The Prisoner's Wife

by Gerard Macdonald

  That man—the prisoner—saw some person who was not, in truth, within the room; a being who was, perhaps, dead. Shawn never discovered who it was, or what it was, that the man saw. Until the day of his death, under extreme interrogation, the suspect refused to confess, or even speak. For all the interrogators knew, he might have been deaf, mute, or simply stubborn. It was hard to tell.

  Without turning, Danielle said, “We’re sleeping in the same room?”

  Shawn unpacked a black leather bag, which was all he carried these days, going abroad. “We’re doing a lot of traveling, looking for your husband.”

  She turned from the window then. “Tell me. You think that’s a waste of money?”

  “If I thought it was a waste of money, I wouldn’t do it.”

  Ayub Abbasi’s money had settled some of his debts. Not, by any means, all.

  “What I know,” Shawn said, “these days, I don’t have a paycheck. I may never work. There’s a limit, what I can afford.”

  He wanted to share this room. No reason she should know that.

  “I have money.”

  “Okay,” Shawn said, “okay, rich girl. You have money. Go buy yourself another room. What do you think I’m going to do in here? Rape you?”

  She knelt down then, trying to make the air conditioner work. A slow-moving ceiling fan stirred the room’s torpid air without cooling it. She pulled off a sweater, making her shirt ride up. Her tan was fading. She rolled her sleeves. As a child, she’d loved this warmth.

  “It’s happened before.”

  It took him moments to work out what she meant.

  “Rape?”

  “Rape.”

  “Come on,” he said. “That was some asshole from Atlanta. I’m a sweet old guy from Alabama. I don’t do that stuff.”

  Somewhere in this town, Shawn had found a half pint of good whisky. He checked the time. He filled a tooth glass he’d taken from the bathroom.

  “I don’t know what you do with women.” Danielle pushed windows wider. “I’m curious.”

  “Ask me,” he said. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  She laughed and then was quiet, fanning herself with a travel magazine. She could feel her temperature rising. Across the room, he folded clothes, squaring them up, retying the laces, stacking them in the only closet.

  He was neat, she noticed. More than neat. Military, maybe.

  “All right,” she said. “We have time. Tell me how it started. First sex. First time in love.”

  “Why would you want to know?” He thought for some moments, deciding what to say; deciding how honest to be. “Okay. First sex—a kid called Ann-Mistique, if you believe that. Ann-Mistique Proffitt. She was fifteen.”

  “Even in Alabama,” Danielle said, “must have been—”

  “Under age? Sure. Long story. Sheriff involved.” He thought awhile. “Then there was Venetia. Actress. After that, I married a stoner called Lala. I know. I know. Both mistakes. I thought, hell, that’s it. I’m through with marriage.”

  “What happened?”

  “Meeting Martha, meeting her again, that’s what happened.”

  “The one who died?”

  “Uh-huh.” He looked across the room. “Are you okay?”

  “Mmm. Not sure. I’m hot. Tell me about Martha.”

  “Jesus,” he said, thinking back, “where to start? She was smarter than me. I didn’t know girls could be that smart. First date was after church. Church of Christ Betrayed, in Turkey Forge. Back then I used to dream about her—teen dreams. I’d buy her a ring, we’d marry, find a house, have kids, settle down.”

  “You were how old?”

  “Don’t mock. I was nineteen. It’s what people did, those days. Least, they did where I come from. Get married in church, buy a tract house, few hundred dollars down. Beds from the bed store. Move in, have kids. That’s your life.”

  She was sitting now, knees up under her chin. It took him back to the day he’d met her, in a Paris apartment.

  “But,” she said.

  “Yeah. But. Martha wasn’t singing from the same sheet. Leaves Alabama—lights out for L.A. Broke my heart. She wrote a script, thought she could make a movie.”

  Danielle put a hand over her mouth.

  “Laugh,” he said. “Sure. We all did. Then it happened. Someone, some guy in that crazy business, he picked up her script. Blind luck.”

  “Maybe it was a good script.”

  “You still need luck.”

  “The movie was made?”

