“I am not into saving whales so I don’t have to mix with ecologists.”
She never sacrificed herself for another person or an ideal: self-denial was not one of her virtues. Apart from Nathaniel in his final illness, she had never had to look after anyone, not even her son. Motherhood was not the cataclysm of adoration and anxiety that all mothers are supposed to experience; instead it was tranquil, sustained affection. Larry was a solid, unconditional presence for her; she loved him with a combination of complete trust and long habit, a comfortable feeling that demanded little from her. Although she had admired and loved Isaac and Lillian Belasco, whom she went on calling Uncle and Aunt even after they had become her in-laws, none of their kindness and vocation to serve had rubbed off on her.
“Thank goodness the Belasco Foundation creates green areas rather than trying to help beggars or orphans. That means I’ve been able to do some good without having to get too close to those who have benefited,” she told Lenny.
“Be quiet, will you? If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were a narcissistic monster.”
“If I’m not one, it’s thanks to Ichimei and Nathaniel, who taught me to give and receive. Without them I’d have retreated into indifference long ago.”
“Many artists are introverts, Alma. They have to absent themselves to create,” Lenny said.
“Don’t look for excuses. The truth is that the older I get, the more I like my defects. Old age is the best moment to be and do whatever you enjoy. Soon no one will be able to bear me. Tell me, Lenny, is there anything you feel sorry about?”
“Of course. All the crazy things I never did, having given up cigarettes and margaritas, becoming vegetarian, and killing myself doing exercise. I’m going to die anyway, but at least I’ll be fit,” laughed Lenny.
“I don’t want you to die . . .”
“Nor do I, but it’s not optional.”
“When I first knew you, you used to drink like a Cossack.”
“I’ve been sober for thirty years now. I think I drank so much to avoid thinking. I was hyperactive; it was all I could do to sit still to cut my toenails. As a young man I was gregarious, always surrounded by noise and people, but even so I felt alone. Fear of loneliness defined my character, Alma. I needed to be accepted and loved.”
“You’re talking in the past. Isn’t it like that anymore?”
“I’ve changed. I spent my youth searching for approval and adventures, until I really fell in love. Afterward my heart was broken and I spent a decade trying to pick up the pieces.”
“And did you succeed?”
“Let’s say I did, thanks to a smorgasbord of psychology: individual, group, gestalt, biodynamic therapies. Anything I could lay my hands on, including primal scream therapy.”
“What on earth is that?”
“I used to shut myself in with the woman psychologist to shout like a man possessed while I punched a cushion for fifty-five minutes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. And what was more, I paid to do it. I was in therapy for years. It was a rocky road, Alma, but I learned to know myself and to look my loneliness in the face. It doesn’t frighten me anymore.”
“Something like that would have helped Nathaniel and me a lot, but it never occurred to us. It wasn’t something that was done in our circles. By the time psychology became fashionable it was too late for us.”
* * *
All of a sudden the anonymous packages of gardenias Alma received on Mondays ceased to appear, just when she would have most enjoyed them, yet she gave no indication that she had noticed. Following her last escapade she hardly ever went out. If Irina, Seth, Lenny, and Cathy had not kept her active, she would have shut herself away like an anchorite. She lost all interest in reading, TV series, yoga, Victor Vikashev’s garden, and the other activities that once filled the time for her. She had no appetite, and if Irina was not keeping a close watch, she could get by for days on apples and green tea. She did not tell a soul that sometimes her heart started racing, her vision clouded over, and she became confused over the simplest tasks. Her apartment, which until then had fitted her needs perfectly, now seemed to grow bigger and its layout to constantly change: when she thought she was standing outside the bathroom, she went out into the building’s corridor, which had become so long and twisting she had difficulty finding her own door, as they all looked the same; the floor swayed so that she had to cling to the walls to stay on her feet; the light switches moved around so that she couldn’t find them in the dark; new drawers and shelves appeared, where everyday objects got lost; photographs shifted around in their albums without anyone touching them. She couldn’t find anything; the cleaner or Irina kept hiding things. She did however realize it was unlikely that the universe was playing all these tricks on her; it was probably a lack of oxygen in her brain. She went to the window to do the breathing exercises she had seen in a manual borrowed from the library, but kept postponing the visit to the cardiologist Cathy had recommended, still clinging to the belief that, given time, almost all ailments resolve themselves.
