The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

  And Francesca? Dear, positive, responsible little Francesca, who never took chances? She’d probably look back on this trip to Europe as a strange interlude, nothing to do with her real life. And when she came back, she’d forget all about it the moment she got a new job and her own office on a double-digit floor in some glass tower. She’d attend some peroxided version of a Jewish service in some space-age excuse for a house of worship, going once or twice a year, the way she went to the dentist, and with the same amount of joy and meaning. She’d drag whatever offspring she had through the same experiences until their bodies grew too big to bully and their intelligence saw through the silliness to the frightening emptiness at its core.

  She thought of the lines from Dr. Zhivago that had stayed with her ever since she’d come across them years before: “Lara was not religious. She did not believe in ritual. But sometimes, to be able to bear life, she needed the accompaniment of an inner music. That music was G-d’s word of life, and it was to weep over it that she went to church.”

  She was not afraid for Francesca the way she was for Suzanne. Something about Suzanne’s impulsive, searching nature would lead her to crave that inner music. If she did not find it in her own faith, she would find it in another’s.

  Had she been asking the impossible? To transfer values that she herself had ignored or felt indifference toward? And maybe that’s not what we should want. After all, look at the kind of people who did move through the ages unchangingly, son following father, daughter following mother in an unwavering devotion to ritual: African tribesmen, aborigines. Or the Amish or the Hasidim, who were sunk in a time warp, down to their socks. Or the Moslem fanatics who mutilated their daughters so they would never know the joy of making love.

  But the good things, the valuable things, it was so important that they get passed down somehow! Love of freedom, compassion for the poor, the transcendent joy of true prayer, the respect for a kernel of holiness in all human life and human creation. It was so important that those things didn’t get lost or disappear. Like beads strung on a necklace, it was all right for each generation to restring them, rearranging them into new patterns and adding a beautiful bead of their own design. And it didn’t even matter, perhaps, if the necklace looked completely different, as long as all the beads were there, and the string didn’t break, scattering them into the dust of time.

  The important thing was that the necklace get handed down. And if your own children’s hands weren’t worthy or willing to accept it, then it had to be given to someone else’s children, who’d been raised with more wisdom, or perhaps simply more luck, than your own.

  It made sense. And yet, a cold chill crept through her heart as she remembered the verse from the Scroll of Esther: “If you will be silent at this time, deliverance will come to your people from another place, and you and your father’s house shall perish.”

  The tree, she thought with horror. The last two leaves falling to the ground and decaying into dust.

  She turned over and faced the wall. It would be better not to live to see it.

  “Mrs. da Costa?”

  “Leave me alone!” she moaned, not looking up.

  “Now, now. I’m just here to help.”

  “You can help by showing yourself out and allowing me not to waste my precious breath!”

  She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “What?” She sat up, enraged, shrugging it off.

  It was a stranger dressed in that long-sleeved, mid-calf manner consistent with ultra-religious Muslim women, or Hasidic Jews. Her scalp was covered by a strange, old-fashioned snood that hid almost all her hair.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a volunteer.”

  “Well, thank you very much, but I don’t need anything, particularly not a do-gooder with a cheerful smile who invades private rooms and…”

  The woman settled herself calmly in the armchair beside the bed.

  Catherine stared, dumbstruck. “Do you want me to call the nurse and have you thrown out?!”

  “I can only stay a little while. I can see that you’re feeling desolate, that you need to make a decision, perhaps the hardest and bravest one you’ve ever made.”

  Catherine leaned back, sighing. If you wanted to get some rest, the last place a sick person needed to be was a hospital. “Why is your hair covered like that? You aren’t bald, are you? I mean, you’re not from some chemotherapy support group, are you?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not from any support group.”

  “Because, if you are, I want you to know that you’re wasting your time. There is no way I’m going to…”

  “I’ve come to take you somewhere. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  To Catherine’s astonishment, she returned with a wheelchair.

  “And how, exactly, am I supposed to move with all these tubes and plastic containers trailing out of my arms?”

  “Never mind. I know exactly what to do.” She grasped Catherine’s arm and helped her up, expertly arranging the bags on mobile poles beside the chair.

  “You’re not a nurse, are you?”

  “No, not a nurse. But my father was a doctor and I spent much time with people who were ill. My husband…” Her voice caught.

  Catherine, who was glad to be getting out of the room no matter where she was being taken, looked up with sudden interest. “Are you a widow?”

  She nodded. “All these long years. I was so young when I lost him.” Her voice cracked.

  Catherine reached out and touched her with sudden, impulsive compassion. “Were there children?”

  “Yes. A little girl. A precious, lovely child.”

  “And you never remarried?”

  “No, never. Come.”

  “Wait, where are you taking me? Does my doctor know? Do you have permission?”

  “I have permission from the highest authority. From the top one in charge,” she answered.

  “The head of the hospital? Does he even know I’m here?” Catherine asked, startled, but strangely exhilarated at the roll of the wheels beneath her, the sudden movement out of the stale, unmoving air. She wondered if he was someone she’d been on a charity board with.

  “And what about you?” the woman asked as she wheeled her down the corridor. “Do you have children?”