  “It was. We all—me and my buddies—whole big gang—we all hit the theater. This is Turkey Forge. There it was, up on-screen: ‘Script by Martha Semel.’ I thought, damn, this isn’t right. She’s supposed to be back here, marrying me, having kids, not making movies in Hollywood.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe would have made me straighten up and fly right.”

  Danielle was lying back now, listening, her face shiny with sweat. “She never came back?”

  Shawn shook his head. “You’re in Hollywood, why would you?” He stopped talking, watching her, then leaned across and touched her forehead.

  “You sure you’re okay? You’re hot.”

  She said, “I’m catching something. I felt it on the plane. Not serious.” She watched him, her eyes a deeper green in this light. ’You were telling me—what came next?”

  “What came next? I told you—fell out with my daddy. Started drinking straights. Bad habit, so I found. Drove up to D.C., signed with the marines. That’s when I married Lala. Great ass, meanest temper.”

  “Ohh,” she said, “of course, not you? You were never wrong?”

  “Don’t start,” he said. “You sound like her.” Then he said, “No, take it back. Wasn’t Lala so much, it was me. We couldn’t ever agree what to do with Juanita.”

  “Juanita was your daughter?”

  “Still is,” Shawn said. “Except I never see her.”

  * * *

  Thinking back, it’s easy to see what went astray. Juanita was Shawn’s darling. He raised her like a boy: taught her to hunt deer and dive for fish. Then other things took over his life: money, women, work, whisky. One day, around her fourteenth birthday, Juanita stopped speaking. She continued with her daily routine as if nothing had happened. Shower, dress, cornflakes, fruit, milk, take books, pack bag, walk to school down the block. She just didn’t talk. As far as Shawn could make out, Juanita did her schoolwork, neatly, precisely, without speaking to anyone. Lala said to leave her be: Kid’ll grow out of it, she said. Whatever it was. Shawn couldn’t do that. The longer Juanita kept silent, the more he felt he’d failed. He cracked jokes, played tricks, drew cartoons, bought gifts Juanita didn’t want. He blamed Lala for what was happening. Lala fought back, refusing blame. She fought in other ways, refusing sex. Shawn felt bad about his wife, worse about his daughter.

  He would have done anything for Juanita. In the end, there was nothing he could do.

  “Except,” Shawn said, “it got worse. I split up with Lala.”

  “What happened with Juanita?

  “She blamed us both. Me more.” While Shawn spoke he was considering Danielle. Her eyes were unnaturally bright now: She glowed with inner heat. “You are catching something. Running a temperature. Get in bed.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I think that’s right.”

  She headed for the bathroom. He took a swallow of whisky and went back to unpacking.

  “So,” he said, raising his voice, “that was the first time I fell in love. That was the wife I missed back then. Martha. Took me twenty-some years to put it right. Find her, marry her. You wonder, don’t you, how something like that might have changed your life. If you’d gotten the timing right.”

  Shawn freed his Makarov from its wrapping. Even for those with security-stamped passports, it was getting harder to move firearms through airports, even one as haphazard as Heathrow. He loaded a fresh clip of shells. It was quite some time since he’d used a weapon in anger. He wondered when he’d do it
again. Whether he could still bring himself to do it.

  Danielle came from the bathroom, heading for bed. She wore a T-shirt that brushed the tops of her thighs. The shirt was one of his. It read, in bold type, DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS. In bed, she lay facedown, half covered by a sheet. When she spoke her voice was muffled. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me about Martha. Tell me what happened.”

  “She died,” he said. “I told you. That’s what happened.”

  * * *

  Facedown, like Danielle. That was how Shawn found Martha one morning in Sussex, when he came in from tending his sheep. Any other morning, she would have been in the kitchen, making coffee and toast, with the kitten beside her on the bench. Shawn was shocked to find her still in bed.

  When she heard him come into the room, Martha said, “Shawn, I don’t want you to worry, but something’s wrong. I broke a rib.”

  He stopped in the doorway, filled not with worry but with mindless dread.

  “You broke—what do you mean—you broke a rib? Did you fall?” Cautiously, he sat himself on the edge of the bed, touching her back. “Martha, what did you do?”

