Sensing Light

by Mark A. Jacobson

  They discussed the merits of various brassieres and sanitary pads and lamented the injustice that boys didn’t have to put up with any of this. They shared what little knowledge they had about sex. Photos of Vic Damone, James Dean, and Rock Hudson adorning Frieda’s bedroom wall made Gwen dimly aware of yearnings for mysterious sensations and release. However, she mistrusted boys, as did Frieda, who only had sisters. In any case, romance was still a hypothetical issue. No boys had demonstrated interest in either of them, so far.

  Frieda stopped growing in ninth grade but didn’t stop gaining weight. On entering tenth grade, her breasts were large enough to be a source of embarrassment. She knew she bore a passing resemblance to the young Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet and tried to draw attention to her face instead with lipstick and make-up. Meanwhile, Gwen had grown three inches over the summer. Her breasts and hips were modestly proportioned. Her nose had turned cute. She let her straight blond hair grow long and tied it in a ponytail.

  Pheromones permeated their classrooms now. The boys were markedly taller and had deeper voices. Gwen was approached by previously taciturn Rusty, who sported a new flat-top and had an attractive bulge in his neck. She didn’t brush him off. He confided that there was a cabal of the most popular kids in school. You could join only as a couple. The reward was being invited to make-out parties. Gwen was curious. She accepted the offer to be his girlfriend.

  When Frieda showed no interest in hearing about this unfolding drama, Gwen assumed her friend was distracted, nervous over who would ask her. Rusty seemed no great prize to Gwen. She didn’t consider Frieda might be jealous.

  The next Saturday night, Gwen was in a crowded basement jitterbugging to Bill Haley and the Comets. She noted Frieda’s absence but gave it no more thought once the slow dancing started. In the morning, she awoke feeling guilty. She called her friend’s house. Mrs. Lowenstein promised Frieda would call her back soon. The phone didn’t ring that day.

  At school, Frieda ignored her. Despite understanding now how tough it would be for her not to be jealous if the tables had been turned, Gwen believed it wasn’t her fault Frieda lacked the self-control to stay out of her refrigerator or that none of the boys wanted a fat girlfriend.

  The parties continued. Though Gwen made a few girlfriends, she wasn’t comfortable enough to trust any of them with her secrets, not like she had been with Frieda. She missed Frieda and plotted ways for them to make up. Gwen intended to be generous, to take full responsibility for their estrangement.

  After Thanksgiving, Frieda wasn’t at school. No one, not even their home room teacher, knew why. Gwen called for days until finally Mrs. Lowenstein answered the phone and told her Frieda was in LA Children’s Hospital, seriously ill. She urged her to visit.

  Gwen had never been inside a hospital. Just the word frightened her. She dutifully took a bus to the twelve-story pavilion on Sunset Boulevard. Frieda was on the top floor in a private room that smelled of bleach. Her skin was as white and fragile as tissue paper. Blue blotches covered her arms. Her body had shrunk. Plastic tubes descended from glass bottles hanging high above her bed and converged beneath a square of gauze taped to her neck. Frieda looked terrified.

  “What happened?” asked Gwen, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “There’s something wrong with my blood,” sobbed Frieda. “Nobody will explain it to me, and they won’t let me go home.”

  Gwen sat on the bed. She touched her friend sympathetically. Frieda pushed her away.

  “I can’t stand it anymore,” Frieda screamed. “I’d kill myself if I knew how.”

  Gwen blanched. Both girls were too distraught to notice Frieda’s father come into the room. He immediately insisted Gwen leave.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Gwen cried as a nurse escorted her to the elevator.

  Two weeks later, her mother showed her an obituary in the Los Angeles Times. Gwen read one phrase and rushed to the toilet to throw up.

  “Frieda Lowenstein, age 15, died of leukemia… ”

  At the funeral, Gwen had to use her mother as a crutch to walk into the sanctuary. She was relieved no one seemed affronted by her presence. They were all weeping or overwhelmed by grief, except for the rabbi who led the service. His calm incantations were soothing. She followed little of his eulogy, but he did say one thing that stuck in her mind.

