Gilda Trillim

by Steven L. Peck

  She smiled sadly and said, “Babs whatever happens just know it is for the best.” Now I was crying and telling her in no uncertain terms that she should quit talking like this. That we were going back to Bangkok and that this had been a bad idea from the start and that we even ought to go back to the States. She became quiet and subdued like she was literally detaching from the world. She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of her mother’s scriptures—an enormously thick work that contained the entirety of the Mormon canon: Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. She opened it up and asked me to read something to her. It was from the New Testament.

  I refused and pushed the scriptures back into her hands. I told her that I’d had enough of this seriousness and that we were going to go get something to eat: “You can’t do this to me now. You are acting really really weird.”

  She finally consented and we went out into the night. We stopped and had some fish head soup in a coconut broth and Thai steamed rice. I’m not sure she had eaten since she arrived and I knew this would do her a world of good. In Thailand it is the tradition when you begin a meal to first take a small bite of rice to show gratitude for the gift of this vital grain. Gilda picked up a bit of rice with her chopsticks and raised it to her lips then paused and offered it to me instead. I took it gladly then I offered her a similar offering from my plate. For some reason this made her silly with delight. The mood shifted to one of strange gaiety. The food was delicious; we were laughing and telling jokes. Some people in the karaoke bar next door were singing rounds of Elton John songs, songs that both Gilda and I loved, and we found ourselves singing along; Tiny Dancer, Daniel, and a few others. The singers varied, but for the most part, and despite heavily accented English, they were quite good. When finally they sang Candle in the Wind, with Gilda and me adding our poor harmonies, I looked up and I found Gilda crying. I noticed I was too. She reached over and took my hand, then took her napkin and pressed it against my eyes.

  “You remember this night, OK?”

  She said it with such pathos and so emphatically that I could do nothing but nod and add, “I won’t forget. But you remember it too.”

  She finally smiled, her teary eyes lit from the bright lights surrounding the restaurant and said, “Of course.”

  We walked through the bustle of the town arm-in-arm and came to a place offering foot massages. The funny thing was she insisted we go get one. She had to talk me into it, as I was not really too keen on the idea of having a stranger playing with my feet. But for Gilda’s sake I followed her through the red door emblazoned with a golden dragon. She went first so I could watch. They soaked her feet in a bowl of steaming water then washed them with soap and dried them with a thick white towel. After, they took a delightfully strange smelling oil, the odor of which I have nothing to compare. It seemed neither floral nor pungent like eucalyptus, but it was not unpleasant. Just different. They rubbed her feet for about fifteen minutes. Next it was my turn. I sat on the chair and placed my feet in the warm water. It felt amazing. When it was time to wash them however, Gilda insisted that she be the one to wash my feet. I protested, but she was very insistent and given how worried I was about her and because she seemed to be having so much fun I let her do it. The Thai woman who was going to rub my feet protested but a 10,000 baht bill from Gilda backed her off quickly.

  Gilda took off her skirt and wrapped the big towel around her and knelt on the wet cement floor. It was not an especially dirty floor but the soap and water of a thousand customer’s feet lingered there and the possibility of an infection or a fungal disease was all I could think about. I was protesting but she quieted me and washed my feet with the soap, dried them, and then rubbed both of my feet with the fragrant oil. I tried to relax and it did feel good, but I was worried about Gilda, nervous, and not thrilled with her doing this. Frankly I was glad when it was over. But it took a while because she was determined to give me the full treatment.

  As she massaged my feet she told me a story of when she was in Norway living in the old farmhouse up on one of the fjords. She said she was thinking about the connections between things both animated and unanimated. One day, she said, she was gazing up the steep sides of the cliffs that framed that little hamlet, looking at the trees, the rocks, the water, the beauty of the white snow, the houses, and all the things, all the objects linked to varying degrees, some tightly bound like the trees in the soil, or some loosely—the road she stood on, the water of the sea that lapped the sides of the pier at the end of the road. Then she looked up from the floor and said, “We never really realize all our connections do we? And we never even realize what we are? Or how time structures all the connections that frame and define us.” It struck me as strange and irrelevant. Here we were in the tropics and she is talking about Norway and connections between things. She looked up from my feet and smiled and said as if she were reading my mind, “It’s just that the rats will need rituals. Something to sing about. Something to ground their practice and performance. They need a memory.”

  “I’m not following,” I said this curtly. I wanted to understand what she was saying but it really was making no sense.

  She smiled up at me, “I know. I’ll be quiet.” Then she continued to rub my oiled feet. Looking back, I wonder why these were her last thoughts. Why did she make this her last real conversation with me?

  When it was over she replaced my shoes, replaced her skirt, took me by the arm, and led me back out into the street. The events of the day were starting to wear on me. The lack of sleep. The panicked flight from Bangkok. The strange arrival. The events at the temple. Gilda’s bizarre and upsetting behavior had all worn me to a frazzle and I started to feel panicky and anxious. I told her so and she agreed it was time to return to the hotel and rest.

