Zeus walked over and sat down beside her. She turned towards him with a polite reaction, and he reached out and pulled the mask away from her face. Rose leaned backwards, the mask taut at the end of its elastic. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then a recognition dawned on her face and she look embarrassed, then said, Some pickle I got myself into, eh?

  Zeus gently replaced it and leaned forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees.

  Rose checked her watch and pushed the mask up onto the top of her head. How are you, Zeus? I wasn’t expecting you to come get me, she said. I didn’t recognize you at first. You’ve got no hair.

  It’ll grow back, he said and sat up again. For a moment, he was distracted by a noise on the TV. Some protest at an election rally.

  Are the girls here? Rose said.

  They’re at the hotel, Zeus said.

  Did they send you here on your own?

  They were going to come, but I offered and –

  It’s so good to see you, she said and pressed his knee briefly with her hand. I’m very pleased you’re here. And she started to blink, as if her eyes were welling up.

  Zeus looked up at the chemical mist rising from the mask on top of Rose’s head. It’s hard, he said, being back in a hospital.

  It must be, she said. I’m very sorry about your friend.

  Rose removed her mask and turned off the compressor. That was my last dose, she said and rubbed her face where the mask had been. Her face was older and had a more vulnerable quality.

  Zeus took a deep breath and said, So what about you? How are you feeling?

  It’s been a long day, she said. I’m sorry, causing all this trouble. She turned her head to the side and lifted her hair to show him a shaved patch of white skin with six stitches.

  We should get you back to the hotel, he said.

  Rose gave a sudden shiver and tossed her magazine onto a nearby table. They had to bring me here in an ambulance, she said, laughing gently. I’ve never been in an ambulance before. She leaned towards him and put her hand on his knee again. The good thing about travelling at my age, she whispered, is that you always travel with health insurance. Can you imagine how much this would’ve cost me?

  She seemed different somehow, Zeus thought. And he wondered if she had changed. People get older, and they can change. He liked the idea. Strangely, it made him feel safe.

  Rose suddenly grew serious. I didn’t die, did I? She touched the wound on her head. I feel like maybe I died, and this is all some strange episode in the afterlife. It feels like a dream to be sitting here beside you.

  It’s not a dream, Zeus said. Dreaming comes soon. Do you want me to take you to the hotel now?

  Yes, as soon as they let me go here. She looked at her watch again. I’m waiting to see the doctor. They need to check my oxygen levels before they can release me.

  Just then a woman walked over and moved the compressor and sat down beside Rose as if she knew her. The woman was big. She was dressed in black, with a black wrap slung around her neck, and her skin was very white and smooth.

  Oh my God, she said, opening her purse with a small metallic click and taking out a pack of Nicorette. How much is one person expected to endure? She cracked a tablet out of the pack, pitched it into her mouth, and started chewing furiously.

  Who’s this? Zeus asked.

  The name’s Esperanza Saks, she said and held out her hand.

  How do you do, he said. I’m Zeus.

  Oh, what a great name, Esperanza said. Her eyes were on fire. A white light brimmed around the edges and her pupils were deep black.

  We met out in the hall, Rose explained. Her mother was out there on a stretcher for a very long time, poor thing, before anybody would come and see her.

  She was screaming her head off, Esperanza told Zeus. You see, my boyfriend
, Marty, he just had a stroke. That was two weeks ago. Then today, my mother collapsed and had to be brought in – and now this? She turned to Rose. This news about my brother? I mean, it’s just insane! I don’t understand it! She sat rigid for a moment, then covered her face and sobbed soundlessly into her hands.

  Zeus looked at Rose. Her brother just died, Rose said softly, and Zeus nodded. Why was he drawn, again and again, to these mournful scenes in hospitals? Did he, in fact, have a hand in all this suffering? Was he supposed to know what to do? What to say? Because he didn’t. If someone else could be here instead of me, Zeus thought, somebody else inside my shoes –

  Let it out, sweetheart, Rose said and put her hand on Esperanza’s back.

  Now this was the Rose he knew, Zeus thought. Attending instinctively to the pain of others. Esperanza took a kleenex out of her purse and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She looked out across the room.

