Her front room is warm with breath and the balmy evening. Already more than an hour has passed. Nathalie’s eyes are closed. Her spine is straight against the wooden chair she pulled in from the kitchen when Alice, the Quaker woman, arrived. Inside her head, waves of warmth lap at her brow. She feels as relaxed, as well, as alert, as she does after loving sex. Joy overtakes her quietly. Breath by breath.
Past the nurse’s station. 204. 206. No one calls out.
*
‘Christina Grace Carver. Pray for her.’ Fourteen voices.
208. 210. Nearly.
In the dark of the kitchen, he presses back tears with the palms of his hands. And it surprises him: her hand, so light on his shoulder. He didn’t hear her on the stairs.
‘It’s okay, Dad.’
Maggie. Her face too white.
And Nathalie feels it. The furnace of the silent world.
212.
16
Under a blanket white as snow. A tube in her arm. Tubes up her nose. Electrodes stuck to her chest. A metal tab on one of her fingers.
‘Christina?’
In a hundred-year sleep.
He takes her hand in his. Warm. He crouches by the bed and rubs her fingers across the stubble of his face, across his cracked lips. ‘I’m here.’ He presses his lips to her palm.
When he looks up: something. Her eyes pulsing beneath their lids. He’s sure. He tries to smile. ‘It’s the bad shave, isn’t it?’
Did her eyebrows lift?
‘That’s right. Talk to me, Tina. Talk to me.’ Nothing.
He pulls up the bedside chair, reaches again for her hand; holds it next to his cheek. ‘Try. Try to push through. Because you’re going to. Because if anyone is made for this world, I swear it’s you.’
A sound low in her throat. More than air in her windpipe. He knows it is. A fragment of her voice. ‘I know you’re here, Tina. I know it. I’ve been an asshole. I know that too. And you’ve held on – you’re so stubborn, Tina Carver – you hold on when I want you to run screaming. When you should run screaming.’ In the corridor outside, the slap of shoes.
He lowers his voice. ‘But, what I’m trying to say, deep down, Tina, is I’m grateful – that you could still see me through all the shit. I am. I’m grateful.’
The strain again in her chest.
‘And I love you. Which, before you start, isn’t the same as me being grateful. I love you, right?’
Against his cheek: the slight pressure of her middle finger. As if she’s discovered the tear. ‘Me?’ He wipes his face with the back of his hand. ‘You gotta be kidding.’
He goes to the foot of the bed and untucks the blanket and sheet. He takes her foot and rubs it gently. He reaches under the covers and massages one calf, then the other.
Her eyebrows rise again, so fleeting he might have missed it.
Past her knees to her thighs. ‘Beautiful. I never really told you that either. You’re so beautiful, Tina. Your eyes, the way they flash. The way your laugh rises out of you like a . . . like a spring. The way you look at things. I mean, really look. I’ll tell you something. That first day I saw you, I thought, How the hell am I ever going to look away again?’
The sound from the bottom of her throat.
‘But all that said, I’m not going to lie to you . . . You still can’t skip a stone for shit, Tina Carver.’ He picks up her hand, runs her index finger over the sharp edges of his teeth; presses it to the hardness of his molars, like she does each time she explores him.
It’s theirs. The dumb yearning of smell, skin, tongue and bite. The refusal to feel shame. Even when he’s turned on her, when he’s tried to shit with words all over what they have, she refuses to be ashamed. For them both, she refuses.
He lowers the blanket and sheet. Is surprised for a moment by the catheter tube between her legs. He runs his hand over the cotton of her nightgown, over the smooth rise of her stomach. He can feel the springiness of her pubic hair through the cotton. Maidenhair – their word for it. After the fern.
They’d arrest him if they found him. He’s not stupid.
But after breath, water and food: touch. He knows this too.
His fingers are too big for the buttons. He’s slow with them. He can feel how sensitive she is; how every sensation is amplified, not deadened. He opens her nightgown as far as her belly button. He rubs the tip of his nose over the wide softness of her nipples. Like blossom, he always says.
