The Rhythm of Memory

by Alyson Richman

  He shook his head. “Salomé,” he told her gently, but with an undertone of firmness, “you know you wouldn’t die without me.”

  Her face reddened. “I would be miserable, though.”

  “I have to recommend another therapist for you. It’s important that you continue to see someone.”

  She was silent for several minutes. The room was spinning around her and she tried to maintain her focus. The brown wooden walls that had felt like a protective armor to her for so many months were now suffocating. The low ceiling that she had once found so intimate now felt as though it were crushing down upon her. She wanted to flee…to get up and race out the door. She didn’t want to hear Samuel speaking to her as if she were a child. She had understood he was married from the outset. He didn’t need to explain his obligations to her.

  “I won’t see anyone else. You’ve already helped me enough,” she said, wanting to appear strong. She crossed her legs and placed one of her hands over her knee. “When I came to you, I couldn’t listen to music, I couldn’t imagine myself kissing even my own husband. Because of you, I’ve been able to share what happened to me back there. This is progress, isn’t it, Samuel?”

  “Yes, but these things can take years to fully understand.”

  “I don’t want to start over with another therapist. I don’t want to have to tell my story again, to another stranger, and open myself up again.”

  “I can understand what you’re saying, Salomé, but it is not another stranger to whom you must open up to. It is your husband. It concerns me that you are still avoiding telling Octavio what you endured and how you feel about it.”

  “That I cannot do. I told you that right from the beginning.” Her voice betrayed her irritation. One of her hands wrapped around the side of her neck, and Samuel could see faint pink marks appearing from where she was pulling nervously at her skin.

  “I know, but someday you will have to. Even if you leave him, you’ll never be completely healed until you reveal your true emotions to him.”

  Salomé looked down at her fingernails. She fidgeted on the edge of the couch before speaking again. Then, nervously she said, “If you can’t see me as my therapist, can you still see me again?” She paused. “Perhaps outside the office for coffee or something…as friends?”

  Samuel tried to smile before placing his fingers over his eyes. He had not anticipated how difficult this would be for him. He wished he could tell Salomé that they could maintain a friendship outside the office, but he knew such a relationship would be impossible. After all, he still couldn’t keep his eyes off her. The way she spoke, the delicate movements of her hands. He still found her beguiling.

  “I don’t think a friendship would be a good idea, Salomé. For either of us. We both have spouses and have children.…”

  “I am not asking you to leave your wife and child, Samuel,” she blurted out. “I would never ask that of you!”

  “I know that, Salomé,” Samuel said gently. “But I still cannot see you again. Not because I don’t want to but because if I let our meetings continue, I can see myself falling in love with you, and I don’t want to complicate what is already good in my life.”

  With the back of her palm she tried to wipe her tears away.

  “I’m telling you the truth, Salomé.”

  For several moments they said nothing. They sat still and looked in different directions. They could hear the clock ticking, the occasional sound of a car passing by.

  “Thank you, Samuel,” she finally said as she stood up.

  He could see she was embarrassed and longed to embrace her one last time.

  “You deserve happiness, Salomé.”

  She tried to manage a small smile for him as she made her way to the door.

  And as she left his office for the final time, Samuel inhaled deeply. The scent of marzipan lingered and left him dizzy.

  Sixty

  VESTERÅS, SWEDEN

  APRIL 1975

  Salomé Herrera’s affair with Samuel was another secret she never shared with Octavio. But unlike the other secrets she had struggled to forget, this one she kept close to her. It was a precious jewel she could re-create inside her mind’s eye whenever she longed for something beautiful.

  Salomé found it hard to pinpoint the exact time her marriage fell apart. It wasn’t like the shattering of a glass, when a thousand fragments come crashing to the floor. It was more a series of subtle explosions that occurred inside Salomé’s head. At those moments, even when she tried to stifle her words, Octavio could read his wife’s face and body language as though she were a pantomime miming out her dissatisfaction.

