Sensing Light

by Mark A. Jacobson

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Kevin suggested.

  They took a modern elevator to the old convent chapel, renovated with carpeting and plush couches to serve as a communal living room. Its wall-high, leaded-glass windows had been left intact. Kevin pointed across the street to a small Catholic church.

  “See, I can’t escape,” he said with half-hearted irony.

  After asking if his pain, diarrhea, and nausea were made tolerable by the medications he was given around the clock, Herb had a moment of panic. What else could they talk about?

  Kevin wheeled himself to a bookcase. He removed a thin hardbound volume and gave it to Herb.

  “Winesburg, Ohio. My favorite novel in college. Would you read me a chapter?”

  Happy to have something to do, Herb opened the book. Kevin picked the final chapter, Departure. When Herb finished, Kevin sighed.

  “George Willard leaves town, his future full of possibility. Beginnings are the best part of life, aren’t they?”

  “I never thought about it. I guess so.”

  Kevin grabbed Herb’s hands and pulled himself close.

  Eyes shining, he said, “Thank you.”

  “Kevin, there’s nothing to thank me for.”

  “Oh, yes there is. Work I could be proud of. You gave me that opportunity. It was the missing piece. Without it, I never could have felt my life made sense.”

  Herb tried valiantly to swallow a sob. Losing the struggle, he hugged Kevin.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” Herb stammered. “Actually, I do know. I lack practice. It’s what inertia does. No, that’s a cop out, too. I’m still afraid to show feelings I can’t control. But I’ve done it with you. And I promise, this is just the start.”

  Kevin wept with delight.

  Certain he was on a roll, Herb said, “What a privilege it’s been to watch you grow, to achieve so much. I’ll remember you every day. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Kevin laughed and cried, each word diminishing in volume.

  Again Herb couldn’t think of anything to say, though he wasn’t troubled by it now. Kevin dozed briefly, opened his eyes, and stared at Herb.

  He seemed to be pleading, but Herb had the eerie intuition he wasn’t asking for assistance or relief. Suddenly, Herb was convinced that Kevin had grasped some core truth of existence. He wants me to understand it, Herb thought, to share it with me.

  “The void surrounding us is what makes our being in the world possible. It doesn’t threaten us. It embraces us. If you can believe this, you’ll be past all fear and sorrow.”

  Had Kevin really said that? Or was it his own imagination? He realized the answer didn’t matter. Herb’s mind became empty. He was only aware of Kevin’s presence. For a few minutes, until mundane thoughts intruded. What was on his schedule tomorrow? What was for dinner tonight? The silence became awkward.

  “Should I read another chapter?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Kevin said hoarsely. “The first one.”

  Halfway through, Kevin fell asleep. Herb sank into the couch. He endeavored to sort through his emotions with little success.

  Kevin awoke. He looked out the window and pointed toward Diamond Heights.

  “Your apartment?” Herb asked.

  “No, the distance. How far is it to the top of that hill?”

  “Half a mile?”

  “That’s an ideal distance, isn’t it? I can see each window. Any farther and the detail would be lost. It’s funny how my far vision is fine, but I can barely read.”

  Kevin fell asleep again. Through an open window, children’s voices filtered in from the playground next door. Herb couldn’t make out the words, yet he could hear the timbre of every shout and cry.

  Amazing, he thought, it’s a cantata.

  The church tower bell interrupted this concert with four peals. The noise woke Kevin. He looked into Herb’s eyes, for longer than Herb would let anyone except Cecilia.

  “Go back to your life, Herb,” he whispered. “It’s good. It’s better than you think. You deserve it.”

  XIII

  KEVIN WANTED TO STAY in the chapel and watch the sunset. Herb was uneasy about leaving him there alone, but Kevin stubbornly insisted the hospice staff would come soon.

  Once Herb had left, Kevin was fully awake, his heart racing. He hoped everyone would forget he was upstairs. There was no point in returning to his room. It was time to go. His body was useless. Without it, so was his mind, what remained of it. He soothed himself by vowing not to eat or drink. The dehydration would lead to kidney failure within days, a week at most, and at the end he’d be too delirious to feel pain.

