Absent a Miracle

by Christine Lehner

  "How are you feeling?"

  "Carolina! I was just thinking about you. About you I was thinking. Do you remember what I told you that night we sailed to Las Isletas?" He was speaking in Spanish, which I understood. But he wasn't speaking to me.

  "But how are you feeling?" I said. "Are you any warmer?"

  "Not when it's impossible to get warmer, Carolina."

  "Shall I get you more blankets?"

  "I know it was a terrible secret. A terrible secret it was. But I hope you remember what I told you. Are you wearing your crown today?"

  "I don't remember, Abelardo, because I am Alice. I'm not Carolina. I don't know who Carolina is."

  "Of course you do. You should have been Señorita Nicaragua."

  I said, "It must be your eyes. What can you see now?"

  "I told you about the only time I saw her. And you've kept the secret."

  "But now? Now what do you see?"

  A round nurse came in. If you took all her contours and put them together, you would make a perfect circle. She wore scrubs with festive little snowmen all over; the snowmen wore red and green scarves, and stylized snowflakes fell in perfectly symmetrical patterns between the snowmen. Her nametag said FELICITY BOWDEN, LPN. I asked her if they knew what Abelardo could see, if he could see.

  "Are you his wife?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Are you family?"

  "No, I'm—"

  "It doesn't matter, because I don't know. I just came on this shift and I haven't read his charts yet."

  "He has snow blindness," I said. "I'm sure it's temporary but I don't know how temporary."

  "I have to ask you to leave now while I do his vitals."

  "Goodbye, Abelardo."

  "When you return, Carolina, I will try to recall that night on the lake, because it was especially hot then."

  As usual, Susie had been right. It would have been unconscionable not to come, and yet I almost hadn't.

  Dandy's color looked good, and so that evening I returned to the Ginny O for evening visiting hours. When I stepped off the elevator on the third floor, I saw the round Felicity Bowden, LPN, in conversation with another nurse in scrubs of a different hue. She looked straight at me; I smiled and nodded, but she did not acknowledge me.

  Nothing had changed in Abelardo's room. The curtains were still pulled as tightly as was possible around his neighbor. Abelardo was still burrowed beneath his pile of blankets. There seemed to be even more blankets than earlier.

  "Aha, it must be Alice," he said, in English.

  "That would be me," I said, sitting down. "Were you expecting someone else?"

  "Only you. You are the only one I was expecting. Perhaps under other circumstances I might have received a visit from Hubert, but the literal truth is we have never met in the flesh and I am sure he realizes that this is not the way I would want to create a first impression."

  "There's still a lot of snow out there," I said, and tilted my head toward the window. Tactless creature that I was, am.

  "A man could starve," Abelardo said.

  "So. How are they treating you here?"

  "I wouldn't say they were treating me much at all. I am not a matter of grave concern here. Neither my well-being, nor my taste buds."

  "I don't think I've ever heard anything good about hospital food. Maybe I could bring you something, if I come back."

  "Oysters. I would love some oysters. I've been craving oysters," he said.

  "You're kidding."

  "I am not kidding at all. I was planning to eat at Grand Central Station's Oyster Bar, which is a landmark in New York and an excellent destination. There is much profound that one could say about oysters, but I prefer to concentrate on the flavor and, especially, the texture."

  "I wish I'd known you like oysters so much."

  "Perhaps, but would anything have changed? Would I still be here, almost blind?"

  "I forgot to ask about your eyes!" I said, mortally embarrassed. I'd totally forgotten anything was wrong with his eyes. Beware the eyes of the beholder. That was something Mami used to say, if ever she suspected any of us of succumbing to vanity. We were adept at hiding vanity. We thought.

  "I see more of you now than I did before," Abelardo said.

  "That's great. That's wonderful. Your vision has improved!"

  "Before you were not here, and therefore I did not see you. Now I see the outline of you, and the shape of you. And it is lovely."

  "Has anyone given you an eye test? When will you get better?"

  "I've been praying to my Tía Tata, so I am confident I will be seeing like a vulture very soon."

  "But you're also talking to the doctors, I hope. Do they have any medicines for you? Drops or something?"

