An Astronaut's Life (7 page)

She was thin, perhaps thinner than she'd been sixteen years ago, and that made her
cheekbones more pronounced and her face drawn. The architect was hesitant to come
too close, but Leisel swivelled in her
armchair and reached to hug him. The faded
cotton of her red T-shirt was soft under his fingers. He could feel her shoulder
blades, though when she pulled away her eyes were distant.

Leisel motioned for him to sit.

‘Mum says I'll only be here a few days,' she said. ‘I'm sorry. It's so embarrassing.'

The architect shook his head. ‘No, it's fine.'

‘Want to come for a walk?'

He nodded and Leisel reached for his hand. She smiled and creases marked the skin
near her eyes.

The architect was glad he'd come; it wasn't as strange as he'd expected. He imagined
telling his wife, ‘I don't know what we were so worried about.'

Their first visit didn't last long. Leisel was tired after a short walk around the
ward, so he helped her back to her room where she curled on the bed and motioned
for him to join her. The architect was careful not to come too close, but when she
reached for him he wrapped his arm over her.

After a few minutes he thought she'd fallen asleep and he started to shift away,
but Leisel reached for his hand. The architect allowed her to lead his fingers to
her stomach, winding them under her T-shirt. He
spread his fingers, tentative. Her
skin was smooth and warm—unchanged. He held his hand against her as she breathed
and the shape of her small breasts shifted so close to his hand. He tried not to
make the comparison, but it came: he thought of his wife, how different they were.

The architect heard Leisel's breathing change as she slept, but he did not move away.

‘It's so sad,' he said that night. ‘She seemed so alone in there. I might visit again,
but I don't see how it can make much difference.'

The architect's wife had made dinner reservations, but she cancelled when she saw
how the afternoon's events had affected him. She changed into her slippers to show
she was happy to stay in. Her day had been busy too: she had her question-and-answer
segment on the radio on alternate Thursdays, where people called in to ask about
infectious diseases.

He told her he'd forgotten to listen.

‘I'm so sorry,' he said.

‘It's fine, don't even worry, I'll be on again. It was kind of you to go see her.'

‘Was it?'

‘I'm sure it helped. But this problem, or whatever with her brain, do they know if
she'll always be this way?'

‘I don't know. The doctor seems to think it might help if I visit. From what I saw,
she thinks we're still together.'

‘But she has family to take care of her. You don't want to get too caught up. Perhaps
we should leave it at that?'

The architect hadn't forgotten to listen to the radio. At three o'clock he'd been
on the freeway. He'd thought of his wife and the special radio voice she used to
answer questions about influenza or meningococcal disease and he decided to pull
the car over and take a walk. He'd used the toilets at a service station and had
not washed his hands, a major factor in the spread of pathogenic microbial agents.
He'd thought of Leisel, her hold on his hand.

That night he promised his wife he'd think it over, but he'd already made up his
mind.

Over the following weeks, the architect returned to the hospital three or four times.
He guided Leisel on
increasingly long walks around the ward. As she grew stronger
they were allowed outside to sit on a bench in the hospital grounds. She was still
tired, but began to open up about her illness and the life she remembered from before.
She talked about her younger brother and her mother and their visits, and one afternoon
she slipped her hand into his and leant against his shoulder.

‘One day we should go away together,' she said. ‘To a beach, or a resort somewhere.
Do you think?'

‘Of course.' The architect didn't want to discourage her.

‘You don't think I'm crazy, do you?'

‘I know you're not.'

‘How?'

He searched for the right tone of reassurance. ‘I once sat next to a crazy man on
the bus and he was shouting and dribbling. I've never seen you dribble.'

Leisel laughed. ‘You should sleep over sometime. Then you would.'

‘I don't think your doctors would approve.'

‘I wish you could stay. I hate it here. I hate these crazy people.'

He put his arm around her. ‘You'll be out soon, I know you will.'

Leisel sighed and leant close. She reached up and kissed him. He parted his lips
and let her tongue touch his.

The doctor explained about delusions. ‘Sometimes you can trick the brain out of a
delusion by forcing two beliefs into conflict. In cases where the brain is physically
scarred, say by an accident or infection, the damage to a person's way of thinking
may be permanent. The delusion becomes the person's way of life.'

‘But what if I don't play along? What if I tell her I'm breaking up with her, or
if I never come back?'

‘It's likely she'll block it out, not hear you. Or, if you don't visit, she might
believe you're coming tomorrow or that you were here yesterday. We all hold on to
certain delusions, things we don't examine because they're difficult. Leisel's not
so different from anyone else.'

