by Ronald Malfi
Diffused throughout her body, the power shook her. There was a jarring sensation—inexplicable at first account, yet a second later it presented itself as the jarring of one mind into another: a cry for help piercing the silence of a long hallway, stopping only when it is able to attract the ears of someone capable of interpretation. And for the briefest of moments, Nellie Worthridge was aware that she could stand, that she had legs and could actually stand, and that she was no longer herself—
(someone else’s mind I am in someone else’s mind or they are in mine)
—and no longer confined to her handicap. Bright swirls of colors blossomed before her and she saw these colors not with eyes—do we dream with eyes?—but with unexplained harmony and unity throughout her entire being. The colors capered and flared. Some grew fantastic and intense while others simply dissipated like a candle flickering out in the dark. The incredible surge from these colors created a membrane across her mind, something almost tangible and susceptible to physical manipulation, and behind the membranous screen were images and flickering pictures. Memories, she thought. But not hers. Someone else’s.
Darkness. A forest, stifled with trees. Off in the distance: the gurgle of running water. And up ahead: a light, a red light. A glowing beacon in the middle of the night.
She wasn’t alone. Nellie understood that immediately, and the realization of such a truth filled her with black dread. Not so much fear but, rather, the expectation of fear.
Words suddenly spoken by her unseen companion:
—This is pain?
Not quite feminine, yet not quite masculine. And it was almost as if the voice did not exist in the real world at all—and surely it didn’t—but it was there, its evidence right inside her own head.
More:
—How do you live like this? I feel things all around me, everything. It all hurts so much. Look at my throat.
In her mind, she searched the dream-forest but was powerless to uncover her unseen companion. And if she wanted to speak out, to shout out, she knew that was an impossibility as well; she was not here at all; merely watching an old filmstrip roll on a screen. This happened long ago, she knew, and on the heels of that she thought, Kellow. Kellerella. And nothing made sense.
—Look at my throat, the voice insisted. It hurts. Make it stop hurting.
There was a moment of silence then—but only the briefest of moments. Soon, there was another sound permeating the air—this one much more intimate than the voice of the mysterious stranger, much closer, inside Nellie’s own head. A girl’s voice. A girl singing.
I’m remembering this girl’s memories, Nellie thought, and listened to the song.
Little Baby Roundabout,
Someone let the Baby out,
And now, sweet Babe, it’s time for bed,
So close your eyes and rest your head…
A child.
A child’s mind. She was in the mind of a little girl. Some—
—Kellerella—
A scream pierced the darkness of her mind. The image behind the membranous screen disintegrated into a million shimmering particles of dust, shattered by the terror of that scream. As if in reflex, the old woman’s body hitched yet again, only this time in reverse of the process, and she felt the searing frigidity of those icy, make-believe fingers slowly extricating themselves from the sleeve of her body. It was a feeling akin to pain—perhaps the closest a human being can rationalize and distinguish pain that occurs purely within their subconscious—and upon conclusion of its torturous withdrawal, the old woman felt tremendously weak.
The sound of something snapping—wood or plastic or whatever it was—was the only remaining sound that followed her out of her nightmare. And when she awoke in her own bed in the middle of the night, Nellie Worthridge feared she might just suffer a heart attack and die.
Carlos Mendes had always considered himself a religious man. Therefore, praying wasn’t something alien to him. With ease, he could recall childhood memories of his mother and aunt huddled at the foot of the altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, their heads reverently bowed, the murmur of their individual prayers rising with practiced synchronism. He’d been raised to believe in things greater than himself and, despite the daily horrors he had become familiar with throughout his medical career, he’d never once questioned the presence of God. And often, such daily tragedies actually helped strengthen his belief: that in the wake of such suffering there were people who still believed in God, or a god, and that was amazing to him and proof beyond anything else that God was real. And no matter what, he’d always managed to find comfort in such proof.
Yet staring at his wife while she slept in bed, the cold trickle of pale blue moonlight accentuating the curve and swell of her form, the dark mat of her hair fanned out along both pillows, he began to have doubts. Suddenly, the prayers of two tired women at the feet of a stone Jesus no longer seemed significant—did not even seem to make any sense to him at all. Now, recalling that memory and a hundred others alike, Carlos became disturbed by the feeling of utter emptiness that now seemed to accompany it. Like a stigma, an irreversible wrongdoing with a loud voice. People suffered and died every day and that, in its own humble way, confirmed God; and now something bigger had landed, something Carlos could not possibly explain or even begin to comprehend…and he just now realized how weak the bridge really was. That the words of an elderly shaman could slowly squeeze the lifeblood from his entire world in so brief a time frame was frightening. And thinking of nonspecific cancers and suffocating children and countless other incurable malignancies rampant in this world now startled him, made him blink and wonder how he could have ever believed in such a fairy tale, in such a God. A God that loved and a God that hated. A God that breathed life only to take it away just as effortlessly.
Who is really out there? he thought, surprised by the depth of his passion. Who? What? Anything at all?
On the bed Marie sighed and shifted position. “Carlito,” she whispered.
Her voice startled him. “Did I wake you?”
