The Blazing World

by Siri Hustvedt

  Harry wasn’t eating anything. Maisie tried to feed her broth, but she couldn’t do it. I could see that Harry wasn’t going to take any more food, but Maisie wanted to keep her mom alive, keep her going. Harry said she couldn’t feel her feet anymore, so Maisie and I rubbed them, and while we rubbed them, Ethan sat down beside her and started in on the Fervid stories. There was this girl named Nobisa, who wasn’t very clean or very pretty. I liked that because usually, you know, it’s the beautiful princess and blah, blah, blah. Nobisa had adventures with some pretty strange types, an ogre named Burnt because he was once almost killed in a fire and was all scar tissue, and there was a fairy named Fat for the good reason that she was obese and it made flying hard for her. She was so weighted down, but she couldn’t get thin because she had a gigantic hunger for bacon and eggs. She ate her way through all the pigs in the kingdom and the chickens couldn’t lay enough eggs for her appetite, and a war started with the neighbor kingdom because of it. Ethan kept on telling, and Harry lay there with her eyes closed and her fingers holding the morphine drip control, but she smiled now and again.

  Then Harry threw up slime with blood in it. She gagged, and I put my hand on her chest and breathed out to her. She moaned. Then she said, “You know, they chopped me up for no reason, Clemmy. They took me apart and poisoned me, but it just made it worse.” Bruno looked so upset. Tears spurted from his eyes.

  Right at that moment a wiry man, with long hair and a beard, wearing a T-shirt with a skull on it, came skipping into the room—I mean skipping the way kids skip, step-hop, step-hop—and he started talking real loud and waving his arms like a windmill. To be honest, for a second I thought one of those crazy characters from Harry’s stories had come to life. He bowed down to us like a man who was going to play the piano for a whole hall full of people, and then he shook his fist at the ceiling. But he was winding himself up into a sermon. The words came out fast and furious. The way he talked reminded me of this inspirational preacher Grandma Lucy took me to once, but that guy had his hair all slicked down with grease, and he wore a navy blue suit. The wiry man talked about faith and zeal and tribulation and the blood of the cross and lambs and angels and storms and lightning crashing in the sky and September 11 and even the Internet, although I wasn’t sure how that fit into it. I kept trying to read his aura, but he was hopping around the room on his bowed legs, all jerky and nervous, and it was hard to tell what he was sending off. Harry was moaning, and Bruno looked very angry, and I thought he was going to hit the little man.

  Suddenly, the preaching man turned quiet. He said, “Break thou the arm of the evil and wicked man.” It’s from one of the Psalms. I learned most of them when I was younger. It’s not one of the comforting ones, though, not like lying down in green pastures. Then he hopped right over to Psalm 22, another scary passage: “I am poured out like water, / and all my bones are out of joint; / my heart is like wax; / it is melted in the midst of my bowels. / My strength is dried up like a potsherd; / and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; / and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” I never knew what a potsherd was.

  I still had my hands on Harry, and I was breathing in rhythm, and she breathed with me. She said, “I am like a broken vessel.” So Harry must have known her Bible too. I wouldn’t have supposed it, but later Ethan told me Harry had read so many books and of course she knew the Bible because it was “great literature.” He was a little snobby about it. Oh well.

  We took her outside because Harry said she wanted to see the water and the sky. Pearl thought this might be too much. But Harry really wanted it, and Bruno said we were going to do it no matter what. His face was all red, and he said, “Goddamn it, if that’s what she wants, that’s what she’s getting.”

  It was a big production. We took the IV with us because it rolled, but we had to get her into the wheelchair, which wasn’t easy because she was so tender everywhere; and she was so cold, we had to bundle her up in a big sweater and scarf and wrap two blankets around her. Maisie found a nice green hat with a brim for her head, even though it was spring and the air was warm. Harry looked pretty funny, I have to say. When she was all ready to go out, it was awfully hard to find the person inside all the wrappings. It looked like we were wheeling out a long sleeping bag in a hat. We took her down in the building’s freight elevator. I hadn’t even noticed it before. Bruno said he was the one who had to steer the chair because he knew how to handle it, but he bumped Harry a couple of times anyway, and she would squawk “Ow” every time, but just for a second. Pearl came along with us, all calm and clear with her straight-up-and-down posture, very dignified, and the skinny man, too, who seemed tuckered out from his sermon, was walking with a limp all of a sudden. I wondered if he wasn’t feeling sympathy for Harry and it made him lame for a while.

