Do Not Resuscitate

by Nicholas Ponticello

  I’m staying with Spencer and Eugene for a few weeks in their Manhattan loft before we all depart for Paris. The girls, Tinsley and Margaret, have never been to Paris. They are big into Disney princesses right now, and they wear princess outfits around the loft: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and Belle and Cinderella. I told them their grandmother was a princess, but she was in disguise when I first met her, so I didn’t know she was a princess.

  “How was she disguised?” Tinsley asked.

  “As an evil witch,” I said.

  Greta, if you’re up there somewhere, take that!

  The girls can’t wait to be in Paris. Tinsley thinks she’s going to meet a Prince Charming over there.

  “He’ll be just like you, Grandpa,” she said.

  She is only nine.

  Margaret, who, these days, prefers to go by Maggie, is more interested in trying escargot. Somebody at school told her they ate snails in France, and she said she was going to try them so she could come back to New York and say she had eaten snails and she wasn’t afraid. Spencer said he worries about Maggie because she likes a dare a little too much.

  “Like her grandmother,” I said.

  “She isn’t genetically related,” Spencer reminded me.

  “That doesn’t mean they aren’t alike,” I reminded him.

  Spencer finishes teaching a course at NYU next week, and the girls get out of school the week after that. We’re all set to fly out on June 3. I’m nervous. I haven’t been to Paris since Greta died. And I’ve got that feeling in my stomach I used to get when I was younger, like something is about to begin. It isn’t too often you feel like something is about to begin at the age of seventy-three.

  I felt that way when I got back to San Francisco in 2011, after my most recent encounter with the elusive woman with the red coolers. Something was about to begin. Or had already begun.

  I remember thinking, I better work on my French.

  “Boy, are you in trouble,” the kid said to me when we met at the Bi-Rite Creamery on the edge of Dolores Park.

  It was the same kid from the last delivery. He was standing in line for an ice cream. I sidled up to him like we were old pals and handed him the red cooler.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Rowan got a call this morning from Greta,” he said, “and I don’t know what she was going on about, but she sounded pretty pissed.”

  Greta. That was her name.

  “I dunno,” I said, “probably just PMSing.”

  The kid laughed. “Yeah. You want something?”

  The kid ordered a triple scoop of salted caramel. I ordered a single scoop of olive oil and basil. It was my favorite novelty flavor at this place.

  The kid took a seat on the curb and motioned for me to join him.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Dustin,” he said. “You’re Jim, right?”

  “Yeah. How long you been doing this?”

  “Doing what?” Dustin asked with a mouth full of ice cream.

  “Working for your uncle.”

  “About two years,” he said. “He recruited me as soon as I got accepted to Berkeley. Said he knew a way I could go to college for practically free.”

  “So your parents don’t pay anything?” I asked.

  “My dad died in the Gulf War,” he said. “And my mom’s in a loony bin. She’s got split personalities. My grandma raised me, and she died, too, last year. So Rowan’s all I got.”

  “It’s a pretty sweet gig,” I said, “delivering packages while you get a full ride to college.”

  “So long as we don’t get caught, yeah?” he said.

  That made me nervous. When I’d looked inside the most recent cooler, all I’d found was a tuna melt.

  “And how are you related to Greta?” I asked.

  “What?” he said. “Oh, she’s just one of Rowan’s researchers. She’s Belgian or something. I’ve only met her a few times. She’s all right. But she was pissed as hell about something this morning. I thought you’d know since you just came from there.”

  I shrugged. “You been to Paris?”

  “No,” he said. “Rowan won’t let me go. That’s why he pays you the big bucks.”

  And then he straightened up as if a light bulb had gone off somewhere in his head.

  “Speaking of which…” he said.

  He pulled a fat envelope out of his backpack and handed it to me. I tucked it away in my coat breast pocket.

  “I counted it,” he said. “Ten grand? Hell, I’ll fly to Paris for the weekend for ten grand.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Want me to get mugged?”