  “One daughter and two granddaughters.”

  “Do they visit you often?”

  “Often enough. That is, my daughter does. My granddaughters are in Europe right now.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “One is traveling in Spain, and the other…I’m not sure.”

  “Tell them not to miss Venice. Both of them. They mustn’t miss Venice. Will you remember?”

  “It’s lovely in Venice.” Catherine nodded, remembering the soft lap of the water against the elegant prows of gondolas outside her hotel window. “Very romantic.”

  “I never found it that way. But no matter, they should both go. Together.”

  Catherine turned to look at her, startled.

  They got into the elevator and rode up.

  “Wait, why are we going up? Why are we getting out here?”

  The woman didn’t answer, pushing the chair swiftly down the hall.

  “Wait! I shouldn’t be here, it doesn’t make any sense. Stop!”

  The wheelchair came to an abrupt halt.

  Catherine leaned forward, trembling, her hands shaking as they touched the glass.

  Babies. About twenty of them, their tiny faces perfect in repose or alive with need, fists flailing, mouths open with complaint. She looked at their exquisite, perfect skulls, the downy crown of black or blond begging to be caressed. Every single one, a new beginning, she thought, possessing a lifetime of still unspent minutes, hours, days, months.

  She turned pale with rage. “WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE?!”

  “Look,” the woman insisted calmly. “You aren’t really seeing anything. Your mind is elsewhere, wandering, dreaming. Look harder. The answer
. It’s staring you in the face.”

  “What answer?! GET ME OUT OF HERE, I TELL YOU, BEFORE I SCREAM…”

  The woman sighed. “Shall I tell you, then?”

  Catherine suddenly stopped struggling, her body freezing, motionless with tension. “Tell me what I’m supposed to see.”

  “The future.”

  No, Catherine thought. Not the future. The past.

  Janice. There was a time when I needed nothing else but to feel her tender skin, to breathe her fragrance, to sink into the folds of fat on the back of her neck, her perfect, round shoulder.

  She looked at the babies.

  Had Janice been the extraordinarily beautiful infant she remembered? Or simply endowed with that miraculous loveliness possessed by every new creature freshly formed by the generous hand of the Creator? I cared so much…I wanted to give her so much….

  My baby, she thought, trying not to weep.

  And then, Janice herself giving birth, her body a woman’s, like my own. And I was so afraid for her. I didn’t want her to hurt. I tried to pray, but couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t find the words. Please, G-d, help her deliver this child, my grandchild, flesh of my flesh, my genes, alive and well. Let my daughter be all right. The quiet hospital corridors full of doctors’ tired footsteps. And then the news, breathtaking in its joyous revelation: a healthy birth. A girl. A granddaughter.

  And she had thought then: A new life that will go on far into the future when I am dust. A part of me, taken into the future, further than even I could imagine. Vital, young, healthy in body, just as my own body is fading, wrinkling, breaking down.

  Would you want to be young again, she asked herself? Go through all of that again?

  She thought of her youth, those hot and fecund days filled with childbirth, swollen breasts, and a hungry infant that filled the world, reducing it to a small circle, almost intolerable in its intensity, and so rich with meaning nothing else ever came close.

  Never. I couldn’t, wouldn’t want to.

  I’m happy to be on the outside looking in, to watch the blossoming of those seeds I planted, the turning of the wheels I set in motion. Until the very last moment, she thought, with a clear sense of revelation, to see it all for as long as possible.

  Babies again. Great-grandchildren. My flesh young again, beginning all over again. New hope. New chances. The formation of hands willing and eager to grasp the precious beads left behind. The future.

  “Is it possible, for me?” she whispered, reaching back to feel the hand on the handles of the chair.

  “I promise you,” the woman said, grasping her hand warmly, like family. “If you just hang on. If you do everything you can to keep on living.”

  She put her hands in her lap and leaned back, exhaling long and hard. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely. “And now, please, take me back. I need to have a word with my doctor.”

  Nothing happened.

  She twisted around in her seat. Her mouth hung loose in surprise: pale light floated like a golden bubble until it burst and disappeared. The corridor was empty.

  A very put-upon nurse from the maternity ward wheeled her back to her room.

  Janice was waiting, her nails polished a striking peach, her eyes red.

  “Mother!” she jumped up, wringing her hands. “The bed was empty. No one knew where you were. What happened to you?”

  “It’s all right, Jan, I’m fine, fine.”

  She allowed Janice to help her back into bed, arranging the tangle of tubes. Then suddenly, Catherine sat erect. “Jan?”

  “Mother?”

  “Come, let me hug you for a moment.”

  Janice walked stiffly into her mother’s outstretched arms, surprised.

  “My child,” Catherine whispered. “I love you, Jan.”

  “Madre!” Janice collapsed inside her mother’s arms, resting her head on Catherine’s bony shoulder as if she were five years old.

  Catherine stroked her soft, shiny hair. My little girl, she thought, aware of the sudden wetness on her daughter’s smooth, made-up cheek.

  “He’s got another woman! He said he would give her up, but I know he hasn’t. He doesn’t love me anymore. I don’t know what to do….”