“Why are you standing in the doorway?” she said.
“I was watching you sleep.”
“You are a strange man. Muy loco.”
“Can’t sleep.”
“Take pills.”
“Pills don’t work.”
He heard laughter in her voice. “And you are a doctor-doctor-doctor,” she said teasingly. He wondered now if he were dreaming. “I was thinking that we don’t have a television in here.”
“That is what you were thinking?” he said.
“Hmmmm.”
“You said you never wanted a television set in the bedroom,” he said, moving closer to her side of the bed. He wanted to reach down and touch her, run his hands through her dark hair. But he couldn’t move beyond his feet. “Don’t you remember? Or are you just so fickle?”
“I think maybe that was a bad idea,” she said. She still sounded half-asleep. “I think that with a television in the room you could sleep with me. You could watch the television while I sleep and then you would fall asleep too.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. And we would be together.”
“Oh, well,” he said, “we’re always together. Really.”
“Not always. Not really.”
“You would get sick of seeing me so much,” he said.
“Sometimes I think I will forget your face. You’re gone too much.”
“I know,” he said. “So then a television?”
“I think that is a good idea. I like that idea.”
He watched her body shift again. She tugged the bed sheet over her body, wrapped it around herself with little difficulty. His eyes lifted and came to rest on the wooden crucifix on the wall just above the bed’s headboard. And for an instant he thought of Chopin and Mozart and wet, sugary fruit and heartfelt laughter in theaters and home-runs, and was suddenly certain once again of the existence of a higher being. In fact, the certainty flooded him in one hot
current, making his bare feet break out into a sweat and causing an involuntary tug at the corners of his mouth. It was powerful and inclusive: something that fashioned God not as nonsense but as fact. But like a flashbulb, it was there and then gone.
There are such great, wonderful creatures who suffer such fantastic atrocities, he thought.
“Marie?”
She did not answer.
He bent and hovered above her face for a moment, reveling in the pureness of her breathing, before kissing her softly on the cheek and disappearing into the hallway.
A moment later he discovered himself pacing the kitchen in search of his cigarillos while heating some tea on the stove. But his mind was not eager to commit to the search. He found himself thinking about the rush he’d felt when Nellie had touched him, and the way he’d somehow slipped into a…into a what? A fugue state? A hypnotic trance? A coma, even? The way the room had spun, the way his vision had clouded—and then his mind became his vision, his memory. That day on the bus, so long ago, had surfaced in his head as if the events were unfolding right then and there for the first time. Everything—he was aware of everything: smells, colors, pressures, heat, cold, moisture. All the senses were present. All the senses in the human thinking brain. And she was there. Nellie Worthridge had been there. And was that even possible?
“Medical science be damned,” he grumbled and found one of his cigarillos in the cupboard above the sink, wedged between a box of ten-inch fireplace matches and an old pasta maker.
Ten minutes later and he was out on the back porch, sipping his tea and inhaling cigar smoke. It was cold and the night seemed unusually quiet. Folding his hands, he leaned forward on the deck railing and stared at the freshly fallen snow below.
If it’s true, he thought, and Marie can sense something wrong with the baby, how is she able to keep it together so much better than me? How is it possible that she can even be asleep right now? I don’t understand. Is it a question of the strength of her own faith? Is she at peace because she believes that it will all work out, that she believes in a just and compassionate god? And if so, how does one believe in something so arbitrarily?
He found himself grinning.
He once believed without question. And now…
An idea struck him then. It was a simple idea, a simple solution, and it would work. Was it wrong? Would it be taking advantage of Marie’s faith? And not just her faith in God but her faith in him as her husband, as the person she was supposed to trust over anybody else? Damn it, he hated to lie to her…
“It is for her own good,” he whispered, blowing plumes of smoke into the freezing night air. “Her good and mine.”
Not until the arrival of morning did Carlos realize he hadn’t slept through the night. His mother shuffled into the kitchen to set the coffee just as Carlos heard the shower off the master bedroom turn on, the cold pipes bucking and reluctant in the walls.
“You look sick,” his mother said without looking at him. “Again you were up last night. Still not sleeping. Not good.”
He ate breakfast with his wife.
“Am I to suspect you will be spending the day with me?” she asked playfully. That morning, she looked almost like a child to her husband. And it frightened him how much love he suddenly felt toward her.
“With you,” he said. “There’s something special today.”
“Like a surprise?”
“Like a good blessing. From a friend.” He smiled and watched her eat, watched her eyes and the way they crinkled at the corners. “Do you feel all right?” he asked her.
“I do.”
“Nothing wrong?”
“No. And you?”
“Me?”
“Mr. Sleepwalker,” she said. “Mr. Zombie-Man.”
“It’s insomnia, not somnambulism.”
“What is that?”
“Sleepwalking,” he said. “I don’t do that.”
“Lots of almost-fathers have a difficult time sleeping in the months before the baby’s due. I read an article about it in a magazine. I saved it for you.”
“Thoughtful.”
“What’s my surprise?”
“Soon, soon,” he said. “This afternoon.”
