Random Acts of Heroic Love

by Danny Scheinmann

  From nowhere he feels a shooting cramp through his leg. He looks down and notices his jeans are ripped and covered in blood. Next he feels a throb in his hands. They are cut and bleeding. Shards of glass stick out from the skin. For a moment he becomes quite self-absorbed picking out the splinters.

  His right shoulder is badly bruised and his hip joint fires sharp warning shots up his back. He realizes that he has suffered injuries all down his right side. But worst of all is his right knee. He cannot bend it or even feel it. How could he not notice the pain until now?

  What is the date? he wonders. He is too embarrassed to ask again. The door opens. The crowd has disappeared. A policeman enters and asks Leo to accompany him to the bus station to identify his bags. Leo is reluctant to leave Eleni’s side but he is strangely open to suggestion. There is no fight left in him and he obediently follows the policeman out of the room. The doctor follows and Eleni is left in peace.

  ‘What is your name?’ asks the policeman.

  ‘Leo Deakin.’

  ‘It is very close, Leo, it won’t take a minute,’ the policeman says in Spanish.

  They step out of the clinic into the blinding evening sun and a wall of heat. The huge central plaza sprawls before them. A bustling South American market in full flow. On one side live cattle are being auctioned, llamas and cows foul the floor and chickens, foot-tied in hanging clusters, fill the air with fevered clucking. The fruit sellers sit on blankets in rows with their produce fanned out before them, and the wealthy Ottovalo Indians, hair in long plaits, hawk their multicoloured hand-woven hammocks and ponchos. Leo breaks out into a sweat. How unbearable the world is, so callous and indifferent. He shudders and recoils like a snake prodded with a stick. Lives beset with trivia and humdrum chores. Tedious mundane pathetic existences spent serving material gain. He is looking at the world through binoculars held the wrong way round. All is small and distant, unreachable and detached. He belongs to another world now, a bubble where he can hear his heartbeat and feel his skin wrinkle. The marketplace is a muffle a million miles away. Sounds are cushioned and unreal. He is underwater and no one notices that he is drowning.

  On his previous visit to that square, he and Eleni could barely walk a yard before being swamped by hawkers and draped in clothes or jewellery they did not want. They resisted all offers until Leo caught sight of two tiny carved Inca heads, one male and one female. He bought them without haggling, and gave the male head to Eleni as a keepsake.

  But now as he walks through the square the traders instinctively turn away. For once he is avoided and ignored. There is something in the eyes of this man who is locked in a state of tragic bewilderment that disturbs the stallholders and dries the throat. This man is definitely not on a shopping spree.

  The policeman leads them to a small hut at the bus terminal. Normally it is full of bus drivers and ticket collectors but today they are huddled outside animatedly discussing the accident. They fall silent when they see Leo approaching. The hut is packed high with bags and there, right in the middle, are two large rucksacks. He clambers towards them, unsure if they are his. He tries to lift the bags but a wave of dizziness overcomes him and he totters and winces. The doctor steps forward and picks the two bags up. Leo notices an ice pick and a pair of crampons sticking out from one of the bags. He stares at them curiously. He double-checks the nametag and sees Leo Deakin written on it.

  As they walk back across the square Leo’s eyes flick side to side as he desperately tries to remember. Neurons and synapses spark inside him and suddenly something bolts out of the gloom. They are in a mountain hire shop in Quito. Leo loved climbing mountains; it was one of the most perfect pleasures in life. Perfect, because once you had gained the summit you knew you could go no further. You had a complete sense of achievement. This was a rare sensation for him in a life where so many activities were ongoing, never-ending, where you had to look into the future for any sign of contentment. Cotopaxi, which towered over the plateau like an alluring cone-shaped exotic dessert, was going to be a huge challenge. The assistant in the shop told them to spend the night at the mountain lodge at five thousand metres, maybe even two nights, to acclimatize. He advised them to set off at 2 a.m. on the day of the climb so as to reach the summit for dawn, and return before the afternoon thaw, which would be treacherous. Crampons and picks would be a necessity, but if the weather held the walk would not be too difficult.

