Balancing Acts

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  She stopped to look up the spelling of ‘ostracize,’ then sat rigid with the pen poised. It would be simple to have Alice die in bed, but somehow she could not bring herself to do that. Yet to have her recover completely and go on to a new adventure did not seem right either. There was no place to go from that point. She felt as though a sheet of rock, like the cruel cliffs of a canyon, was rising in front of her. On the wall opposite she had taped Josh’s postcards of the Grand Canyon. Depth upon depth. She was lost in a Grand Canyon of empty spaces surrounded by walls of ancient rock, and it was not a thrilling place, as she had dreamed, but more lonely and terrifying than she could ever have imagined. She could not write an ending till she found out what would happen to him.

  She raced over on her bike. As she hurried toward the elevator, Mrs Cameron stopped her. ‘Mr Fried isn’t in.’

  ‘I know. I heard. I was going to see Mrs Blumenthal.’

  ‘She’s not in either.’

  ‘Do you know where she is? I have to get in touch with her.’

  ‘She left early and didn’t say. But I imagine she’s over with him in Parkvale.’

  She knew Parkvale. It was way on the other side of town. Once last year while Wanda visited Lou after her breast operation, she had sat downstairs in the waiting room. People were slumped over, reading magazines as if they were in a dentist’s office. Huddled in a corner, an old woman wearing a fur coat sat and cried.

  ‘Oh. Do you—’ She forced herself to meet Mrs Cameron’s gaze. She had been here Friday night, and knew; she must hate her. ‘Do you know how Mr Fried is doing?’

  ‘I haven’t heard since early this morning. They said his condition was stable.’

  ‘Stable?’

  Mrs Cameron took off her glasses, and for the first time, smiled at her. She was not a witch any longer but human. Her whole face was softer, with soft curving lines around her mouth. There was feeling there. She must keep the human face hidden behind the other, the sealed mask.

  ‘Stable means he’s not getting any worse. It’s a good sign.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Alison? It is Alison, isn’t it? I can ask Mrs Blumenthal to call you tonight. Why don’t you write down your number?’

  She did. ‘I might see her at the hospital.’

  ‘Maybe, but I doubt if they’ll let you up. They have a rule about age.’

  ‘I know how to get in places. What’s his room number?’

  The smile faded as the glasses were replaced and the mask was sealed back on. Mrs Cameron ruffled her fingers through her hair. ‘I don’t think I should tell you that.’

  She reached Parkvale in fifteen minutes and locked the bike outside. Four stories of red brick with a wide circular driveway, the hospital sat on the crest of a sloping lawn, like Pleasure Knolls, like school. Many of the windows were barred. The woman at this desk had a sealed mask too, but she was dark-haired and younger, about Wanda’s age.

  ‘Could you tell me what room Mr Max Fried is in, please?’ A face sealed with wax. Sealing wax. The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. She and Max...Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages—

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘How old do you have to be?’

  The woman stared and wrinkled her forehead. ‘Suppose you tell me how old you are first.’

  ‘He’s a very close relative. I see him all the time...’

  The woman shook her head. There was a row of elevators only a few yards off, but a uniformed guard stood near them, watching her.

  ‘Oh, forget it. Can you tell me how he is, at least?’

  She flipped through pages in a ledger. ‘His condition is still stable.’

  Her blood gave a sudden rush, and she kicked the bottom of the counter. ‘Look, all I really want to find out is if he’s going to live or die!’

  ‘I’m not a fortuneteller, young lady. This is a hospital. And watch those feet.’

  On her way out she passed a sign that said: ‘No Admittance to Persons Under Sixteen.’ She stood beside her bike, stroking the rubber grips and running her finger over the chilly chrome of the handlebars. She used to ride over to Max’s sometimes, before the winter snows—it seemed like ages ago. Once he came down to look at it and said it was a good, sturdy bike; he could fix up a bike like that to ride backwards and spin on one wheel and do all sorts of fantastic leaps. A circus bike. But when she asked if he would, he said of course not, he was only talking; it would be much too dangerous around here. She had been planning to ask again, over the summer. It might never be a circus bike now.