Sometime later, standing outside the door to Nellie Worthridge’s apartment, Marie tugged on her husband’s coat sleeve and smiled.
“What?” he said.
“What is this? Now I’m making house calls with you?”
“I said it was a surprise.” He knocked twice against the door. “This is a friend I met at the hospital, a sick old woman who happens to have a special gift.”
“So this woman has my real surprise?”
“This woman is the surprise. She blesses the unborn. She’s going to give Julian grace.”
Marie’s eyes softened. She brought her head down to one side, let it rest briefly on Carlos’s shoulder. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Carlito. This is the sweetest.”
“How many babies get their own personal blessing?”
“And you know so strongly that it is a boy,” she said.
“Why?”
“You called him Julian.”
He hadn’t even noticed.
The door opened and Josh stood on the other side. The weariness in his features shocked Carlos. The young man’s face was pale and unshaven. Deep grooves clung to either side of his mouth like parentheses. His eyes were dark, cavernous pits. Though Marie had never before met Joshua Cavey, Carlos felt his wife tense the moment he opened the door, similarly taken aback.
“Doctor,” Josh said, and nodded at Marie.
“This is Marie, my wife.”
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello. Come in. Nellie’s in bed.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“It won’t get any better, I don’t think. Please, come in.”
They entered the apartment. Nellie’s Ellington record was turning in quiet revolutions toward the back of the sitting room. The entire place reeked of citron. All the curtains had been pulled shut, blocking out the daylight.
“Is she still asleep?” Carlos asked.
“Not asleep,” Josh said. “She’s sick. Bad sick. Too weak to get out of bed.”
Marie looked at her husband, suddenly concerned and still very confused.
“Has she been to her physician?” Carlos asked.
“There’s nothing anyone can do. And she’s a stubborn old bird. She won’t let me do anything for her.”
“We should leave,” Marie whispered.
“No,” Josh said, “please. She knew you two were coming, it’s fine. She just feels bad that you have to see her this way.”
Marie only nodded. She was staring about the room, her small hands pressed together and resting atop the swell of her belly. Her winter coat was buttoned to the neckline and she wore a knitted beret pushed to one side. She looked incredibly young, Carlos thought, just as young as she had before they’d been married. Pregnancy—the dominance of perpetuation—had kept her beautiful and untouched. Again, he thought about all the lying he had done recently, thought about the long nights away from the house, afraid to go home where his thoughts (and Nellie’s words) only felt stronger and truer. Unfair—but he’d done it all for her, all of it, every second away from the house, every waking hour of his life these past few weeks. Was he a coward for refusing to instill in his wife the same unfounded fears he’d been carrying since Nellie had spoken those words? Was he a coward or a hero? No—he couldn’t see himself as a hero. Yet not a coward, either.
I’m a child, he thought. A frightened and confused child.
The bedroom was quiet and dark, the drapes pulled across the window here as well. A pungent medicinal smell hung like vapor in the air. Josh led them in but seemed reluctant to step too close to the old woman’s bed. Instead, he remained by the doorway and simply motioned for Carlos and his wife to enter.
Nellie was difficult to see in the darkness. As they approached, Carlos could see that she was indeed aw
ake and propped into a sitting position beneath a bundle of heavy bedclothes. And as he got even closer, he could see that she was trying to smile. But there was a strong, sickly smell about her, and her aura was just as weak as Josh’s. Worse. Nellie appeared as the disease that had somehow found its way to Josh. She was the carrier, the host, the architect of both their deterioration. The presentation of her body conveyed images of soiled canvases; of downed telephone poles after a storm; of a discarded flat tire on the side of an interstate; of everything that seemed ruined and unhealthy in this world.
“Welcome,” Nellie said. Her voice sounded dry and abrasive.
“Carlito,” Marie whispered. Her discomfort was mounting. Another two minutes and she would insist they leave.
“Beautiful girl,” Nellie said.
“This is my wife, Marie.”
“Marie Mendes,” Nellie said. Not just dry and abrasive: her voice was troubled—wracked with something other than the inhibitions of her stroke and the weariness of her apparent state of being. And despite Carlos’s professional intimacy with such a realization, he was delayed in diagnosing Nellie’s condition: simply, the woman was dying.
“Hello,” Marie said. Her own voice shook.
“How beautiful,” Nellie said. She slowly brought a hand up to Marie’s belly and paused just before touching, allowing her hand to hover only an inch away from Marie’s swollen abdomen. Marie flinched subtly, then looked embarrassed by her reaction. “Such a gift,” the old woman said.
“Here.” Josh came up behind her with a chair from the kitchen. “Sit.”
“No, I…” She looked toward her husband. Her eyes were suddenly pleading—he knew it would come to this—and he took her hand, squeezed.
“Sit,” he told her.
“We should leave this woman alone,” Marie insisted.
“Please,” Nellie said. Her good hand trembled and she replaced it atop the bedclothes.
With hesitance, Marie sat in the chair. Carlos placed a hand on her shoulder.
“This is a beautiful thing,” Marie said to the old woman. “To bless our child—really, it means a lot to me. To the both of us. But it is not necessary to do this now when we can come back at some other time—”