  ‘Are you both going to the top?’ he asked.

  ‘Not me,’ said Eleni. ‘I’m climbing to the lodge and that’s as far as I go.’

  ‘Don’t take any risks,’ he warned. ‘A couple of novices died up there last year.’

  Leo recalls eating breakfast. They had gone to their favourite café near their hotel. He had eaten a fruit salad with granola and honey. ‘Breakfast of the gods,’ he had called it; pineapple, maracuya, mango and passion fruit. As he recalls it he tastes it again. Eleni had scoffed down a banana pancake with melted chocolate, and could not prevent the hot sauce dribbling down her chin. They had lingered over coffee. Afterwards they had returned to their hotel and picked up their heavy backpacks and set off for the bus station. There it was at last, the bus station. They were later than they had planned by over an hour. Would Eleni be alive now if they hadn’t taken so long over breakfast? His memory stops at the bus station; he still cannot see any aspect of the journey in his mind. Perhaps it is better not to know, but he cannot seem to stop his thoughts racing. The holes are slowly filling up, and despite itself the brain will work until the job is completed.

  2

  THE CLINIC IS A SMALL DILAPIDATED BUILDING TYPICAL OF Spanish colonial architecture. To the local people it is a hospital but to a European it is definitely a clinic. Starved of equipment and qualified personnel, it cannot deal with anything other than routine illnesses.

  In the foyer the doctor puts his arm round Leo’s shoulder. ‘We have to take her to the morgue.’

  ‘No, please, can’t I stay with her tonight?’ Leo begs.

  ‘I’m sorry, of course you can spend the night here, but I’m afraid the lady cannot. Tomorrow I will do an autopsy to establish the cause of death and then you must decide what to do next. Where are you from?’

  ‘I am English, Eleni is Greek.’

  ‘Well, I suggest you call the Greek embassy and ask for their help,’ the doctor says. He turns to the policeman. ‘Call Pedro, we need to get the ambulance to take Eleni to the morgue.’

  The policeman shakes his head. ‘Pedro has finished today. He’s not back until Monday.’

  ‘Well, get Carlos to come with the pickup van.’ The doctor sighs and throws Leo a look of placid resignation. ‘I’m sorry, señor. This is a small town. We only have one ambulance and the driver is a volunteer. He doesn’t work weekends.’

  What a godforsaken place for this to happen, Leo curses to himself. ‘Before you take her away can I have some time alone with her?’ he asks.

  ‘You loved her very much, señor. I can tell. I am so sorry for you. My name is Doctor Jorge Sanchez, you can ask for me any time. I will do everything I can to help you. Now go. I will call you later when Carlos arrives with the van.’ The doctor gives him the bags, squeezes his arm and pushes him towards the room where Eleni lies unattended.

  Something has changed in her face, she has become more inert as if her soul has fully left her body. He kisses her and feels a terrible coldness on her lips. He takes her hands and rubs them to keep them warm. But it makes no difference, she is like a frozen rock, and a blue tinge has appeared in the veins beneath the skin where her blood has deserted her. Her dislocated shoulder arcs upwards out of joint. Leo winces at the imagined pain of the injury. She looks uncomfortable, and he can’t leave her like that. He tenderly places his hand beneath her shoulder and tries to straighten it out, but it is locked rigid and he can feel the gap between the ball and joint.

  ‘My poor baby, I hope you weren’t in too much pain,’ he whispers. He takes her right hand again and places i
t on her stomach so that she appears less twisted. Her long dark curly hair is still soft and he strokes it. Tears stream down his cheeks and drip on to her face. The door opens and a nurse walks in.

  ‘Get out, please get out. Leave me alone.’

  The nurse drops her head, turns sharply and leaves, muttering an apology.

  Leo always knew when Eleni was happy, which was most of the time, because she made a sound. It might be humming or singing or silly lip noises. No matter what she was doing, whether she was on her bike, in the bath, working, cooking, she would make a sound. Everywhere, all the time, noise. Perhaps it would have driven some people crazy but Leo had grown to love it. She was only quiet when she was sad. Once she had been silent for a week and Leo had found it intolerable. It was a year into their relationship, and she had received a call from an ex-boyfriend who had told her that he had just discovered he was HIV positive and she should have an AIDS test. She had hurried to the university clinic and had hardly been able to speak as she waited seven interminable days for the results. Leo had had no idea what was wrong with her until the day she got the all-clear and came home singing.

