Henrietta is silent on the tape recorder.
“But don’t worry too much,” the doctor continues. “These symptoms won’t last long. As soon as those two sections of her brain are vanquished, which, as I said, should take about two weeks, the pain will disappear quickly and entirely. And so will the happiness.”
Henrietta is still silent.
“Do you have any more questions?” asks the doctor.
“Yes,” she says. “How will it be before the end? Will she get much worse?”
“No. Pain will not come back, which is the beauty of her particular tumor. She won’t get gradually weaker, or lose weight, or get numb. She will simply die. The unfortunate aspect is that you will have no warning. It will be very sudden.”
“How do you mean sudden? She’ll just fall down and be dead?”
“I don’t know if she’ll fall down, but she’ll be dead. I suppose if she happens to be standing, she might fall down. Or she might sit in a chair first, and simply close her eyes. Or, if you’re walking down the street, she might sit on the ground, or lie down on the sidewalk, and close her eyes.”
The very next day, Sara’s pain is already starting to increase. The times of no pain diminish in length and frequency. The happiness begins. Henrietta calls and tells me that Sara is suffering terribly. I go and see them. As soon as I step out of the elevator, I hear Sara screaming. When I enter the apartment, she’s sitting on the couch, clutching her head and banging it against the pillow. There is a huge smile on her face.
“Jeremy!” she exclaims, as soon as she sees me. “I’ve never felt like this before. I feel as though my face is being ripped apart. It feels so real! It’s better than any special effect I’ve ever seen.”
Henrietta is sitting next to her, looking green. Sara howls with pain once more, and says, “That’s the nail again now.” Her face is contorted with pain and joy. “It feels as though someone very strong is slowly pushing a nail into my skull, and I really wish they’d just hammer it in quickly and get it over with.”
“A nail?” I say.
“Yes. It’s a long nail that moves toward the center of my mind, and when it reaches the center, I know I will die.”
Henrietta finally speaks: “The doctor said the pain will stop long before it reaches the center.”
“And that’s not all, Jeremy,” says Sara. “There’s a third special effect that I’ve had since last night. It’s that the back of my head is open and my brain is dribbling down my back. It is unfuckingbelievable! I even feel the wetness of my brain on the back of my neck.”
I close my mouth, which has been open for the past few minutes.
The next day, not only is Sara fascinated by her pain, but the very idea that she’s dying has become immensely attractive to her. Henrietta informs me that Sara has told everyone in school that she’s dying, and people say she brags about it.
“I can’t tell her not to be happy that she’s dying,” says Henrietta.
“No, of course not,” I tell her.
“You know what she was heard saying in school?”
“What?”
“She was heard saying, ‘Cool, man, I’m gonna die.’ ”
* * *
I finally call my mother, to tell her the tragic news about Sara I do not look forward to this, because knowing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she said it was my sleeping with Sara that caused her tumor.
When I tell her that Sara is dying, she doesn’t believe me. She says, “You’re just trying to torture me. You’re up to your same old tricks.”
Me, up to my same old tricks!
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me,” I tell her sadly. “In fact, perhaps it’s better if you don’t. I just thought I should let you know.”
A few minutes later, Henrietta calls to tell me that my mother just phoned to ask her if Sara was truly sick. When Henrietta assured her that she was, and dying as well, my mother expressed intense sympathy and offered words of support. My mother then asked Henrietta for my new phone number, saying she wanted to apologize to me, but Henrietta wasn’t sure it was okay to give it to her, so she didn’t.
Well, well, my mother wants to apologize. I’m not sure I believe her. She might be up to her old tricks. Anyway, after all she’s put me through, she deserves to wait a bit, to be tortured a bit. I’ll make her wait a few days, and then I’ll call her.
The very next morning, however, my mother is ringing my buzzer. I let her up with no argument. She walks in, shoulders drooping, looking at me shamefully.
She goes to the window and stares outside, her back turned to me. She says, “I stayed awake all night, unable to sleep.”
What does she expect me to answer: I’m sorry I told you the news? “I’m sorry,” I tell her.