  He had hoped things would improve between them once she started therapy. But instead things worsened. Salomé was unwilling to share what she discussed in her sessions, and when Octavio tried to ignite a dialogue between them, he was continually rebuffed.

  Octavio grew frustrated with the silence. He longed for the fiery and carefree bride he had taken years before. It was as if the woman he had carried out of Chile was not the same one he had married. The person he now shared a bed with resembled the physical form of his wife, but her spirit had vanished completely.

  Ultimately, it was not she who asked him to leave, as she had long imagined. When he finally did say he was leaving, she thought it was another of his performances, a futile attempt to ignite a reaction from her. But she did nothing and instead watched with eyes unblinking as he grabbed his once fashionable suits from the closets, threw his shoes into the canvas bag, and snatched their wedding portrait from the nightstand. She knew the children could hear his tantrum from their rooms next door, but she did nothing to quiet him. It was as though she were a voyeur watching her husband physically exorcise himself from her life. When he finally walked out the door, after looking back at her three times, she still did nothing. He was down the stairs before Salomé finally walked to the apartment’s threshold and closed the door.

  She was anxious about explaining her separation from Octavio to the children. Already, there had been so many new and difficult transitions for them since they had arrived in Sweden. She knew it would be easiest on Rafael, though. The boy had always sensed his mother’s anguish and fragility ever since that day she was released in the park.

  She had given birth to him when she was so young, almost a child herself. So, in a way, she felt closer to him than to her daughters. Whenever she was feeling especially low, he would somehow find her and offer her a hug. He never became stubborn or willful. He was her shield, in a way she had always hoped her husband would be, but never was.

  “Your papa will be living in a different apartment now,” she told Rafael. The girls were still in their room. She could still hear them playing.

  “We need some time away from each other because we’re making each other sad right now. You understand, Rafael, don’t you?” She took him under her left arm and squeezed him.

  She had anticipated he would have questions. Any child would ask certain things like “Will Papa come back?” or “Why did he leave?” But Rafael had none. He simply nestled close to his mother and reached for her right hand.

  She thought it strange the way he held her fingers so gently. As if they were so fragile, they might break if he squeezed too hard.

  “It’s all right, Mama,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “Afraid?” she asked, surprised that her son would think such a thing.

  “I will protect you. You don’t have to worry.”

  She let out a nervous laugh and tightened her arm that still wrapped around his small shoulder. “You don’t have to,” she reassured him. “I’m stronger now than I was back in Chile.” She knocked him playfully with a small fist. “See how tough your mother is!”

  The girls, however, reacted to the news with greater difficulty, as Salomé expected. She sat them by her feet in their bedroom and told them that Octavio would no longer be sleeping at home.

  “Your daddy is going to live nearby,
but not with us,” she told them. “It isn’t because he doesn’t love us, but because he doesn’t want you to see him unhappy.”

  “But why isn’t Papa happy?” Isabelle asked.

  Salomé sighed. The girls were always full of questions. The difference between her daughters’ and her son’s reactions suddenly struck her. She took Rafael’s lack of questioning as a sign he understood her situation, but the same trait frustrated her in Octavio.

  She wrinkled her forehead. Isabelle was waiting for an answer.

  “Girls, your papa and I just need some space now. Just like you two sometimes like spending a little time by yourselves, we need to do that now. Papa and I will become happy again, you’ll see.”

  Blanca extended her doll to Salomé. “Sometimes I don’t want to play with my dolly, but then I miss her!”

  “Well, your papa won’t be far away, so none of us will get a chance to miss him.”

  The girls nodded. Salomé reached down and gave them each a kiss. “Everything is going to be fine,” she reassured them again. They looked up at her, watching for a moment as she rose from the bed.

  “I’ll make machas for dinner,” she told them sweetly, knowing it was their favorite meal.

