Death Kit

by Susan Sontag

  Perhaps what he wishes to say concerns Incardona. Since Diddy doesn’t doubt the reality of his crime, it seems a painful blemish on the unity and openness of his connection with Hester that she won’t believe, or ignores, what he knows he’s done. That Hester shouldn’t be allowed to remain in ignorance of what her lover is capable. Yet he’s reluctant to recite the story. To close the fissure of truth. Positively fearful. Truth’s all very well, but what one does with it or how one responds to it can’t be guaranteed in advance. With the truth, Diddy would just have to take his chances. Hester might become afraid of him. As, during their quarrel, she’d suggested she already was. And, whether because she’s frightened of him or not, might think he ought to do something. Hester is very persuasive; but Diddy doesn’t want to be persuaded. Might urge him to go to the police. But no burden of guilt or remorse, Diddy felt, could justify his doing that (now), thereby separating Hester and himself. Not if he’d slain a thousand Incardonas. Diddy has no intention of doing anything about Incardona’s murder. He can’t expiate it. He’s not willing to be punished for it. And he can’t excuse it, either.

  Telling Hester would seem to be mere self-indulgence. Its only result: to make her sad; perhaps a worse feeling. A selfish move on Diddy’s part. What good is a confession of guilt which, apart from burdening the hearer, carries no consequences?

  Diddy stands alone, then. Waits for Incardona to shrink some more. Prepared to bear the vertigo and nausea associated with that receding knowledge. But Diddy has braced himself in vain. The painful consciousness of Diddy’s secret doesn’t diminish any further than it already has. (Now) it congeals. Establishing an unbridgeable distance between him and Hester. For Diddy knows that, whatever genuine love flourishes between them, their being together is founded upon his concealment of the truth and her willingness to be deceived. The very energy of their initial meeting on the train was surplus energy, left over from his encounter with Incardona.

  Perhaps that’s why Diddy finds it hard (now) ever to leave the apartment. With the best of intentions, and the best possible will to work on the world and transform it in the light of his alliance with Hester, Diddy has discovered the world to be made of more intractable stuff than he’d envisaged. Thinking to dissolve its recalcitrant ugliness with the acids of his regeneration; at least, to make of the world a palimpsest, to etch his benign fantasy upon it. (Now) finds the world closing in on him, untransformed and unequivocally menacing. Hard and heartless as a stainless-steel mirror. Quite simply, every person he knows—from Paul to the merest acquaintance—speaks to him of Incardona. All people, by virtue of their human estate, however slight and token the form in which they manifest their humanity, address him on Incardona’s behalf. Without knowing it, every person seems to be Incardona’s deputy; howling mutely for Diddy’s blood. Hester alone stands outside this magic world of infinite duplication. Hester, Incardona’s foil, reminds Diddy only of herself.

  There’s finally a point when Diddy can’t get out of bed at all. Diddy in despair. He was to be the strong partner, nourishing and protecting Hester. To be her eyes, as she was to become his soul. He’s doing nothing for her (now). She navigates entirely by herself about the apartment. Occasionally mopping, sweeping, dusting, darning socks. Playing records. Typing a letter to her aunt. Cooking, of course. She washes Diddy, shaves him, serves him meals in bed, and every few hours joins him under the covers.

  Diddy waking up drowsy from a nap one early afternoon in mid-January. Neuralgic pains in his forehead. Short of breath. Sweating heavily. But all these are familiar sensations (now). How did it happen? By imperceptible stages? Anyway, without being aware that it was happening, it has. He’s become entirely bedridden and debilitated, and Hester is his nurse. His body is failing. Except to use the toilet, he doesn’t get up at all. And always dizzy when he did. Sometimes has to lean on Hester.

  How dark it is outdoors. What day is it? Diddy presses his hands first to his face, and then to his chest. Obvious that he’s continued to lose weight. His cheekbones, ribs, elbows, knees, pelvic bones protrude painfully. Somehow, so confident of life and hopeful for the renewal of feeling, has made a wrong turning. Realizes, with frozen baffled clarity, that he’s on the road to his death.