  The awful thing is, she said, my dad just died four months ago. My mom and I were mourning him like a family of elephants. We helped him to die like a midwife helps a woman give birth, stroking him with our trunks. I’ve learned so much recently about being human. Or being an elephant – I don’t know which one! And there he was – my dad, Nigel Saks – in his music satchel under the piano stool. He’d been cremated and he was back home. Suddenly, the thing you can’t accept becomes beautiful and you want it. We toasted him in a circle, and there he was, on the floor in his briefcase.

  I used to know a man once, Zeus said, who got into suitcases.

  Rose turned to Zeus and looked as if she might laugh.

  Esperanza spat the gum into her kleenex, put it back in her purse, and clicked it shut. Zeus wasn’t sure if there was more. She tossed her long dark hair over one shoulder, then the other.

  We had asked my brother, Donny, to come to the funeral, she said. So he came, but his eyes were rolling back into his head. Boy, did I ever fake him out though. Jollying him into position at the back of the church. You were there when it counted, I told him afterwards, but you were stoned and it’s only going to get worse.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Zeus was getting impatient, though Rose was showing no sign that she wasn’t interested and sympathetic to Esperanza’s story.

  I have a gay Catholic friend from New Orleans, Esperanza said, called Romeo?

  She was lightening up, Zeus thought, that was a good sign.

  Well, she said, Romeo told me he had an order of Carmelite nuns praying for Marty. I wanted to know, are they wearing panties?

  Esperanza laughed, and Zeus saw a small muscle of irritation flex along Rose’s jaw line. She had quietly taken offence, perhaps even made a private judgment, and this was also something he recognized. She could rush in to help, but she would only go so far.

  I used to make fun of his spirituality, Esperanza said, but guess what Marty told me this morning? He said that, in the middle of the night, he felt people praying for him. I’m telling you, if you’ve got spiritual friends, use them if they have access to nuns. I still have this beautiful image of all these nuns with their panties off, down on their knees. I got Romeo to light one of those candles. Did you know they can burn for three days straight? If there was a Christ, he’d be Romeo.

  Rose had started to gather up her things, she was pulling on her coat.

  But, oh God! Esperanza said. I can still remember kissing my dad, day after day. Until an hour before he died, he could still pucker!

  I’m just going to go over there, Rose said, and talk to the nurse about getting released. She stood up. Excuse me, will you, for a minute?

  Esperanza put a hand to her throat, straightened her posture, and lifted her chin. She looked proud and wounded. She turned to Zeus, and there was a quality in her look that made him feel as if he knew her, the kind of person she was, maybe even some of what she’d been through.

  After my dad died, she said, my brother came back and helped himself to what was left of Dad’s medication. He took all his morphine. He said he just wanted to kill himself, and I didn’t speak to him for months. So then I thought, he must be dead. I wanted him to be.

  But then? Esperanza said, and her eyes seemed to shine again. After Marty had his stroke? I realized my brother’s an animal, a drug-taking animal, a fox in a hen house. He behaves exactly the way he’s supposed to behave. I felt so much compassion for him. We’re all becoming more of what we are, Zeus. He acts the way he acts. A crow eats its baby bird. That’s what they do. You can’t blame the crow for that, she said. We’re all becoming more of what we are.

  When Zeus and Rose left the hospital, it was almost midnight. They were delirious with fatigue. The three of you drive all the way here in this thing? Rose laughed outright, getting into the truck. When Zeus had closed his door, she said, That woman in there, I thought she’d never stop. I got the feeling she comes from a very theatrical family. Something of the chaos of her life reminded me of you and Hannah. The sordid messes you could get yourself into, living outside the church like you do.

  Zeus felt that feathering again, like the front of his body was fizzing up with carbonation. He refused to show his feelings. They drove to the hotel in silence, Zeus half waiting for Rose to apologize. They cruised the parking lot until he found an empty space.

  When the truck stopped, Rose said, It’s not like you’re the same as me, Zeus, or have to be. I understand that now.

  Zeus got out and slammed the door. He felt an old anger coming to the surface. A strip of light peeled off the back of the building and a man stepped out of a door and, standing beside a dumpster, lit a cigarette. I’m going to go over there, Zeus said and started walking towards the hotel. Sometimes it seemed all religion did was make people worse.