  “The death of a child is our ultimate test of faith.”

  Gwen had always half-heartedly hoped God would take care of her. Frieda’s death now made faith a cruel joke. At best, her death was senseless. And if Frieda didn’t deserve to be spared, why would Gwen?

  XII

  BECAUSE RAY HERNANDEZ WAS about to leave for a sabbatical in Argentina, his annual holiday party was early this year, on a Sunday in late September. The day started out hot and windless. By four in the afternoon, the temperature had reached one hundred degrees. Like most houses in sight of the bay, Ray’s didn’t have air conditioning, so the party moved outdoors.

  Kevin, Gwen, and Herb, all barefoot and wearing shorts, sat on collapsible beach chairs. It was pleasant to drink chilled white wine under the shade of fir trees while Ray’s children, armed with spray bottles, showered mist on them.

  “This is the first time in a month I’ve been able to sit down and relax for a couple of hours,” complained Gwen. “It took me forever to catch up with the backlog I had after the Paris meeting.”

  “Me too,” said Kevin.

  “Me three,” Herb chuckled.

  Gwen and Kevin looked dourly at him.

  “It wasn’t my idea to have an international AIDS conference in Paris.”

  “That’s what I thought,” growled Kevin. “The mentors around here only take credit for the productivity they spawn, not the misery.”

  “It’s not Herb’s fault,” Gwen said, her words beginning to slur. “You remember what he said to you, right here, a few years ago?”

  “In there,” she corrected herself, pointing at Ray’s house. “He said you’d never be able to stop working. It was already out of control.”

  “I’ve been exonerated,” Herb sang with gleeful satisfaction. “She’s right. I warned you. You could have bailed out then.”

  “I’m not blaming you, Herb. I’m just stating a fact. Between work-related travel, work at home, and work at work, I have no social life.”

  “Same here. It’s what happens in a crisis.”

  “There’s the empathy I was looking for.”

  Gwen giggled.

  “OK, then how about this?” Herb suggested, “It would be God’s work…”

  “If any of us believed in God,” said Kevin and Gwen together.

  “I must be repeating myself. When did I say that? Not today. But it was at one of Ray’s parties, wasn’t it? Yes, years ago. And you guys remember?”

  “Of course we remember,” said Gwen.

  “It’s our ethos,” Kevin chimed in. “That’s the best thing about working at City Hospital. We’ve got this rational, humanistic, shared belief system. We don’t need religion. What a fucking relief.”

  “I’m impressed, Kevin,” said Herb sincerely. “That’s a perfect way to put it.”

  “A fucking relief?”

  “No, our ethos—a rational, humanistic, shared belief system. Somebody should write it down. I want to quote you.”

  Gwen turned glum and said, “Living up to those beliefs is a bear and a half. We have to be saints.”

  “Saints?” asked Kevin.

  “You know, rise to every occasion with thoughtful compassion. No matter what shit people throw at us.”

  “The bar isn’t that high,” said Herb. “We just have to be honest, benevolent, and fair. That’s no more than exhibiting plain human decency. It’s hardly sainthood.”

  “Thanks, Herb,” Kevin said, slapping himself on one cheek then the other. “I needed to hear that.”

  Herb giggled, which tickled Gwen. Her hilarity became a coughing spasm, which seemed the height of silliness to
Kevin. He shook with laughter.

  Ray happened to be passing by and stared at the threesome.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he roared. “These are the people who are going to save us from the worst plague in modern history? God help us.”

  “Don’t look at me, or at Gwen,” said Herb, pointing at Kevin. “He’s the one trained in infectious diseases. It’s his bread and butter. The pathogen is known. There are targets for drug development.”

  “True,” Ray agreed. “Get on it, Bartholomew. I expect results. Pronto.”

  Kevin saluted.

  “Yes sir!” he shouted.

  Ray nodded agreeably and wobbled on.

  “That reminds me,” said Herb, “I had a little tête-à-tête with Ray yesterday. He totally agrees with what I’ve been saying. You are so in the right place at the right time.”