  Quick! Something must be done, if it’s not already too late. Hester’s not in bed beside him; naked, against him. Oh God, she couldn’t have gone out, could she? Diddy has made her swear she wouldn’t go anywhere without him. But he was sleeping just (now). For how long? He calls anxiously, and she’s at the door almost instantly. Wearing an old blue shirt of Diddy’s, a velour skirt, and sneakers. Holding a broom in her hand, which she props against the doorway. Entering the bedroom with a firm step, her right hand slightly extended to warn her if she’s about to bump into anything. Of course, she doesn’t.

  Scarcely any likelihood of that happening (now).

  Every inch of this space is as familiar to her as her own body. And all the objects in it: the dishes in the cupboard, the towels in the linen closet, the records in the cabinet which Diddy relabeled for Hester in relief letters.

  Just as Diddy, for weeks, has been walking from bed to bathroom at night in total darkness without ever miscalculating a step, knowing exactly by touch and the memory of locations where everything is. Able to reach out without faltering for the aspirin bottle in the medicine cabinet, the roll of paper next to the toilet, the faucets, the doorknobs. The light switch it’s no longer necessary to turn on.

  Hester at the side of their bed. By this time Diddy is wracked with dizziness. Takes her hand, tugging her into a sitting position beside him.

  “Want me to lie down?”

  “Darling, we have to talk.”

  “Why?”

  Why! Diddy’s shouting inside his head. Doesn’t she know? “Because there’s something wrong. I’m not well. I’m not taking care of you; you’re taking care of me.”

  “I enjoy caring for you. What else have I got to do?”

  “But I shouldn’t need to be taken care of! And there are many, many other things you could do. That we could do together … Darling, remember how strong I was a month ago? Now, no matter how much I eat and sleep, I get thinner and weaker every day.”

  “Let’s call a doctor.”

  “Hester, I’m not sick physically!”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. I know what’s wrong, why I’m sick.”

  “Why?”

  Did he want to say it? Yes. “I think I’m sick because I’m afraid.”

  An abrupt movement. Diddy’s hand released. “Wait a minute, I hear the coffee boiling over.” Hester left the bedroom. Seeing her from behind, Diddy thought, no one would ever suspect she was blind. How proud of her sureness of movement he was. At the same time, how envious.

  Hester returning with two mugs of coffee. “Here, Dalton. Tell me if it needs more sugar. I put in just one lump.” Sat down again on the bed.

  Diddy took the mug from her hand, sipped it tentatively. “Too hot,” he says morosely.

  “Silly! Of course it’s hot. Wait a minute till it cools.”

  Suddenly Diddy felt tears coating his eyes. “Hester, I can’t stand this any more!”

  “The coffee?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, listen to me! Look at me.” Diddy beyond himself (now). “Look at me!” Yes, wanted Hester to look at him; even if she didn’t see. To stare at him until his face hurt, until he was forced to lower his own eyes. But all Hester does is turn her head to him. When, after a brief moment, she lowered it to drink from her mug of coffee, Diddy gripped by a convulsion of rage so unexpected that, without being aware of first-thinking-then-doing, he flung his own mug against the far wall. A loud crash.

  “What did you break beside the mug?” Hester asks calmly. “Was it the photograph of Garbo?”

  “Yes, God damn you. As you know perfectly well. You can tell from the sound of it, can’t you?” He began to weep and laugh at the same time. “Even though … even tho
ugh you haven’t the faintest idea what Garbo looks like.”

  “Dalton, please calm down. Tell me what’s the matter.” Setting her mug down on the floor, Hester grasped his shoulders, and pushed him back on the pillow. Put her hand under the sheet, and begins stroking his chest. Diddy shoved her hand away, sat up violently.

  “For God’s sake, Hester! Stop treating me like a child having a tantrum.”

  “Isn’t that what you are?” She stood up and walked to the foot of the bed.

  Diddy calmer (now). “All right, maybe I am. But I still have a shred of my adulthood left, and it’s that grownup man. I want you to listen to. It’s the grownup you’ve been ignoring.… Do you understand?”

