A Gesture Life

by Chang-Rae Lee

  “I thought sharks don’t have any bones,” says a familiar voice, and I see it’s Renny Banerjee coming through the doorway, a sly expression on his smooth chocolate face.

  “Ha, ha,” Liv can only answer, taken aback and also, subtly and obviously, tickled by his presence. This is an expected surprise.

  Renny, surveying the room, says to me, “I asked at the desk whether you had left, Doc, and they said they didn’t see how, with all the flowers still arriving.”

  “We’re on our way out,” Liv replies tersely, pointing to the giant lily bouquet. “That one’s yours, Mr. Banerjee. If you so please.”

  “I please.”

  “Thank you.”

  We thus march out as three, Liv with my bag over her shoulder and two smaller arrangements, one in each of her hands; Renny hardly apparent behind the lilies; and I ambling under my own power, having already refused two offers of a wheelchair and nurse, the latter walking along with us anyway. I don’t tell anyone—including Dr. Weil, when he came earlier for a pre-discharge exam—about the strange burning in my chest that I awoke to this morning, an ever-angry tingle that feels to be webbing my lungs each time I breathe in tiny, almost electrical bursts. As we first gain the hall, I think there’s a chance I might actually fall down. But I steel myself, for though it would be perfectly pleasant to stay indefinitely (and idle with Veronica Como), I don’t want the messiness of further diagnoses and tests and proposed courses of treatment—in a phrase, the complications of complications. Simplicity seems all, or at least my expectations of it, which are my house and morning swims in the pool and my strolls down to the village, to view all the good people and shops.

  At the ground-floor elevator bank, we come out and there is Mrs. Hickey, waiting to go up to the children’s ICU. She greets me with warmth. I ask the heavyset nurse if she’ll excuse us for a moment, and she complies with a hard grunt. Renny and Liv don’t know Anne Hickey, of course, and don’t pause on their way to the automatic doors. They hardly said a word in the elevator, only the four of us in the car, though I caught them gazing at each other quite intently if not lovingly, at least as yet; and so I tell them to go on to the parking lot, where I’ll catch up to them soon, and they exit, murmuring, a mini-procession of my flowers.

  Mrs. Hickey is nicely dressed in dark pants and black shoes and a short, woolly red jacket. It could be a church day, from her appearance, though I can see it is probably her attempt to maintain an optimism and order in her days, for both Patrick and Mr. Hickey. She looks slightly haggard otherwise, circles about her eyes, with the pallor that comes from lack of sleep. But she smiles kindly and takes my hand and we sit on a bench in the waiting area.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t come visit before you left. I tried, but you were always resting or with the doctor, and I didn’t want to drop in unexpectedly.”

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about,” I say, feeling remorseful already. “I’m the one who’s sorry that I didn’t have a chance to visit with your son while I was here. I could go up with you now—”

  “Please, Doc, your friends are waiting for you outside. And I see you’re not moving so quickly. Not like usual, anyway. Maybe you can come back, but only when you’re feeling yourself again.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Of course I am,” she says, trying to reassure me. “Besides, Patrick has hardly been awake the last few days. He’s had much better weeks. I know he’ll feel better soon, and when he does I’ll call you right away.”

  “Okay, that’s a deal.”

  “You bet it is,” she replies, still holding my hand, and quite tightly. She looks down into her lap, and suddenly I realize she’s crying.

  “Mrs. Hickey,” I say, crouching closer to her. “You must hold on as best you can. It will be very difficult, but you have to, a little longer. Your son is counting on you.”

  She nods and whispers, “Yes, he is.”

  “The doctors will find a heart for him, and soon enough Patrick will be home, playing in the store.”

  “I hope James is around for that,” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. “He’s been terribly angry of late. I haven’t seen him for days, and I don’t know if he’s even been in to see Patrick this week.”

  “Is it the money problems with the store?”