She shakes her head quickly. “No, I’m not saying that to make you apologize. I’m just devastated. I’m shocked. That’s all I meant.” She keeps staring out the window, and finally adds, “I want to apologize.”
She doesn’t add anything more, so I say “Oh?” and she goes and sits in a corner of my couch. She then looks at me frankly, squarely, and says, “I was a tyrant and a tormentor, and I repent.”
It’s a little late for that. It’s easy to repent when a tragedy occurs. I remain quiet and look at my feet.
“I miss your messiness,” she says. “I was hoping your apartment would be dirty today, so that I would get a chance to act like a wonderful person. I had it all planned out. I was going to come in, ignore the mess, sit on your couch, or, if your couch was too cluttered, sit in a corner somewhere, and I was planning to not utter the slightest word about, you know, the old fruits and fur balls. I was going to be admirable, but good intentions always come too late.”
Sadness starts creeping into my heart.
“I’m especially embarrassed about the agents,” she adds.
I can no longer bear it. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” I tell her, unable to believe I’m saying this. “You felt that what I did was wrong, and you expressed your opinion sincerely.”
She snorts sadly and says, “What a nice way of putting it.” She looks grim, older than I’ve ever seen her. The corners of her mouth are drooping excessively, as though a child drew them. Her wrinkles, usually mostly horizontal, are today mostly vertical. The tears, which she undoubtedly shed all night, seem to have dug permanent descending lines into her cheeks.
“Don’t worry about the agents,” I tell her. “They were sort of funny.” And I force out a laugh. I decide I’d better blabber something more, because she looks as though she might burst into tears. “1 was able to practice my social skills on them,” I say.
She gives me the faintest of smiles and appears to be searching for words, but finally she just says, “Well, whatever. Everything seems so trivial now, so sad.” She gets up. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time. You must be busy.” She walks toward the door and turns to me. “Is there anything at all I can do for you?”
“No, thank you. Do you want to go out for coffee or something?”
“I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” she repeats. “But if you need me in any way, need any favors or anything at all, just tell me. I’ll do anything.”
“Thank you; that’s very nice. Are you sure you don’t want to have coffee? You’re not taking up my time.”
“I know that I am. Anyway, not yet, coffee. It’s too soon.”
I want to ask her what she means, but I refrain from doing so, because I know exactly what she means. We are just starting to know each other in a new way. We are almost strangers who have just met. We need time to get used to each other.
How sad life is, that a little girl’s fatal illness is what it takes to bring my mother to her senses. In a way, I miss her old self, just as, I suppose, she misses my dirty apartment. But I’m sure I should not worry; she’ll probably regain her true personality before I know it. At least partly. People don’t just change, just like that, permanently.
The parrot now enjoys saying: “We are dying today.”
“Are we dying today? And today? And now?”
“Sara is dying.”
“Is it time yet? Soon?”
“I am a dying person.”
“Death and dying.”
The parrot often asks Sara, or me, or Henrietta: “Are you dying yet?” After we answer “No” or “Yes” or “Shut up,” he’ll say, “And yet? And yet?”
To this, Sara says, “Isn’t it hilarious? I love it!”
Laura asks me to move in with her, so she can take care of me while I take care of them. I accept gratefully. I move in and, to my astonishment, discover that she has bought big gray file cabinets to decorate her living room. These sinister file cabinets are meant to make me feel more at home by creating an environment that is familiar to me.
Sara’s pain increases. It reaches such a high level that she cannot go to school. This does not upset her much; she says everyone in school already knows she’s dying, and they even started taking the idea for granted, so she’s not missing much fun.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about those custom-made jeweled Humpty Dumpties that Sara said she wanted. I wish I could give them to her, but obviously I can’t afford them. Not even one of them. Not even one precious eye or earring. Which I suppose is why, one night, I dream that I can, actually, afford one, in a small size, though I did pick the third one, the fanciest one, made of gold and platinum, with diamond eyes, an opal mouth, and sapphire dimples, wearing an emerald earring, a ruby necklace, and a hat of dried flowers, with yellow straw hair sticking out under.
“It’s a lovely little egg,” says Sara, in my dream. “But he was supposed to be sitting in a crystal dish of potpourri.”