  Now the singing had stopped for good. A numbing silence hangs over the hospital room. Leo will have to live with this silence for ever. He slumps into a chair and listens intently to the void. The grief inside him settles for a moment. He sees himself from above sitting quietly on a chair with Eleni lifeless and still on the bed. Nothing moves. The air feels heavy and thick like sludge. He absorbs the silence, his heartbeat slows and his breath halts. The broad landscape of his future collapses into a pinhead. He stops crying and his eyes dull. He sits like this for some time, willing himself to fade away, when from nowhere a voice sounds in his soul. It is Eleni. ‘Live,’ she says simply.

  What is this?

  ‘Live,’ there it is again.

  He had never before been sensitive to the call of angels.

  Indeed he positively railed against such nonsense. He was a PhD biology student, a rationalist and the outspoken ex-chairman of the University College Darwin Society. He despised quackery, metaphysics, and most of all religion.

  ‘Live,’ Eleni repeats softly.

  Was he now developing an antenna for messages from beyond the grave? He battles against it. There has to be a logical explanation for this voice that seems as clear as his own. But he can’t deny that he wants to believe she is there.

  It is all he has left.

  ‘All right,’ he says to no one, ‘I’ll live if that’s what you want.’

  Leo notices that an orderly has entered the room. He did not see him come in and does not know how long he has been there. There is an unearthly lightness about the man’s presence, like a snowflake, and he moves with the delicacy of a butterfly landing on a leaf. The man does not make eye contact but busies himself with their rucksacks. A jar of honey, which they had been carrying, has smashed in the crash and the bags are sticky. He is cleaning them with a wet cloth. The man says nothing, but for some reason Leo feels comforted by him, so he lets him stay. He works quietly and with such humility that Leo is drawn to join him. He kneels awkwardly by the orderly and unzips his rucksack to remove the broken glass.

  ‘What is your name?’ Leo asks.

  The man looks Leo in the eye and smiles serenely. He is a small man with dark Indian features.

  ‘José.’

  ‘Thank you, José.’

  Inside the bag Leo finds the honey-dripped journal that Eleni wrote in every night. It is a familiar object to him with its blue faded cover and dog-eared pages, yet he has never ventured inside. He tries to flick through the sticky pages but the notebook falls open stubbornly in the middle. He dwells on the page that the journal wants him to read. Making no sense of the words he travels up and down the foothills of her rolling calligraphy, plunging headlong into her deep u’s and v’s, sliding down her curly y’s, then looping round her o’s, before reaching the glorious heights of her soaring l’s and t’s, and swinging off the pimples on her i’s to land on the brow of an n or the breast of an m. All Eleni’s beauty captured in the sensuality of her consonants and the voluptuousness of her vowels; the contours of her body traceable in the gentle coils of her writing. He slowly retreats from the detail of the lettering to seek its meaning.

  31 DEC 1991

  Got up early to catch a boat from Cartagena to the islands. Some of them were so small they just had one house on them with a boat launch or a helipad. Guide said they were mostly owned by drug barons. Leo offered to buy me one when he was rich, which means he’ll never buy me one. We’ll never be rich but I’m beginning to think we’ll always be happy. Maybe happiness is the new rich.

  It was weirdly cold on the boat, a combination of wind and spray from the sea. We were completely underdressed, so we huddled together at the back of the boat being silly trying to pinch each other’s nipples when no one was looking, and then all of a sudden I had this uncontrollable urge to have Leo’s babies. I wanted to be like a sea horse and shoot them out by the hundreds. To fill the world with little Leos and Elenis. I’ve never felt like that before. Lovely Leo, lovely dreamy-eyed Leo.

