On November 17, 1959, Bobbie Feyerlicht, age twenty-four, caught the night flight to Boston, the bus to Median, full circle, to raise her nephew, Carruthers Carney.
•
I stopped, not sure what to tell her next. It’s always best to be selective.
Lola said, “I didn’t like that pus poem.”
I could feel her disapproval. I searched my notes. “Try this, then.”
She took it and read.
FLOW
A leaf hears the dark breeze, feels the bat’s squeal cut.
The leaves whisper, a breath shakes their arms.
A wet branch cracks, breaks, hangs.
The trunks tell each other. Now the sap knows.
Juice seeps to the bottom and below.
Into roots and soil, into the waters, a thick flow.
The sap tells, the soil confirms, the waters understand.
They lie steady.
The flow tells the larval nymphs, the snails, the fish, the breathing lands.
They make ready.
Roberta Feyerlicht
(February 3–16/03)
“That’s the kind of thing she’s writing now,” I said.
“That’s better,” said Lola. But her mind was somewhere else.
“What’s up?”
She waited maybe ten seconds. At last she said, “Will you tell me something, Ted?”
“Anything I know.” Almost anything.
Again she held back, as if afraid to speak. “How do you do it?”
“What?”
“See their stories.”
“Like I told you. I look down.”
“But they’re not there any more.”
“What’s not there?”
“The stories you’re telling me.”
“But I can see them.”
“But how? I understand if the story’s happening just about now. Like what all those people were doing around the equinox. But you’ve just told me about what was going on in 1959. Can you see 1959 down there?”
An insightful question. No, it had never occurred to me before, how I can see events that have gone by. Like I’ve never asked myself how I was able to walk. “You know, I’m not sure. But when I look, there they are.”
“What’re you looking at?”
“Them. Many of them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it. It’s like you seeing into their minds, knowing from the inside how they’re thinking.”
“Yes.” I’ve always been a little proud of that, seeing their thoughts.
Again she remained silent. I could almost feel notions crossing her mind. “Maybe it’s because Carney’s your son.” She thought for a moment. “Can you see others in the past?”
“I—” I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Obviously I could see some, but others not. “Like who?”
She considered my question. “Like, maybe you can see what happened to the poet lady in 1959 ’cause you’re sort of related to her. Can you,” she searched, “can you see what happened to anybody else in 1959?”
I closed my eyes. Bobbie I saw clearly, back in Median with Carney. Somewhere else back there I had a sense of amorphous forms, a lot of dark movement— Far over to the right, some color, something taking shape, someone there. I focused in. A woman. I recognized her; from where, I don’t know. “Beth Cochan,” I said, eyes open, staring at Lola.
“Who?”
“John Cochan’s mother.” I’d never tried this before, consciously trying to check out past moments in the lives of people.
“But, Ted, how’s that possible?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes again. Still there. Beth Cochan.
“Is she doing something? Saying something?”
•
2. (1959)
Beth Cochan believed her great success—seven major papers by the time she was thirty-one, three of them on tropical coleoptera, a worldwide reputation in pharmaceutical entomology—grew from what she called her induced insight. Which is to say, she reflected on the objects of her research while under the influence of marijuana or hashish. Toying in her lab, eyes closed, her mind watched the apparently chaotic flow of distinct particles, contemplated their movements, saw invisible conjunctions turn into sudden obvious connections, and transformed these links into necessary patterns. She would then direct her experimentation toward her discovered loci. Time after time her “guess” proved correct. So correct, she had felt at the start of her thirty-first year, it was a duty to turn her research onto the source of her inspiration, cannabis itself. To reward the generous weed by crowning it with popular legitimacy, a recognition of its powers to inspire, salve, and possibly cure.
She could find cures for whatever conditions she chose to study, she knew this clearly. Sam Ulrich, Vice-President and Director of Research for Cochan Pharmaceuticals, CochPharm, also recognized her brilliance. But too often he was bent on blocking her, keeping her from pushing her experiments to their conclusions.