  Ethan whispered to me that the wiry person was the Barometer. His mother was killed by a tornado, and he had spent time, a lot of time, in mental hospitals, but he lived with Harry and Bruno now. We wheeled Harry down by the water so she could take a look at it. I think she wanted to feel the sun on her face, because she lifted it up to the sky. Kali was prancing on the leash and pulling me here and there to get in the smells. How she loves her smells.

  I pulled Kali back from the others and walked a few yards away. I thought they should have Harry to themselves—Bruno and Maisie and Ethan should, anyway. I watched the gulls and looked over at Lady Liberty. I thought about what Harry must be feeling because she wouldn’t see her again, not like this, anyway. I wanted her to know it would be better, more beautiful on the other side, but it was sad because we can’t help loving what’s around us even if it is grasping and attachment to the things that don’t really matter when you take a higher spiritual perspective. The trip didn’t last long. Harry couldn’t take it. Her hat fell into her face, and Maisie had to straighten it out because Harry was too feeble to do it. She fixed her mom’s scarf, too, and I heard Harry whisper, “I’m the baby now.” And Maisie smiled, but when she walked along beside Bruno and Harry couldn’t see, Maisie’s face was wet as wet could be with all the tears.

  Aven, Harry’s granddaughter, arrived after her school was over. She was a tall kid for her age, with short hair, big eyes, and a serious face. She looked like a tomboy. Ethan said, “She hates pink. Won’t wear it.” He said she was a math whiz, too: “Calculates like that.” He snapped his fingers. I think she knew she was going to say goodbye to Harry. She called her Grandmother. I kind of wish she could have seen Harry a little earlier in the day, because Harry was so exhausted from the trip down to the water that she couldn’t really say much. Maisie brought Aven up to Harry, and Aven looked at her grandmother’s white wrinkled skin with a big vein standing out in her temple and at her eyes, which were all caved in, and at her flaky chapped lips, and she was afraid. She held back, didn’t want to touch her grandma. Maisie gave her a little punch in her back to push her toward Harry, and I could see Aven’s face crumple up, and she sucked her lips into her mouth. She was only eight years old. Maybe nine. I knew Aven was about to burst out crying, so I picked up Kali and brought her over to the two of them. Kali whimpered a little, and she sniffed Harry. Kali knew. My little dog knew just what was going on. So I took Aven’s hand in mine, and we petted Kali together, and then I put our hands on Harry’s shoulder very gently, and we petted Harry together for a while, but I kept my other arm around Aven’s shoulder. Then I felt Maisie’s hand on my back. That was nice. Maisie thought it was okay. Harry’s eyes were teary, and I thought she was going to start bawling with her granddaughter standing there in front of her; but she looked at Aven, and her bleary eyes didn’t look so bleary for a second, and she made a noise in her throat and then, as loudly as she could, which wasn’t very loud, she croaked out, “Fight for yourself. Don’t let anybody push you around. You hear me?”

  Aven bit her bottom lip, and I could see her white teeth. She looked at her mother because she didn’t know what to say. Maisie nodded at her
. It was the smallest nod I ever saw in my whole life, and Aven said, “I won’t, Grandmother. I promise.” To be honest, I said a long “Whew” to myself. I felt glad we had gotten through that one without some big emotional disaster.