  I made her take a shower because she had knelt in that filthy foot washing water and she did not argue. I was sitting on the bed watching CNN-International on the TV, but she came over with those scriptures in her hand and handed them to me, “Now will you read me something?” I agreed and she opened it to Luke: 22: 19–20, which reads:

  19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

  20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

  “What does remembrance here mean?” she asked formally. Socratically.

  “Gilda, what is this about?”

  “I’m dying. I’m emptied out.”

  “No you are not.”

  “You know I am.”

  “Well you’re not dying this minute.”

  She didn’t answer, but flipped to an opened section of the scriptures and handed me the book. I refused, “Look, let’s get some sleep. Things will look much better in the morning. I’m so tired.” And I was. The events of the last 48 hours had been too much for me. She gave me a long sweet hug and kiss on the top of my head as if she were tucking in a child. “Go to sleep. We’ll see what the morning brings.”

  Oh, Mom if I could just go back to the moment, I would have held onto her with all my strength and never let her go. But instead I fell asleep. I knew she was distraught. I knew she was worried about dying, but I fell asleep anyway. I was so tired.

  About three in the morning I awoke with a start and knew something was wrong. Gilda was gone again. I never for a second doubted where she had gone. I jumped into my clothes, ran out of the hotel and flagged down a taxi and commanded them to get me to the rat Wat as fast as they could drive.

  Dear, dear, mom, when I arrived all was in chaos. There were police cars with lights flashing scattered everywhere and a crowd of people had gathered from the village. I tried to find out what was going on but no one spoke English. I kept asking and asking until I found a young monk, about twenty, who spoke passable English. He said, “Rats attack some person. Very bad.” I frantically dragged him with me to the tem
ple. There was a crowd of policemen and monks all hovering over a large spot of blood and next to it one of Gilda’s shoes and a good number of dead rats. I screamed and passed out.

  I awoke to the young monk patting my cheek and repeating, “Miss. Miss.” I awoke to the horror that Gilda was gone. This is what happened? I got this from the young monk who translated for me from what another monk told him.

  He said that shortly after midnight Gilda arrived and woke up the monk caretaker who directs the temple. She demanded he open the gate and let her into the shrine. He refused, but she was insistent, acting like it was life or death and finally he relented after she paid an extra fee for the late hour (a bribe). He said she came into the place and asked that he leave. He saw no reason not to, so he departed. He checked about an hour later and she was listening to the rats sing as they did every so often. He thought nothing of it and only stayed a minute and left again. He slept for a bit. He came back after another hour and she was lying on her back, her arms outstretched letting the rats run over her. She looked up at him and angrily pointed to the door, yelling for him to get out. Which he did. When he returned, he came upon a scene of grizzly horror. Hundreds of rats had nearly eaten her up. As he stood frozen at the sight, he said a rat would run over, take a large bite, be it bone or flesh, then run back to where it had been sitting on the wall, but there were many many rats each snatching a morsel and running back to their original position. He grabbed a broom and tried to drive them off but they attacked him and he ran for help. He called the police and rang the village bell that alerts people to a fire. Many people came at the sound of the alarm, but by the time they arrived Gilda had been wholly devoured by the rats. They managed to kill a good number before the rats fled from the temple.

  Oh, mom, when I called you that night, I know I was a wreck but I think you can see why. Gilda is gone. I cannot get my head around it. Somehow I think she intended this. That she thought she was dying and that somehow she induced the rats to do as they did to her beloved friend Fatty Lumpkin. Or worse in a moment of insanity she believed she was the shepherdess of rats and had to die for them like Jesus and that is why she had me read the scriptures she did the night before. I have looked at where she was going to have me read, and it is these verses from John 15 which were marked with a red pencil:

  11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

  12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

  13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  And then this one from John 17:

  11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

  Except she has crossed out “Holy Father” with just “Mother.”

  I’m sick Mom. I did not see her madness. I should have. I knew she thought her death was imminent, but maybe I just did not want to believe it. Maybe I was blind to what she really knew. I’m so, so sad and broken. I’ve got the only thing that survives her being devoured—her bloody shoe. I’m going to bury it near the cabin in the La Sals. What I don’t know is if she died while blessing the rats, for that is what I believe she was doing laying on the floor with her arms outstretched, or if she took her own life first. It’s all lost in events that cannot be recovered by anyone’s memory. Only Gilda and the rats know what happened. Did she intend this? How wicked of her! How mean. How cruel to leave me behind like this! Mom, I’m so mad. I’m so hurt. It makes no sense. We had such a wonderful night? What has she done?

  Mom. I’m so heartbroken. I’m crying all the time and did not stop for a second as I wrote this. That is why it looks like it has been submerged in water and dried. Because it has been.

  I’ll leave for the States next week; I’ve already made arrangements. I’m sending this by Federal Express. I fly into Chicago at 2:25 on DL 2348 from LA. I love you Mom. I’m a wreck, but I’m OK. I’ll make it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to follow her into the darkness. I’m just never going to get over this. Ever.