  We stopped on one of the bigger islands for lunch in this straw beach-hut restaurant. We ate swordfish and then the owner put on some salsa and we all had a good bop. God I adore these people, they know how to have fun. You wouldn’t see that in Peckham of an afternoon. Leo must have known what I was feeling because later we lay on the beach and he said so many sweet things to me that I felt like crying. I took a photograph of us as evidence so that I would never forget that moment. We have reached another level and I know in my heart that I have found everything I’m looking for. Still can’t quite believe Leo loves me though. I know he does but I can’t quite believe it. He looks at me like I’m this fabulous human being or something and I wonder when is he going to realize what I’m really like? The funny thing is that the more he looks at me like I’m fabulous the more I feel fabulous. Today on the beach for the first time in my life I actually thought maybe I am fabulous, and that maybe I’ve always been fabulous but never realized it.

  We came back at dusk and ate some frijoles at the youth hostel. Shattered after another day of unadulterated pleasure.

  Leo closes the diary and holds it tightly to his chest. José has finished cleaning up the broken jar and offers Leo the bag to put the journal back in, then he takes Leo’s hand gently and inspects the cuts. He carefully pulls out the last few splinters and dresses the wounds. He washes Leo’s knee, dabs on disinfectant and wraps it neatly with a bandage. Next he goes over to Eleni and starts to wash the blood from her face.

  Suddenly the door bursts open and Doctor Sanchez and another man enter. In comparison to José the two men seem oddly heavy and clumpy. The doctor again puts his hand on Leo’s shoulder, ‘Carlos is here with the pickup van. I’m afraid we must take your girlfriend to the morgue now.’

  ‘No, please give me a little more time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, señor. You must understand it is not hygienic to leave her here.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand but you can’t take her away. I don’t want her to go to a morgue. Let me look after her. Please.’

  He seeks out José from the shadows and looks pleadingly at him. José sighs and shakes his head and Leo knows that there is no point arguing.

  ‘All right but I want to go with her to make sure everything is OK. And I want to go back in the morning.’

  Doctor Sanchez thinks for a moment and says, ‘It would be better if you stayed here, señor. Maybe you should make a few phone calls and rest.’

  ‘No,’ says Leo emphatically, ‘I’ll do that later.’

  ‘As you wish, my friend,’ says the doctor, and he signals to Carlos to open the double doors as he pushes the trolley out. Leo turns to thank José for his help but he has vanished. Leo never sees the gentle Indian again.

  They make their way through the foyer to the main entrance of the hospital. Leo is surprised to see that the sun h
as set and it is pitch black outside. He has no idea of the time and he wonders what day it is. He still cannot remember anything of the bus crash or even the journey, but events preceding it are beginning to slip into place. Previous perilous journeys through the mountains come back to him. The buses had terrified Eleni right from the start. There seemed to be no rules or regulations when it came to buses. A family might have clubbed together to buy an old second-hand bus built in the fifties and this bus would provide their living. If the bus broke down they went hungry so they became very adept at botch-job mechanical repairs. The roads were cluttered with these unroadworthy dinosaurs with dodgy brakes and broken exhausts. The owners could choose their own destinations and timetables and buses would wait at the depot until they were full before they left. It benefited the owners to have people standing between the seats and sitting on the roof hanging on to a couple of poles that made up a makeshift roof rack. Then they drove as fast as they humanly could in order to fit in as many journeys as possible. It might have been tolerable for a short trip round town, but often the journey was several hours long through the Andes and the roads were dreadful. Pockmarked and bumpy with death-defying drops on either side and no barriers to stop the inevitable. A couple of times Leo and Eleni had seen a rusty bus deep in the valley below and all the other passengers had crossed themselves and said a little prayer. On several occasions Eleni had asked a driver to slow down and he had snorted at her and said, ‘Don’t you trust me? Do you think I can’t drive? Get off the bus if you don’t like it.’ And sometimes Leo and Eleni had done just that.

  Carlos’s red pickup is waiting at the entrance to the hospital. There is a cab for the driver and one passenger and the rest of the van is open to the elements. The back hangs open awaiting its cargo. There are no seats or blankets, just the bare metal smeared with soil.

  ‘We can’t put her in there, it’s disgusting,’ Leo pleads.