  “You can’t be serious,” protested Kevin. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Herb, but you don’t have friends who are dying of AIDS. I do.”

  “Sorry. You’re right. We have to stop talking about work.”

  “I have an idea,” proposed Gwen. “I remember something Herb showed us at one of Ray’s parties. He can tell whether a person believes in God or not. But he didn’t explain how he does it. I want to know. Tell us, Herb. Please?”

  “Yeah! That’s a very cool skill. How do you do it?” Kevin appealed.

  “It’s not ESP,” Herb replied. “Maybe it’s pattern recognition. I’ve been asking patients whether they believe in God since I was a fellow at NIH. I have a lot of data to draw from.”

  “OK, then what’s the pattern of an atheist?” asked Gwen.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to articulate the patterns. Maybe there aren’t any. Maybe it’s intuition”

  “Why don’t you deconstruct what you’re doing?” said Kevin. “Then you could write about it.”

  “No!” Herb harrumphed. “Why would anyone other than me be interested? I don’t have a hypothesis. I don’t even care why people have faith or not. I’m just curious whether they do or don’t. And, by the way, I haven’t noticed any association between belief and patient survival, or the severity of suffering. Not that there’s any plausible reason why either would correlate with faith.”

  While Kevin and Gwen pondered his response, Herb snuck off to rummage through Ray’s ice chest for a Sauvignon Blanc—one tart enough to keep them all alert. He returned, uttering the wine’s variety, appellation, and year like a practiced sommelier. As Herb refilled their glasses, he changed the subject.

  “Kevin, I want to apologize about my poor choice of words earlier. I didn’t mean just being in the right place at the right time for academic success. You have a rare opportunity. The world values entrepreneurship so much more than altruism. Few people ever get the chance in their work lives to do something this undeniably beneficial for others. You should embrace it. Both of you should.”

  “Ah, the wisdom that comes from criticism and self-criticism,” said Gwen.

  “This isn’t about politics,” countered Herb.

  “What!” she objected. “What could be any more political than AIDS? You should hear what SFAAC plans to do.”

  “Spare me. I was in DC and saw the hemophiliacs raising Cain, bless their hearts. But I thought we were talking about the personal, not the political. Gwen, you’re the one who brought up sainthood. Is that a political requirement for doing this work?”

  “Oh,” she said, woozily. “I guess you’re right.”

  “We have got to stop talking about AIDS,” Kevin demanded, “and anything else work-related.”

  “Fair enough,” Gwen agreed. “And politics, too. Shall we talk about wine? No we did that already. Movies? Restaurants?”

  There was an awkward pause until Kevin said with a crafty smile, “Let’s go back to religion. Herb weaseled out of explaining how he knew neither of us believes in God but we did as children. How did you do that?”

  “No fair. You wouldn’t ask Houdini how he did a magic trick, would you?”

  “Don’t lead us on and leave us hanging!” howled Kevin.

  “Herb’s got a secret,” Gwen sang, “Good for you, Herb. We should all have a secret or two. The world needs more magic.”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Kevin petulantly. “I want to know how he does it.”

  “Poor Kevin. Some things will have to remain mysteries, won’t they.”

  He pouted for a moment then launched into a high-pitched giggle that made Herb and Gwen laugh just as Ray walked by again.

  Ray gazed indulgently at them. He squatted, putting one hand on Kevin’s knee and the other on Gwen’s to keep his balance.

  “You three are a paradigm shift.”

  Kevin and Gwen were nonplussed. Herb nodded knowingly.

  “This university’s rise from obscurity was built on social Darwinism,” explained Ray. “My predecessors pitted faculty like you against each other. That strategy worked for a while, but we’ve entered a new era. From now on, the winners will be those best at collaborating. Obviously, it’s quite a challenge for people who don’t enjoy each other’s company to collaborate. We don’t seem to have that problem here, do we?”

  “It’s the least of our problems,” said Kevin, “But this is a party, so we won’t bother you with our more substantive ones.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Ray as he stood up. “I’m sure I’ll get to hear all about it before I’m off to Buenos Aires.”