  “It’s always money problems. But they’re mostly over now. He’s really decided to give up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s going to give everything back to the bank. The whole building, the apartments, the store, everything. We haven’t paid the mortgage in some months, you know, because of Patrick’s bills. Business has been slow anyway. It has been, truthfully, ever since we bought the store from you. We only have about a month of insurance left. A few days ago we had a fight, and it was terrible. He said he wished they’d find Patrick a heart or not, and I went crazy. I asked him what he meant by ‘a heart or not,’ and he said we couldn’t go on like this anymore, waiting for something that might never come, and maybe not work anyway, with the hospital costing us fifteen hundred dollars a day. I asked him if he really thought that way and he didn’t answer. Then I told him to get out.”

  “It was a natural response.”

  “I know, but now I wish I hadn’t. Sometimes, Doc, for a second, I’ll think that way, too, but I don’t want to admit it. James has been so frustrated with the business these last few years. It’s never really worked for us. Then Patrick got sick and everything fell apart. We’re losing everything, and I don’t blame James for saying those things. He’s under so much pressure. He was wrong to say it. But even I can’t blame him anymore. I don’t. Am I an awful mother, Doc? Am I horrible?”

  “You’re nothing of the kind, Mrs. Hickey.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” she says, letting go of me now. Wisps of her light hair fall down over her temples and brow, and from this angle she reminds me of the obituary photograph of a younger Mary Burns, the clear, high sheen of the skin, the tender brow. “You’ve always been kind to us, and I hope you know that I appreciate it. James will, too, someday, when all this is over. We’ve just had bad luck with the store and he blames you for it, though there’s no reason why he should. You sold us a nice business and it seemed like the next day the whole economy went sour. Somehow James has this crazy idea in his head that you sold us a lemon, that you knew the business would only get worse but made out as if otherwise. But even if that were true, I say we should have realized it ourselves, caveat emptor. I don’t know why I’m getting into this except that nothing seems good for us these days, and I guess it would be nice to hear that it’s all a run of bad luck that has to end soon.”

  “That must be what it is,” I tell her, not wanting her to think ill of the store. “Bad luck can come but it cannot last, either. I know this myself. You do what you can under extreme circumstances, perseverance your only goal. After the difficulties, you can begin again, but you must put behind you what has occurred. Like your husband’s words, for example. They were spoken under great duress, which makes people most unlike who they really are. We talk of people rising heroically in times of adversity, but I think that’s rarer than we’d like to believe. I’m sure Mr. Hickey is remorseful for his thoughts about Patrick, just as deeply as you are. The task now is to forgive and forget.”

  There is silence between us, not so much because I’ve said anything profound or true but that we’ve gone much further in the conversation than either of us had anticipated. We both nod, trying to say how we appreciate the moment, although it pains me to think that the Hickeys have discussed the possibility that I might have made misrepresentations when I sold them the store in a neat and ordinary sale-by-owner. The last thing Mrs. Hickey needs is to wonder if I have had a part in their lamentable slide into misfortune, rather than focusing on the care and well-being of her son, and supporting her deeply stressed husband. With Sunny Medical Supply, I can say that I had no reservations at all of their prospects, except
of course their own inexperience in general and Mr. Hickey’s stubbornness in particular. Mr. Hickey can always contend that keeping certain contracts with the area hospitals was in fact an impossibility, given the immense buying power of the national franchises which had recently opened, and that I purposely overstated the relationship and loyalty I’ve enjoyed with those hospitals. But I’ve gone over this ground too many ways, and each time I conclude just as Mrs. Hickey has, which is that not only should one always be wary when buying into a situation, but once committed, graciously accept all realities.

  Which, presently, is that I should find Liv’s metallic green Saab and so make my way home. Mrs. Hickey offers to walk me all the way to the parking lot and to the car itself, but I refuse, saying how I’m disturbed that I’ve already taken time away from her son. Again I shudder with the thought of having to see him with her there, her mother’s presence somehow an added burden to me, as if she might spy something damning in my face. She escorts me instead to the automatic doors, and we make tentative plans again, contingent upon this and that, all of it contigent still upon Patrick and Patrick alone, and the sad and peculiar notion of waiting for a heart.