She would soon be eighty-two; she was old, but she refused to cross the threshold into decrepitude. She had no intention of sitting in the shade of the years staring into space, her mind on a hypothetical past. She had fallen a couple of times but suffered nothing worse than a few bruises. The time had come when she had to accept being gripped by the elbow to help her walk, but she fed the remains of her vanity on whatever scraps she could find and fought against the temptation to give in to an easy lethargy. She was horrified at the thought of having to go to the second level, where she would have no privacy and mercenary carers would assist her with her most personal needs.
“Good night, Death,” she would say before she went to sleep, in the vague hope that she wouldn’t wake up; that would be the most elegant way to go, comparable only to falling asleep forever in Ichimei’s arms after they had made love. She didn’t really believe she deserved such good luck: she had led a fortunate life, and there was no reason for her death to be the same.
She had lost her fear of death thirty years earlier, when it had arrived like a friend to carry off Nathaniel. She herself had summoned it, and handed him over without regret. She never talked about this with Seth, because he accused her of being morbid, but with Lenny it was a favorite topic: they spent long hours speculating on the possibilities of the other side, the eternity of the spirit and the harmless specters that accompany the dead. She could talk to Irina about everything, because she was a good listener, but at her age she still had the illusion of immortality and could not fully identify with the feelings of those whose race was almost run. Irina could not imagine the courage it took to grow old without becoming too frightened; her knowledge of age was theoretical.
Everything published about the third age was theoretical as well, those know-it-all tomes and self-help manuals in the library, written by people who were not themselves old. Even the two women psychologists at Lark House were young. What did they know, however many diplomas they had, of all that is lost? Faculties, energy, independence, places, people. Although if truth be told, Alma did not miss anyone except Nathaniel. She saw enough of her family and was glad they did not often come to visit her. Her daughter-in-law thought Lark House was a depository for decrepit communists and potheads. Alma preferred to speak to her family on the phone, to see them on the easier ground of Sea Cliff or on the outings they planned for her. She couldn’t complain, since her small family, consisting only of Larry, Doris, Pauline, and Seth, had never failed her. Unlike many of those around her at Lark House, she could not consider herself abandoned in her old age.
She could not postpone any longer her decision to close the painting studio, which she had only kept going for Kirsten’s sake. She explained to Seth that her assistant had some learning difficulties but had worked with her for many years—this was the only job that Kirsten had ever known, and she had always carried out her tasks scrupulously.
Kirsten had her legal allowances, a pension, and her savings; Alma had opened an account for her into which she had deposited funds every year in case of an emergency, but none had arisen, and the money had been invested well. Seth came to an agreement with Kirsten’s brother to secure her economic future, and with Hans Voigt to take her on as Catherine Hope’s assistant at the pain clinic. The director’s doubts about employing someone with Down syndrome evaporated as soon as he was told he wouldn’t have to pay her a cent; Kirsten would be supported at Lark House by the Belasco family.
GARDENIAS
On the second Monday without gardenias, Seth turned up with three of them in a box. They were in memory of Neko, he said. The cat’s recent death added to the weary ache of Alma’s bones, and the overpowering scent of the flowers did little to relieve her. Seth put them in water, made some tea for them both, and then settled down on the sofa with his grandmother.
“What happened to Ichimei Fukuda’s flowers, Grandma?” he asked casually.
“What do you know about Ichimei, Seth?” Alma replied in alarm.