  All this time he had been immobile beneath his covers. He had a two-day stubble, which accentuated the bones of his face, and he looked sexy in that Hollywood, I'm-too-cool-to-shave way. His dark brown eyes, lidded by those appallingly long lashes, looked perfectly fine to me. Which may be yet another good reason I am not an ophthalmologist: they looked beautiful. Had I really thought they were gray?

  "Drops, yes. But also miracles. And your dog? How is your very ill dog?"

  "Dandy. He's fine. He got a blood transfusion, which seems to perk him up. Sooner or later, his marrow should start doing the right thing and then he won't need any more transfusions. At least I certainly hope so because there is something a little strange about giving blood transfusions to a dog. Don't you think?"

  Abelardo's right hand emerged and smoothed back his hair, his wavy brown hair. Should I offer to comb it? I wondered. Would that be too forward? Would he get the wrong idea? How much was normal protocol waived in the hospital? "Not at all," he said. "What is strange about it?"

  "It just seems profligate. I mean, all those people who need blood and here we are pumping it into a dog."

  "Are you so sure? It seems to me blood gets lost, poured out, spilled onto the ground with such frequency that humankind cannot be very worried about its loss."

  "I wasn't looking at it quite like that."

  "I speak as one who has seen the spilling of blood," Abelardo said. I assumed he was referring to the Contra war. How little I knew about him! Just yesterday I'd seen him go mad, half dressed in the snow, and today I sat by his bedside. Surely these were intimate acts. Rendering oneself vulnerable is always an act of intimacy. Yet I knew him not at all. I looked at his nose as if for the first time, saw how long and narrow it was; I realized that if that nose had been a fraction of a centimeter longer or narrower, it would have crossed the line and been a dangerous object, a pointy object capable of inflicting harm. But it rested gingerly on the safe side of the line, and was exquisite.

  "I am so sorry," I said.

  "What I am sorry about is that you will not meet my dog Panchito."

  "You mean, because he is in Nicaragua?"

  "No, because he is dead. He was attacked by the abejas del asesino and no amount of Adrenalin or prayers could revive him." Tears were actually pooling in the lower rims of his aforementioned deep brown eyes.

  "I am sorry about your dog. You might have mentioned him the other night. When I told you about Gertrude and Pilly," I said.

  "I didn't kill him. The bees did."

  "Oh, and Waldo is calling your family, so they will know where you are."

  "You will have to go see Hubert, of course. Please go see him, dear Alice. Because when I get out of here, and I certainly will get out very soon because I am not suffering from their specialty in suffering and they will quickly cease to find me interesting, I will have to make a retreat and a visit to the Virgin of El Viejo."

  "Specialty? I don't think they have a specialty here. It's just a local hospital. Broken legs and inflamed appendices."

  "Ah, but they do. I heard the nurses talking; the tiny one with so many holes in her ears, she told me: it's called bariatric surgery and it has nothing to do with barium or the barrio."

  This explained
quite a lot about the population of the lobby.

  "Why don't you and Hubert just talk on the phone?"

  "When you meet him you will understand," Abelardo said.

  "But you've never met him yourself!" I said. "And I wouldn't know what to say to him. I know about three things about saints. Maybe only two."

  His legs moved beneath the sheets. Really, just his feet, and of his feet, just the toes. I remembered those toes from his time in the snow. If I had offered him oysters that second night of the storm, would things have turned out differently?

  "I really don't see any alternative. And something tells me that you and Hubert will get on splendidly. I feel sure of it. He will help you fill in the gaps."

  "What gaps are you talking about?" I felt defensive, almost cornered suddenly.

  So now he looked flustered. "That was a manner of speaking. I was speaking imagistically," Abelardo said. "And, dear Alice, the next time you come, I would like fruit. Any fruit would be nice, so long as it is ripe. I discovered this morning that Harvard is not the only place that will serve rock-hard melon."

  "Poor you," I said. To have come so far, for such a fiasco.

  "Poor melon. Almost any fruit would be appreciated. I do not expect mango or cherimoya."

  "That's lucky," I said. "I was here this afternoon. Do you remember?"

  "No, my dear, that wasn't you. Only Carolina de la Rosa was here earlier, and that was most likely my addled imagination, because she would never come this far north in these conditions. She is more averse to snow than I am."