Beth knew the potential for the good that cannabis could bring to the world. But the US government forbade all trials; it made use of cannabis illegal. Because cannabis turned people into potheads, insane reefer loony maniacs, dangerous to America because the commies would turn them into enemy agents, undermine the moral fabric of the United States.
Such a stupid argument.
But Beth Shapiro Cochan needed to experiment. Hers was life-saving work, every day more probable that the cure for rheumatoid arthritis lay hidden in the hormonal transformations she induced in her allomyrina. “Without cannabis the transformations aren’t powerful enough!” she shouted at Sam. “I need experimental quality cannabis! We’re working in godforsaken Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, for pissake! How can the US feds control us here?”
“Because,” Sam repeated, for the fourth time, the tenth, ever calmly, “the corporate center of CochPharm is Cambridge, Mass.”
“It makes no sense, Sam, no scientific sense.”
“Legal sense is what’s at issue,” Sam reiterated.
Beth found her cannabis, Beth always found what she wanted. For thirty months she experimented. Clear progress. Her allomyrina, fed on cannabis in a formula never to be revealed, took sleek and furious flight. Onward to mammals. The syrup called A-17, taken intravenously, later orally, transformed her rats, scraggly, arthritic, their leg and neck joints in agony, into silken, sure-footed, sunny creatures, all their painful shuffling evaporated. Undeniable success.
Time to test the drug on humans. But for this she needed specific permission. Already then she’d grown too distant from her husband, Joe, he the Chairman of the Board of CochPharm, to ask him for help. She went to see Sam. “I have to do this.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Sam—”
“And you must think I’m crazy too.” Sam stood behind his desk, his face and bald scalp gone red.
“We’re none of us crazy—”
“Beth. Listen. Let me be basic here. Marijuana is illegal. Importing it, buying it, possessing it for whatever purpose, is a felony. You’ve been able to get away with your tests because all of your animals are in cages, they can’t meander over to a cocktail lounge and blab away, ‘Hey, I had this high the other day, outasight.’ Right now CochPharm hides that secret here behind our walls. But you want to work with human subjects? Who live lives outside your lab? Who talk to their neighbors and their spouses? No, Beth. No.”
“Sam, my whole purpose in doing this work is to show people the great good that marijuana can do. I want people to see it as an honest and helpful drug.”
“You’ll go to jail. And so will I.”
“Sam. I need sick human beings to try it on, people with palsy, with arthritis, with the worst migraines you can imagine. I can’t continue my work without testing it on sick people.”
“Okay, Beth, let’s say you succeed brilliantly. Where would you publish your results? The New England Journal of Goddamn Cannabis Medicine? Get serious. And worry about CochPharm. What
good would the most successful testing be for CochPharm, where’s the profit? We’d never patent let alone manufacture what your findings might prove, never.”
“If I could show how remarkable—”
“The US Narcotics Bureau would close us down. Yes, even in Sherbrooke, Quebec!” Sam Ulrich shuddered. “Forget it, Beth.”
“This is the essence of my work!”
They argued for half an hour. Finally Sam, as a friend not as Research Director, said he’d take it to the board. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
The board heard Sam. They listened as well to Beth. They showed themselves more than adamant. “No way,” said the board.
What choice for Beth? Was there a legitimate lab anywhere that would take a woman whose research called for illegal substances, unlawful inquiries? A woman who for nearly three years had not, after such promise, published a single paper?
“Go home, Beth,” said the board. “Be there for your boy.”
•
Very strange, seeing all that, telling Lola about Beth Cochan.
Lola said, “Is that all?”
All. I knew there was more, but I couldn’t find it. Yet, or ever? “That’s all for now.”
She shook her head. “How do you do it, Ted? Is it your memory?”
“Well—it can’t be. I have no memories of Beth Cochan.” But how can she even be asking about memory? Gods can’t experience memory. It’s just a word.
“Is it, maybe, Beth Cochan’s memory?”
“How do you mean?”
“Can you see her memory? And Bobbie’s memory?”