  Facedown, her voice was indistinct. “I bent down. I was picking up a pillow.”

  “No,” Shawn said. “No. You can’t. You can’t break ribs that way.”

  He wasn’t a believer in portents, but now, from nowhere, a cloud hung over their future.

  Martha said, “You know what? I bent down again—it happened again. I broke another rib. Shawn, I’m aching all over. Something’s wrong.”

  The kitten that slept at Martha’s feet had abandoned the bed. From a windowsill, it watched, eyes wide, fur fluffed. In the roof beams, some insect ticked like a hand-wound clock.

  Later that morning, Dr. Reuben Gibb, portly and choleric, drove out from Chichester to the rectory in Felbourne. Plagued by heartburn, the doctor was not, by choice, a house-call man. He took Martha’s temperature—which was normal—and a blood sample. Shawn had to help Martha to the bathroom so she could give the doctor a sample of urine.

  Dr. Gibb thought the pain came from back strain. Maybe, he said, a slipped disk. He forced a smile. At our age, he said, all too common. However, not serious. He prescribed Tylenol and chiropracty and recommended a back-pain man, a good fellow, in Hazlehurst.

  As he climbed into his veteran Ford, the doctor told Shawn, in confidence, that most of Martha’s pains were imaginary. This was true, he said, of many women: illness imagined—hypochondria, stress, sexual dissatisfaction, menopause. Female problems. Say no more. It may be, whispered Dr. Gibb, gripping Shawn’s arm, it may be something in the marriage. Not going well. No reflection on you, old man. Could be the time of life.

  “You know how women are,” said Dr. Gibb through the window of his car. “In the medical trade”—with his hands he made quote marks—“these women. Worried well, we call them.”

  “It’s me that’s worried,” Shawn said. “She’s unwell.”

  By then, though, Dr. Gibb had closed his car window and was struggling with the starter.

  * * *

  From inside the house, Martha was calling her husband. She stayed in bed that weekend. She said the pain seemed to move—seemed to move from place to place, around her body. “Which makes it sound like the damn doctor was right. It’s just something I imagine.” Her breathing was shallow then: To breathe deep was painful. “I’m not imagining. Believe me, I’m not.”

  Shawn, with the sadness of the condemned, said, “I never thought you were. Not for a heartbeat. It’s not a thing you do.”

  He brought drinks—water, juice, vitamin mix—and made meals; didn’t know what else to do. With the little cat, he went outside to pick lettuce and asparagus. He hulled broad beans for salads. He needed to stay active, needed to stop thinking about what might lie ahead.

  Late on a Saturday afternoon, when he came back from tending his doves, Shawn found a beautiful dark-haired woman—in her late thirties, he guessed—standing on his stoop, breathing in the scent of the jasmine that grew around the door frame.

  She held out a hand. “Mr. Maguire? I’m Dr. Haber. Susan Haber. I’m a partner in a practice with Dr. Gibb. You know? An older man. He drove out to see your wife.”

  “I do know,” Shawn said. “Thanks for coming all this way.”

  “Well,” said Susan Haber, “I fear you may not thank me. I’m not bearing good news.” She pointed to a cedarwood seat on the edge of the croquet lawn. “Shall we sit?”

  Shawn felt a chill, as if clouds covered the sun, though the sky was clear and the day still warm. He perched on the end of the garden seat, as far as possible from the doctor, as though she herself might be the bearer of illness: might carry some contagious and terminal disease.

  “We now have a report on your wife’s blood and urine samples,” Susan Haber said.

  “And?”

  “We would have to do more tests,” she said, “but immunofixation shows there is a high level of creatinine and an abnormally high level of paraprotein in the blood.”

  Dumb, he looked at her.

  “Sorry about the language. It’s causing what we call hyperviscosity syndrome. That just means her blood has thickened beyond normal viscosity.”

  He felt as if he were losing Martha. She was leaving him: vanishing in a deluge of medical jargon.

  “Could we cut to the chase? What is all that? What’s it mean? Is it bad?”

  She was looking toward the lake, not meeting his eyes.