  One realizes, of course, what it will mean when a heart does arrive, that another young boy or girl has come to an awful end, and it makes me think again how the conservational laws apply to human beings and their endeavors as well as to energy and matter, and that for us, those laws are often ironical and cruel. I recall Fujimori posting me from Borneo, where he and Enchi had been assigned, writing about our friend’s death. I still have the letter and read it sometimes for no burning reason.

  “We could not find much of his body, Jiro. It was simply not present anymore. A corporal found a thumb some sixty meters from the spot where Enchi was last standing, but there had been others who were badly hurt and we couldn’t be sure if it was his. He was the only one killed, somehow. There was nothing left of him. Nothing else of shape, just tiny bits of flesh on the ground and most awfully, up in the branches of the trees. The shell must have landed right between his feet, and he disappeared. The night before, Enchi had been going on and on at the officers’ club, drunkenly, of course, about living here forever in this tropical paradise. He was obviously talking against his fear of death but he was doing so with great feeling and humor, and to a man we wanted to believe him. Later that night, after a service for him and then drinking alone, I walked past the spot. It was perfectly normal, having been cleared earlier. But I heard a rustle and I looked up into the trees directly above, and in the light of the moon I could see the tree limbs filled with small birds, what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of them. They were happily picking at the leaves and branches, and rather than feeling horror for our good Enchi, I began to bellow like a cow, and I almost fell down.”

  Fujimori possessed a dark sensibility, which wasn’t always easy for me to appreciate. If I met him today, I’m not sure what I would say to him except to offer the standard greetings and inquiries about his work and spouse and family. It’s not that I would feel cold toward him, but his personality was such that he always made you consider the oddest aspects of events and happenings, and so you never felt fully comfortable saying the most innocent things, for worry how he might interpret or reobserve them. For example, I have to consider how he might cast his eye on me now, after having spoken to Mrs. Hickey and once again excused myself from spending time with her dying son. How might he describe me as I step limpidly across this wide parking lot, holding a fading bouquet of my own? What would he say if I told him I had never married, and that the girl I adopted had decided to run away rather than live with me in comfort? And would he devilishly ask why I had been so careless with the fireplace in my most precious home, as if I’d wanted to bring everything down in a self-made conflagration?

  The sun has come out from a break in the clouds, and Liv has retracted the convertible top to her brilliantine emerald car. She and Renny are sitting in the front seats, backs against their doors, conversing civilly and politely, without their usual gesticulations. I slow down almost to a halt, the pace surprisingly comfortable for me, this inching septuagenarian shuffle. This is the first instance I’ve had of feeling my age, which does not seem so beleaguering a notion but rather a strangely comforting one, as if a voice inside me is trying to proclaim, I accept. I accept. It’s the way one relents when walking the last half-mile of a hike in light rain, to taste the sweet of the water on your face, and not just feel its chill. Why senescence should not have its hidden charms….

  Renny Banerjee smiles wide now, and though I can’t hear what they’re saying, it’s clear they’re getting along, with Liv extending her hand across the center armrest, drawing invisible curlicues on the shoulder of his bucket seat. The back is a gaudy parade float of lilies and carnations and roses in varying states of bloom and wither. He sees me approaching and immediately gets out and skips around the car, taking my forearm to guide me to his seat. Liv thanks him and turns on the ignition, and Renny neatly hurdles the fender behind her, snuggling himself into the backseat nest of petals and stems.

  “So, where am I taking you, Mr. Banerjee?” Liv says blithely.

  He answers, “I thought we were going to lunch, after dropping off the Doctor.”

  “Who said anything about lunch?” she says, quickly turning around.

  “You did, going on about the new decor at Sffuzzi’s. I thought you were sending me a message that I should take us out.”

  “Isn’t he arrogant, Doc?” Liv replies, telling me more than asking. She’s ignoring Renny, her eyes set low. “He implicates himself in everything.”

  “I’m like you that way, Liv,” Renny murmurs from behind me, a sudden warmth softening his voice.

