Heroic Measures

by Jill Ciment

  The kitchen is tinier than she’d like, but there’s a square of morning sun on the floor for Dorothy to sunbathe in. She tests the stove: all four burners work.

  The first bedroom is about the same size as the one they have now, more than enough room for a queen-size bed, two night tables, and a computer desk. From the window, she can see the branches of a majestic oak, bare and black. In summer, the whole view will be verdant. She’s tempted to lie down on the bed to see the view from there, but, of course, she doesn’t dare. Besides, the girl, sans her knee-high boots, is already lying there.

  The second bedroom catches Ruth off-guard; it’s such an irregular shape, a trapezoid with one long wall and three short ones. She’s no judge of distance, but the farthest wall appears to be over twenty feet away, or perhaps it’s just a spatial illusion. Alex is staring across the length of the room to that white wall just waiting for a blank canvas. He takes a giant stride backward, and then another and another. The studio he has now is only fifteen feet long. She knows what those extra five feet would mean for him.

  A line has already formed to talk to the realtor. While they wait their turn, Alex feels the same roiling want for the vista of wall that Ruth feels for the verdant view, but in his case, he suspects that the churning might also be from the bran muffin with the coffee chaser. “I may have to use the bathroom,” he whispers to Ruth.

  “Now? We’re next in line. You can’t wait?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How can I help you?” says the realtor.

  “How firm is the price?” Ruth asks.

  “I’ll be right back,” Alex promises, and hurries down the hall looking for a bathroom. Despite the million-one price tag, the apartment only seems to have one, and two young Asian women taking pictures of the tub with their cell phones occupy it.

  “Please, I need to use the bathroom,” Alex says. He locks himself inside and opens the window as wide as it will go. The cold is shocking. He releases his belt and sits down on the commode.

  Someone knocks.

  “I’ll be right out!” he shouts.

  Someone taps.

  “Just a minute!”

  Someone hammers.

  “Hold your horses!”

  To ignore the knocks, he turns off his hearing aids and concentrates on the floor. The tile work is handsome, a diamond pattern. Four black squares framed in eight blue-green ones. How would he mix the color? Cerulean with viridian? With a vista like that, he could paint larger. If the FBI memos evoked illuminated manuscripts, why not billboards?

  When he finishes, he flushes the toilet, closes the seat, washes his hands, tucks in his shirt, turns up his hearing aids, and then scours his pockets for matches, but all he finds is the packet of Stim-U-Dents. He leaves the window open, unlocks the door, and squeezes past the knot of house hunters waiting to see what a million-one bathroom is like.

  Ruth ran out of questions for the realtor long ago. She sits on the window seat cushion, her back to the view, waiting for Alex. When he finally shows up, she says, “It’s a sealed auction. Bids are being accepted till noon. The results will be final. We sign a contract. No second chances. No backing out.”

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait,” he says.

  “I told you to have an English muffin. Next time will you listen?”

  In the elevator, on their way down to the lobby to call Lily in private, Ruth takes his arm with conciliatory tenderness. “Hey, you never know, you might have turned the odds in our favor by overpowering the smell of cinnamon.”

  “We can call it the Bran Muffin Principle,” Alex says.

  In the lobby, Ruth dials Lily.

  “No one is making anymore commitments until Pamir’s caught,” Lily tells her.

  Ruth lowers the phone. “Yellow Rubbers’ is our last solid offer, nine even.”

  “Ask her advice,” Alex says.

  “We found a place, Lily, it’s perfect. We have to put our bid in before noon or we’ll lose it. The sellers are asking a million one, but the realtor says the seller is willing to consider any offer. Any words of wisdom?”

  “If the seller is willing to consider any offer, it means he’s scared, which might work in your favor. Take advantage, but don’t bid so low that if you lose it, you kick yourselves for not risking more, and don’t bid so high that if you get it, you have to back out. That could cost you real money in legal fees. And make sure everyone signs the bid contract. If Pamir turns out not to be a terrorist, just a nutcase, the seller might use any excuse to wheedle out of the agreement. Lots of buyers include a personal letter with their offer, an appeal to the seller why they should be chosen in the event of a tie. If you write one, don’t be afraid to pull on the heartstrings. We realtors call it a Queen-for-a-Day letter.”