Above them, electrodes, like sores on her chest. He can’t bear it. He kisses her neck, her collarbone, her breastbone. More than anything, he wants to give her back to herself.
And he has life-force for them both. Even across the forest of deep sleep.
Her nipples rise. Small stamens. He bends down and sucks, humbled all over again by the fullness in his mouth. He unbuttons his jeans. Takes her hand. Wraps her fingers around him, and his fingers gently around hers so there is only the warmth of his hand for hers, the loveliness of her fingers on him, and his need to be for her. To reach her, like a fuse of the world.
A dizzying burst.
He bends down. Presses his face to her breasts. And it’s the hardest thing: not to pick her up and get her out of there.
He slumps into the chair; lets his head tip back. Remembers. On her stomach, the rain of him. He reaches forward and rubs slowly, until it’s a translucence, until her skin shines in the dim of the room.
He rebuttons her nightgown, his fingers labouring again. At the end of the row, one missed. She’d laugh. He smoothes sheet and blanket. He touches the ends of her hair. He kisses her lips, her forehead.
Imaginary Time
1
Every detail is clear. The wild flowers in the mayonnaise jar. Their leaves blackening in the water. The remains of toast and honey on the plate on the floor. The print of Van Gogh’s swirling Starry Night coming unstuck from the wall by her bed.
‘She won’t get up.’ Maggie’s eyes are filling. ‘You tell her.’
He has returned, distracted, hot, from he can’t remember where. ‘Tell her what?’ Why is there stone dust on his trousers?
Carver wipes his face on his shirt, then goes to his daughter’s bedside. ‘Christina?’ Her face is slack, her chin fallen. Her cheek is creased with marks from the pillow. ‘Christina, get up. You’re too old for these games.’
He lays his hand on her forehead and sinks to the edge of the bed.
‘What? What is it?’
He pulls Christina to him. She’s still wearing the T-shirt and running shorts she had on the night before. He touches her cheek, neck, breast, wrist. ‘She’s cold, Maggie. And on a day like this of all days.’ As if his elder daughter is only perverse. He slaps her cheeks. He rubs her arms and legs, as if he’s pulled her from the Chicago river in January, not from a cotton sheet. He shakes her by the shoulders until her head lolls.
‘Dad, don’t. Don’t.’
Somewhere a bell starts to ring.
A doctor is at the front door. The MD from emergency the other night. Carver tries to tell him to go bother people who are actually sick, but Maggie ushers him in. He’s young, resolute. He approaches Christina’s bed and, as he opens his mouth to speak, Carver sees that his tongue isn’t a tongue. It’s a brass clapper and the doctor’s mouth is the ringing bell.
He can hardly hear himself think. In the corner his second daughter stands terrified.
‘Do you want to kill her with that face, Maggie?’
There are tears of frustration in her eyes. ‘Open your eyes, Dad.’ He can just make out her words, urgent over the clanging of the bell. That’s what she’s saying. ‘Open your eyes.’
He does. To the middle of the night and the phone ringing next to his bed.
Again.
Maggie’s in the hallway. She’s running for the kitchen. He throws back the covers, pulls open the door, and shouts down the stairs before she can pick up. ‘Leave it, Maggie!’
She stops just short of the phone. ‘We’re not answ
ering.’ Behind her, pulling on a faded T-shirt.
She’s spooked, he can see she is, but her hand is on the receiver. ‘I want to know who it is.’
‘You’ll only encourage them.’
‘Them who?’
He looks at the kitchen clock. ‘Them who are crazy enough to call us at four in the morning.’
The ringing doesn’t stop. She told him. She told him, whoever he was, not to call again. ‘Hello?’
‘Maggie, give me the phone.’
‘Yes, it is.’
. . .
‘This is his daughter.’
‘Who is it? Maggie – ’
‘Just a moment, please.’ She puts her hand over the receiver. ‘Dad – ’
He grabs it. ‘Who the hell is this? Do you have any idea what – ’
. . .
‘When?’
. . .
‘Now? You mean right now?’
. . .
‘I understand. No . . . Naturally.’
‘Dad? What is it? Is she okay?’
‘Christina?’
. . .