  “Just saying,” said the kid, “with that kind of dough, I could have gone to Stanford.”

  “You got into Stanford?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but you can pretty much get in anywhere when your dad’s a military casualty and your mom’s a whack job.”

  “Why’d you choose Berkeley then?” I asked.

  “It’s got one of the best plant biology programs in the country,” he said, “and it’s close to my uncle.”

  I’d finished my ice cream a while ago. Dustin was just cleaning out the bottom of his cup.

  “I gotta get this back to the lab,” he said, indicating the red cooler. “Time sensitive, you know.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The kid laughed. “You still don’t know, do you?” He jumped on his motor scooter. “Well, keep them sandwiches coming, Jim.”

  When I got home, I listened to the messages from Oliver Sykes, which I’d been putting off. They were all the same thing: “Jim, just checking if you got the papers,” and “Jim, Oliver again, really important you call me back about the papers,” and “Jim, I need to know if you’re willing to sign the papers.”

  He was talking about Marilee’s will, of course, and I wasn’t particularly keen on revisiting that subject anytime soon. I turned on CNN and ordered Chinese takeout. Netflix had just sent over Inception, and when I had gotten my fill of Anderson Cooper, I popped the DVD into the player and lit a doobie.

  I woke up on my couch sometime around three in the morning. I did the math. That would make it seven o’clock in the evening in Japan, not too late to call Marilee. I grabbed the number off the fridge and dialed international.

  A man picked up on the other end.

  “Hello,” I said, “I’m looking for Marilee Lorenzo.”

  “Sister Marilee no do interview,” the man snapped.

  “No, no. I’m her brother. She gave me this number to call.”

  There was a pause.

  “What your name?” he said.

  “Jim Frost. Her brother.”

  “One moment.”

  I waited for about five minutes, which cost me something like ten bucks.

  “Hello,” came Marilee’s voice finally, “Jim?”

  “Hey, Marilee,” I said, perhaps too cheerily. “How are you? How’s Japan?”

  “Oh, Jim, it’s so sad. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m so proud of you. So are Mom and Dad. You’re all over the news over here.”

  “I wish the media would just leave us alone,” she said curtly. “Father Sugimoto gets twenty calls a day from reporters.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well you’re the big kahuna now.”

  “Jim, stop it,” she said. “I don’t do any more than the rest of the volunteers.”

  “I hope you’re taking care of yourself,” I said, “staying safe.”

  “Of course,” she said. “We’re all taking care of each other. And Sister Rosemary just flew out to help. We’re opening an orphanage in a month or so, and I think another clinic.”

  By Sister Rosemary, she meant Rasima Rasima, who had stayed in Haiti to tie up some loose ends at the Holy Rosary Free Clinic before flying out to be with her “fearless leader,” as she calls Marilee in her book.

  “Marilee, I have to talk to you about something,” I said. “A
couple of days ago, I got something in the mail from your lawyer.”

  “It’s late here, Jim,” she said, “and tomorrow we have early morning mass.”

  “Marilee, this really can’t wait. Your lawyer has been calling me nonstop.”

  There was a pause and then a long sigh.

  “Yes, go on,” she said.

  “He wants me to sign a document agreeing to be your guardian in case you get too sick to care for yourself. An advance directive.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why would he send me such a thing?”

  “I asked him to.”

  “Why? You got radiation poisoning or something?” I said. “I just heard on CNN about nuclear waste in the water supply.”

  “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what is this about?”

  “Jim,” she said, “I’m sick.”

  As it turned out, she had been sick for some time. She had gone to see a specialist in Haiti because she was experiencing loss of feeling in her right arm, and occasional numbness in her feet. She held it together pretty well in public. But every now and then she’d drop something or stumble, and finally one of the nurses at the clinic recommended she go see a neurologist.