  Herb turned to Gwen and said, “I’m confused. Both these guys tell me they’re from working-class families. Yet they talk to each other with the graciousness of old-money fraternity brothers.”

  “That’s what’s great about America,” Ray proclaimed. “Everyone gets to re-invent themselves.”

  “To collaboration!” Gwen shouted, lifting her glass. “If I learned anything from the sixties, it’s that when people value their uniqueness more than what they have in common, there’s always conflict, even if they agree on principles. But when their commonality takes precedence, there’s collaboration. Either way, stuff gets done and the world changes, but it’s a hell of a lot healthier when there’s no conflict.”

  They all stared at Gwen, moved by her rhetoric.

  “Well said,” acknowledged Ray, lifting his glass. “To our future stateswoman.”

  As Ray ambled away, Gwen asked, “So, speaking of re-inventing yourself, what’s your long range plan, Kevin?”

  Herb hunched forward to hear better.

  “I don’t think long range.” said Kevin, a touch defensively. “Trying to keep our ship afloat is all I can do.”

  “We’re just curious,” said Herb, “You’re younger. You have more potential for re-invention than either of us.”

  “It’s OK if you don’t want to talk about it,” said Gwen.

  “Right,” agreed Herb.

  “Though if you want a safe place to explore the possibilities,” she added, “We’re here to listen.”

  Herb opened his arms and said, “You can run anything by us. It’ll stay completely confidential.”

  Kevin resisted the impulse to make light of their banter. He’d heard the undercurrent of sincerity. He wondered if he should try something out for size.

  “All right,” he said, “I wish there was a clinical trials group with sites across the country. I have friends who are AIDS docs in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago. They’re savvy and have good ideas we could test collectively.”

  “You want to run the group?” asked Herb.

  “I’d be willing to, but I’d be fine with just being part of it.”

  “You could run it,” said Gwen. “You totally could do it.”

  “Sooner or later,” Herb piped in, “NIH will have to fund a system like that. Two, actually. One for treatment and one for prevention. Take your pick.”

  Herb slouched back in his chair, pretending disinterest, while Gwen crouched forward in anticipation.

  “OK,” said Kevin. “What I’m thinking…wh
at I really want to do…”

  She leaned farther forward.

  “What I want most of all…”

  Gwen was half on her feet.

  “Is to keep it a mystery.”

  She blew a raspberry at Kevin and plopped down on the front end of her beach chair, which tipped forward, depositing her butt-first on the grass. Herb guffawed, rolling side to side until he leaned too far and upended his chair. He landed on his belly.

  The rest of the party had stopped talking and were staring at them.

  Ray muttered, “I better tone down a notch this cheerleading for collaboration.”

  XIII

  KEVIN CAME HOME FROM work on Monday to find a letter from Marco full of love and longing to be together. Later that evening, Marco called from Mexico City with bad news. His mother had a major setback, a blood clot in the lungs. He talked of how she had been the most important pserson in his life, how this might be his last chance to give back a little of what she had given him. Marco’s reaction to Kevin’s account of his debut in the big-league lecture arena was a terse “that’s nice.”

  On Wednesday, Kevin was paged by the hospital operator for an outside emergency call. Katherine was on the line. She told him their father had just passed away.

  At seven the next morning, four o’clock West Coast time, Kevin was riding in a taxi through downtown Boston. He wore sunglasses to fend off the bright sunlight and felt well rested, having conked out for the entire plane ride. Taking one Halcion on a red-eye is reasonable, he thought. He disregarded the fact that the bottle containing a dozen pills when Marco left for Mexico was now empty.

  The taxi dropped him off on a block of identical brick row houses. He wasn’t sure which one he had grown up in. A door opened, and there stood his mother. Francine had more gray hair and wrinkles than when he last visited three years ago but looked less haggard than he was expecting. She wore a house dress Kevin hadn’t seen before, made of blue, permanent-press fabric with buttons down the front from the collar to the hemline. The kind Sears or JC Penney periodically puts on sale, he thought, the uniform of a domestic servant. The dress was new. He suspected a good deal of deliberation had gone into its purchase.