  Well, after that, we waited mostly. Bruno didn’t leave Harry. He had a bed set up right beside her. There was room for all of us. Maisie, Oscar, and Aven slept in one of the rooms, and they gave me and Kali a little study room down the hall, where Harry had done her bills for her foundation and stuff. Ethan kissed me again but he went into a room by himself. Winsome arrived for her shift. Harry was still alive in the morning but restless, talking and moaning. Dr. Gupta came to look at her, and he talked to Bruno in the corner. Bruno was nodding. I didn’t understand the medical stuff, but they weren’t going to let the pain get the better of Harry, so they gave her drugs and Harry got really quiet. She lay there as still as could be, so still it made me think about how all the leaves stop moving right before a big storm. I kept cleaning even though Bruno yelled at me, “I still don’t know what the hell you’re doing here!” Ethan told him to leave me alone. “Mother wanted her here. You know it and I know it,” he said. “Let her stay.” Ethan was a hero to me right then.

  Well, late in the morning, around eleven thirty, we were all sitting around, just waiting for Harry to die. I had done what I could, and I felt pretty confident the chakras were as clean as they were ever going to be. I had put my purple agate on her belly to open the spiritual flood when the time came, because it works on the upper chakra. Then, all of sudden, we saw Harry jolt in the bed, and in a voice that woke us all up, she said, “No.” Then she said it again, and then a third time just for good measure. And after that, she said nothing at all.

  A man named Phineas arrived that afternoon. He was a slender black guy, medium height, actually he was very light brown if you want me to describe him right. He had lots of freckles on his face and thin, arched eyebrows, and a soft mouth with a bottom lip that stuck out a little. I liked his clothes, skinny pants, boots, and a nice-looking sports jacket. They all knew him. Harry couldn’t talk to him and that was too bad, because he’d come all the way from Argentina. Ethan informed me that he was one of Harry’s covers. He had played a part for her, like Anton, but he hadn’t been upset about it the way Anton was. Phineas sat beside Harry and talked to her even though she couldn’t hear him, at least not in the ordinary way, because she was not awake anymore. He talked for a long time and he held her hand. I remember he called her “pal” and “my pal, old pal.”

  Later, Phinny—that was his nickname—ran out to get sandwiches for us, and we all sat and ate them and talked about this and that. Ethan read the newspaper that was lying on the table, and Maisie got upset and said we were all forgetting Harry, who was lying over there almost dead, and what were we doing? But I told her that’s how it is. We aren’t dying now. We will all die later. We have to eat. Harry would want us to eat, wouldn’t she? It was raining outside, raining hard outside the windows, which were covered with little droplets that ran down the glass like tears. I remember thinking that.

  That night I slept with Kali curled up next to me, and I wondered if Winsome or Bruno would come in and say that Harry had died, but she was alive in the morning. Dr. Gupta told us her body was shutting down. But Harry was still breathing. And the rain stopped, and the sun came out, and Bruno opened the window to let in some air. I took Kali out for a walk and ran with her past the water taxis and the big warehouse where they show art, and I thought maybe Harry should have had her works in there. When I came back in we waited some more. I studied Harry’s aura—so much cleaner. The colors were pure. Some red, but lots of greens and blues. It made me happy because I had answered my destiny. I daydreamed about my apartment and my teas all lined up in my kitchenette and the clients I had canceled to be with Harry, and I was a little bored while I was waiting, to tell the truth, but I didn’t want to leave her yet. I wanted to be there for the transition, for the time when Harry would leave our world for higher realms of consciousness.

  Before she left, Harry made a strange sound, a deep, dark shaking noise, and when I heard it, the sound bounced around in my own head, an announcement of an end and a new beginning. We were so quiet. I did not go to Harry, but I saw the light leap up and out around her. Dr. Gupta, solemn and straight, told us she was dead. Harry looked so still and her skin was kind of see-through, but I didn’t see a shred of pain in her face. I knew it was time for me to step away. Bruno was holding her, and Maisie and Ethan were standing by the bed, so just a few minutes later, I picked up Kali and my bag of stones and toe-heeled my way out of the room as quiet as a mouse and called Legends from the kitchen to come and pick me up. I left the purple agate, and I hoped they would remember to rinse it.