  “I’m listening.”

  She’s so far away. “First, come back here. Next to me. On the bed.”

  Hester sitting on the edge of the bed again. “I’m listening, Dalton.”

  Can anything be done? Diddy will try. Balancing rage, frustration, and despair.

  “I said, I’m listening.”

  “Yes, I hear you … It’s hard. I’m very angry. Yet somewhere I know what I’m angry about isn’t your fault at all.”

  “Oh Dalton, be angry. I beg you. Stop fussing with yourself. If you’re worrying about me, don’t. I can take it.”

  “Do you remember what I was saying before you had to interrupt me and rush out to get the coffee? Do you remember, Hester?”

  “Perfectly. You said you thought you weren’t sick for a physical reason but because you were afraid.”

  “That’s right. Now, do you know what you were then supposed to ask me with affectionate concern? Your next line?” A sullen impacted look settled on Hester’s face. Diddy snapped his fingers. “Quick! Quick!”

  “Say your line again,” said Hester.

  Diddy almost laughed. No point in browbeating her. Try to be patient. “Okay. My line was ‘I’m afraid.’”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Bravo!”

  “I don’t like this game.”

  “God damn it, it’s not a game, Hester!”

  “Yes, it is. But let’s play … I’ll play. I want to play. Look.” She’s doing something to her face, just as sighted people do: pushing away the loose strands of hair from her forehead, settling her glasses further up on the bridge of her nose, smoothing out the frown. “Afraid of what?” Hester trying to sweeten her tone, Diddy could hear it. Still something metallic in her voice she couldn’t disguise. Why was she so angry? Natural for a woman to want strength in a man. And natural for Hester, condemned to blindness, to need exceptional strength and competence. Yet, despite her handicap, she’s strong, too. How unfair of her to resent so deeply his confession of weakness. Isn’t she capable of sympathy for him?

  “Afraid of what?” Hester says again.

  Diddy longs to kick aside the warm sheets, vault out of bed, pull up the foul window and let in the icy air. Go for a walk, if only by the warehouses and docks along the contaminated waters of the Hudson. Board a train and leave the city; get on a boat and clear out of the country. For good.… But that would be a lie. And Diddy’s body won’t lie (now), won’t transport him anywhere. Even to the window.

  Once again: “Afraid of what?”

  Diddy had almost forgotten. Startled, he blurts out, “I don’t know. The truth, I guess.… Isn’t that the only thing anyone is afraid of?”

  “I don’t understand, Dalton.”

  “Yes, you do! Why do you say that?” Is this the opaque side of Hester he’d always dreaded? Her destructive energy made manifest? A wall. “I know you understand me as well as I do myself. If not better.” Diddy felt as if he were the blind one, utterly dependent on another’s good will. Despises himself for begging, but he’s so frightened. “Hester, don’t shut me out.”

  “But I don’t understand, Dalton. Truly. And you mustn’t expect me to. I know you detest my saying this, but I have to. Remember what I told you the day I left the hospital, when we were in the park? I said your truth was different from mine. And that hasn’t changed.”

  “Of course I remember,” Diddy cries impatiently. “And sometimes I think I even understand. But other times, I really don’t. Then, I absolutely hate you for having said that; and for sticking to it … But listen, we mustn’t quarrel now. I’m willing to believe what you said. Even assuming it’s as you say, you can still help me. One real difference between us in this is that you’re not afraid of your truth. And I am,” he groaned. “Absolutely terrified of mine.”

  She leaned her head on his chest. Why won’t she say anything?

  “Help me, Hester!”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I guess.… I guess, I’m afraid that I’ll have to do something, something I’m not doing,” Diddy stammered. “Something I’m languishing in this goddamned bed to avoid doing.”

  “Well, then, get up and do it.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  Hester said yes.

  * * *

  On time. At ten-fifteen in the morning, the Cherry Valley Local exited, racing, from the northern mouth of the tunnel. A slim, puny, rackety train; conveying an impression of considerably less force than the Privateer. When one recalls the sealed-off reticence of the Privateer’s powerful diesel, the very smoke spewed out from the funnel crowning the engine of this train seemed an emblem of weakness.