  When Ruth first retired, she thought she’d try her hand at writing. Nothing as ambitious as fiction—she hardly believed she’d find an untapped vein of talent—but autobiographical sketches or profiles of people she had known, exercises written just for herself, an experiment to see if her love of reading could translate into something more. To her frustration and then disenchantment, what she understood as a reader—the bracing delight of the unexpected metaphor, the fascination with spying on another’s consciousness—eluded her as soon as she splayed her fingers across the typewriter keys. She typed clichés. She was like the old illiterate peasant woman in Chekhov’s “At Christmas Time,” dictating a letter to her daughter, who she hasn’t heard from in years. She timidly asks the scribe to write down a string of platitudes—“to our only beloved daughter, our love, a low bow and our parental blessing enduring forever and ever. And we also send wishes for a merry Christmas, we are alive and well, and hoping you are the same, please God, the Heavenly King”—when what the old peasant really means to tell her daughter is that she and Grandpa had to sell the cow and are now starving.

  In an odd way, Ruth felt relieved to put away her ambition—a part of her had always worried that teaching had kept her from a greater destiny, and now she knew. She never told Alex about her exercises. That winter, she ran for secretary of the local chapter of Women for Peace and Justice and accepted her lot as a pamphleteer.

  But now, sitting on the bench in the lobby, it seems to her she has one last chance to put her story on paper.

  Dear Sellers,

  Our day began with a miracle. The doctors told us our little dog, Dorothy, might never walk again, but this morning, she took five steps. We’re hoping for a second miracle today, that you chose us in the event of a tie. My husband, a renowned artist, and I, a retired public school teacher, have lived in this neighborhood for nearly forty-five years. It would mean so much to us if we didn’t have to leave at our age. We adore your apartment, especially the window seat and the built-in bookcases. The second bedroom will make an ideal studio for my husband, and our little dog can regain her strength sunbathing on your kitchen tiles.

  Yours,

  Alex and Ruth Cohen

  She rereads the letter. It’s the truth, but it reads like propaganda.

  “How much?” she asks Alex.

  “We should make it an even trade. Write down nine hundred thousand,” he says. But as soon as she agrees and plies her pen to the contract, he changes his mind. “Make it nine hundred and ten. We can manage another ten, Ruth. Rudolph said he’s getting traction on my FBI pieces. No, write down nine hundred and twenty thousand; no, nine hundred and thirty …”

  Ruth knows that the amounts he’s dictating to her are like the old peasant woman’s prayers, that what he really means to say is: We’ve put the cow up for sale. Don’t we deserve some peace?

  She finally writes $950,000, an amount she doesn’t believe she’s ever written down before. When would she have had the opportunity?

  BARKS, HOWLS, YAPS, AND YELPS RESOUND UP and down the hospital’s corridors. Inside her cage, Doro thy listens with apathy and distain. She has no interest in adding her voice to the bedlam. She stares through the bars and whimpe
rs, a mournful hum lost in the din. It’s finally sunk in that this is her life now, a cell in a window-less ward, noisy with other dogs’ ranting, where her only treat is a teensy crumble of sausage.

  “They’ve been going berserk for the past ten minutes,” says the orderly as he hoses out the empty cage below Dorothy’s; the bulldog finally passed the penny. “They know something’s up. They can smell danger. We should listen to them instead of the newscasters. You didn’t see any pictures of elephants drowned in the tsunami, did you?”

  “I heard a parrot just got loose in pre-op and tried to fly through the glass door,” says the medical student as he administers nose spray to the Mexican hairless.

  “They have a sixth sense.”

  “They’re only smelling your fear,” says the nurse as she opens Dorothy’s cage door. She picks her up. “You’re not a scaredy-cat, are you?” She gently wipes away the jelled tears caked under Dorothy’s eyes. “Your mommy and daddy are here. You don’t want them to think you were crying. Look at those long beautiful lashes. Who does your makeup?”

  Cradling Dorothy in her arms, the nurse carries her through a maze of hallways until they arrive at a big room pungent with outdoor smells—snow, slush, wet leather, damp wool, goose down, fur, feathers, and hair. After the overpowering odors of her ward mates, it’s like a bouquet.

  “I’m looking for Dorothy’s owners,” the nurse asks the receptionist.

  “The little old couple? They’re in visiting Room two.”

  Holding Dorothy in one hand, the nurse opens a door. Ruth and Alex rise from two plastic chairs. They look anything but little and old to Dorothy. To Dorothy, they look like titans. She recognizes Ruth’s glasses first, the enormous omnipotent eyes, and then Alex’s outstretched hands, those quick, strong hands that always sweep her up when bigger dogs approach.

  “Ruth, she’s wagging her tail!”

  The tiny room becomes heady with the sharp, sweet scent of reunion. Alex carefully takes Dorothy from the nurse and then shares her with Ruth. Dorothy is cushioned between their soft overcoats, in a bough of arms. She inhales the essences of Alex and Ruth. She kisses their coat sleeves, buttons, fingers, wristwatches, and when Ruth leans closer, her nose and glasses.

  RUTH HAS TO FORCE HERSELF TO LOOK AT the shaved clearing in the fur, the silver railroad tracks running along the crest of Dorothy’s spine—a five-inch incision fastened with staples. The staples look painful to Ruth, but Dorothy doesn’t seem to notice them. Settling into Ruth’s arms, she lets loose a sigh of such contentment that Ruth feels it though her sleeves, through her skin.

  “She’s so light, Alex. I think she lost weight.”

  “We’d like to talk to Dr. Rush,” he tells the nurse as she leaves.

  They sit down to wait for the doctor, Dorothy on Ruth’s lap. The whole time in the bus, she and Alex had to stand. At every stop, surges of passengers would push and ebb like tides. The taxis were still under curfew, though Ruth has no idea why. Isn’t Pamir on foot again?

  Alex puts one arm around her, the other around Dorothy. Stirring on her lap, Dorothy looks up at her, and then turns her doleful, intelligent eyes on Alex. Though Dorothy can’t give voice to the look, Ruth knows what it means: Don’t ever leave me again.

  The doctor comes in. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Are the staples painful?” Ruth asks.

  “Animals feel pain differently than we do.”

  “When we get her home, is there anything else we can do besides crate her?” Alex asks.

  “I advise five hundred milligrams of glucosamine daily, also chrondroitin. Some owners swear by vitamin C and beta-carotene. There’s also a promising new drug called Adequan.”

  “We’ll have to clear off another shelf in the medicine cabinet for her,” Alex says.

  “Can she still run around if she’s able?” Ruth asks.

  “Just let her be a dog.” He waits for another question, but Ruth and Alex can’t think of one. “The nurse will be coming for Dorothy in a few minutes. I’d let her go home with you now, but after that seizure I’d like to keep her one more night.”

  When he closes the door behind him, Ruth says, “I almost forgot about the seizure.”

  Alex pats her shoulder, caresses Dorothy’s neck, and then looks at his wristwatch. “The auction’s been over for nearly ten minutes.”

  “I turned off the cell phone. We’re not supposed to use it in the hospital.”

  “Should I see if there’s a pay phone?”

  “We almost lost her, Alex. What difference will knowing five minutes later make? We either got the apartment or we didn’t.” She turns her attention to Dorothy. “We brought you something, sweetie.” She reaches into her purse and takes out the rubber hot dog, but Dorothy ignores it. “Those staples must hurt her. How does the doctor know that her pain feels different than ours?”

  Alex continues rubbing Ruth’s shoulder and stroking Dorothy’s neck. Gliding back and forth against the dark fur, his shiny wristwatch hypnotizes Ruth: it’s almost twelve-thirty. “Where’s the nurse already?” she asks.

  Barks explode from all the wards along the green corridor as the nurse carries Dorothy, listless and silent, back to her cell. Dorothy’s sixth sense—a tactile alarm, as if danger were a breeze moving through her fur—is as strong as the next dog’s; she’s aware of the mounting agitation in the air, but she’s too forlorn to care; Ruth and Alex just handed her away.

  “They’re getting louder by the minute,” the orderly says to the nurse as he changes the yelping, shrieking Mexican hairless’s water bowl. “I’m telling you, they know something.”

  The nurse opens Dorothy’s cage and settles her inside, like a loaf of soft dough laid in an oven. Dorothy’s instinct is to stand up and bark, too, to become one with the pack, to howl her head off until every dog in the land is alerted to the danger, but her sadness prevails: she curls into a ball and holds her tongue.

  “You and me are the only one keeping our heads, aren’t we, Dorothy?” says the nurse, locking her inside.

  In the hospital lobby, beside a wall of donor plaques honoring departed pets—in memory of Stretch, Buttons, Chaos, Irving—Ruth and Alex check their cell phone to see if the realtor has left a message, though if she has, neither knows how retrieve it. The bright plasma bar reads fifty-eight new messages, one more than this morning. Ruth dials the realtor, while Alex glances out the lobby doors to see if the taxis are back. Flashing red glyphs and whirling blue lances play over the glass. Two helmeted silhouettes flank the entry. The doors spring open and a frantic woman clutching a shoe box rushes in.

  “Has something happened?” Alex asks her.

  “My ferret just went crazy and jumped out the second story window. I think he’s broken his leg.”

  “The FBI’s got Pamir trapped in Bed Bath and Beyond just around the corner,” says the moon-faced young guard manning the metal detector. He steps in front of the woman and holds up his hand like a crossing guard. “You’ll have to open the box,” he says.

  “You think I have a bomb in here?”

  “Otherwise, the box has to go through X-ray.”

  She cracks the lid wide enough for the guard, and Alex, to see tiny white teeth. The guard lets her pass.

  “Do they know if he has a bomb?” Alex asks him.

  “Nope, but they know he took hostages.”

  “How many?”

  “As many as he could grab in kitchenware.”

  Ruth throws her arms around Alex. “It’s ours! We got the apartment! There was a tie, but our letter made the difference!” She looks out the glass doors, at the fleet of idling squad cars frenetic with red and blue lights. The two helmeted silhouettes have doubled into four. “Has something happened?”

  “The FBI has Pamir cornered nearby in a Bed Bath and Beyond,” Alex tells her.

  “They have one on the Upper East Side?”

  “It’s just around the corner,” the moon-faced guard pipes in.

  “Does
he have a bomb?” Ruth asks.

  “He has hostages,” Alex says.

  “I don’t want to leave Dorothy here with a bomb nearby. Is the hospital in any danger?” she asks the guard.

  “Nobody’s told me anything,” the guard says.

  “Pamir might not even have a bomb, Ruth. If the hospital was in any danger, the police would have evacuated it by now.”

  “They might evacuate the people, but will they take the animals?”

  She strides past Alex and the guard, opens the door, and approaches one of the helmeted silhouettes, faceless behind a dark visor, clad in black armor, holding an assault rifle. She barely comes up to his bulletproof vest. Alex, who follows her outside, barely comes up to his chinstrap. “We’re supposed to bring our little dog home tomorrow,” Ruth tells the policeman, “but we can go back for her right now if you think she’s in any danger. Is the hospital safe?”

  “The hospital is in the green zone, ma’am.”

  “What’s a green zone?” Ruth asks.

  Alex doesn’t know anymore than Ruth does, but he figures a green zone must be safer than a red zone. “She’s better off in the hospital than out here,” he tells Ruth as panicked pedestrians push by. “How would we get her home? There still aren’t any taxis.”

  “Please, folks, we need to keep the walkway clear,” says the faceless helmet.

  To their west, beyond the fleet of squad cars, a convoy of armored trucks, FBI vans, fire engines, a Caterpillar bulldozer with its plow raised, and ambulances block First Avenue, ready to descend on Bed Bath & Beyond. To their east, circling above the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, helicopters drone. Civilian traffic, both heeled and wheeled, is being diverted onto York Avenue. Alex and Ruth join the downtown foot traffic being channeled between police sawhorses erected along the sidewalks. The crowd is too unwieldy to move with any flow through such a tight space. Overcoats press against them, pushing to get as far away as fast as possible. Whenever a siren goes off or horns honk the panic intensifies and Alex can feel himself and Ruth momentarily lifted off their feet and borne along by the pressure. He struggles to free his arm and wraps it protectively around her. She holds on to his waist, gripping his overcoat.