  "I was here. You thought I was this Carolina. Who is she?"

  "Who is she indeed? Who does she think she is?" Beneath the blankets, his hands appeared to be shivering.

  I said, "Couldn't you just tell me who she is? In the normal course of events."

  "The normal course of events? The course of events is constantly being altered. Ask Waldito."

  "Waldo is still in the caves," I said. "I'm just making conversation. I just thought it might feel like a relatively normal thing to talk about, and perhaps you would feel better."

  "Feel better?" he said with a hoarse croaking sound. When he moved his head I saw that the tips of his ears were bright red, either very cold or very hot. Perhaps they missed his pulling and stroking.

  "To talk about your friend Carolina. But I wonder if we could get you a cap. Here, you can borrow mine." I pulled my glow-in-the-dark green fleece cap from my pocket. He didn't respond. So I sidled between the bed and the curtain that separated him from his roommate and put the hat atop his head. This time, it was my hands that shook. It seemed a terribly intimate act; it seemed like something I would do for the boys, or for Waldo, who never wore hats. If it had been any other hat, a hat I had not worn minutes ago, it might have been different.

  He actually smiled and said, "How do I look?" Those four words sliced through everything I'd thought about Abelardo before. The words were hesitant but also coy, as if spoken by a drop-dead-gorgeous young woman. Hadn't the Jesuits, masters of rhetorical questions and critical thinking, trained him?

  Then I had the oddest sensation: that the building was being lifted up at one end and everything at that end was sliding toward the other end that remained on the ground, and so by force of gravity and a waxed floor I was involuntarily sledding straight toward Abelardo. I think at that moment I knew. Just knew. Not what would happen but that something would happen.

  I held my breath, then said, "Henry always says I look like a traffic signal in that hat." It was the wrong answer.

  "Not a stop sign, I hope," Abelardo said.

  "Just the opposite." I sat down.

  His hands emerged from beneath the multilayered counterpane, and he reached for the hat. He adjusted it microscopically.

  "I'm curious about this Carolina you thought I was."

  "Carolina de la Rosa?"

  "Exactly. You said you told her a secret. Now I am all curious to know that secret."

  "What secret?"

  "I'm the one asking you. There was a night on a lake, if that helps."

  "What lake?"

  I wanted to laugh, he was so like Henry. "How would I know?"

  "I can only assume it is the big lake, because Lake Managua is so polluted that I would never go on it, whereas Cocibolca is lovely. And of course Carolina is a Granadena, so naturally..."

  "Is that the one with sharks?"

  "So they say. So they say. I myself have never seen a shark. The secret was my first vision of the saint. I told Carolina how I saw her in the chicken-sexing plant."

  "Your first vision?" I asked.

  "So far my only one," Abelardo said. "But I am still young."

  "Speaking of vision—"

  "No, I am speaking of Carolina and how she kept the secret."

  "Will you tell me? What you saw in the chicken-sexing plant. Whatever a chicken-sexing plant is."

  "Once upon a time my father and Uncle Esteban had a chicken farm. It was a good business for a while, so long as the domestic price was kept artificially high by placing heavy duties on imported chickens. The granjas were just beyond Chinandega; they were long and low with galvanized tin roofs and ceiling fans every six feet, or whatever was mandated by the ministry. There were so many chickens in there, and they were so close together they couldn't even turn around without scratching their neighbors or getting their wings tangled. And once upon a time my father thought I should learn something about the chicken business, and so he brought me with them to inspect the facility where they sexed the chicks."

  Dare I say that my attention was riveted by the sexing, and not the vision? I would have more to tell Susie than I could possibly have imagined.

  Abelardo said, "Do not think for a moment that I was interested in chickens, not sexing them, not feathering them, not plucking them. It is trees that I love, not overcrowded bad-tempered fowl. He should have taken Olga. Alas, Olga is a woman, and was a girl—and Papa could never comprehend how much better suited she was to the business. It is a great loss for our family, you know, that Olga could not be the one to take over. Poor Olga."

  "You haven't mentioned Olga before," I said.