“Quite a lot. I suppose that friend of yours is behind the letters and gardenias you receive, as well as your little adventures. You can do as you wish, of course, but I don’t think that at your age you should be going around alone or in bad company.”
“You’ve been spying on me! How dare you poke your nose into my life!”
“I’m worried about you, Grandma. I must have grown to like you, however grouchy you are. You’ve got nothing to hide, you can trust me and Irina. We’re your accomplices in whatever crazy things you may get up to.”
“It’s not crazy!”
“Of course not. I’m sorry. I know he’s the love of your life. Irina happened to overhear a conversation between you and Lenny Beal.”
By this time Alma and the rest of the Belasco clan knew Irina was living in Seth’s apartment, if not permanently, then at least several days a week. Doris and Larry made no comment, in the hope that this pathetic immigrant from Moldova was nothing more than a passing fancy on their son’s behalf. They received Irina with icy courtesy, and as a result she stopped going to the Sunday lunches at Sea Cliff that Alma and Seth had insisted on dragging her to. Pauline on the other hand, who had been against every single one of Seth’s athletic girlfriends, told her brother, “Congratulations, she’s refreshing, and she’s got more backbone than you. She’ll straighten you out.”
She had welcomed Irina with open arms.
Seth continued pressing Alma.
“Why don’t you tell me the whole story, Grandma? I’m not cut out to be a detective or a spy.”
Alma’s trembling hands risked spilling the tea, so her grandson took the cup from her and put it on the table. Her initial anger had subsided and given way to an immense weariness, a deep-seated desire to make a clean breast of everything, to confess all her mistakes to her grandson, to tell him she felt she was growing moldy inside, dying bit by bit, which was fine because she was so tired and would die happy and in love—what more could she wish for now that she was in her eighties and had lived a full life, had loved, and had always choked back her tears?
“Call Irina. I don’t want to have to repeat myself,” she told Seth.
* * *
Irina received the text message on her cell phone while she was in Hans Voigt’s office with Catherine Hope, Lupita Farias, and the heads of health aides and nursing. They were discussing the right to elective death, a euphemism that had replaced the term suicide, which the director had prohibited. A fateful package from Thailand had been intercepted at reception, and it now lay on Voigt’s desk as evidence. It was addressed to Helen Dempsey, a third-level resident without family, aged eighty-nine, who had cancer that had spread and could not bring herself to undergo another bout of chemotherapy. According to the instructions, the contents were to be taken with alcohol, and the end would arrive peacefully in the person’s sleep.
“They must be barbiturates,” said Cathy.
“Or rat poison,” added Lupita.
The director wanted to know how on earth Helen Dempsey had ordered this without anybody’s finding out. The staff were supposed to be on the lookout, since it wouldn’t do for word to get around that people committed suicide at Lark House; it would be disastrous for its reputation. In the case of suspicious deaths such as Jacques Devine’s they were careful not to carry out too thorough an investigation; it was better not to know the details. The staff blamed the ghosts of Emily and her son: they took the most desperate clients away with them, because whenever someone died, from natural or illegal causes, the Haitian aide Jean Daniel swore he saw the young woman in her pink veils and her unfortunate son. The sight made his hair stand on end. He had asked them to hire a compatriot of his, a woman who was a hairdresser out of necessity but by vocation a voodoo priestess, so that she could dispatch them to the kingdom of the other world, but Hans Voigt’s budget did not stretch to that kind of thing; he had to juggle enough as it was to keep the community afloat.
The topic was particularly difficult for Irina, who was still upset because a few days earlier she had held Neko in her arms while he was given a merciful injection that put an end to the ailments of old age. Alma and Seth had not been with the cat for the event, the former because she was too sad, the latter out of cowardice. They left Irina on her own in the apartment to receive the vet. This was not Dr. Kallet, who at the last moment had a family problem, but a nearsighted and nervous young woman with the air of a recent graduate. However, she turned out to be competent and sympathetic; the cat passed away purring, unaware of what was happening. Seth was meant to take the body to the animal crematorium, but for the moment Neko was in a plastic bag in Alma’s freezer. Lupita knew a Mexican taxidermist who could leave him looking alive, stuffed with burlap and adorned with glass eyes, or who could clean and polish his skull and mount it on a small pedestal for use as an ornament. She suggested to Irina and Seth that they give Alma this surprise, but they thought the gesture might not be appreciated.
“At Lark House we have to discourage any attempt at elective death, is that clear?” Hans Voigt stressed for the third or fourth time, glaring at Catherine Hope in particular, because it was to her that the most vulnerable patients, the ones in chronic pain, turned. He suspected quite rightly that these women knew more than they were prepared to tell him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Voigt, it’s an emergency,” Irina interrupted him when she saw Seth’s message on her phone.
That gave all five of them the chance to escape, leaving the director in midsentence.
She found Alma sitting with her shawl across her legs on her bed, where her grandson had installed her after seeing her trembling so badly. Pale and wearing no lipstick, she looked like a shrunken old woman.
“Open the window. This thin Bolivian air is killing me,” she pleaded. Irina explained to Seth that his grandmother wasn’t delirious, but was referring to the feeling of breathlessness, the buzzing in the ears and weakness in the body that was similar to the altitude sickness she had experienced many years earlier in La Paz at some thirteen thousand feet above sea level. Seth suspected the symptoms were not due to any Bolivian air but to the cat in the freezer.
Alma began by making the two of them promise they would keep her secrets until after her death and repeating what she had already told them, because she decided it was better to weave the tapestry of her life from the very beginning. She recalled saying farewell to her parents on the quayside at Danzig, her arrival at San Francisco and how she had clutched Nathaniel’s hand, intuiting perhaps that she would never let it go; she went on to tell them about the precise moment she met Ichimei Fukuda, the most persistent of all the images stored in her memory, and then advanced along the path of her past with such clarity that it was as though she we
re reading aloud. Seth’s worries about his grandmother’s mental state evaporated. Over the previous three years when he had wormed material out of her for his novel, Alma had demonstrated her great skill as a narrator, her sense of rhythm and ability to keep up suspense, her way of contrasting luminous events with the most tragic ones, light and shade as in Nathaniel’s photographs, but it wasn’t until that afternoon that he had the chance to admire her in such a marathon of sustained effort. With a few pauses for tea and to nibble at some cookies, Alma talked for hours. Night fell without any of them realizing, as Seth’s grandmother told them all about her life and they listened attentively. She told them about how she met Ichimei again at the age of twenty-two after twelve years without seeing him, and how the dormant love they had felt in childhood now knocked them both out with irresistible force, even though they knew it was doomed and it did in fact last less than a year.
Passion is universal and eternal throughout the centuries, she said, but circumstances and customs are constantly changing; sixty years on, it was hard to understand the insurmountable obstacles they had to face back then. If she could be young again, knowing what she now knew about herself, she would do what she did all over again, because she would never have dared reject convention and commit herself fully to Ichimei; she had never been courageous and had basically abided by the norms. Her only act of rebellion had been when she was seventy-eight and had abandoned the house at Sea Cliff to come and live at Lark House. At the age of twenty-two, suspecting their time was limited, Ichimei and she had gorged on love to enjoy it to the full, but the more they tried to exhaust it, the wilder their desire became, and whoever says that every flame must sooner or later be extinguished is wrong, because there are passions that blaze on until destiny destroys them with a swipe of its paw, and even then hot embers remain that need only a breath of oxygen to be rekindled. She told them about Tijuana and her marriage to Nathaniel, and of how it was to be another seven years before she saw Ichimei once more, at her father-in-law’s funeral, years she spent thinking of him tranquilly since she never expected to meet him again, and another seven years before they could finally consummate the love they still felt for one another.
The Japanese Lover Page 22