‘Christina, it’s me. It’s Dad.’
. . .
‘Yes. Dad.’
. . .
‘You weren’t feeling well, sweetheart. We had to make sure you were okay.’
. . .
‘Sure, she’s here. She’s right here beside me.’
. . .
‘Nobody feels like themselves, ladybug. It’s the middle of the night.’
. . .
‘Of course I’m not angry with you. Why would I be angry?’
. . .
‘I was shouting?’
. . .
‘But, sweetheart, when have I ever hit you?’
. . .
‘Come again?’
. . .
‘Listen. Christina? Listen, the nurse said not to keep you talking. You need to rest now. We’ll be with you the moment you wake up.’
. . .
‘No, you’re talking fine. You’re just overtired. It’s not even morning.’
. . .
‘Don’t cry. Christina? Can you hear me? Don’t cry. We’re coming. We’re almost out the door.’
. . .
‘Dreams. That’s all, honey pie. Just dreams.’
2
When she wakes, no one.
The door opens. A hand pulls back the curtain at her bed. The lay sister places a shallow bowl of water on the table by her bed. She folds back the embroidered coverlet and removes the sheepskin rug. She lifts Christina’s limbs, one by one, and examines her as she washes. Her eyes, Christina thinks, are like holes in the ice on the river in November.
She checks, as instructed, for marks, bruises and emissions. The girl is accustomed. She sits up without prompting. The nun unlaces her shift and scrubs: back, breasts, stomach. Odour is the source of disease. She observes how her charge stares through the window, as if mesmerized by glass.
In the distance, the green edge of woodland.
She rubs Christina dry and raises her shift. She pulls at her hair with an ivory comb.
The bishop is clear. There are to be no exchanges. The girl will understand she is to will understand she is to converse with no one but her confessor.
La Merveilleuse, they’re calling her. The Astonishing.
She is ordinary enough.
And the bishop, she decides, is kind. With few airs, given his station.
His father, they say, was a cabbage farmer in Picardy.
Maggie is afraid she will no longer know her sister.
The night nurse has already warned them about the changes Christina might experience. Fatigue. Depression. Impulsiveness. Hallucinations. Memory loss. Muscle spasms. Twitches.
Aphasia. Dyspraxia. Attention deficit. Changes in sexual behaviour. Frustration. Self-absorption. Aggression.
She said nothing about this.
Maggie is seated on the edge of her sister’s bed. Her father hovers at the threshold. ‘It’s early days,’ the day nurse whispers.
‘She won’t speak to us. She says she doesn’t know who we are.’ As if to say, Are you stupid? Can’t you see how things stand? Nervousness, Maggie remembers, makes her father sound arrogant.
Christina is resolute in an armchair by the window. ‘Do you think I can’t hear you?’
‘Bear with us, Christina. I’m doing my best. Maggie’s doing her best.’
(She knew. She saw the light of her sister go out.)
Christina frowns, impatient. ‘Stop calling her that.’
‘Stop calling her what, sweetheart?’
‘Maggie.’
‘What else would I call her?’
Maggie is afraid to intervene. She watches Christina scratch at her arm.
‘There’s moisturizer in the drawer, honey,’ murmurs the nurse.
But she doesn’t hear. She is staring at her father. ‘You’re doing it again.’
‘Doing what again, ladybug?’
She rubs her forehead. There are dark shadows under her eyes, as if the deep sleep of three days has not been peace enough. ‘Lying. You’re lying again.’ She turns to the nurse. ‘These . . . people aren’t who they say they are. They’re not my . . . family.’
‘Christina, you know – ’ he starts.
‘Don’t let them’ – she looks at the floor, concentrating – ‘discharge me. I won’t go with them.’
Carver walks to the window and crouches near her chair. ‘Christina, you asked us to come. Remember? On the phone. Early this morning.’
Her eyes flash. ‘How do you know about that call?’
‘It was me, ladybug. The nurse at the desk wheeled the phone into your room, remember? You spoke to me.’
She turns to the nurse. ‘Someone’s told him. I called my father last night. He’s on his way. And my sister.’