  She found a back entrance that opened right on to a row of elevators. Pulling herself up to look taller, she pressed the button. From nowhere, another guard appeared. ‘Sorry, young lady, we can’t let you up.’ He waited around till she went out again.

  The closed windows all looked identical. Even if she knew which room, it wouldn’t make any difference; he was probably unconscious. He had wanted to get rid of her the other night, and now he had succeeded. He had found someplace completely safe from her. Very clever, Max. In the gym he had said he would catch them. Pretend I am the net. But he didn’t want to be the net any more. Slowly she unlocked the bike and coasted down the driveway. Well, who cared? She had managed all right before she knew him. She didn’t need any net.

  March was going out the way it came in, like a lion. The wind slashed her cheeks and whipped up her hair. Fighting it, she speeded up on the bike, zooming along the down-grade past stalled late-afternoon traffic. Near the entrance to the thruway, she shifted to a higher gear. There was no special moment when she decided, but all at once she was turning on to the entrance ramp. An instant later she was part of a massive rush forward. She stayed on the shoulder; three lanes of cars raced by on her left, several of them honking at her. Each one passed with a zoom that rose to a roar, and quickly subsided to a dull, distant hum. One after the other, zoom, roar, and hum—her mind slipped easily into their rhythm, while her eyes, dazed, fixed on the spinning of their tires, which raised faint haloes of dust in the sun. She felt her hair stretched out behind her. With the wind beating on her neck and her throat smarting, she switched again to a higher gear. She was flying on the wind.

  An exit was coming up. In the corner of her left eye a dark speck appeared, and grew: something was trying to edge over into the exit lane. She ought to slow down, or else speed up and get past on his right. A queer feeling overtook her: why do either? Why not just wait and see what happened? She and that speck were traveling the lines of a V, and they would meet at its point. Still pedaling, she let her mind lapse on to a dark flat plane where all the bad thoughts got shoved off the edge. She yielded to something soft and static at the deep center of her speed. She could watch her own crash. The zoom grew to a roar; as a horn blared long and loud and the speck in her eye became a huge black blob, she snapped out of the trance and tried to get past it, make it shrink again, but the slope was uphill now. She couldn’t work up the speed. She could feel it only a few yards to her left, but couldn’t stop. She heard a terrible screeching noise that seemed to come from inside her hollow stomach. Standing up on the pedals, she gave a tremendous push and hit the crest of the hill with her eyes squeezed shut, because the blob filled her whole left eye, engulfing her. The screech of brakes ended just behind her, and a second later the driver’s rough voice came from off on the right, shouting that she was a crazy bitch and maybe the next one would get her. His words trailed off on the wind.

  Gasping, she coasted down the grade. Her heart was knocking in her chest, but the danger was past and she was the winner. She smiled. She could go on forever, no matter what dangers. She was powerful! Way past her second wind now; the pedals were working themselves. There was no future any more, no bad thoughts to think, only this traveling.

  When she got home her legs were trembling so hard she could barely stand. Off the highway, all her special powers had vanished; she had never felt so exhausted in her
life. She lay down on her bed to think about how she might finish off Alice, but in an instant was asleep.

  Wanda’s voice woke her, calling her down for supper. Not speaking a word, Wanda sat across from her and read Cosmopolitan as she ate. Alison pushed her food around. The pieces of last night’s creamed chicken were like raw inner organs floating in a sticky pale sauce. She threw it in the garbage, but Wanda did not look up. She sat down at the table again and stared, but Wanda did not notice.

  ‘Your hair looks nice,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, do you think so? I thought they ruined it this time. In fact, I had a big fight with them over it. I’m in a rotten mood. I had to pay thirty dollars and it’ll take weeks to get the shape back.’ She flipped through her magazine.

  ‘It’s not bad at all.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Uh-a friend of mine is very sick.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘The man who teaches in the gym. Max Fried. You remember.’