  The man didn’t see him at first and yelped at somebody coming out of the darkness. Sorry, Zeus said. I didn’t mean to scare you. Could I bum a cigarette?

  Yes, the man said, of course. He was wearing a brown cleaner’s uniform.

  Zeus bent towards the man’s lighter, inhaled, and got a head rush. He sat down on the curb that bordered the narrow lawn surrounding the hotel and let the cigarette burn down between his fingers. Rose caught up with her wheelie suitcase and asked Zeus gently, Are you coming inside?

  Zeus ignored her and turned to the man, Where are you from?

  I’m from Libya, he said. My name is Zoher.

  Zeus, he said, and they shook hands.

  The man turned to Rose and she raised her hand at the wrist. Rose Crowe, she said in a sad voice. Do I detect a British accent?

  Irish, he said.

  Was she going to pretend that everything was fine? Zeus wondered.

  Many years ago, Zoher said, my country send me to Oxford, but in Oxford they keep me for twelve hours at customs, then tell me I have to leave. This is just after Lockerbie. There is embargo on Libya. I am suspect. But do I know anything about the bombing? So I go to Dublin. I learn English and computers. My government, they pay for everything. Libya was socialist country. I knew the two men accused of bombing. They had nothing to do with it. We refuse to release them and there is blockade. You know this? All traffic coming from air and sea. You can only trade by desert. So now Libya is poor like Cuba.

  Are you saying you knew the men who did the Lockerbie bombing? Rose asked.

  University friends, Zoher said. Libya is small country, not like here. Qaddafi? He lived in same house like us. You could become great doctor in Libya, very famous, but you cannot make money. So maybe you leave. Go to Germany.

  But they were found guilty, weren’t they? she said.

  Zeus flicked his cigarette onto the ground. Was she seriously interested in this right now?

  Many people claim responsibility, Zoher said. Islamist jihad revolutionaries. Hezbollah. Maybe even Mossad, Israeli intelligence service. So much fear, always the enemy is invisible. That’s how it will be from now on.

  He dropped his cigarette and twisted his shoe over it. I miss my country, he said. I miss my friends. I
used to play soccer with Qaddafi. Always his jersey was number ten. Always he played in goal. He loved fresh dates with camel’s milk, just like my wife. I miss her. I miss my children, my mother.

  Zoher raised his face to the dark sky. I like it here at night, behind the Comfort Inn. I smoke a cigarette. I look up at the stars. Same stars over Tripoli. I blow smoke out of my mouth and it carries my prayers to Allah and I wait. I wait for peace. Sometimes I wait for revenge. That is life. Islam teaches us about suffering. When we suffer, it does not surprise us as much as you westerners.

  Our disappointments undo us, Rose said, reaching out to lean on the handle of her wheelie suitcase.

  And our disappointments, Zoher said, lead us to a greater devotion. In that, the Arab resembles the Jew. You are never so close to yourself, as when you are staring your enemy in the face. A man without enemies learns nothing.

  Rose shook her head. These are not my beliefs, she said almost inaudibly and put a hand on her wound. My head is throbbing, she said. The painkillers must be wearing off. I need to sleep now.

  Don’t we all, Zeus said and continued to look out across the parking lot as Zoher helped Rose towards the door. There was mist around the lampposts, the sound of highway traffic, like a manmade river surging across the land. The orange logo of the Comfort Inn hummed like a futuristic moon and the pavement, so expansive and familiar, seemed like the natural state of things, as if the earth was really made of concrete. Not built up, Zeus thought, but uncovered. After years of clearing and sweeping the debris of nature away, this is what the world was meant to look like. The artificial is real. It was, perhaps, a strange, new, magnificent landscape, if you could give yourself over to it.

  In the morning, Hannah woke fresh and well rested. Zeus was just leaving the room, already wearing his trench coat and scarf. I’ll wait for you guys downstairs, he said and closed the door.

  Connie came out of the bathroom with her hair wet and her jacket on. You’re not dressed yet? she said to Hannah, going over to the hotel phone. She called the front desk and got her mother’s room number, then she called her and woke her up. Rose didn’t want to get out of bed. Connie asked her if she needed anything, some breakfast maybe, but Rose declined. All she wanted to do was sleep.