  Standing on the sloping field, a few feet above the track, Diddy watches and listens, Hester listens. The last rumbling of the train fades beneath their feet. (Now) the ground is still again. It had snowed yesterday. The fields are lightly dusted with snow; covering the crossties and rails of the two tracks, a strip of thin white icing. But Diddy and Hester aren’t cold. The sun is shining; the temperature must be in the fifties—unusual for late January.

  Figuring from the railroad timetables that Diddy had consulted and was this moment pulling out of his pocket to check for the last time, the next train using this tunnel in either direction on Thursday enters at twelve minutes after eleven. In exactly fifty-seven minutes. Diddy calculated that it should take them no more than fifteen minutes to reach the site where the Privateer had stalled. Allowing another fifteen minutes to get out, they would have plenty of time. Diddy didn’t plan to linger. A few minutes, he expected, would suffice.

  Diddy entering the tunnel with Hester, their arms linked. They proceed cautiously, leaving the late morning light behind them. Though Diddy has brought along a heavy 6-volt torch, it’s still hard to see. The powerful, wide beam does not repel the blackness. No more than did the slim, feeble beam of the pocket flashlight he’d carried before. The tunnel remains, essentially, unilluminable. In addition, Diddy has in the past months developed a more complex, suspicious relation to light. Perhaps the torch’s ineffectuality is connected with the fact that it’s only for him. No light can assist Hester to see better; with or without a flashlight, the tunnel is equally dark for her. But so profound is their sympathy that Diddy can no longer distinguish himself from her in such matters. What’s dark for Hester is equally dark for Diddy. This tunnel, for example. Though he oughtn’t to forget that the bright wintry fields outside, stretching away from both sides of the track, are dark for Hester, too.

  The tunnel is cool but humid, thick with the smell of oil and damp rock. They continue walking, Diddy slightly in the lead. “Don’t worry, darling. I can see exactly where we’re going.” But he is worried. Feels they’re the two children from the fairy tale, wandering hand in hand through the enchanted forest. Lost. Being the boy, he’s obliged to be the braver and the stronger. Reassuring his little sister who weeps in fright; supporting and tending her. But in the end, Diddy recalls, the girl proves to be the more levelheaded and effective. While her brother is captured by the witch, jailed, readied for eating, the resourceful girl still contrives to preserve a portion of her liberty—through guile rather than strength. It’s she who manages to rescue him.

  Diddy trying to be strong and guileful.

  Bu
t the tunnel is not only a site of terror and threat. This time, it’s also reassuringly familiar. The advantages of doing something more than once. The tunnel is like home.

  As is the darkness. Several months living with Hester have made Diddy feel king of all dark places. Darkness a familar element. He could make his way in the tunnel equally well without a light. Deciding to test his prowess, switches off the torch for a minute. Indeed, it does seem to make hardly any difference. Didn’t Diddy always have an excellent sense of direction? But then, feeling that he’s showing off, behavior inappropriate to the gravity of the occasion, turns the light on again.

  Trudging (now) through a chain of puddles. Doesn’t faze Diddy, because he’s wearing heavy cleated boots; not street shoes of soft leather. But Hester’s feet must be getting wet. “Darling, let me carry you. You aren’t dressed right for this. You should be wearing flat shoes and slacks. How stupid of us not to think of that!”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. But I hate the smell in here.”

  “It’s diesel oil, I think.”

  “No, something else besides that,” she says. “Can’t you smell it?” Diddy does smell something else, which he can’t identify.

  “Are you cold?” Diddy the Concerned. Beginning himself to feel chilled. Realizing that Hester is wearing only a thin linen dress under her coat.

  “No, I don’t mind the cold.”

  Diddy about to say something else that’s solicitous, when he tunes into a sound other than their footsteps. Not, thank God, the roar of an approaching train. A low, tapping noise. “Hester, do you hear that?” Grips her hand.