Elena

by Thomas H. Cook

  “No,” David said softly.

  “Because he never believed that any question could be small.”

  David left an hour later. When I walked him outside, he begged me to seek emergency treatment for her.

  “She decided against that a long time ago, David,” I told him.

  “But surely something, some experimental drug, something like that …”he said desperately.

  “Elena is going to die,” I told him. “Perhaps within only a week or so.”

  “But there must be something we can do.”

  “Yes, there is. And you are doing what is expected of you. And I am doing what is expected of me.”

  “But, surely there is …”

  I put my hand gently to the side of his face. “David,” I said, “go home.”

  Elena was strangely invigorated when I walked back into her room. She was sitting up straight in her chair and her eyes were bright, almost cheerful.

  “I’ve written a few more lines of that poem in my head,” she said. “I’d like for you to take them down, if you have a minute.”

  I sat down in the chair opposite her and took up a small notebook. “All right, go ahead.”

  Elena did not speak. I could tell she was going over the lines again, that she was not satisfied with them. “No,” she said finally. “No, I don’t like them. Forget it, William. Another time.”

  With one exception, Elena continued to work at her poem, however weakly, every day from then on. The one exception was the day Jack MacNeill died at his home in Connecticut.

  I learned of it early on a rainy morning. Barney Nesbitt called from New York. Elena was still asleep. By then she was so weak that she could no longer feed herself, and I remember thinking as I sat in the front room after Barney’s call that this news would surely kill her.

  For several hours after she woke up, I kept it from her. I fed her breakfast, then set her up in her chair, as I did each day. She was in fairly good spirits and even commented upon a group of gulls that was swooping up and down along the bay. I busied myself with the morning chores, hoping to conceal my own distress, but something in my manner alerted her. I could feel her eyes studying me as I came in and out of the room.

  “What is it, William?” she finally asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m not strong enough to repeat a question endlessly. Now please, what is it?”

  I sat down and folded my hands in my lap. “Jack died last night.”

  Her eyes glistened and she lowered her head slowly so that two long strands of white hair fell forward across her shoulders.

  “I’m so sorry to tell you this, Elena,” I said.

  She remained with her head bowed for a moment, then slowly looked up.

  “Wipe my eyes, please,” she said.

  I took out my handkerchief and did as she asked. She seemed composed by the time I had finished, but her lower lip trembled slightly.

  “Give me the details,” she said in a very low voice.

  “Barney called this morning, while you were sleeping. Apparently Jack died in his bed, during the night. It was a stroke or heart attack, I suppose.”

  She glanced away from me, out the large window. A sailboat was gliding across the bay. Her eyes followed it. “I’d like to write something about Jack,” she said, “but it’s too late.”

  We talked on about him for a few minutes, then Elena asked me to open some wine. I poured each of us a glass, then lifted Elena’s to her lips so that together we could toast our old friend.

  “I’d like a bath now, if you don’t mind, William,” Elena said when we had finished.

  “Not at all,” I told her.

  She was very light, no more than a bouquet of flowers in my arms. She seemed almost to dissolve into the water.

  “Not too warm, I hope?” I asked as I lowered her into her bath.

  “No, not too warm, thank you.”

  When it was done, I wrapped her up once again in her large blue robe and returned her to her chair. She seemed almost to shrink before my eyes.

  “Would you like something to eat, Elena?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes,” she said, but then she shivered. “I am a little cold.”

  I brought a large blanket from the bedroom and wrapped her in it very snugly.

  “Better now?” I asked.

  “Much better,” Elena said. She offered me a smile. “Would you mind reading to me awhile?”

  I took the copy of What Maisie Knew from the table beside her chair and began to read. It was a typical Jamesian scene, so English, and in this case not at all compelling. I kept looking up over the page to see my sister, wrapped in her blanket, her eyes half-closed, and after a moment I found that I could not go on, that my voice was breaking almost with each word.

  Elena’s eyes shifted slowly toward me, but she said nothing.

  “I can’t, Elena,” I stammered, “I can’t.”

  “Then don’t, William,” she whispered.