I blinked. I had seen Bobbie’s memory. That’s how I could tell Lola about Bobbie in San Francisco. I had seen what Bobbie remembered. How remarkable! Lola had figured out something I hadn’t known! I wanted to hug her. I only smiled broadly. “You know, I think you’re right. I did see Bobbie’s memory. Lola—thank you!”
She grinned as if I’d just rewarded her with a lollipop. “Good! You’re welcome.”
Again that urge to hug her, just the friendliest of hugs …
“And Beth Cochan’s memory too. Two memories so close together.”
Then my belly tightened. Now Lola was wrong. Because I knew I couldn’t be seeing Beth Cochan’s memory because I knew, without knowing how, that Beth Cochan was dead. I’d have to figure that one out.
I closed my eyes again, maybe find Beth again. No. She wasn’t there. I’d try again later.
Later too I couldn’t locate her. But I did see John Milton Magnussen. In his mid-twenties. In London. Deep under the ground.
And from about the same time, Theresa’s memory.
•
3. (1963)
Milton had told his sister, Bev, about meeting Theresa on the boat, the Princess Isabella, second day out of New York, heading to England and France. Lots of students on board. Theresa would be working at the Hotel Boniface in Lyon after her fencing tournament in Paris. They’d spend the afternoon together tomorrow when he passed through, six hours between his train from London and the connection to Freiburg. He wanted to give her a small present. Bev said she’d take him to London’s Silver Vaults.
“What’re they?”
Back in the nineteenth century, Bev told him, silver dealers from Hatton Garden stored their goods overnight in underground vaults there. Then dealers began to open these subterranean warehouses to the public, and the Silver Vaults sold retail ever since.
Bev and Milton descended, grim fluorescent light overhead, lines and lines of shops along the alleyways, all displaying silver: candlesticks, samovars, cutlery, picture frames, rings, tea sets. The next shop, silver animals: rabbits, mice, beavers, a dozen different insects, a silver cockatiel, cats, dogs of all breeds.
“Down this way.” Bev led him to a store displaying smaller, less expensive items, necklaces, broaches, earrings. She knew how little money he had.
A necklace, he figured. Both intimate and general. The bald clerk laid out a dozen and more on the glass countertop. Milton examined each, his eyes returning to a delicate silver chain, links so tiny and interconnected it looked like a slender snake slithering across his palm. From the chain hung a small stone framed with silver, a bloodstone, green jasper with bright red dots spattered anarchically. Her birthstone. March 23. He’d sneaked a look at her passport.
“Chalcedony quartz,” the clerk said. “Named heliotrope, reflects sunlight brilliantly.”
“Can you try it on, Bev?”
Bev opened the clasp, took an end of chain in each hand, and brought it around her neck. The bloodstone glowed soft green against her skin, whitened by the fluorescence overhead. She attached the clasp without a problem. She raised her chin. “How’s it look?”
“Good.” He nodded to the clerk. “You have a little box to put it in?”
Bev undid the clasp.
He paid. Her birthstone. It would be for Theresa only. Until the boat had sailed away, taking her on to Le Havre, leaving him on the dock at Southampton, he hadn’t understood how deeply smitten he was. Three days ago. Her absence had left him acutely alone. Even with Bev appearing as planned outside the Immigration Hall to take him in hand.
He pocketed the package and they left the shop.
“You know,” Bev said, “in India they grind bloodstones into powder. You drink it down in water. It’s an aphrodisiac. It gives you strength. They say.”
Strength is what he’d hoped for on the boat. He’d noticed Theresa the second day at dinner, the chair at her table in the dining room back to back with his own. At one point she’d pushed backward, tapping his chair. He’d turned. She’d grinned, said, “Sorry,” stood, and walked away. A tall woman, a couple of inches shorter than his own six feet. But elegantly curved. Had he been brave enough, he’d’ve gotten up and followed her out and demanded a mock apology. Instead he merely watched as she left the dining room, hair just down over her collar, light tight red sweater, straight khaki skirt to her knees, low heels. All evening that image tickled in his memory. Coming in to breakfast, he saw she was already seated, her back to him. He took the chair directly behind her and sat, careful not to tap hers. After a sip of coffee he pushed backward. As their chairs touched he turned, just as she did. “Revenge.” He smiled.