  “It can be, Mr. Maguire. Over time, amyloidosis and hyperviscosity lead to organ—even mental—dysfunction. The real worry is, what’s causing this? Where’s the protein coming from?”

  He said nothing for a while, thinking. “Okay. Tell me. What is it? What’s causing it?”

  “Those signs suggest multiple myeloma.” She reached out to put a small hand over his. “It’s a cancer of the bone marrow. With multiple myeloma, the patient starts producing quantities of abnormal plasma cells in his or her bone marrow. The cells grow and multiply uncontrollably. They invade adjacent tissues and organs. They spread—spread through the lymphatics or through the blood vessels. The bones themselves weaken.”

  “Would that explain cracked ribs?”

  She tightened her grip on his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  He wanted her to go. Wanted this visit not to have happened.

  “Tell me,” he said, after a time, “if it is this thing—” He’d already forgotten the word. His voice sounded to him like another person’s voice, as if he were suddenly aged. He heard his father’s voice in his own. “If it is this thing, what do we do? Is it curable?”

  “Finally, no, it’s not. Some patients go into remission.”

  “Some do?”

  She watched him, waiting.

  “If some do, you mean, most don’t?”

  She shook her head. “Unfortunately, that is what I mean. We should get your wife into hospital.”

  “Hospital? For incurable cancer?”

  She said, “Mr. Maguire, there’s always a chance it’s not myeloma. There’s always a chance of beating the odds. I told you, some patients do have a recovery.”

  “You said for a while.”

  “I’m so sorry, but that’s what remission means. If you agree, I’ll call her an ambulance.”

  “Please,” Shawn said. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “I know you’re trying to help, but not now. Not now. Let me talk to Martha.” He paused, then said, “She’s always been the one who took charge.”

  The doctor sat still for a minute, watching him, her eyes wide, like the eyes of the kitten on the sill.

  “Your decision,” she said. “Just don’t leave it too long. If we’re right about the myeloma, your wife’s time is running out.”

  * * *

  In Fes, Shawn ran downstairs to the lobby of the Riad El Medina. A group of young Western women in flowing rainbow robes and headbands sat around a carved table, telling each other’s fortune with packs of worn tarot
cards, each illustrated with a somber woodcut. One of the women was black, Shawn noticed; up to that moment, he’d never seen a black hippie. This girl had prominent breasts, wide hips, and a narrow waist. Blue-painted nails. She brought to mind the Wanted posters of Angela Davis, back whenever it was: the time he’d joined the Agency. Three of the other girls—Americans, Indian and white—were smoking water pipes and giggling at the cards.

  The black woman turned over a card that showed a graphic skeleton astride a dark horse. “Oh, my Lord,” she said, crossing herself. “Death. Someone about to die.”

  Shawn spoke to a headscarved Moroccan woman behind the reception desk. “Do you speak English? My wife’s ill. She’s running a temperature. High temperature. Can I ask you to call a doctor?”

  For some moments, the receptionist was silent, considering him. She started to say something, then stopped. “The woman is not your wife,” she said finally. “I have her passport. Today is our holiday. No doctor will come.”

  Shawn held hands clenched by his sides, telling himself to be calm. “Okay. Can you tell me where I could get a thermometer?”

  The receptionist, still polite, said no.

  “No, you can’t tell me, or no, I can’t get one?”

  Someone touched him. Shawn turned to find the black woman standing close, her hand on his arm.

  “Man,” she said, “relax. Anger get you no place. Won’t even make you feel better, most likely.” She held out a hand. “Clemency.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My name. Clemency. I’m a nurse.”

  For the second time that morning, Shawn looked closely at her.

  “I know,” she said, “I know. But when I’m out of these trinkets, I have me a uniform. Chicago. Cook County Hospital.” Watched by the silent receptionist, she moved toward the stairs. “Let’s come see your lady. On the way, I go pick me up a thermometer.”

  They climbed stairs together. On the third flight, Clemency paused. “You don’t mind me saying this,” she said, “you-all not looking too good yourself. You really worried about your woman?”

  Shawn nodded. He’d paused, holding the stair rail, breathing hard.

  “You in love with her?”

  Shawn, reluctant to answer, said nothing.