  Before she made it to the door, they had already scampered back to the corner of their bedroom and resumed playing with their dolls.

  When Salomé entered the den, she found Rafael sitting alone on the sofa. His legs were crossed underneath him, and he was staring at one of Octavio’s old movie posters. Salomé approached and sat quietly beside him.

  He looked up at her, his right hand resting softly underneath his chin. His face seemed a thousand years old. A lineless face that had an etched expression of a grown man who had worried his entire life. As she looked upon Rafael, she could not help but think that, just as she had secrets she kept to herself, so did her children. Even Octavio might be withholding something from her, all in the name of love.

  PART IV

  Sixty-one

  VESTERÅS, SWEDEN

  MARCH 1985

  Nearly ten years had passed since Samuel had ended his relationship with Salomé. Yet sometimes when he entered a pastry shop and smelled the scent of marzipan, he could not help but think of her. Occasionally when he’d be eating alone at one of the local restaurants or having a coffee at a café near the square, he would think he saw a glimpse of her—the thick mane of black hair, the small curves of her petite frame—but within seconds she’d be gone. Silently he was thankful because he knew that his life remained far less complicated because of it.

  Over the years his practice had thrived. The influx of South American immigrants seeking asylum in Sweden continued. Many of them sought treatment with Samuel, often upon the recommendations of former patients. Men and women fleeing the Soviet bloc countries, as well as the occasional refugee from Iran or the Middle East, appeared in his waiting room too.

  At first, it did not occur to Samuel how his work with these patients over the years helped to heal his own childhood wounds. But little by little, through hearing the stories of patients who had fled their native lands because of political persecution, he came to realize the overall humanity linking each person’s testimony. The themes were universal: patients who had lost loved ones, patients who had survivor guilt, and patients angry that they had been abandoned by their homelands.

  The painful memories of fleeing France and being powerless to prevent his mother’s deterioration slowly lessened. He now had tremendous satisfaction in helping his patients come to terms with their past, and he hoped that their transition into Swedish life was made just a bit easier by having him as a therapist.

  He also felt similar satisfaction with his family life. Kaija continued to dote on both him and their daughter. Sabine continued to work hard at school, and although the girl looked almost identical to his wife, both he and Kaija acknowledged that her personality more resembled his. She was intellectually curious and always sought out his advice, whether she was studying the fall of the Roman Empire or simply needed help with her study of the Romance languages. Like him, she loved all things with a story attached to them; she loved all things with a past.

  Recently, however, Samuel had begun to feel physically unwell. He did not tell Kaija when the symptoms first began to appear. The sharp stomach pains, the loss of appetite, he kept all of that to himself for several weeks. There’s no use worrying her, he thought. Maybe I have an ulcer. I just need to cut down on my number of patients.

  The yellowing in his skin intensified. First, he noticed it in his fingertips, and then a deep sallow patch spread alongside his collarbone.

  “You’re looking rather worn down,” Kaija commented one afternoon. “Even a bit yellow…are you feeling all right?”

  He insisted he was. “It’s nothing to fret about. I might have a small ulcer. I’ll visit the hospital sometime next week and have an X-ray.”

  He went to a clinic near his office, where he was examined by an internist, a colleague of his whose opinion he trusted. The doctor, his face serious and his eyes focused on his notes, had listened to Samuel’s complaints. “We’ll take some X rays and do some blood work and see if there is anything there, Samuel. I’ll call you next week with the results.”

  The doctor called two days later, his voice painstakingly monotone. “Samuel, your pancreas looks suspicious. We saw some calcifications.” He paused. “I think you’d better come in for a biopsy.”

  Samuel didn’t reply.

  “Samuel? I know we usually say these things in person. But, as a fellow doctor, I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.” The doctor was trying in vain to sound encouraging. “Let’s get this biopsy done right away and see what’s there. Strictly an outpatient type of thing. Just make sure you bring your wife along. You won’t be able to drive yourself home.”