  Love,

  Babs

  Vignette 23. A Small Fragment of a Text Supposedly from Gilda, Found in a Romance Novel, Discovered 2002

  The following is a scrap of text claimed to be from Trillim herself1. It was found written in the back of a paperback book, Glynda by Susannah Leigh, at the Dusit Hotel where they kept a shelf of books for the guests to take or leave. The provenance is suspect: Trillim scholar Anthony Donatello claims to have found it shortly after her death, however, no researcher has been as lucky as Donatello at finding these sorts of treasures and some have suspected that his luck is just too good. He insists that it is a matter of his doggedness rather than fraud that accounts for his success and some of his finds are above suspicion. Handwriting analysis supports the claim of authenticity. However, detractors, mostly of the naturalistic camp, want it to be a fake as it does not fit their understanding and the fragment plays into the framework of those who take Gilda at her word, perhaps a little too readily. Here is the fragment:

  It has all come together. Babs is here. And the descendants of my beloved friends have gathered to sing to me and to offer up sweet remembrances. Last night upon my arrival the singers in fur of rich browns and golds took up their positions along the wall and I led them as I have so many times. Their song was of that same beauty I remember. But these cannot be the same rats I knew. No. They must be 60 or 70 generations removed, maybe much more, yet they took my direction for the song when I gestured to them from some instinctual memory as willingly as did their progenitors. Or have they practiced deep within the forest for many rat years the tones and songs learned so long ago? Most glorious of all, something of my mother was present whether brought out from my memories or from something eternal I cannot say, but she was there. After the song, I laid down and stretched forth my arms and again the rats received my blessing after licking my stump. Over the years I had begun to doubt. No more. No more. We are objects in relation, and relations of relations. Objects of processes and processes of objects. We are both one and many. Many and one. I stand in an infinity of connections to things that define and are defined by me. Oh rats. My lovely fellow beasty objects. How love structures and frames everything.

  Vignette 24: Gilda’s Final Note Written Two Months after Her Mother’s Death. Given to Me by Babs Lake, 2013

  So now to the new material I’ve obtained that makes this thesis a unique contribution to Trillim Studies. Babs Lake has refused all interviews. During the summer she still lives in the La Sals in the cabin Gilda gifted her. For the last several years I’ve made a pilgrimage to visit the now aged Babs. She is always cordial. She will talk about a vast array of subjects, from the ecology of the great laccoliths that dominate the horizon to the latest bestsellers. She will berate me and my family for keeping sheep and the damage they do to the mountain. However, there are two areas that cannot be broached: Gilda Trillim and rats. Despite their unlikely occurrence in these Gambel oak and Ponderosa pine-dominated landscapes she keeps a number of rattraps set on the porch and around the cabin. If you bring up the subject of these vermin her eyes flash with destruction and she will hold up a finger and warn you, “Do not mention such things in this house!” It is clear she means it. When you bring up Gilda, her eyes will mist over and her lips will tighten and she will nod several times and then leave the room. She will come back and beg forgiveness and say she cannot yet talk about it despite the many years that have passed since. Until now.

  Gilda’s life has been well analyzed and this sketch I’ve written to introduce her is a mere outline, just a pencil tracing, I fear. The debate about her life goes on. But I will add something that rounds out the account of her death. On my last visit to Lake, she seemed weaker than I had ever seen her, even just a month or so ago. I had previously left her with the manuscript of this work up until the l
ast Vignette, hoping to get her comments on it and check it for accuracy. We were sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of peppermint tea, which she claims calms her stomach. The manuscript was before her and she laid her hand on the pile and told me there was much in there she had never seen and felt blessed to have had a chance to read it and thanked me heartily for putting it together.

  She then got up and wobbled over to the bookcase. She took down a volume of Montaigne’s essays and from within drew out a few pages of hand-written notes. They were of course from Gilda.

  “Take these. They are yours.”

  I have not submitted them to other scholars to establish their provenance. I did not enter them in the slow machinery of scholarly preservation and analysis. They are mine. Perhaps my only treasure. Do not fear. Upon my death they have been marked for deposit in the University of Michigan’s Trillim Collection, where they can be dissected and their atoms extracted for isotopic signatures and surfaces scanned for pollen traces so their geographical history can be revealed and they can be placed on a couch and psychoanalyzed by whatever theory is current in five or fifty or five hundred years. For the moment, however, I will hold them as an artifact of someone I’ve spent much of my later life chasing. A physical connection to Gilda Trillim. But I do put here her words from that document, which, at least for me, offer a final insight into her final act. A messiah complex? Perhaps. She was clearly re-enacting Christ’s final moments in her own. The washing of the disciples’ feet vis-à-vis the foot massage for Babs. The scriptures she wanted read by her best friend. Several elements combine to suggest she was preparing to be a Christ figure. But is that not what Jesus did? In his final moments wasn’t he playing out a script set out in the Old Testament on which acts were expected of the Jewish messiah? Maybe all messiahs must enact a theatrical play.