by James Morrow
Charnock laughed—probably not for the first time in his life, though I couldn’t be sure. “‘Fuck now.’ Not a slogan you’re likely to find on Father O’Malley’s rear bumper.”
I placed the noisemaker to my lips and blew, producing a festive toot. “If Father O’Malley came upon the schematics for your RXL-313, would he set about building one of his own, so he could pass his evenings manufacturing children in his basement? I think not. Most likely he’d burn the schematics on the spot.”
“A beaker is not a uterine wall,” Charnock said haughtily. “An ontogenerator is not a womb. I knew that before we began this conversation.” He lifted his hand level with his face, studying the pudgy digits. “No solvent can remove this stain. Not soap, not turpentine, not sulfuric acid.”
I offered him a commiserating grunt, saying I was sorry that I hadn’t relieved his guilt.
“I didn’t expect you would.” He restored his tainted hand to the steering wheel. “Nevertheless, I found our exchange fruitful. Having heard your incoherent thoughts on embryos, I realize what I should do with my life. Edwina has—what?—two months to live. After she passes away, I’ll shut down my laboratory, forsake molecular genetics, and devote myself to a different domain.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“The spiritual realm.”
“Ah, yes, the spiritual realm.” In those days “spiritual” was my least favorite word. It still is.
Charnock firmed his grip on the wheel, squeezing until his fingers turned white. “‘This one is not my daughter. This one won’t do.’ Seven different times she said it, and then she gave me the beaker, and I made my decision, the vat or the bay? In each case I would swish the fluid around and watch the embryo swimming in its little universe. I always flushed the creature away. I’m not sure whether I still believe in God, Ambrose, but I know I no longer believe in biology.”
EDWINA DECIDED TO ACCOMPLISH HER DYING where she’d done so much of her living, in the Faustino conservatory with its damp, coagulated air and Mesozoic fragrances. Somehow Javier had maneuvered her bed, a wide gurney hedged with satin pillows, through the labyrinth of ferns and vines, bringing it to rest alongside Proserpine’s salt pond. Instead of obeying God’s banishment decree, this Eve would stand her ground and die in the Garden, prostrate before the Tree of Knowledge.
Two male nurses from Miami, solemn Hector and jovial Sebastian, supervised the requisite technology—no votive candles for Edwina, no smoking censers or hovering priests—an array that included a cardiac monitor, a liquid-nutrient fount, and a computerized morphine dispenser, this last machine deployed to guarantee that in the end she could elect to trade lucidity for lack of pain. With their immaculate white jackets and equally immaculate trousers, Hector and Sebastian looked less like medical personnel than stewards on a cruise ship—and the conservatory had indeed become such a vessel, the sleek and seaworthy Lady Daedalus, bearing Edwina to that distant keep where even the wealthiest woman is beyond the reach of ransom.
Not surprisingly, the Übermom had written an endgame scenario that would enable her to continue regarding Donya, Londa, and Yolly as a single individual occupying three distinct space-time domains. The plan called for each child to pay her mother a separate farewell visit, so Edwina would feel she was experiencing a succession of adieus from the same daughter. Only after she was dead might we teachers escort our pupils out of the conservatory, introduce them to one another, and help them weather the hurricane of cognitive dissonance that was certain to follow.
While Henry, Brock, and I all thought it was a bad idea for Donya to attend Edwina’s passing, Jordan took the opposite view. She did not recommend that Donya be present when Edwina actually drew her last breath, but she insisted that the child join the vigil, lest she spend the rest of her life vaguely anticipating her mother’s return. A logical argument, and it soon gained everyone’s assent, though it seemed to me that if we didn’t whisk Donya away in time, she might spend that same life trying to forget her mother’s death throes.
Shortly after dawn on the first Friday in June, as golden spokes of sunlight filled the eastern sky, and the toucans and parrots loudly proclaimed the acoustic borders of their territories, Javier telephoned to say that within the hour Henry, Brock, and Donya would arrive at Faustino and proceed to the geodesic dome. Londa and I, meanwhile, should go to the library, where we must wait until summoned, even as Jordan and Yolly bided their time in the drawing room.
Twenty minutes later Londa and I settled into the russet leather couch before the ancient-history section, her head pressed against my shoulder in a posture recalling one of Jordan’s best digital photos: Oyster nuzzling Yolly, captioned “I Love You, Now How About Some Oats?” Evidently aware that something was amiss, Quetzie fluttered around the room in erratic ellipses. A soft staccato wheezing rose from deep within Londa’s frame, a kind of anticipatory dirge. Part of me wanted to reveal that her mother’s death would not be the most disorienting of the day’s events, but having kept my promise to Edwina all these months, I wasn’t about to break it now.
The morose Hector appeared and announced that Edwina required a sponge bath, after which she would receive her beloved daughter, “sponge bath” no doubt being a code term for Donya’s visit to the deathbed. There was little conviction in the man’s voice—I hoped he was better at nursing than deceit—but Londa seemed to accept his story. As Hector slipped out of the library, Quetzie landed on the conquistador’s helmet and squawked out his newest sentence, “Cogito ergo sum,” which Londa had taught him the previous month by way of commemorating, as she’d put it, “the first anniversary of that fateful meeting between a Boston philosopher and a crazy teenager without a conscience.”
A cry of grief slashed through the glutinous air. I knew its source immediately. Little Donya’s scream contained a greater measure of cosmic despair than I thought a seven-year-old’s soul could hold.
“That sounded like a child,” Londa said.
“It did,” I muttered. “It was,” I added.
A second cry, same voice, penetrated the library.
“What child?” demanded Londa. “Do you know her?”
Now that Donya had revealed herself to Londa, should I continue cleaving to Edwina’s script? I felt no such duty. Given this turn of events, the charade was surely beyond salvation.
“I’ve eaten cookies in her tree house,” I said.
“Who is she?”
A third shriek. The iguana, frightened, hopped from the conquistador to Londa’s shoulder. Without a moment’s hesitation, Londa strode through the French doors and scanned the hallway. “Cogito ergo sum,” Quetzie repeated with inimitable reptilian dismay.
“Remember the day I theorized that you might have a sister named Donya?” I said, drawing abreast of Londa. “In point of fact, the person making those sounds—”
“She’s my sister?”
“Your sister Donya.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This way.”
I took Londa’s hand and guided her toward the conservatory, all the while attempting to explicate the strange procreative ecology of Isla de Sangre. A petri dish instead of a marriage bed. A beaker instead of a womb. A catalyst instead of a childhood. Amnesia that wasn’t amnesia but something far stranger. Three genetically identical sisters—and a fourth, progenitor sister bent on representing herself as the first three girls’ mother.
“You’re not making much sense,” Londa said.
Donya’s next scream inspired us to break into a run. Quetzie abandoned Londa’s shoulder but stayed with us, gliding directly above his mistress’s head. We rounded the corner and veered into the conservatory. Edwina lay on her back, wrapped in a green smock and sleeping soundly. Donya, sobbing and quivering, had flung herself across her mother’s chest. Henry stood over his pupil, a guardian tree as faithful and protective as Proserpine.
Our arrival prompted Donya to lift her head and glance toward the doorway. Tears stained her c
heeks. Her eyes were as red as radishes.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I said.
“Mason…” Donya stepped toward me, then changed her mind and, retreating, hugged her mother more tightly than before, a shipwreck survivor clinging to a floating spar.
The two nurses fidgeted near the cardiac monitor, a noisy black box the size of a microwave oven, its cathode-ray tube displaying a dancing sine wave, its sound chip bleeping in high-pitched counterpoint to Edwina’s heartbeats. Brock leaned against the sentient mangrove like Ulysses bound to the mainmast of his ship. Upon noticing Proserpine, Quetzie judged her an ideal perch and soared to the highest branch.
I rushed to Donya’s side, and together Henry and I looped our arms around her quavering body, squeezing her tight until she stopped crying.
“Mommy’s not going to get better,” she gasped. “Not ever.”
“I know,” I said.
“Isn’t that terrible?”
“It’s terrible.”
Donya jabbed an accusing finger toward Londa. “Who are you?”
“This woman’s daughter.”
As Londa set her hand on Edwina’s shoulder, the patient opened her eyes, then rotated her head far enough to determine that the worst had happened: her youngest daughter and her oldest were occupying the same spatiotemporal location, and they looked conspicuously like two different people.
“No, she’s my mommy,” Donya protested. “She’s mine.”
“We’re sisters,” Londa told Donya.
“It’s true, Donya,” Henry said.
“No, that’s wrong,” Donya said. “I don’t want a sister.”
At last Edwina spoke, her voice bloodless and far away. “You must stop this, dear child. Stop coming apart.”
Now Yolly raced into the conservatory, doubtless drawn by Donya’s cries, wearing the expression of a stranded traveler watching the last bus leave the station, and behind her came an equally bewildered Jordan. I’d not seen the middle Sister Sabacthani since her nativity. Sharp, bright, and skillfully composed as they were, Jordan’s snapshots hadn’t done Yolly justice. She was a glorious child with radiant skin and shining eyes, her hair as vibrant and summery as a crown of laurels.
“Are you the person Jordan says you are?” Yolly asked, pointing at Londa. “Are you my sister?”
“Probably.”
“Londa, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m Yolly, and I don’t like any of this.”
“Me neither,” Londa replied.
“Me neither,” Donya said.
“My teacher says I’m really only thirteen months old,” Yolly said.
“Mine insists I’ve been around just two years,” Londa said.
Yolly circumnavigated the gurney, soon entering Edwina’s field of vision. “My wonderful mother.”
“You’re not supposed to be here yet.” Edwina sounded like a lost ghost asking directions to a séance.
“But I want to be here,” Yolly said.
Edwina closed her eyes, and for a few moments the air was free of human voices. The only sounds were the caws of jungle birds and the bleeping of the cardiac monitor.
Stretching an arm toward Donya, Yolly ran her palm along the child’s hair. I imagined she brought a similarly unqualified affection to the act of stroking Oyster’s mane.
“Little sister?” Yolly said.
“I’m not your sister.” Donya began weeping again.
“Donya, it’s great having a big sister, and now you’ve got two,” Henry said.
Tears streamed down Donya’s cheeks like raindrops on a windowpane. “But who’s going to take care of me?”
“I will,” Henry said. “Brock will.”
“You bet,” Brock said.
“And I’ll take care of you, too,” Yolly said.
Donya’s sobs grew softer. The monitor kept bleeping. Edwina opened her eyes.
“This is not acceptable behavior, Yolonda,” she said in a thick whisper. “I forbid you to break apart.”
“Mommy, can’t we have just one more tea party?” Donya said.
This proved too much for Yolly, who started weeping as prolifically as her little sister. She wrapped her arms around herself, then slumped against the IV dispenser, shivering and whimpering, her face hatched by tears.
“I was a good mother, wasn’t I?” Edwina said to no daughter in particular.
“You’re the best mommy in the whole world!” Donya exclaimed.
Yolly uncurled one arm and pulled her sleeve across her nose and mouth, gathering up a mass of mucus, spittle, and tears. “Thank you for everything, Mother,” she said, staggering toward the gurney. She kissed Edwina’s pale, thin lips. “Thank you for Jordan and Oyster and the flute lessons. I’m the luckiest girl alive.”
“Mommeee!” wailed Donya.
Londa now shifted her gaze from her doomed mother to her bemused morality teacher. We locked eyes. She glowered. This Gorgon would not settle for turning her victims to ordinary stone: only New Hampshire granite would suffice, or diamond-grade carbon. “Mason, damn it, you should’ve told me about this! You liar!”
I grimaced but remained silent.
“Londa, dear, your mother needs a kind word from you,” Jordan said.
“You’re a liar, too!” Londa wailed, lurching toward Jordan. “You made Yolly think I didn’t exist!” She extended her index finger, aiming it first at Henry, then Brock. “And you two did the same thing to Donya! But I do exist!”
I wanted to tell Londa there were five liars in the room, not four, most conspicuously the patient on the gurney, but I simply said, “Jordan is right. You owe your mother something. Blessed are the comforters.”
There was no such Beatitude, and Londa knew it, but rather than correcting me, she stepped toward Edwina and grasped her limp, wrinkled hand. “I love you, Mother. Whatever this crazy thing is you’ve done, I love you.”
I assumed that Edwina would now smile. I expected her to acquire a seraphic face, aglow with peace and maternal fulfillment, but instead an arcane, almost preternatural force seized her body. Her teeth chattered. Her lips quivered. Her limbs trembled so violently that I feared her ligaments might rip free of her bones.
Without exchanging a word, the tutors moved to shelter their charges from Edwina’s terminal spasms. Henry took one of Donya’s hands, Brock the other, and together they propelled her toward the patio. Jordan approached the gurney, curled an arm around Yolly’s shoulder, and escorted her behind the cardiac monitor. Londa did not resist when I set my palm against the small of her back and guided her into Proserpine’s fecund shade.
“Stop splitting!” Edwina suddenly cried. “Stay together!”
Donya released a shrill moan. Londa slouched beneath the breathing tree and wept.
“Quetzie is a handsome devil!” squawked the iguana.
“Together!” Edwina demanded.
The cardiac monitor played a few final measures of reassuring bleeps, and then the cadence disintegrated into random chitters.
“Cogito ergo sum,” Quetzie averred, but his insight was lost on Edwina, who had entered a realm where cogitation does not occur.
ALTHOUGH THE TWO NURSES had proved only marginally useful during Edwina’s final days, they certainly earned their salaries after she was gone. Seizing upon a hidden potential of the IV dispenser, Hector and Sebastian filled her veins with a small quantity of embalming fluid, just enough to counter the spoilage threatened by the Florida heat. They ordered a steel casket, signed the death certificate, and ran interference with a health inspector from Key West who’d long ago deduced that biological events on Isla de Sangre rarely fell within the norm. They even interred the body, digging a grave at the axis of Edwina’s empire, in the shadow of the sandstone pillar where the three concrete walls converged, then setting the casket in its moist groove and shoveling back the soil.
Shortly before the funeral, Londa composed an epitaph, which Brock, master of all media, succeeded in etching onto a
bronze tablet the size of a sandwich board. After everyone had assembled by Edwina’s resting place—children, tutors, chefs, servants, groundskeepers—we propped the tablet against the burial mound, so that the grave acquired a door: a brazen gate opening onto the Nothing, much as the ontogenerator was a titanium portal into Dasein.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
EDWINA SABACTHANI
*
Servant of Science
*
Seeker of Wisdom
*
Eternal Protector of
Three Devoted Daughters
Donya read the words aloud, slowly, haltingly, then began to cry, partly from her frustration over not understanding them, partly from her realization that those same words, comprehended, would have broken her heart. Henry deftly led her away from the knot of mourners toward a commodious clearing ringed by ferns. From his backpack he withdrew a bag of figs, a bunch of bananas, and a flask of Hawaiian Punch, immediately convening a jungle picnic for Donya and himself, leaving the rest of us to continue the ceremony on our own.
For the next hour, we eulogized Edwina with anecdotes. Brock described her touching attempts to enter the universe of Donya’s miniature amusement park. Javier praised Edwina’s financial generosity, most especially her insistence on paying for his father’s bypass surgery. Chen Lee recalled the time he’d carelessly allowed thirty pounds of fish to go bad and how his boss had unhesitatingly absolved him. Charnock offered his opinion that Edwina’s brief but productive career with GenoText, Inc., would eventually lead to effective germ-line therapies for cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. Yolly spoke of how she and her mother had wept openly during their screening of The Black Stallion. Londa noted that her mother was “always there when I needed her,” then added, under her breath, “as long as I needed her on Wednesday and Friday.” Paralyzed by ambivalence, Jordan and I said nothing.
Later that week, two attorneys from the classy Miami law firm of Acosta, Rambal, and Salazar descended upon the island. While their ostensible intention was to apprise the girls of certain postmortem arrangements, it was obvious that Rex Fermoyle and Martha Carrington were primarily looking to score slices of the walloping financial pie Edwina had left behind. Watching them sift through their late client’s private papers, I thought of those proud corps of airport dogs employed to detect heroin, explosives, and illegal foodstuffs, though Fermoyle and Carrington’s specialty was sniffing out obscure stock options, neglected government bonds, and misfiled life-insurance policies.