  Suddenly I rushed forward and gathered her into my arms. I began to cry, and as I did so, I could feel something shudder in her body. I buried my face into her shoulder, still crying, though almost silently. After a moment, I felt the warmth of her breath upon the side of my face and realized that with great effort she had lifted her head far enough to press her lips into my hair.

  The sky was no more overcast than is usual on the Cape in the last days of September. The sea was neither unnaturally calm nor excessively agitated, the wind neither blustery nor subdued. Elena had been sitting in her chair all morning, dressed in her blue robe, her long white hair flowing over her shoulders. She watched the sea, following any movement, a boat or a gull. She had spoken only a few words the entire morning.

  Toward noon I carried in a tray with tea and toast, which was about all Elena was able to eat.

  “Some refreshment?” I said lightly.

  Elena glanced at the tray, then up at me, her eyes barely open, languid, “It will not be long now, will it?” she asked.

  “No, Elena, I don’t think it will be long.”

  She turned back toward the window, “I feel cold.”

  “Would you like a warm drink? Another blanket?”

  She smiled softly and closed her eyes.

  “You might even like a warm bath,” I said.

  She said nothing. Her eyes remained closed. I could hear a low murmur in her breath, almost a purr.

  “Should I read to you?”

  Elena’s eyelids fluttered, but she said nothing.

  I placed the tray on the table beside her chair and knelt down beside her. “Elena?”

  She did not answer. Her face was quiet, calm. She seemed but the residue of an elemental force.

  “Elena?”

  Nothing.

  “Elena?” I repeated. I could hear the edge of panic in my voice. “Elena?”

  Her eyes opened very slowly. “Still here,” she said very weakly, then she closed them once again.

  “Is there anything you want?” I asked desperately. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She did not answer, nor did her eyes flutter in response. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Her breathing continued rhythmically. I listened to it for a while, waiting for it to stop. After a time I walked back into the front room and sat down. I could see her sitting in her chair, her hair like a silver fan across her shoulders.

  For the next two hours, I made myself busy about the house. I washed things that did not need washing, swept corners already neatly swept. I did not want to go back in that room, fearing the worst, but I did so every few minutes.

  She was breathing quite well at three o’clock. The clouds had cleared an hour before, and a slant of sunlight cut across the western corner of the room. It seemed like an impertinence.

  I pulled up a small chair and sat down beside her. Then I reached over and took her hand.

  “Elena?”
/>   She did not answer. I did not bother to call her name again. She was breathing steadily, but in quick, shallow breaths. I leaned back in my chair, folded my hands in my lap, and waited. A few minutes later, I heard her take in a very deep breath, then the fingers of her hand unfolded and stretched out, as if in search of some final truth. She held her breath a moment, then released it with a sudden rush. She did not draw another.

  I sat beside her, studying her face. I thought of various ways that I might describe it in a memoir or to the press. Exalted phrases came to mind, but I remembered that, toward the end, Elena had tried as much as possible to leave mere rhetoric behind.

  I lifted her from the chair and brought her over to the day bed. I laid her down on her back, placed her arms at her sides, spread her hair over her pillow, and closed the robe around her throat.

  There was still enough light for me to take a short stroll on the beach, so I walked down the stairs and turned right, heading slowly toward the jetty. It was very calm, and I was able to walk out onto the rocks. The water lapped softly at the stones beneath my feet.

  At the end of the jetty, the water swirled in a white froth, moving in and out of the crevices like breath. I looked back toward the house, and from that distance I could see her chair sitting by the window, empty now. It seemed very small, and suddenly I remembered that first morning so long ago when they had brought her home, wrapped in a pink blanket, a child no larger than a rolled-up newspaper. I remembered how my father had lifted me into his arms so that I could look down at my sister. They are strange, our first impressions, but they are not as powerful as the last. And in the time that is left to me, I shall continually recall how very large she was.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1986 by Thomas H. Cook

  cover design by Jason Gabbert

  This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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  New York, NY 10014

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  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  EARLY WORKS

  NEW ENGLAND MAID

  CALLIOPE

  INWARDNESS

  THE QUALITY OF THOUGHT IN AMERICAN LETTERS

  TO DEFINE A WORD

  Copyright Page