  His heart was pounding. He wasn’t afraid, just surprised by the velocity of his pulse. Now he was giddy, aware of how recklessly his body was behaving. He would have giggled if he could, but he was breathing too fast.

  I’m not getting enough oxygen, he thought. It must be a pulmonary embolus. He wished he could laugh. This was his last diagnosis, and he had nailed it. He was quitting at the top of his game.

  Kevin had no more thoughts, only sensations—a crescendo of chest tightness, warmth ebbing from his body. His eyes couldn’t focus. All he could see was rosy sunlight pouring in through the leaded glass windows. Craving the light, he reached out and toppled toward it.

  Berlin, 1989

  I

  ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING in early November, Herb strode from his office to the parking lot. The worn leather traveling bag he had inherited from his father was hoisted on his back, stuffed with journals, a jacket and tie, and a down vest and Gore-Tex coat for long walks in a much colder climate. He looked at his watch. There was time to check in with Gwen before driving to the airport.

  Gwen’s door was ajar. Herb knocked. Her answer was a melodious, exasperated “Come in.” She was listening on the telephone and motioned for him to sit down. She seemed relieved it was Herb, not someone from her own program with a grievance or demand. While waiting, he surveyed the room. Framed wildflowers and family photos caught his attention. It was still strange to see Gwen in Kevin’s old office, her life displayed on the walls instead of his.

  She hung up the phone and asked, “When are you leaving?”

  “Today, at two. You?”

  “Tomorrow. I’m going to spend an extra day in Berlin after the conference, then fly back on Sunday.”

  She looked at him with amiable curiosity. He had ambivalent impulses and immediately understood both. He wanted a deeper friendship with Gwen, like he had enjoyed with Kevin, but he was reluctant to initiate the effort. He could be rebuffed or, worse, misinterpreted as making a sexual advance. Yet here was a chance for them to be together away from work, to discover what genuine affinity they might have.

  “Do you already have plans for Saturday?” he asked.

  “Just sightseeing. Want to join me?”

  “Sure. How about touring East Berlin?”

  “Herb, that’s at the top of my list! I have to see the Pergamon.”

  “Then we’re on.”

  As soon as Herb left, Gwen reached into her briefcase for the letter Katherine had sent her. The connection she had made with Katherine on the day after Kevin’s funeral when they cleaned out his apartment together, which had strengthened during their subsequent phone calls and her trip to Boston, had grown enough for Katherine to be comfortable sharing this letter. It was the last Kevin had written. Much of it was about Gwen and Herb.

  Reading it had been sobering. Kevin had surmised her rift with Rick was approaching a point of no return. His warning made her choices clear. If she wanted their relationship to survive, she had to erase the slate of all resentment and start giving Rick the benefit of the doubt. She had taken the first step, and Rick had followed suit. Slowly, they were moving toward intimacy again. This letter turned out to be Kevin’s last gift.

  It could be a gift for Herb too, but the dilemma of having to decide whether to show to him or not was awful. She didn’t know Herb well en
ough, nowhere near well enough, to gauge how he would react. At best, he would be embarrassed, at worst terrified. Though to withhold it, knowing Kevin’s advice might help him—that wouldn’t be right either.

  She treasured seeing Kevin’s perspective, but there was no way to be sure if Herb would feel the same. What should she do? Her stomach hurt. She slid the pages back into her briefcase.

  II

  SLICK FOG CLUNG TO Berlin, damping the tension of the divided city. At dawn, starlings left their roosts in outlying farmlands and marshes. They flew in lines, just above treetops and spires, aiming for bits of breakfast-on-the-run soon to be dropped in the city squares.

  Herb had only slept three hours on the transatlantic flight. In the bus from Tegel airport to West Berlin’s central railway station, his eyes resisted daylight despite the shielding fog and tinted windows. It was eleven at night according to his biologic clock. Yet being tired and disoriented was pleasant, taking the edge off the anxiety he had tried to suppress all week.