  "You will have to imagine the Olga-that-was." The window overlooked the parking lot. One by one cars were leaving, mostly SUVs of indeterminate color. As one exited the lot, an arm in a red sleeve extended from the driver's-side window and waved frantically toward the rear. I looked to see what the arm was waving at so frantically, and there was nothing. Unless it was someone inside the hospital, someone, like Abelardo, in a room overlooking the lot, watching.

  "Everything in there happened so fast, and from my earliest days I have been a slow observer. The conveyor belt spat out the chicks, the worker opened their legs, determined the sex, and threw the poor chick left or right, depending. All the sexers were women, naturally."

  "Why naturally?"

  "When you come to Nicaragua, you will understand," he said.

  "Don't tire yourself out," I said. What I wanted to ask was how the sexers could tell a chicken's sex. Did they have identifiable genitalia? Naturally I was not going to ask Abelardo that question. It would have to wait for Susie.

  "I only rest in here," he said. "I don't save any dying dogs."

  "Neither do I."

  "To continue: it smelled revolting. I was dizzy and nauseated, but I managed not to vomit. I shut my eyes very tightly. That's when I saw her: the inner sides of my eyelids were completely filled with a blue light. First the light was blue and then it took the shape of a standing chicken. Its wings unfurled. They were the wings of a heavenly creature. I kept my eyes shut then as much to keep the heavenly creature inside as to keep from vomiting. I could hear the voices of my father and Uncle Esteban and the thudding of the chicks tossed aside, and even the squeaking of the conveyor belt that needed to be oiled. Only when the voices stopped suddenly did I open my eyes. This is the vision part. The blue light was still there, and the chicken was still there."

  "But
Abelardo, that's completely normal. You must know that. I'm sure there is a word for it. If you stare at something of a certain color and then shut your eyes, you see the same shape but in its opposite color, and vice versa if you open your eyes too quickly." To demonstrate, I squeezed my eyes shut and then popped them open. Nothing happened.

  "Oh, Alice, Alice. Can you honestly believe I don't know that? It's called a phosphene, but this was not that. Please listen carefully. It was when the chicken opened its mouth to speak that I realized it was not the face of a chicken at all. Where there should have been a beak there were lips, quite red and sensual lips, to be truthful. The same lips that Sorolla painted. It was my Great-Aunt Tristána Catalina."

  "As a chicken?" Unfortunately, my voice squeaked just then. Suddenly I felt guilty (again). What was I doing dragging old secrets and delusions from the lips of a hypothermic man?

  "I know how it sounds, especially to a gringo. But why not a chicken? Chickens are God's creatures. Chickens were just the element in which I found myself, in which Tía Tata found herself at that moment when I was ready to receive the vision."

  "I have nothing against chickens," I said. "I've even started eating them again. I think I told you that. I cooked a chicken the other night. Before all this."

  "So you believe me?"

  I hadn't considered that question yet. "Did she say anything?"

  Abelardo opened his mouth. He really had such perfect teeth—nothing beaky about him! Then his lips closed over those perfect teeth. "No. She just looked at me."

  The body in the bed behind the curtain moaned. It was either a moan or a groan. The sheets rustled and a weight shifted upon the mattress. Abelardo and I looked at each other as we listened. Nothing was clearer in my sight than Abelardo. Could he see me at all? He was looking straight at me. Or through me.

  Then silence.

  "Remind me what the vision of the chicken has to do with the Carolina you thought I was," I said.

  "This is exhausting," Abelardo said. To me now, he seemed to be spitting out energy, all sparks and fireflies. "I told her all about it. One night going out to Las Isletas. I remember it perfectly. I can see it." A hand popped out from under the sheets, with its fingers tightly aligned, and he waved the hand in front of his eyes. "We were in an old wooden lancha—it belonged to a fisherman, Octavio; it was amazing that he could keep fishing because he lost many fingers in the war—and I told her about my vision because she seemed so interested. I had never told a soul before. And never since, until now. I can remember the lingering phosphorescent twilight as I told her and we drifted. The lake was very still. Ometepe was watching everything. The howler monkeys on Monkey Island were howling." He smiled for the first time in a long while. Between the snow outside and the artificial light in the hospital, time was not operating normally.