“Oh, I totally forgot. I’m sorry. You gave me such complicated instructions.”
“I’m not only interested in the fancy stuff, you know.”
“I know. I didn’t forget the straw hair, did I?”
I suppose my present has added further happiness to her Happy Symptom, because she starts singing: “I feel pretty-y-y.” She skips on one foot on the “y-y-y.”
“Oh so pretty-y-y,” she continues, skipping on the other foot on the “y-y-y.”
“I feel pretty and witty and gay-ay-ay-ay!” Skip skip skip skip. “La la lee lee, la la lee, la lee la lee, la lou.”
“That’s bright,” I tell her.
“Really, you like it?”
“No, I mean it goes: ‘I feel pretty and witty and bright.’ ”
“Detail. Who’s the pretty girl in that mirror there?” she screeches at the top of her voice. “What mirror where?” She is holding the back of her head with one hand, which is something she often does to prevent her brain from dribbling down her back. “Who could that—a pret-ty girl be-e? Which one where who, who, who, who, who? What a pretty girl, what a pretty girl, what a pretty girl.”
The parrot whistles along, not daring to compete with his master’s voice.
When she finishes her song, I tell her, “I promise you the back of your head is not open, and your brain is not dribbling down your back. You don’t need to hold your head that way.”
“I know the dribbling is supposed to be just a special effect, but it feels so real that I can’t help it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you the crystal dish of potpourri.”
She seems pleased. She adds my gift to the Humpty Dumpty collection in her room. She says it’s the best egg she ever had.
I wake up and realize with sadness that I won’t be able to bring her the joy I could offer in my dream. I won’t even give her the crystal dish of potpourri, which is the only part of her request I could afford, because she doesn’t want it without the Humpty Dumpty.
A week and a half later, the pain and the Happy Symptom have passed, and Sara becomes depressed that she’s dying. The other thing that happens is that I am starting to smell the fruit in her.
Notice that I do not make a wish on the white elephant for Sara to live. When it comes to questions of life and death, making a wish on the white elephant is not tempting. (I have a few times in my life been faced with acquaintances’ fatal diseases and deaths, and I have never used my white elephant to try to save their lives.) If you don’t care quite enough about the person in question, it does not seem wise to ask for the interference of supernatural powers. On the other hand, in the case of a person you love very much and whom you desperately want to live, making a wish seems to trivialize a tragic situation; you feel as though you are performing a disrespectful, frivolous act. It is conceivable that if I were the one with a fatal disease, I might use the elephant to try to save my life, though this is by no means certain. As for Sara, I had not, up to now, thought of using the white elephant on her. I suppose that subconsciously it was a mixture of thinking it would be too trivial and not wanting to tamper with this big outside event that did not involve me directly. If destiny wants her to die, then she should die. In addition, if I were to wish for Sara to live and she were then indeed to live somehow, I could never be certain that she was not a living dead of some sort, living against nature.
But the more I think about it, the more I feel I should use the elephant on her: It seems I would be selfish and evil not to. So I take the elephant out of its gray felt pouch and make a wish that Sara will live. When I replace the elephant in its pouch, my conscience is cleared. I did my duty.
Perhaps Sara doesn’t wash anymore. Her face is dark, or dusty, or something. It looks as though she has a five o’clock shadow.
Amazing how much that’s what it looks like. A five o’clock shadow. I ask her to come closer to me. She acts delighted, probably thinking I am going to kiss her. I scrutinize her face, and I see that it’s hair on her face, like the beginnings of a beard. It’s very fine hair, like peach fuzz, but slightly too much to be called peach fuzz.
A very cold thing runs through me, as though the devil is talking to me, making me aware that he is responsible for this. I am reminded again of The Exorcist. I feel that something cruel is going on. I cannot stay in the same room with her anymore. I must leave. And then the five o’clock shadow will end. If I don’t see it, it won’t exist, I hope. I won’t mention it to Lady Henrietta or Sara. If they don’t notice, well, then, it doesn’t exist.
* * *
The next time I see Sara, she looks fine. There’s no five o’clock shadow. I am delighted. I had imagined it.