  Traffic moved quickly in the morning rush hour. He was at his hotel by ten o’clock. A room was available, but he wasn’t interested in showering or changing clothes. He pocketed a city map, headed back to the train station, and bought a subway pass.

  The fog was lifting when he exited at Reichssportfeld. He walked toward an immense field where seven chiseled stone columns built for the 1936 Olympic Games stood as pagan sentries. Herb had written of these “neolithic pillars set in an earthly garden for the Valkyries’ afternoon tea” in the diary he kept the summer of 1959. The night before leaving San Francisco, he reread it for the first time in decades, wincing at his naïve, misplaced romanticism.

  He found the swimming stadium, climbed down its limestone tiers, and sat envisioning, as he had thirty years ago, the empty pool filled with emerald water, the cadence of glistening arms rising up and dipping down.

  He saved the great track and field stadium for last. The pocked, marble plaque that enthralled him in 1959 was still there. He retraced the carved letters— “100m OWENS USA, 200m OWENS USA.”

  Herb spent the rest of the day wandering through West Berlin neighborhoods and visiting a museum of Art Deco furniture. He returned to the hotel, took a short nap, woke up refreshed, showered, changed, and joined the other invited speakers at a welcome dinner on the fourteenth floor.

  He sat next to a German pulmonary specialist he knew from previous conferences. Peter Ramburg was polite, nonjudgmental, and colorless. Herb had yet to see him express any emotion, positive or negative. Peter was also very thin, which raised the possibility he might have AIDS, though he appeared energetic and must be capable of hard work if he was telling Herb the truth about how many bronchoscopies he did a week.

  They talked shop during the salad and main courses. Herb excused himself at dessert to take in the view through the ballroom’s glass-curtain walls. The fog had descended, so there was little to see—the vague outline of a television tower in East Berlin, the runway lights at Tegel. He was drifting around the perimeter, identifying other blurry landmarks, when someone shouted excitedly. The only word Herb could understand, and only because it was repeated over and over, was “Funkankündigung.”

  All the Germans began shouting. More remarkable to Herb, they were using their hands for emphasis, which he had never seen a German do. He asked several people what was happening, but their replies were unintelligible.

  Herb saw Peter sitting alone, flushed and trembling. He didn’t respond until Herb yelled, “Funkankündigung?”

  Peter stirred from his catatonic state.

  “Radio announcement. There has been a radio announcement. The East Germans have opened the wall. Tonight they let everyone cross to the West.”

  Pounding the table, Peter sobbed, “You cannot imagine what this means to us.”

  III

  GWEN WROTE A GRANT proposal on her flight to New York, then slept through the transatlantic leg. When the pilot’s voice woke her, she glanced at her watch and relaxed. They would be landing in twenty minutes. She had plenty of time to get to the conference center.

  This was Gwen’s fourth international trip in six months. Jet lag was becoming a manageable nuisance, like habituating herself to sleep deprivation had been during residency. She had rediscovered how to fall asleep instantly whenever the opportunity arose and use a catnap to push back fatigue a few hours.

  Really, she thought, it was stupid to come to this symposium. The odds I’ll learn anything of importance here are miniscule. German medical science still hasn’t recovered from World War II.

  But that wasn’t why she had agreed to attend. The organizers were dedicating this conference to Kevin with a special opening ceremony, and Jorgen Zabel, who was chairing the meeting, was a highly regarded tuberculosis expert. Since TB was now the most serious complication of AIDS globally, he could make a huge contribution. Plus, he was trying to bring his local colleagues up to speed in treating AIDS. She needed to support him.

  Then she thought of Saturday, the day after the conference. She would be alone with Herb. Gwen took Kevin’s letter from her briefcase and reread it.

  Katherine,

  Of course I’m looking forward to seeing you, but please stop worrying. I’m not alone here. Every day a home health aide comes and lots of friends drop by. When it gets too hard, I’ll move to a hospice without a fuss. I promise.