  At this Wanda looked up. ‘Remember! Are you kidding! Didn’t I tell you to leave those people alone, after the other night? Can’t you hang around with people your own age?’

  ‘They happen to be my friends.’

  Wanda sighed. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He had a heart attack. The day after I was there.’

  ‘Really? I’m sorry to hear it.’ Wanda paused a moment with her lips parted, and ran a finger slowly down her cheek. Then, with a light smack, she laid her hand palm down on the table. ‘But look, Alison, what can you expect? I don’t suppose he’d be living there if he was well. At that age these things can happen anytime.’ She bent her head over the magazine.

  Alison cleaned up and did the dishes. Wanda kept reading and Lettie did not call. Upstairs she tried her number again, but there was still no answer. She dialed Max’s number. It rang and rang, and after each ring was a dense emptiness, like the echoing silence when she rode her bike through an underpass. She listened with a chill, almost expecting that some strange hollow voice might say hello—a voice out of nowhere. But it never came. At the eighth ring she hung up and went back to her room.

  She took three oranges from the bowl on her dresser and practiced juggling them, as she had done every night for months, but they kept falling from her hands. There was no point to it, unless she could show him. After she got undressed she tried again—this time would be for him. They did have a connection, and she would make him feel it. She could put power in him just as he put it in others. And it was magic, no matter what he said. As she tossed them, the words rang like an incantation in her head, Live, Max, live. To the rhythm of the blood pounding behind her eyes and the oranges smacking against her palms: Live, Max, live. No misses—a miss would be fatal. Over and over the three beats drummed through her body, while her eyes ached so hard she thought they would burst; at last, one at a time, she caught them to her chest. She dug her nails into their bumpy skins till she felt juice running down her fingertips. He would live. She had made him live.

  She opened her window. The trees out back were swaying to and fro in the dark, with the wind whistling through them like icy air in a tunnel. It blew cold against her chest. March wind doth blow, Josh used to read as she sat on his lap, and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin do then...

  CHAPTER 9

  HIS EYES OPENED TO a flat white surface, but he couldn’t tell how far away. They teared, blinked, felt hot, as if from too long a sleep. No pain, only a penetrating stiffness everywhere. He rested the eyes, and when he tried again the white was not as smooth as it had first appeared. There were small grainy bumps and streaks; yards up, a strange ceiling, and he on his back in a strange, unyielding bed. He rolled his eyes to one side and the other and found more white, a rippled surface. Curtains. He understood; he had been in this place before.

  An odd drawing sensation throbbed in his left upper arm. No use trying to move it; cautiously, he turned his head to see. A tube was inserted in the inner elbow, leading up to a bottle, of which he could glimpse only the lower half, containing a thickish bile-yellow liquid. They were nourishing him. One more time they were going to piece his heart together and send him on his way. Like it or not, he was helpless to protest—his veins were accepting it.

  Slowly, from far off, the awareness of who he was came back to him. The losses he had suffered drew nearer, gradually, like a distant raw landscape approaching a driver on a deserted road. Once he had possessed strength, work, a woman. He was the same man, minus the attributes that had made him that man, which seemed a riddle, but too perverse for now. Looking down, he found more white—is body, swathed in sheets. Gently he tried moving his feet, bending his knees and the elbow of his free right arm, gestures surprisingly not beyond his means.

  The white ripples fluttered and parted to admit a woman, also in white. His eyes, hazy, absorbed a halo of red hair, and at once came a pain in his chest. Not the harsh slicing kind, a mere tug. It couldn’t be. Weak as he was, he had to keep a grip on reason: he was not dead, this was no afterlife. Yet it was the same hair, and yes, the same narrow slope of the shoulders. She came to him, leaned over and smiled professionally. The coloring was all wrong. The teeth were wrong. The eyes, speckled and sharp, were wrongest of all.

  ‘I see you’re awake, Mr Fried. How are you feeling?’

  Her voice in the hushed whiteness was like clattering metal. He squinted up at her.

  ‘Well, let’s have a look at your chart.’

  The chart, as before, was attached to the foot of the bed, where he couldn’t see it. She picked it up and held it against her clipboard, running her pencil horizontally over the paper with a mechanical sort of grace. Her face told nothing. Moving his head in a wider arc than he had attempted so far, he spotted a familiar, curious machine to the right of the bed. It resembled a small television set, with a black screen and a bright green line of tiny connected W’s streaming across it, coming from an unknown beginning and disappearing into an unknown void. The image of his heart, laid bare and public. The line seemed endless, but somewhere it had an end.

  The image was false, though. Those neat, even lines showed an ignorant heart. His heart was jagged, frayed, with swoops and chasms, too unruly for that small screen. ‘My heart...’ he whispered.

  She looked up from the night table, where she was fussing with jars. ‘Yes, Mr Fried?’

  He motioned with his head towards the screen.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s doing just fine.’ She sounded officiously proud, as though his heart were her clever protégé. She sounded like Vicky. All those official ladies, in their innocent pride.

  ‘What’s past this curtain?’

  ‘Other patients. This is the intensive care unit. You’ll only be here a few days, and then we send you downstairs.’

  ‘How long do they give me?’

  Her busy hands on the glucose bottle stopped for an instant, as if struck by a spell, then started up again; hear no evil.

  He coughed. His voice was coming out very faint. ‘I said, how much time do they give me? You know.’

  She coughed too, and whisked into brisker motion, straightening and patting the sheets on his bed. ‘Mr Fried, you’re receiving excellent care, and you’ll be feeling better every day. Just concentrate on getting well. And try not to talk too much.’

  He had heard that sort of thing before. They were taught the responses in nursing school, needed them down pat to graduate. Naturally they gave individual variations: when he had asked the rosy Carmela Velasquez the same question she had squeezed his hand. ‘Mr Fried, I’ll tell you what I tell myself in the mirror: Que sera sera.’ to which he swore at her in Spanish. Carmela hadn’t minded; she laughed, twitched her ass, and tossed a copy of Playboy onto his bed. But this nurse was a more proper sort, hardened by her experience like mud under an unrelenting sun. After she took his pulse she checked the bottle of glucose one last time and left, pulling the curtains closed behind her.

  He slept on and off, the waking interval so blurred he co
uld barely tell the two states apart. Soon—maybe hours later, maybe the next day—there came loud male voices. A pair of doctors in white coats greeted him by name, and the tall one flung the sheet back avidly from his chest. Energetic and in his prime, he had a painfully booming radio announcer’s voice, which pronounced on Max’s case in an obscure language. The other one, a younger, diminutive version, tilted his head toward his mentor as if to catch the precious words on his upturned chin. Just so, those yelping dogs used to leap, snout first, for the bits of meat tossed down, so that later, in the spotlight, they would leap high for sticks. Max answered their questions half attentively; his own curiosity had veered elsewhere. Why those dogs? He lay trying to wrest from oblivion how this had happened to him. Alison, of course—with an inner jolt, graceless as the doctors jolting the pole of the curtains, forgetting, in their zeal over his data, to bid him goodbye. The kid in his bed. The entire scene sprang to mind, as a horse opera. That father, in some ways more childish than the child, and the two so radically unalike; he could see why she felt...And with the mother expecting. It needn’t concern him, though. His teaching career was almost certainly over.

  But there was more, something closer to the bone yet out of reach. Like clutching at fog, he teased memory until it came, in vaporous shapes, backwards: the cut in his chest, fragmenting him, half cup of black coffee overturned, fat green cigar poised tenuously on the rim of the ashtray. The hard kitchen chair. And Lettie, soft. That. That quest. Propelled into a woman, looking for something. Oh, and he’d found it all right; yes, how sweet at the time, but was it worth this? Why did she encourage him? What a question, Max—why does anyone? Even now, all wrapped up, wouldn’t he like a chance to climb back on her before climbing into the grave? To go down and taste, before going down? Ah, these were no thoughts for a man sick in bed. Medicare would pay the bills, but nonetheless, between the two of them, it had been an expensive evening. Women cost.