  “Look to the future, child. There’s always a future. I’ll help you. I’ve decided I’m going to live a while yet after all.” Catherine smiled ruefully. “Simply out of curiosity….”

  “Curiosity?” Janice wiped her eyes, looking up.

  “Never mind. What’s that you’re holding?”

  “It’s another message from Francesca. I think it’s just the news you’ve been waiting for.”

  26

  “What are you thinking about, Francesca?”

  They were on their way to Cáceres in a rented convertible. The wind was rummaging through her hair like gentle fingers. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back toward the sun. A field of red wildflowers burned their way through her eyelids.

  “About Gracia. In the first chapter she calls herself a young widow. I’m wondering what happened to Francisco Mendes and how she could have possibly survived without him.”

  He shrugged. “Life goes on. People fall in love again.”

  “They were more than just lovers! They were partners in every sense. It wasn’t just about passion. It was about friendship and respect and devotion to the same values,” she said emotionally. “They were soul mates. You can have only one soul mate in your lifetime.”

  He looked at her, intrigued. He had never before heard her so stirred. She looked out dreamily at the enchanting shady grove, the quiet, blue waters lying at its back. Her face shone mysteriously.

  “What?” He smiled.

  “Oh, nothing. Everything. Wishing…”

  “You? Wishing? For what?” he asked, surprised.

  “That I could just…I don’t know…forget everything and just get out here and spend a month swimming.”

  “Such frivolous thoughts from Francesca Abraham. I’m shocked!” he said, wide-eyed with mock horror. “Do you really want to stop and get out?”

  “No, of course not! I mean, I know we can’t. We’ve got to get to Cáceres…”

  He sighed. “Right.”

  “Do you think we’ll make it before nightfall?” she asked, looking up at the suddenly overcast sky, the gray, gathering clouds. “It looks like the weather is turning.”

  He barely had time to agree when the rain began in earnest. He hurriedly put up the top. Wind-driven sheets of water dashed against the car, making it rock. Lightning split the sky and thunder crashed above them with explosions of menacing sound that made the ground tremble. The windshield wipers moved with useless fury to keep up with the deluge, to no avail. Visibility was almost nil.

  “Marius, stop the car! This is too dangerous. Let’s just wait it out.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, turning off the road and shutting down the engine.

  Mists rose in thickening darkness against the windows, giving them the feeling of being adrift together on a large silver sea. He sat watching her. Her face was soft in the fairy light of the forest, the eyes pensive and a little frightened. Her breasts rose and fell, stirred with quiet emotion as she contemplated the ghostly sway of the branches, the rustling song of the forest. She was an unknown creature to him, he realized. The essence of woman’s otherness. Her beauty was all the more tantalizing, wrapped around the mystery that was the key to her nature, a mystery that had so far eluded him. He touched her shoulder lightly. “Francesca…”

  She turned toward him, her lips slightly parted in surprise, her teeth a flash of gleaming white. The tender beauty of her features took his breath away.

  “Frightened?”

  She shook her head, drawing her sweater around her. He reached out to help her, his fingers brushing her soft, bare shoulder. “You had this same look after we visited the Cathedral of Toledo, right after leaving Señor de Almazan’s. You never did tell me what happened to you in there.”

&n
bsp; She looked at him. “I came across this shrine…. It had a picture carved into beaten brass: weeping women holding infants; small children being dragged away; old men bent over their staffs. And on either side were these lovely stone angels with this look of serene happiness on their faces, you know, like models in a refrigerator commercial: ‘Just look at this wonderful product we’ve created just for you!’ I read the inscription. It was a shrine dedicated to Ferdinand and Isabella in honor of signing the Edict of Expulsion.”

  “Exactly what about it upset you?”

  She was silent for a moment, her fingers pressing into her thighs. “How anyone could depict all this human misery and then praise those who’d caused it! But it was more than that…”

  “What, then?”

  “It was the picture itself; the idea of suddenly waking up one morning and finding yourself thrown out of your safe, happy life by forces you couldn’t have predicted and had no control over.” She stopped, looking out the window at the raging sheets of rain that had so suddenly transformed the world around them. “I went to work one morning and found myself out on the street just because some corporate president signed papers in lawyers’ offices hundreds of miles away.”

  “Life is unpredictable.” He nodded. “It’s hard to lose a job you love. I’d hate to lose mine.”

  “But Marius, you don’t really expect to go on doing this forever, do you? The constant traveling…and it’s all so…so risky and unstable. What if you run out of leads? If you don’t find anything valuable for years, then what?”

  He shrugged. “Hasn’t happened so far. But I’m realistic. I expect I’ll have to make some changes over time. When I’m eighty, for example, I’ll probably need someone with me to hold the ladder,” he grinned, but his dark eyes went suddenly serious and searching. “What is it you really want, Francesca?”

  “I’m not sure.” She frowned. “A feeling of safety, maybe. Of being in control and secure. A feeling of being respected.”

  “Safety, control, security, respect….” He shook his head, reaching out and running a finger along her elbow down to her wrist. “What about happiness, love, excitement, meaning….”