But when I get closer, I see that it’s worse than a five o’clock shadow. It is shaved.
So, Henrietta and Sara did, finally, notice the shadow and decided to shave it off, and they think I never noticed it, and they are not about to tell me about it. I didn’t think they would hide something like this from me.
I confront Henrietta when Sara is not there:
“I’m not blind. And I am a man. I can see that she’s shaving. Were you just not going to tell me?”
“She didn’t want you to know.”
“What’s going on?”
“The doctor said it’s an unexpected symptom, that her tumor is now touching a part of her brain that causes it to produce male hormones. But the hormones are only being activated in certain ways: in the ways that grow beards, not the ways that make voices deeper and muscles bigger. Only facial hair.”
I have dinner with Laura at Défense d’y Voir. As we are eating, people at the neighboring tables suddenly start to clap at her. She looks at me, amused. She seems used to it.
I lean forward and whisper to her over our desserts. “Why are they clapping?”
“Because I just put sugar in my coffee.”
“Why would they clap at that?”
“Because the sugar disappeared into the coffee.”
“You must be joking.”
“Not
in the least.”
* * *
Sara asks me to let my beard grow.
Sara asks me to go buy pet fishes with her. We go. She buys nine tropical fishes. She also buys a fish tank, which I find out later is for the sole purpose of not arousing my suspicion, which she should not have bothered with, because I don’t care if she wants to kill her fishes.
She looks like a grieving man, a man in mourning, who hasn’t shaved in a few days. She has long stubble, which is darker than the blond, fairy princess hair on her head. In the pet store she wears a scarf over her mouth, like a gangster, like someone with the flu, to hide the sight. As we leave the store, she turns around, faces the customers, and lowers her scarf, smiling, her small red Ups peeking through the dark hairs. I look at the people, panic-stricken. Many of them are staring at Sara, some squinting to see better, others looking plainly devastated.
She does the killing by size, starting with the smallest fish. The neon tetra goes in boiling water, the guppy goes in the freezer (“because he’s so pretty that I want to preserve him”), the painted glass fish is vacuumed off the carpet. (Before moving on to the next execution, she shouts to me over the noise of the vacuum cleaner, “I think people who are dying have a right to do very crazy things, and that does not mean they’re crazy. It means they’re dying, and upset. In fact, it means they’re sane.”) The ram is placed on her mattress and watched while it flaps to death; the dwarf gourami is cut open lengthwise and its skeleton admired; the angelfish is held by its top and bottom fins and pulled in opposite directions (I’ve always wanted to do that, I think to myself, even though it’s not true); the white long-finned tetra is soaked in concentrated blue bath herb essence for three minutes while we talk about whether the color will stick when we take it out, which it does a little, but it was not fatal so she lets the fish flap to death on her bed like the other one. (I tell her, to lighten the atmosphere, that she should have thought of something she hadn’t done before, so she offers to eat it, which I prevent her from doing for fear that the blue bath herb essence will make her sicker than she already is, though to her face I just say “sick,” not “sicker than you already are.”) The baby discus, with its beautiful facial expression, she throws out the window, making me particularly sad; and the last fish, the fat goldfish, she can’t think of anything to do with because the last one has to be the best and this high standard is giving her killer’s block so I’m supposed to think of something which is too much to ask of me because I’m not dying and don’t have this need to see what death is like but it finally doesn’t matter because she comes up with her own idea. She tries to feed the goldfish to the parrot. He won’t eat it. He doesn’t like goldfish. Jeremy? No, thank you; I don’t eat that kind of fish either. “Okay, then I’ll eat it,” she says. I cringe. I can’t tell her not to, because it has not been soaked in concentrated blue bath herb essence. She licks a fin and stops. She doesn’t want to eat it anymore so thinks of something even better. She throws it against the wall. The idea is to throw it until it does not move. She does it again. It is fun and slippery. Sometimes she just throws it in the air and catches it, just to enjoy the fun challengingly slippery feel of it. Finally, it does not move. She goes to the kitchen, comes back with the big kitchen knife, and heads for her parrot. She grabs it around the shoulders and points the tip of the knife at its throat.
Nude Men Page 18