  I won’t lie and say this is easy, but I am making progress in accepting the inevitable. I’ve been reading about Buddhism and practicing how to let go—starting with material things. There’s an exercise I tried, seeing my apartment as too cluttered. It works! Now I want empty space. My textbooks on virology, immunology, and infectious diseases, Marco’s molecular and cell biology books, the shelves of my favorite journals, the boxes of brown manila files. They’re all unnecessary. I wish somebody would cart them away. The herringbone sports coat, button down shirts and matching ties, even the dress shoes I used to love so much, are going to Goodwill. I’d be fine if everything here, including the furniture, was removed. Buddhists believe concentrating on emptiness is the key to serenity. I think they’re on to something.

  Enough morbid rant. I may be getting ready to depart from this life, but I’m more interested than ever in the lives of others. Weird, huh? Gwen and Herb each come by twice a week, so I know what’s happening with the program, the hospital, and, most importantly, with them.

  Gwen must have told you she’s running the program solo, which means she’s where the buck stops for every staff and faculty complaint and conflict. She’s probably a better administrator than I was, but these days there are twice as many people to supervise. Anyway, that doesn’t concern me as much as hearing her refer to Rick as an afterthought, a distraction. She was so in love with him. Now there’s zero affection? I’ve asked her how they’re doing. She doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s like she’s given up on their relationship being a source of happiness. I can’t believe they have nothing left or that Rick is indifferent. He’d be gone already if he didn’t still care for her. But I’m afraid time may be running out. Is she telling you anything?

  I’m also worried about Herb. Last week was payback time for all the doors he opened for me. He brought his son to visit. Martin is eighteen and shares Douglas and my romantic preferences. Since he came out, Herb has been terrified he’s going to get infected. Sound familiar? Except he and his wife haven’t handled it the way you guys have. By the way, your last letter blew me away! Please tell Ben I’m so proud of how he took the initiative and told Douglas it’s OK to be gay.

  It was obvious Herb wanted me to talk with Martin privately. He turned his pager off and on to make it beep, retreated to the kitchen, and pretended to be talking on the phone. Finding myself alone with his son was awkward. I had no agenda beyond being real, so I told him Herb had been my mentor. Then I asked what it was like to have him as a dad.

  Martin has a lot of self-control, just like Herb. He considered his answer very carefully and s
aid, “It’s hard, actually.”

  I told him I was sorry to hear that because I’d had problems with my own father and never worked them out before he died. I said I was sure Herb loved him and would eventually get over the fear for his safety.

  Guess what? Martin gave me this Mona Lisa smile. I’ve seen Herb do it a hundred times. It was wonderful. I think he’s ready to forgive his dad! Wish I had been able to do that.

  But a few days later, something disturbing happened. A friend took me to a restaurant in the Castro and we passed one of the only bathhouses still open. I saw a boy Martin’s age leaving. In fact, it looked exactly like him. I can’t be certain though. My mind plays tricks. It’s part of the disease.

  I was heartbroken. I couldn’t stop imagining how devastated Herb would be if Martin got sick. Then I realized, OK, so what if it was Martin. Maybe he was just exploring. Why jump to the conclusion he was having unprotected sex in there? He seems to be a together young man, and of course he must be curious. Why assume the worst? It’s not logical. God, I wish there was a way I could convince Herb he has to trust Martin’s judgment.

  So, you can see that even if my mobility is limited and my energy fading, I remain very much engaged in the world. Stop worrying about me! I do enough worrying for both of us.

  Love,

  Kevin

  Gwen became aware of how long the pilot had been speaking. He didn’t seem to be giving routine landing information. He switched to English and summarized the electrifying events of the last twelve hours. Meanwhile, passengers who had been listening raptly to the German version hugged each other and wept. Gwen was thrilled. The end of the Berlin Wall! She would be there to witness it firsthand!

  IV

  THE CONFERENCE WAS PONDEROUS and the presentations inconsequential, which exacerbated their burning curiosity about what was happening outside. The only useful thing Gwen and Herb learned was at lunch when Peter Ramburg explained some local slang. West Germans called the East Germans “Ossis,” and the easterners called the westerners “Wessis.” The terms, derived from the German words for east and west, were pejorative.