  Samuel ignored the doctor’s last instruction. He had no intention of bringing Kaija with him. There was no need to get her all upset until he knew exactly what was wrong with him. “When should I come?” he asked.

  “Come tomorrow. I’ve already scheduled it with the radiologist. One o’clock.”

  Samuel hung up the phone. He could feel his hands trembling, and had he not the slight tinge of yellow, he knew his color would be more like his wife’s. The color of snow.

  He did not relay to his family the details of his diagnosis. Instead, the following afternoon, he returned to the hospital alone. As if in a trance, he quietly obeyed the nurses who, with gloved hands, neatly arranged him on the table. The crackling of white paper underneath his back increased his anxiety. He felt them apply the cool blue gel to his abdomen, felt the gentle rolling of the ultrasound.

  He awakened to see the radiologist and his doctor talking to each other. Their hushed voices clearly unnerved him.

  “That’s it for now,” his doctor told him after the nurse came to help him onto his feet. “I’ll call you in three days when I get the pathology report.”

  The doctor then offered to have the receptionist call his patient’s wife.

  “Oh, no,” Samuel said quickly. “She couldn’t come. Something came up with our daughter at school. If she can just call me a taxi, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Are you sure, Samuel?” The doctor’s face seemed to reveal his suspicions.

  “Yes, I’m positive. Please…just a taxi.”

  Samuel got dressed and decided to wait for the cab outside. The cold air on his cheeks felt surprisingly refreshing to him. His mind was racing. The last three days were a blur for him. Everything had happened so quickly. He had not anticipated that things would become serious so soon.

  All his life, he had preached honesty. He had urged Salomé to tell her husband what had happened to her at the Villa Grimaldi. He had become frustrated with Kaija when he’d learned how she’d withheld the news she could no longer bear children. And now, here he was, doing the very same thing. But he wanted to know all the facts before he upset his family with the difficult
reality. The doctor had told him he would know in three days’ time. So, for three torturous days, Samuel Rudin waited.

  “Your pathology report came back, Samuel. It revealed a primary pancreatic cancer.”

  Samuel remained silent for a moment. He was all too aware of what such a diagnosis meant.

  “How much time do I have?”

  “I’m afraid that the ultrasound test revealed that the disease has already metastasized to the liver.”

  Samuel remained quiet. He knew this meant he had only a few months at best. He felt weak, as though his knees were about to give way. He placed one hand on his desk; the other held the telephone receiver tightly.

  “As I’m sure you know, once the disease has metastasized, you are no longer a candidate for curative procedure.” The doctor paused. “Should the need arrive, we can offer you palliative surgery, however.”

  Samuel nodded. He had no words left. There was nothing optimistic about his diagnosis. He would have known that even as a first-year medical student.

  Thinking aloud, Samuel said, “I’m not going to live to see next year.”

  The doctor hesitated. “Samuel, I’m so sorry.” His voice was thick with compassion.

  “Me too,” Samuel whispered. “Me too.”

  Samuel decided to walk home that evening. The three-kilometer distance from the hospital was exhausting, but he needed the time to reflect.

  He had initially thought he would tell Kaija and Sabine about his condition after dinner. But he reconsidered as soon as he walked into their beautiful, tranquil home and saw their two shining faces.

  He didn’t want to see his wife or daughter cry for him. He didn’t want them to twist and sicken themselves over his illness. Instead, he wished they could just accept that everyone must die, only his death would come sooner than they had all expected.

  All his life, Samuel had prided himself on being the person who comforted the sick, brought people to terms with their past, and helped them address their future. He had always savored being that person. So the thought that, soon, he would be relegated to the one who needed comforting unnerved him. He knew what would be next for him. He would grow thin, his complexion would turn sallow, and the whites of his eyes would turn yellow, the color of custard. Already he felt an incessant gnawing in his stomach that would only grow worse with time.