She looked puzzled, then tittered.
A strange sound to come from between such lovely lips. He introduced himself: “Milton. Magnussen.” He reached out his hand.
She stood, looking down on him, suddenly at attention, saluting, heels clicking together. “Theresa. Bonneherbe.”
He stood. “At ease, Lieutenant Theresa.”
She clasped her hands behind her back and took him in. At her height she could rarely look up to a man’s face. Most of the guys she’d dated had been shorter, too often a big deal for them. In Milton Magnussen she liked what she saw: a man maybe a couple of years older, thick black hair parted in the middle, a sturdy forehead, bulky eyebrows, gentle brown eyes, generous lips, close-shaven cheeks and chin, face more round than long, a broad, strong body. Only the small chin marred his face. She would suggest a beard. What? Oh dear, already making plans …
So their conversation began. They spent most of their waking time together over the rest of the voyage. They learned about each other’s lives. Agreement about films and wine, books and skiing, roaring fires and pizza, the poetry of Archibald MacLeish and e.e. cummings, Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, and the pleasure and irritation at having a single sibling. She knew nothing of farming, he not a thing about fencing. They described their set-in-stone plans for their European summers—he first to England to spend a couple of days with his sister, then to Freiburg to improve his German so he could read Goethe, Heine, and Rilke in their own language during long winter evenings at the Grange; she a few days in Paris, then to Lyon for her fencing tournament, next to a hotel a few miles north of Lyon where she would work and live in French. And afterward? She to Harvard University, a Ph.D. in philosophy; he back to the Grange, to h
elp his father farm the land as his father had helped his own father. Lives to be lived.
He would disembark in Southampton. They met before dawn as the Princess Isabella glided into the harbor, up to the dock. There at the rail he kissed her, their first time.
“It’s been fun,” she said.
“And funny,” he said.
They both laughed at the same moment.
“Will you have any time when you pass through Paris?” she said.
“A few hours.”
“Want to spend it together?”
He said, “I’d love to,” and it sounded in his ears, I love you.
Theresa drank Paris down in huge gulps, using her greed for it all to drown away that other undeniable thirst—lust was not too strong—for Milton Magnussen. It must have already been there when they were both still on board the ship, but hidden away in some mental gap. Hiding on its own or hidden by her? Whichever, it had leapt out and screamed at her as the Princess Isabella steamed away across the Channel: And what if he gave you the wrong train time? Or if he decided to spend more time with his sister? Or if he fell and broke his leg and couldn’t travel? She couldn’t tell him the hotel where she’d be staying in Paris because she didn’t have it yet. How could you be so dumb!? She had stared back toward Southampton, and her eyes welled. The closest thing to an address she had for him was the university in Freiburg. Maybe he just didn’t want to see her again. A shipboard friendship, hardly a romance? But hadn’t he known how much more she must be feeling when she kissed him there at the rail? Come on, Theresa, be fair. You hadn’t known, how could he?
He hadn’t known. Likely he didn’t care. Clearly he didn’t. But she’d be at station when the train arrived, 11:25 in the morning.
She took Paris literally by stride, walking everywhere in her uniform, short-sleeved blouses, khaki skirt, white socks, and sneakers. The Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysée, the Grand Palais, and the Musée du Petit Palais. The Seine from the Palais de Chaillot, the Eiffel Tower, the Palais Bourbon, the Musée d’Orsay. And finally on Wednesday, Gare du Nord.
She woke early, lay still for a while, glancing about her narrow room. It was a tight five-floor walk-up, hers on the fourth, a hard climb the first time with her backpack and the case for her foil, mask, and padding, compact enough but clumsy on the thin stairs. And no help from the concierge, a sharp-nosed woman with thin gray scraggle on her head. Now Theresa washed, combed her hair, the light blue blouse? The white skirt definitely …
Whatever Lola Wants Page 5