  I have only one thing left to say. I stayed in touch with Ethan and, about eight months later, he asked me if I wanted to come and see some of Harry’s work while it was still in the studio. They were organizing it or something. I said yes. Maisie and Ethan took me in. I’d left Kali with Deborah, my neighbor in the building, because Deb just loves babysitting her. Ethan unlocked a door, opened it, and flicked on the lights that came on above me. It was late fall, and the sky through the windows was gray with some brown and white in it. They told me Bruno and the Barometer were still living there in the building, and that they didn’t get along too well, so there were problems, but they were trying to sort them out and there was something about Harry’s will and that she had provided for them; but I wasn’t listening, because I was looking around me at all the things in the room, the big soft dolls and the rooms and the houses. There were some small sculptures hanging from the ceiling. One was of a penis, and I just had to laugh at it. And then I felt that funny lifting feeling I get sometimes, as if I’m getting pulled up toward the ceiling. It was a sign, maybe it was coming from Harry. I could feel something important was happening to me and then I saw a woman squatting on the floor, not a real person, but a great big statue with no hair. And she had lots of people inside her head, but also numbers and letters, and she was raining numbers and letters and little people from her private parts, her vagina, anyway, and I felt a big grin come over my face, and I walked over to her to get a close look. There’s a lot of art I don’t understand. To be honest, it’s kind of boring to me, but this was different. I got down on my hands and knees and started looking around at the tiny ones, and I had the sacred feeling. I told Ethan I had it. I opened up my arms and said, “Wow,” and then I saw her. “Look,” I said to them. “Look, it’s Harry. Can I touch her?” They didn’t know that Harry had put herself into the art, so it was exciting. I pointed at the little person, and Ethan and Maisie got down on their knees. They saw her right away. Maisie said, “It’s Mother, all right.” “Look,” I said, “she’s just walking along, all happy and healthy, just minding her own business, looking up at the sky.” I guess there were too many little sculptures for them to have noticed their teeny-weeny mom among all those other little people.

  They told me about the lady philosopher who was almost forgotten, whose name I can’t remember, but who inspired the big woman and all her little people. She lived a long, long time ago, in the medieval times, I think. Margot, maybe. I’m awfully bad at remembering names. I’ll have to ask Ethan about her when I see him again. But the important fact is this: While I was down on my knees looking at the little figure of Harry, it started to glow. I swear. It glowed purple. I was seeing its energy. It had an electromagnetic field—that little thing did. I was very quiet then. We walked around and looked at some of the other pieces of art, and then, when we were just about to go through the door, I turned around to take one last look at Harry’s artworks, and then I saw their auras blazing out all around them. I took a big breath in and held it for a few seconds. They weren’t people, after all. They were just things a person had made. For the first time, I really had the understanding of why the master taught that there were artists on the higher plane living
on Sirius. It was because they had given their spirits and energies into what they made. They must have had a lot of extra energy to give away. Anyway, I swear the whole room was lit by those shivering rainbows.

  Ethan and Maisie must have seen that something had happened to me, because they asked me what the matter was, but I said nothing was the matter. I said I was fine, which I was. If I had told them about the lights and the colors, they would’ve given me more funny looks, even though they meant well and were really kindhearted. Both of them were. I closed my eyes. I opened them again, and I just stood there smiling because the colors were still there—reds and oranges and yellows and greens and blues and violets—blazing hot and bright in that big room where Harry used to work, and I knew for certain that each and every one of those wild, nutty, sad things Harry had made was alive with the spirit. For a second there, I could almost hear them breathing.

  About the Author

  Siri Hustvedt was born in 1955 in Northfield, Minnesota. She has a PhD from Columbia University in English and is the internationally acclaimed author of five novels, The Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, What I Loved, The Sorrows of an American, and The Summer Without Men, as well as a growing body of nonfiction, including A Plea for Eros; Mysteries of the Rectangle ; Essays on Painting ; Living, Thinking, Looking ; and an interdisciplinary investigation of the mind-body problem, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves. She has given lectures on artists and theories of art at the Prado in Madrid, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She has also lectured at international conferences on neuropsychoanalysis, neuroethics, and neurophysiology. In 2011, she delivered the thiry-eighth annual Sigmund Freud Lecture in Vienna. In 2012, she was a Gutenberg Fellow at Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. The same year she won the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities.