Eden's Eyes

by Sean Costello

  Danny saw Karen's father sitting next to the surgeon, all weepy-eyed and grinning, and felt an odd thrill when the old man got up to the podium to babble his thanks.

  Then it was over.

  A cold feeling swept through Danny as the anchorman switched topics. He couldn't imagine a worse situation.

  If Karen got her sight.

  He pushed to his feet, trying to shirk the thought. The operation wouldn't work. It was never meant to work.

  Yet more than anything, he feared, that it would.

  He made his way out to the porch, where he sat like a man with a sick bowel. His eyes, hot bearings in their sockets, were closed, viewing a screen with Karen at its midpoint, approaching him slowly across an autumn meadow. . .but brown-eyed, and walking blind.

  He watched until tears rained her image out, and the nausea creeping through him forced him to lift his head, open his eyes, and breathe.

  Then he dropped his head again, and saw her. . .

  But now she was running away.

  Chapter 5

  April 6

  Darkness.

  And Karen's first sinking thought was that the surgery had failed.

  But then her hands came up to her face and she felt the snug-fitting eye pads that were taped there.

  The bandages. . . of course. They had told her it would be at least three weeks before the bandages came off. She lay still a moment longer, listening to the droning clockwork of the hospital around her.

  Then, "Dad?"

  No answer.

  "Hello? Anybody?"

  Nothing.

  Moving slowly, testing her limits, Karen groped the edges of the bed in search of the call button. She found only bedsides. She cleared her throat, meaning to call out more loudly this time. . . but when she did, pain seared like heat-whitened pokers through her eyes.

  His eyes.

  The thought chopped through the pain and made it unimportant.

  Not yours.

  It was true. She was lying in a bed in a big city hospital and she had someone else's eyes in her sockets.

  Knowing she shouldn't, Karen moved them beneath their dressings, ever so slightly, biting her lip against the pain the act caused her.

  His eyes.

  Had she considered this before? she asked herself now.

  Really, seriously thought about it? Sifted it through the grid of her own moral makeup?

  No, she realized with a sobering jolt. She hadn't. The prospect of seeing after a lifetime of darkness had eclipsed this fundamental truth. Even in her pre-op discussions with the doctors the donor's eyes had always been referred to as "grafts."

  But they were not grafts. They were a dead man's eyes.

  She decided not to think about it. Sure it felt strange, having parts of another human being inside of you. . . like some twisted form of intimacy. But it was a wonderful gift, too, and she tried to focus on that. Were this sort of thing not possible, then death would endure as the pointless end to life it had always been. Death would, as always, be the hands-down winner.

  But her mind kept drifting back to the man whose eyes she now bore, and, God willing, whose sight she would soon enjoy.

  Who had he been? She had asked Dr. Burkowitz prior to the surgery, but his answer had served only to fuel her curiosity. The parents wish to remain anonymous, he had told her. And there was nothing she could do about that. Still the question burned. Who was he? What he had seen through these eyes, his private peepholes onto the world? What sort of man?

  "Karen?"

  Gingerly, Karen turned her head to the sound. "Dad?"

  "Oh, honey, you're awake!"

  His rough, farmer's hand touched her face.

  "Yeah," she said, taking his hand in her own. "Still groggy, though. Is Uncle Ike with you?"

  "Nope. He wanted to come by, but I made him stay home." Albert was rooming in with his brother Ike while Karen was in the hospital. He had left a hired hand to take care of things on the farm. "He's still a tad tipsy after his hear attack. And can you believe it? He's still smokin' them damned coffin nails."

  "No one ever got a Lockhart to change," Karen said wryly. "You know that, Dad."

  "I guess I do, pumpkin. I guess I do." He leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead. He smelled of dill and, more faintly, of the farm. "How're you feelin'?"

  "Okay, I guess. Sore. . . it hurts to move or talk too loud. And it's still dark out there. But otherwise okay." She tried on a smile.

  "You're tough stuff, kid."

  Someone in crepe-soled shoes squeaked into the room. From the swish of panty hose and whiff of antiseptic soap, Karen guessed it was a nurse.

  "Time for your pain medication," came a pleasant voice.

  Vague associations formed in Karen's mind: that swishing sound, the antiseptic whiff, that voice she'd been through all this before. Several times.

  "What time is it, Dad?"

  "Ten-thirty."

  The reek of alcohol permeated the air. A wet swab touched her thigh, then rubbed in tight, cool circles.

  "Ten-thirty when?"

  "In the morning. . . Wednesday morning, the sixth."

  "Say ouch," the nurse warned.

  A needle broke Karen's skin. "Oww!" she cried too loudly and pain lanced through her eyes again. "Wednesday! You mean. . . I've been asleep for two whole days?"

  "Heavily sedated," the nurse offered. "The doctors want you quiet for the first few days, until the grafts have time to heal."

  Grafts, Karen thought. There's that word again.

  "Well I don't want any more of it," she said shortly. "I don't like. . . losing control like that. I can stay quiet on my own." Her tone was petulant, but it frightened, her that two days had slipped her by unheeded.

  "Your doctor knows what's best," the nurse replied, her voice oozing that patronizing undertone Karen knew so well—the one reserved for the disabled.

  I'm not a child, she wanted to shout, ready to take up the battle she'd been fighting all her life. I can take care of myself! But in this case, instinct told her the nurse was right and. . . her father's tightening grip on her hand told her that he thought so, too.

  "But you can discuss it with him later," the nurse added, as if sensing she'd overstepped some boundary. "Perhaps the dosage could be adjusted downward a little."

  "Thanks," Karen said, really meaning it. "I'll do that."

  With a smile, the nurse turned and squeak-swished out of the room.

  "Nope," Albert remarked with a chuckle. There's no changin' a Lockhart." He patted her head affectionately. "Hey! Did you know you're a star?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your name's everywhere, hon. . . in the papers, on the TV and the radio. And they tell me it'll be in the magazines, too: Time, Newsweek, MacLean's, important ones like that" He patted the top of her head again, something he hadn't done since she was a kid. "You're big news. 'The First Whole-Eye Transplant in North America!' They held a press conference downstairs here just yesterday, after your doctor came out of surgery. Why, I was on the tube myself, answering questions. And my picture was on the front page of the Citizen. I'm gonna start keeping a scrapbook."

  "Sounds like you're the star," Karen quipped, and she could almost feel the heat of her father's blushing.

  He shifted. "I thieved your uncle's radio-alarm." He took her hand and placed it on the bedside table, then atop the compact radio. "It's a Sony, same as yours up home." He clicked it on. "Maybe we can catch somethin' on the eleven o'clock news."

  There was the tag end of a weather report, then Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" swelled over the airwaves.

  "You planned that," Karen accused playfully, the injection beginning to work on her.

  "What?" her father said, missing the joke.

  Karen reached out, found the radio and turned it down. "Never mind," she said. Then something dawned. "Oh, my, I'll have to call Jack Dent and let him know I'm in hospital!" Dent was her literary agent. "He'll be up a t
ree. . . another delay with the manuscript."

  "Already done," Albert said. "I called and told him yesterday. He sounded very excited for you. . . about the surgery, I mean."

  "Yeah, I bet. He's probably worried that once I can see, my books won't sell anymore."

  Karen had begun writing at the age of nine, first by dictating her thoughts to her mother, and later, after her mother died, by hammering away at an old Perkins brailler her father had dug up for her someplace. Her mother, a storyteller in her own right, had constantly encouraged Karen to develop her imagination, perhaps realizing that a child growing up blind in the country was more likely than not to be friendless. Every night her mother had read to her, often for hours at a time. By the age of six, Karen knew most of the fairy tales by heart. The brain children of the Brothers Grimm became her playmates. Her mother created elaborately detailed dolls of Karen's favorites, and Karen surrounded herself in these, reliving the stories and creating new ones of her own. She never dreamed any of her stuff could sell; the idea of trying hadn't even occurred to her. But then her friend Cass got some of it translated by the local chapter of the CNIB—the Canadian National Institute for the Blind—and after reading it, encouraged Karen to send it out. To Karen's delighted surprise, her stories impressed an editor at Fox paperbacks enough for him to buy three of her novels, which were marketed under the Fantasy label and aimed at a youthful audience. Her current effort would be her fourth. . . if she ever finished it. She'd packed its knobby bulk into her suitcase before leaving home. If nothing else, she could do some of the rereads while she was here. . .

  Not unpleasantly, Karen felt herself drifting off. "Who else did you call?" she asked dreamily.

  "I called your Aunt Bunnie in Toronto. She'll be up later today." He chuckled. "Cripes, I called everyone I could think of. Some I haven't spoke to in years. I called Cass's folks and they called her. I expect she'll be in touch by phone real soon. I called the lady at the CNIB office up home told her you wouldn't be teaching the kids for a while. And I called. . ."

  Soothed by her father's voice, Karen slipped into a deep, drug-induced sleep, missing her name on the radio by only minutes.

  The balance of that day was a patchwork of partially grasped perceptions and half-remembered events.

  At four o'clock that afternoon she was awakened and speared with another injection. Three hours later, although the following day she would have no recollection of it, she awoke without urging and shared a meal with her father. That night, before receiving the injection that would keep her down until early the following morning, she got a phone call from Cass.

  Karen and Cass had met the same year Karen's mother had died. At the time, Cass had been doing some volunteer work for the CNIB. She and Karen had clicked almost instantly, and despite their age difference became fast and true friends. Cass would be forty on her next birthday, which was less than two months away. To Karen's lasting regret, Cass had run off to Grand Prairie, Alberta, a year ago with a fellow she'd met in Ottawa. She'd fallen hard for this guy, as she usually did, left a good job and a close circle of friends to follow his dream. And although Cass claimed differently, Karen had the sinking feeling he'd proved him another in a long line of losers.

  "Cass?” Karen said happily. They hadn't spoken in weeks, though Cass had known Karen was on a transplant waiting-list. "Is that you?"

  "You were expecting maybe Lady Di?" Loud music thrummed in the background—as always, fifties rock and roll. "How's my little pal? Oh, Christ, this is so exciting! Why, didn't you call me? When will you know if it's gonna work? Are you all right? Jesus, I. . . I wish I was there. . . And Karen knew that her friend was crying.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Shit, yes," Cass said. "Of course I'm okay. You're the patient, not me. I'm just happy for you, that's all."

  Karen started to ask how things were going for Cass. . . but wound up letting her fear out instead. The old molds were hard to break.

  "Don't get too excited," she said. "There's no telling whether it's going to work or—"

  "Can that shit right now," Cass cut in with mock ferocity. "It'll work. Just wait and see."

  "Will you be coming down?" Karen asked, wishing Cass were already here.

  There was a pause. In the background, The Chiffons sang "He's So Fine."

  "I. . . I'd like to," Cass stammered. "You know that. But. . . things are a little tight just now."

  "I could send you the airfare," Karen offered, realizing only as she said it that her earlier suspicions were accurate—things were not working out for Cass and her beau.

  "It's not the money so much, kid. It's just that. . . well, I can't get away right now. But I'll come see you. Real soon. You can count on it."

  Later, half asleep, Karen got a visit from Dr. Hanussen. She recognized the smooth feel of his hand on her forehead.

  "How is my pretty patient tonight?" he asked in that lulling voice.

  Karen felt her face flush; because she had never actually seen herself, compliments tended to irk her. "Like a junkie," she told him.

  "Yes," he said almost deferentially. "The day nurse has informed me. I have reduced the dosage of your sedation, but I must impress upon you the importance of rest, at least until the end of the week."

  Karen nodded sleepily. His voice was a soothing lullaby.

  "I have great hope for you, Karen. I am flying home to Germany in the morning, but I will be leaving you in the capable hands of Dr. Burkowitz, who will keep me informed of your progress by telephone. It will be three weeks at least before the grafts are tried. . . before they are exposed to the light. . ."

  Too groggy to grasp all of what the doctor was saying, Karen found herself concentrating on the feet of his hand on her forehead. As he talked, he stroked her in a way that was not so much intimate as it was infinitely soothing. The hand of God, she later remembered thinking. Touched by the hand of God.

  And if it all worked out, if after three more weeks in the lightless prison of her mind she was allowed at last to witness the sky and the earth and the fragrant blossom, then surely God had touched her.

  Three weeks. . .

  Karen drifted away on the sound of the doctor's voice, uncertain if the words she was hearing came from him or from the poetic muse of her own imagination.

  "It will be painful at first," he whispered through a tunnel. "Perhaps even agonizing. For a while, you will fear the light for its ability to scorch the chambers of your mind. But gradually, shapes will appear where before there was only darkness. . ."

  Darkness.

  She dreamed of darkness. But a darkness with substance, slithering life, immovable weight. In the dream she could feel it folding in around her, smell its seamless fiber, and fear grew within her like a blighted fetus. She felt buried, buried alive and when. . . and when she awoke she was screaming.

  Screaming and clawing and fighting to get out.

  Three hundred miles northwest, in the mining town of Sudbury, Eve Crowell sat in her wheelchair before her son's open grave and prayed. It was eight o'clock and full dark. The funeral service had ended ten hours earlier. Bert, who sat waiting in the front seat of his car a hundred yards away, had tried at least a dozen times to wheel her out of there; but each time Eve had hissed at him like a rabid bat, and Bert had backed away. The sexton had finally given up and gone home. He'd left his number with Bert, who was to call him on the chapel phone as soon as Eve was ready to leave. He still had to fill in the hole.

  Bert ground another cigarette into the gravel beneath the open car door. It had been his last from the pack he'd bought just this morning. Normally a pack lasted him a week. He glanced down at the litter of butts, eerily luminescent in the hardening moonlight, and thought of grave slugs feasting. As he watched them, they seemed to move.

  He, stood up, rubbing his eyes, wishing it was over. He wondered now if he shouldn't have just left things alone. The boy's body would have died on its own eventually anyway, the doctors had told him as much. May
be that would have been better for Eve. Maybe that would have given her time to adjust.

  But now. . .

  Her ceaseless outpouring of words reached him as low, unintelligible mutters. He turned and in the moonlight saw her gesticulating madly, tugging at her hair, pounding her breast. Part of him wanted to go over there and slap her till she quit. . . but another part understood. Let her have her grief. If it had to be so. . . crazy, then so be it. Let her get it out.

  Bert sat down again. He wanted a cigarette, badly.

  He waited till midnight. By then, Eve had begun babbling about bringing the boy back, summoning his vengeful spirit. . . and suddenly Bert had had enough. He seized the handgrips on her wheelchair, rolled her over to the car, and piled her as gently as he was able into the back seat. In her rage she managed to gouge him again, this time across the back of one hand, but Bert barely noticed. Once she was in, he strode to the chapel to call up the sexton, then waited in the lot near the car, ignoring Eve as she cursed him through the rolled-down window. When the sexton arrived Bert apologized for the delay, then climbed back into the car.

  He turned in the seat and glared at his wife, his words weighted with a menacing tone Eve had never heard him use before tonight.

  "Now you listen to me, Eve Crowell. I know that you're hurting. I know that it's hard. But I'm going to start up this car and drive us home. . . and you're going to sit there and not make a sound, do you understand me?" Eve did not reply, only sat there, stunned, like a slapped child. "Because if you do, if you so much as squeak back there, I'll drive you straight to Algoma Psychiatric and have them lock you up in a padded cell. Do I make myself clear?"

  Clutching her Bible, Eve regarded her husband with wet, wounded eyes. And even as she nodded Bert felt the guilt slicing through him like a saw blade.

  No, he told himself as he cranked the ignition. Just this once I will not give in.

  They made the five-minute drive in silence.

  "Are you coming up to bed?" Bert asked once they were home. "I think you should rest."