  “I guess you are, Mr. Banerjee.” Liv sighs, backing the car out. She puts it in forward gear and we begin to pull away. “Too bad for you.”

  From the hospital to home, it’s a straight shot to the northeast on the narrow, curbless two-lane that snakes in tight up-and-down turns beneath the overhanging trees. The dark green canopy is rafter-like over us, a shimmering, tattered vault of cover. Liv keeps asking if we should stop and put up the roof of the convertible, as there is a fresh edge to the air, the sky depthlessly clear, but it feels so good to me, the rushing air and the speed of the open car and the oaty tang of just-cut grass. I know again why I favor it so much here, how I esteem the hush of this suburban foliage in every season, the surprising naturalness of its studied, human plan, how the privying hills and vales and dead-end lanes make one feel this indeed is the good and decent living, a cloister for those of us who are modest and unspecial.

  The road routes to an old divided parkway that is faster and tighter still, and then, in a three-mile stretch, becomes the main commercial route of 3A, the signposted six-lane strip of the town of Ebbington. Liv has been taking us forth at a brisk clip, confidently riding the yellow line, but now it’s halting traffic and four-way intersections and the rattle and hum of engines; though she’s irritated and Renny’s nodding off, I don’t mind the sudden heat and exhaust and crowd. I can’t help but notice, too, that beyond the expansive parking lot to my right, there sits the bulbous, tri-domed structure of the Ebbington Center Mall, its stucco facade stained dark along the top in large, creeping patches, the spindly trees infrequent in the mulched-bark landscaping, the whole thing looking weathered and faintly marine, floating in its blacktop sea.

  When it was built, there was much fanfare and optimism, and I remember reading an editorial in the local paper about how important the Ebbington Center Mall would be in bringing new vitality to the area, enticing the shoppers (especially the affluent ones in Bedley Run) to stay here with their money, rather than trek down to the city. I myself received numerous solicitations from the mall management, special inducements and incentives to relocate my store as a “founding tenant,” but even as some of my fellow merchants left the old village, I took heed of the comments I’d casually hear around town from the country and
tennis club set, the matrons and well-heeled young mothers, that they never went over to Ebbington and would certainly not start now. This instant, unwavering judging did bother me a little, as it naturally made me wonder what thousand other predeterminations had been made, and kept to. Still, I remained at my spot on Church Street, and proceeded to watch the mall go up and grandly open to balloons and flags and enjoy the initial flush of good business, and then, in good time, settle in to its Ebbington-land destiny of steady dwindle and decline.

  This being the place, apparently, to which Sunny has returned.

  And so I look there now, with the impulse of asking Liv to turn into the lot, simply to drive slowly past the columned entrance, to peer at the scant activity inside. Originally there were plans for sixty or more shops, as well as a few large department stores like Macy’s or Bloomingdales or Sears to anchor the bi-level wings, but the major chains weren’t interested in a lower-middle-class hamlet forty miles from the city with no major highways running near its borders. So after failed attempts by lesser retailers, there are now huge yellow banners on each end of the building, courtesy of the temporary (two-week) tenants, a clearance “wholesaler” of brandless electronics and a discount Christian bookseller, their wares hastily set out on long, folding-leg tables, with pricing by the bunch. The smaller retail spaces are only two-thirds filled, the square-foot rents now around half the price originally quoted to me. Just recently, the grand indoor waterpool leaked one night and left in its wake a dusty, fungal odor that all the pizza and enchilada and chicken stir-fry of the food court can’t seem to mask. Obviously I haven’t been there since speaking to former Officer Como the other day, and I’m having trouble conjuring my former daughter even setting foot in such a place (self-styled anti-capitalist as she was, or at least, anti–Sunny Medical Supply), much less being a manager of a women’s better-clothing store. And if all of this is true, I wonder now about the little boy who was mentioned by Officer Como, where he is staying while his mother works, and with whom, whether it’s the whole day that he’s with someone else, and again I want to tell Liv to tap her turn signal, get over to the entrance lane for the mall.