The Girl in the Face of the Clock

by Charles Mathes

  Jane rose from the chair. If she gave herself the rest of the day to tie up the loose ends here, she could be on a plane back to New York tomorrow morning. There was no real reason to stay in Cincinnati for the dress rehearsal. The fights were in as good a shape as they were going to get. The last class in stage combat she had agreed to teach at the University of Cincinnati had been yesterday. Sigrid would understand, Jane told herself. She might even prefer that Jane bow out now and go to her family medical emergency rather than stick around like a good trouper, making everyone uncomfortable.

  Besides, Jane had no choice. She had to go home and see this man who had died, yet lived on. After all the years and all the heartache, her father still had no one else, and she had no one but him. Once again she would have to look upon the shell of his body. This time, she would also have to hear the echo of what had been his voice.

  Whether she could find anything left to feel, however, she did not know.

  Two

  The ride out to Great Neck on the Long Island Railroad was not nearly as horrible as Jane had anticipated.

  Maybe the morning’s travels had served as some kind of vaccination, she thought, staring out of the scratched-up window as the drab little houses of Queens whizzed by. Just as a slight case of smallpox or diphtheria conferred immunity against those diseases, so too, perhaps, the nine a.m. flight from Cincinnati, the cab from LaGuardia to drop off her bags at her apartment, and the subway ride down to Penn Station had conferred upon Jane some strange immunity against the LIRR. The cheesy, pus-colored cars full of smug suburbanites, the smells of stale smoke and cheap perfume, and the bone-wrenching bumps and screeches for which the commuter train was famous had hardly bothered her at all.

  Being faint from hunger probably had some positive effect as well, Jane decided, making a mental note to try another breakfast of airplane peanuts washed down by a plastic cup of lukewarm coffee-colored water the next time she was faced with a difficult day.

  At least there hadn’t been any unforeseen problems escaping from Cincinnati. Sigrid’s assurances that the show could easily go on without her had been almost too convincing. The actors and techies had all been properly solicitous. Even Dale Kupkin, primping in the green room, had shot Jane an encouraging wink as she phoned to change her plane ticket and make arrangements to vacate a day early the apartment the theatre had provided for her stay.

  The LIRR train rattled into Great Neck too soon. Jane got out with a bunch of giggling teenagers and stood on the platform trying to orient herself. The clocktower across the tracks told her it was twenty after one. The crystalline sunshine and balmy air shouted that it was May. Somewhere about a ten-minute drive north of here, the man who had been her father lay restrained in a hospital bed.

  It had been more than two years since Jane was last out to Great Neck. That was when she had finally accepted that her father wasn’t going to come back, that the man with the laughing eyes was dead and only an insignificant shadow lived on. There was no more reason to come to Royaume Israel than there was to visit the marble headstone in the Bronx under which the body that had once served her mother was buried. Being at the nursing home brought Jane no closer to her father. He was not there.

  Or was he?

  Across the street from the platform Jane could see several yellow taxis. Though shinier than their Manhattan counterparts, they looked strangely out of place in the suburban setting. Suppressing the urge to find a place to get something to eat, Jane made her way to them. The sooner she got this over with, the better.

  “2600 Blesner Boulevard, please,” she said, getting into the last cab in the line, the only one in which the driver looked to be alive.

  “Yes, please,” said the cabby, an olive-skinned man with a huge nose and a dashboard full of pictures of children. “It is to the Jewish nursing home you go, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Jane. “Royaume Israel.”

  “I know this place well,” said the cabby, starting his engine and studying her in the rearview mirror through the open section of the bulletproof partition. “I take many from the city there to see their bubbes. This is a Jewish grandmother, a bubbe. You see, I have learned your language. I am Syrian myself, but I hold no animosity toward the Jewish people. In America, it is different. Here it is not necessary to hate and kill one another. Here we can all live together and be happy. You are Jewish, yes?”