‘I’m here. Now. It’s Maggie and me. Right, Maggiekins?’
Maggie slides off the bed. She takes a step forward, then stops. Her sister’s eyes are wide, like they used to be when the basement door shut on her by accident. And her face is reddening.
‘Why are you doing this to me? I’ve been sick. I’m in the hospital. Can’t you see that?’
Maggie is afraid of her sister. From where she stands she can see her pupils are different sizes, as if one is frozen.
The nurse motions to them. ‘You should go now. She needs to rest, and Dr Bishop would like to speak to you.’
Christina touches the nurse’s arm, whispering. ‘Don’t give them my . . . details. Please.’
‘Christina, look.’ Carver pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. ‘Look.’ He takes out a faded snap: her mother in front of a cathedral in France.
She takes it in her hands. ‘How did you get this?’
‘I took it, sweetheart.’
‘From who?’
‘I took the picture, when your mom and I were in France. Before you were born. You know that.’
‘Stop it!’
‘Christina . . .’
Tears slide down her face. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Maggie picks up her bag and runs from the room. This is not her sister.
Carver gets hold of Christina’s hand. ‘Maggie’s just upset,’ he says, grasping at meaning. ‘She’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.’
She pulls her hand away. Her face is hot. ‘How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know you!’
‘Christina, please.’
Her nose starts to run. ‘What do you want?’
He passes her a tissue from the box. ‘We want you back home.’
‘You’re crazy.’ She turns to the nurse. ‘He’s crazy – ’
‘Mr Carver . . .’
He pulls up a chair across from hers. ‘What does your father look like, Christina? Tell me.’
‘That’s . . . none of your business.’
‘Like me? Does he look like me?’
‘I said, it’s none of your business.’
> ‘And your sister. Is she anything like the girl who was just here?’
She appeals to the nurse. ‘Please. Call . . . security. Something is very . . . bad. Wrong.’ She gets up. Stumbles.
The nurse catches her elbow before she falls. ‘Remember what the nurse said last night? Take it slow.’
‘Where’s the . . .’ She lurches into the clinical wastebin.
‘The what, sweetie?’
‘The . . .’
‘Slow.’
‘. . . the panic buckle?’
‘Mr Carver, will you please go now? Or I really will have to call someone.’
‘I told you. He isn’t Mr Carver. Why won’t anyone listen to me?’
‘Christina,’ he tries, ‘please.’
‘Just . . . just buck off!’
He stands. Goes to the door. ‘You’re going to be fine, lady-bug.’ He can feel something hard swelling in his chest. ‘Just fine.’
‘I don’t . . .’ She steadies herself against the bed and stares. ‘I don’t . . . get people like you.’
Dr Bishop, Christina’s neurologist, smiles at Maggie and turns over papers in a file. They’re waiting for two of ‘the team’ who have been delayed in another meeting. Maggie stares at the picture above Dr Bishop’s desk. It’s big. In a gold-burnished frame. The Creation of Adam. 1508–1512. Michelangelo.
Her father broods in a leather easy chair to her right. On the side wall, behind him, are charts with coloured diagrams: cross sections of brain tissue that loom like overgrown pieces of cauliflower.
Dr Bishop feels sorry for her, she can tell. He can probably see she’s been crying. ‘Seen that one before, Maggie?’ He nods to the picture.
‘We did it in art history.’
‘Like it?’
‘Sure.’ She smiles briefly.
‘I bought it years ago. A trip to Florence. It’s a reproduction, obviously, but not a bad one.’
Maggie nods, twisting the rings on her fingers. ‘It’s nice.’
‘The thing is, after getting it back to Chicago, I realized why it had struck me. Well, I didn’t realize. I read an article by an MD called Meshberger. He realized.’
‘Oh.’ She wishes her father would speak.
‘You see, he realized that Michelangelo’s God is the human brain.’ He smiles. At his desk. He’s shy as well. ‘Forget Adam. He looks like a bit of a slacker, if truth be told.’ He pushes back his chair, gets to his feet. He’s gangly for a middle-aged man. ‘Look at God. See that cloak? See its shape?’
The Wave Theory of Angels Page 17