  The neurologist was concerned. He said, best-case scenario, these were symptoms of stress or nerve damage. Worst case, possibly a brain tumor. They ran all sorts of tests over the course of several months. The prognosis wasn’t good. Turned out there was an even worse case: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known more commonly as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

  The neurologist put Marilee on riluzole, which was proven to slow the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis but not cure it. Otherwise, there was nothing anyone could do. He gave her five years max, if she was lucky.

  Marilee told no one. She had good days, and she had bad days. Some days she had trouble pinning up her hair or tying her shoes. But most days she was fine. And she went on with her work: running the clinic, making house calls, bringing food to the poor, attending mass, leading prayer. Then one day she woke up, and she could not move her legs. She stayed in bed all day, praying to God it would pass.

  It passed.

  Then she called the Legal Offices of Oliver Sykes. She didn’t want a media frenzy. She didn’t want this to distract from her work. So she asked Sykes to draft up some legal safety nets.

  Who else knew?

  Only me and Rasima Rasima. I was not to tell anybody, not even our parents. Marilee said she was having more good days than bad. When that changed, she’d have to fess up.

  Should I fly out there to be with her?

  Absolutely not. She wasn’t dying tomorrow. Some people with Lou Gehrig’s disease lived for years and years after diagnosis. Stephen Hawking was still alive, and he’d been living with Lou Gehrig’s disease for nearly fifty years. It didn’t stop him. Marilee wasn’t going to let it stop her, either. She’d be sure to keep me updated, and she’d come home to visit as soon as she got the chance.

  That chance wouldn’t come until five years later, when she’d been confined to a motorized wheelchair with tubes down her throat.

  It was almost five o’clock in the morning when I got off the phone with Marilee. We had talked for two hours before she insisted on turning in for the night. I asked her, as we were saying our good-byes, which kind of day she was having today, good or bad?

  “Every day that I get to do God’s work is a good day,” she said.

  I don’t particularly believe that anything Marilee did in her blessed life was ordained by some higher power. But it’s fine if she thought that. Let her find peace in her own way. She took comfort knowing she had done good by the big man upstairs. My father took comfort in knowing he had weaseled every penny out of every dupe who came along. I take comfort knowing that when this whole monkey parade is finally over, I’ll be done, finished, kaput.

  Eliza takes comfort in knowing that somewhere, somehow the brains of all the people she loves are buzzing around on microchips like fireflies in a jar.

  Eliza called today with what she says is exciting news. Dr. Haug knows of a doctor in Paris who is downloading brains now, too. He isn’t a certified Humanity Co. specialist, but he’s qualified, according to Dr. Haug, and he runs a little outfit out of rue Etienne Marcel, kind of an underground operation. Eliza says she managed to get me an appointment with the guy, Dr. Pierre Lavoie. It’ll only cost me six thousand euros. No biggie.

  Hah!

  And that’s not all. This guy, Lavoie, doesn’t handle storage. So I’m supposed to ship this thing, this microchip, to Dr. Haug so he can submit it for storage at Humanity Co.

  Oh boy.

  Now I’m getting my brain poked at by some uncertified Frenchman with an “underground operation.” That’s reassuring. Maybe I should just jump out the nearest window.

  I texted little Marilee Junior about it. She recently moved in with a boy, David Something-or-the-Other, and they are both working at Century Tech in Mountain View, California. I happen to have quite a holding in Century Tech, one of my better investments. Eliza is up in arms since Marilee Junior and David have only been dating six months and they’re already living together. I reminded her that her mother and I had been on a total of a dozen dates before we decided to get married.

  “But Mom died so young that you never found out what it really means to spend your whole life with one person,” Eliza retaliated.

  Ouch.

  Marilee Junior has had her brain downloaded seventeen times. She has Eliza for a mother, after all. I texted to congratulate her on the new job and the new boyfriend and the new apartment, and to see if she had any advice on getting my brain downloaded.

  She texted back: It sux :(

  CHAPTER 19

  IN MAY 2011 the media was going gaga for my sister yet again. She had opened an orphanage in Tateyama and a children’s hospital in Minamiboso. All the newscasts showed her standing and smiling and waving like a happy, healthy twenty-six-year-old girl. The news of her illness hadn’t leaked. I hadn’t breathed a word. And I sensed Rasima Rasima was doing everything she could on her end to keep it on the down low. Rasima Rasima would later relate the whole cover-up in her book.

  On bad days Rasima Rasima privately helped my sister wash and dress, and whenever she saw Marilee struggling with something, like holding a pen, turning a page, or opening a door, she would swoop in and take over, playing up her role as doting disciple. Rasima Rasima was often perceived as groveling and subservient, as “riding on the coattails of a great woman,” one reporter wrote.

  Rasima Rasima defends her actions in her book. She claims to have been in it for Marilee and for God. Those two alone.

  “But wasn’t she riding the coattails of a great woman?” theological scholar Thomas A. Rhett asks in The Origins of a Saint. “Didn’t Rasima Rasima take advantage of Marilee Lorenzo’s failing health to thrust herself into the limelight, repositioning herself as the archetypal apostle? And didn’t she achieve her own degree of celebrity by doing so?”

  Whatever Rasima Rasima’s intent, the cover-up worked. Marilee did not seem to be slowing down. On the contrary. Her illness only seemed to redouble the fervor with which she attended to her duties. On Monday she was visiting the orphans in Tateyama, on Tuesday she was volunteering at a soup kitchen in Kamogawa, on Wednesday she was hosting a benefit for a local charity in Katsuyama, on Thursday she was holding a memorial for the lost fishermen of Onjuku, on Friday she was at the bedsides of patients in Minamiboso, on Saturday she was rebuilding the community center in the village of Awaamatsu, and on Sunday she was at mass praying for the sick, the poor, and the destitute of all races, religions, and creeds.

  One incident, which made headlines in the United States, could have given her away. On a warm Sunday in late May, Marilee fell over unconscious in the pews of Saint Francis Cathedral during a memorial mass. There were over six hundred churchgoers in attendance. The entire congregation was abuzz. The paramedics were summoned, but Marilee
regained consciousness before the ambulance arrived, and without so much as the blink of an eye, she ordered the pastor to go on. She refused medical care, accepting only a little water and Communion bread. She sat through the rest of the mass without further incident.

  Marilee was only twenty-six. She had less than six years to live.

  On May 23, 2011, two days after my sister fainted in the pews of Saint Francis Cathedral, I was summoned to Paris yet again. This time the pickup was sited at the steps of Sacré-Cœur, the hideous church overlooking Paris from Montmartre. The exchange was scheduled for 9:00 p.m., and I arrived at noon, so I checked into a hotel, took a warm shower, and changed into something more sophisticated than my usual jeans and T-shirt.

  At around six I stepped out for dinner. My hotel was on the Champs-Élysées, so I joined the evening crowd strolling up and down the boulevard from the Grand Palais to the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was coasting above the horizon, and the sky was spotted with pink and orange clouds.

  The Arc de Triomphe was open to visitors, so I paid eight euros to climb to the top for a look around. The rush hour traffic from a dozen avenues poured into the place Charles de Gaulle and looped around the Arc de Triomphe in a confused frenzy. How the buses and taxis and scooters and cars from all twenty districts of Paris can converge in one dizzying whirlpool of horns and brake lights without a single collision might very well be incontrovertible proof of God.

  That’s what I was thinking as I stood atop the Arc de Triomphe contemplating the sprawling city below. Beside me, an American family with a tripod was shooting a panorama of Paris, and I listened as they fixed their camera on various landmarks: the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse, Les Invalides, and finally Sacré-Cœur. The white domes and steeples of the church stood high on a hill in the distance. My final destination for the evening.

  I grabbed dinner at a little falafel place just off the main drag and then asked for directions to Sacré-Cœur. It was only seven o’clock, but I wanted to be early so that I could set up camp and establish a home field advantage. I wasn’t going to keep Greta waiting this time.