  “No,” said Jane, pressing down on her stupid hat as the cab darted into traffic. The last thing she wanted right now was to get into a discussion of Middle Eastern politics.

  “But do you not go to visit a relative?”

  Jane hoped that if she didn’t answer, the man would get the message. He didn’t.

  “Which relative is it who you go to visit?” he asked eagerly. “Your bubbe?”

  It was going to be another one of those New York cab rides, Jane knew. Even in the suburbs, a significant percentage of drivers believed that possession of a hack license was the same as having your own talk show. Better, even. Your audience couldn’t change the channel.

  “I’m going to visit my father,” muttered Jane coldly, sending out “Shut up!” body language at what she hoped was very high volume. Didn’t she have enough on her mind right now? Did she really have to tell a cab driver her life story?

  “So your father is Jewish,” said the cabby triumphantly.

  Jane couldn’t believe it, but she found herself missing Cincinnati. People didn’t put you on the spot like this in the Midwest. In the Midwest you didn’t have to talk to strange cab drivers. You didn’t have to talk to anyone. You could live your whole life sealed up in a car, safe from all human contact—especially the international relations variety. She suddenly felt very much back in New York.

  “Your father is Jewish, yes?” persisted the cabby.

  “No.”

  “But do you not have to be Jewish to get into this place? That was my understanding.”

  “My father’s mother was Jewish,” explained Jane, between clenched teeth. Maybe the simple truth would satisfy the man. “She died in childbirth. None of us ever knew her. Dad was raised by my Catholic grandfather. We’re about as Jewish as you are, okay?”

  “You should not be ashamed to be Jewish,” said the cab driver, nodding in the rearview mirror, “even in light of your people’s illegal occupation of Palestine. We are all the children of Abraham. So, he is old and sick, your father?”

  Suddenly all the feelings that Jane had been bottling up since she had gotten the phone call yesterday exploded.

  “He’s a goddamned vegetable,” she shouted, unable to stop herself. “He’s been in a coma for years! If there were any mercy in the world, he’d be dead! Is that good enough for you? Are you satisfied now?”

  “So sorry,” said the cabby, slinking down in his seat and careening through a red light. “Very sorry.”

  They drove for another few minutes in blissful silence, finally pulling into the driveway of Royaume Israel, a squat building of redbrick. Feeling guilty for her outburst, Jane dug into her wallet for the fare and added a thirty percent tip that she couldn’t afford. The cab driver had meant no harm. It was a rough enough way to make a living, without having to deal with hysterical passengers. At least she hadn’t exposed him to her hair.

  “Thank you very much,” said the man, taking the bills and bending forward to see her better as she opened the door. “Each of us must accept the destiny that Allah in His infinite wisdom has determined. Just as Allah brought you to my cab, so in His perfect time will Allah release your father and give him peace. That time will come soon, you will see. Salaam aleikum.”

  Jane stood in the drive, murmuring thanks, as the cab screeched away. Strangely enough, she felt comforted by the driver’s words. Maybe God had brought her to this particular taxi and selected the chatterbox driver to give her a message. Maybe the limbo in which her father lived and which she shared was finally drawing to an end.

  The feeling lasted only an instant. Then t
he familiar curtain of hopelessness crashed down over her again. Who was she kidding? The doctors had said that Aaron Sailor could live on for decades. So what, if he had started raving deliriously. It didn’t mean he was coming back. It didn’t mean anything.

  Jane suddenly wanted to get the hell away from this place. She hated Long Island. She hated nursing homes. She hated having taken advantage of the generosity of the Jews. She’d gotten her father into Royaume Israel on a technicality—the nursing home had been founded after World War I for Belgian Jewish refugees, and Aaron Sailor’s mother had grown up in Antwerp. Jane had taken little comfort when the interviewing rabbi had suggested that for her to feel such guilt about using an obscure connection to get her father into the home perhaps meant that she was more Jewish than she gave herself credit for.

  There were no taxis in sight on the suburban horizon. Jane was trapped. She’d have to go into the nursing home just to call a cab back to the train station. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she mounted the short steps and walked through the front door.

  It was another world inside. The beautiful May sunshine was replaced by stiff, cold fluorescent light, the azure sky by pea green wall paint. The lobby of Royaume Israel was a small space that smelled of bodily functions and antiseptic. The walls were plastered with official memoranda, government health regulations, and travel posters of Tel Aviv.

  “Jane Sailor to see Dr. Contino,” said Jane at the reception window, pulling herself together, and becoming—at least on the outside—the confident young woman that everyone who saw her thought her to be. It was amazing what good posture and a strong, clear voice could do.

  Behind glass, a bored receptionist in a shapeless blue jumpsuit picked up a telephone and motioned Jane to a plastic chair to wait. After a few minutes the door next to the reception window opened and a man emerged, apparently direct from an aspirin commercial.

  He was tall, stout, and distinguished-looking, with a theatrical halo of snow white hair, wire-rim glasses, and a jaw squared like a milk carton. He wore a white lab coat in the pocket of which was a pen-sized flashlight. A stethoscope hung from around his neck. As if the studied costume could leave any doubt, he sported a large nameplate over his heart: “Benton Contino, M.D., Director.”

  “Miss Sailor,” he said in a smooth, well-oiled baritone, extending a large hand. “Benton Contino. Welcome. Welcome to Royaume Israel. So happy you could join us.”

  “How’s my father?”

  “Fine, fine,” intoned Dr. Contino. “We’ve taken care of everything. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. I expect you want to see him?”

  “That’s what a good daughter does, isn’t it?”

  He led her through the door down a long green hall, chattering convincingly about the weather and the expert level of care at Royaume Israel. They passed room after room, the doors of some of which were open to reveal elderly men and women. Assisted by white-uniformed young people from a selection of minority groups, the residents ran the gamut of nursing home activities: watching television, eating cost-effective food, staring blankly into space.

  All the way down the hall at the back of the building was a pair of double doors. Dr. Contino opened them and flipped on the lights. Jane found herself in a large, windowless ward with more than a dozen beds, each of which contained a still form. Some had IV lines connected to their bodies, some were attached to respirators, all were fenced in by metal safety gates.

  “You keep them in the dark?” Jane asked, incredulous.

  “Just saving a bit of electricity,” said Benton Contino with a nervous chuckle. “One of my little innovations. You know how expensive utilities are on the Island. The patients can’t tell the difference.”

  It was true enough. The room was uncomplaining and silent except for the rasps of labored breathing. There were also faint sounds of words that Jane could not make out, coming from a bed in the back corner. It was to this bed that they made their way.

  It was as Jane had feared. She felt nothing as she gazed down at the expressionless face, which bore only slight resemblance to Aaron Sailor’s. The man who had animated this mask had not returned. The remains of the human being he had been were nearly as Jane remembered. Yet there were two differences now from the last time she had been here: the body bore a white plaster cast on its left arm from knuckles to elbow; and it was speaking.

  “No, Perry, no. Don’t do it, Perry, don’t do it. No, Perry, no.”

  The words came softly in a dull monotone, without inflection.

  “Is that what he’s been saying?” Jane asked.

  “Yes, basically,” said Dr. Contino. “With a few variations.”

  “No, Perry, don’t. No, Perry, no,” said Aaron Sailor.

  “Who’s Perry?” asked Jane. “The aide who dropped him?”

  Dr. Contino’s big pink hand rose to his throat.

  “Heaven forfend!” he exclaimed. “Reema is one of the most conscientious young women it has ever been my privilege to know. She feels absolutely terrible about this whole thing. Accidents happen, as I’m sure that you of all people can understand.”

  Jane gazed at the cast that covered practically the entire arm of the inert body on the bed.

  “I thought you said it was just a little bone in his wrist.”

  “Indeed, it was,” said Contino rapidly, beads of sweat breaking out on his expansive lip. “Totally insignificant as fractures go. As you see, we are taking every possible precaution so that it heals properly.”

  Contino made a dry little laugh. His smile whispered, “There’s nothing to worry about,” but his eyes screamed, “Please, God, don’t sue us.”

  “No, Perry, no.”

  “Why does he keep saying that?” asked Jane, fighting down a wave of nausea. “There’s no one here named Perry?”

  “No one,” said Dr. Contino. “I assumed that Perry was a friend of your father’s, perhaps someone who was with him just before his accident. Sometimes a last conversation is frozen in the mind and the patient keeps repeating it like an old broken record. Was this Perry driving the car when it happened? Perhaps your father was trying to alert him to some danger ahead of them in the road.”

  “It wasn’t a car accident,” said Jane. “My father fell down the stairs.”

  Dr. Contino whipped out a white handkerchief and serviced his damp brow.

  “Well, I’m new here, as I said, and there isn’t much about the case in the files. Perhaps this man Perry and your father were arguing about something. ‘No, Perry, no,’ your father could have been saying just as he lost his footing.”

  “My father was alone.”

  “Are you certain?” asked Contino.

  Jane didn’t answer, just stared at him.

  “Yes, the mind is a mysterious organ, mysterious indeed,” said Contino, grabbing a straight-backed chair from the bedside of a tiny old lady, who may or may not have been breathing, and placing it next to Aaron Sailor. “I’m sure you and your dad will want some time alone.”

  “No, that’s not …” said Jane weakly.

  “Yes, of course,” said Contino, hustling toward the door. “You take as long as you like. I understand completely.”

  In an instant he was gone.

  Jane wanted with all her heart to run after him, to escape from this warehouse of the living dead. It would look uncaring, she knew, but so what? She wasn’t a bad person, she told herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her father. Her father just wasn’t here.

  “No, Perry. Perry, no. No, don’t do it.”

  Jane stood by the bed for a moment, then sat on the chair that Dr. Contino had brought over.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said unconvincingly.

  “No, Perry, don’t do it. No, Perry, no.”

  “Who’s Perry?”

  “Don’t do it, Perry,” said the body that had been Aaron Sailor’s, this time a little louder. “Please don’t. No, Perry, no.”

  Jane looked around the ward, half expecting someone
’s ancient bubbe to shout, “Pipe down over there, some of us are trying to catch some z’s.” The other residents of the ward were silent, however.

  “So how do you like the accommodations?” she asked. There was no answer from the still figure on the bed.

  Jane reached over and took his limp hand. She began drawing tiny circles, trying to focus on his smooth cool skin and calm her thoughts.

  What did Allah have in mind when He came up with places like this? she wondered unhappily. Wasn’t life puzzling enough on its own, without dark rooms full of unconscious men and women in disposable nightgowns? The coed sleeping arrangements struck her as dreadfully improper, too, though none of the patients seemed to mind.

  “Jane, Jane, Jane.”

  Jane looked up in amazement. For an instant, she was a little girl again and her father was calling her. Had Aaron Sailor returned? Was he waking up? She waited a moment, afraid to breathe, feeling gooseflesh raising on her arms and legs.

  But there was no further sound. There was no movement. The gaunt figure on the bed was no more sentient than it had been a minute before. Jane let out a deep sigh. Her father had simply repeated a word he once knew, not really called her name. Now he returned to a more familiar refrain.

  “No, Perry. Don’t do it. No, Perry, no.”

  Jane returned to her chair and sat for another few minutes, until she couldn’t stand it any more. She had stayed only for the sake of appearances, and she had stayed long enough. She no longer felt ready to run off screaming into the bushes, but her appetite, which had disappeared the moment she had entered the nursing home, had now returned with a vengeance. Was there a pizza place near the Great Neck station, maybe? Could she hold out until she was safely back in Manhattan? Was it horrible of her to think about her stomach at a time like this?