The architect could only do his best to help, visiting more often, encouraging Leisel
to keep up with her homework and write letters to her school friends, which he took
but never posted. She seemed frustrated with her lack of progress and freedom, as
he presumed a teenager should be. He worried he wasn't doing enough.
They were in
her room. Leisel had showed him the horse she'd painted in her sessions that morning.
Leisel hated the classes in anger management and relaxation, but she didn't mind
the painting. They had a choice of four ceramic animals: kitten, dog, dolphin or
horse.

The horses were twenty-five centimetres high and stood on their hind legs. Her latest
had a yellow flower around its left eye and a trail of branches circled its body.

‘It's lovely,' the architect said, tracing his finger over its black eyeball. ‘You've
done a good job with this one.'

‘It's stupid.' Leisel screwed up her face and slumped onto her bed. ‘It's so boring
in here.'

‘It won't be much longer.'

‘Be careful.' She reached for her horse. ‘The paint's wet.'

The architect withdrew his hand and studied the smear of black on his fingertip.
Leisel sighed at the damage he'd inflicted. She started to cry.

He wiped the finger on his jeans and then he took Leisel in his arms.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

She sobbed against his shoulder. He held her tighter because he knew she wasn't really
crying about the horse. She sank her fingers into his hair and kissed his neck and
cheeks. He kissed her in return. He didn't want her
to cry. He cupped her breasts
through her T-shirt. The architect took off her jeans and then her underwear. She
didn't cry anymore.

He wondered if Leisel would notice the differences in him. He flattered himself that
maybe this would be the thing to break her delusion, maybe it would happen right
as he entered her, unfamiliar and no longer the teenage boy she expected. He was
aroused and guilty at the sight of her almost naked, but with her closed eyes and
prodding fingers, he could tell Leisel was happy.

The architect parted her legs and pushed into her slowly. He was gentle, as if it
was her first time, because he was unsure whether she believed it was.

‘What are we supposed to do with that?'

The architect had come home with one of the horses. It was painted with fine black
and red stripes.

‘It was a gift,' he said.

His wife took the ceramic horse and inspected the paintwork.

‘Leisel always wanted to be an artist,' he said.

‘So did she become one?'

The architect didn't know. He didn't know anything about Leisel's adult life. His
wife considered the gift
then placed it in the bedroom cupboard.

‘Do you have to see her so often?'

His wife was still in her work clothes; she sat on the bed, pulling off her stockings
as she spoke.

‘It's not that much, it's barely once a week. And what can I do anyway? She thinks
I'm her boyfriend.'

‘I know. And I think you're my husband. Though I'm starting to wonder which of us
is more deluded.'

‘Please don't.'

‘Well, it's true, isn't it?'

‘I'm just trying to do the right thing.'

‘By who?'

‘By her. By Leisel.'

The architect's wife unzipped her skirt and let if fall. She unbuttoned her blouse
and took off her bra. When she stood right in front of him, so close her nipples
touched his chest, the architect ran his hands over her waist out of habit. She rested
her palms against his stomach and squeezed. He knew it was meant as a truce but he
sensed a criticism in the gesture—he'd always been so much thinner before.

She unzipped his pants and tried to tug them down, but the architect reached a hand
to stop her.

‘What's wrong with you?' she said.

Things started to change with Leisel. They stopped taking walks around the grounds
and instead closed the door to her room and spent long afternoons exploring one another's
bodies like teenagers.

After, she would lie against his chest and talk about their future.

‘I'm so glad you're here,' she told him. It was late one afternoon.

‘Me too.'

Leisel fell quiet.

The doctor had explained how the medication would calm her and over time begin to
regulate the chemicals in her brain. A side-effect was that Leisel put on weight;
her face grew rounder, filling out the lines around her eyes. The architect watched
for these changes, the curve of her belly and the difference in the shape of her
breasts. She still spent a lot of time in silence, but it didn't take her away so
often.

‘When I'm out of here, maybe we can live somewhere together,' she said.

He looked along her naked back and at her limbs strewn across him. ‘Of course we
can. Where would you like to live?' he said.

‘In an apartment. One of the ones where you have
to press a button at the entrance
so someone can buzz you in.'

‘I think we can find one of those.'

‘And when you're an architect you'll build us our house.'

‘If that's what you'd like.'

Leisel ran her hand into the hair on his chest and traced a path downward. He held
his stomach in, although it made no difference to the way she saw him.

‘You really can't tell, can you?' he said.

‘Hmmm?'

‘You haven't noticed anything different?'

Leisel lifted herself onto her elbow.

‘What?' she said.

‘My hair. For a start, it's thinning.'

Leisel shrugged. ‘Don't be silly.'

‘I know you can't see it, but I'm a thirty-six-year-old man.'

She looked at him.

‘And I am an architect. Have been for a while now, and I'm not really that good at
it, if you want to know the truth.'

Leisel reached over and touched his nipple. The architect took her hand to stop her.

‘I have a wife. I'm married. We've been trying to have a baby. It's been maybe a
year now, but I guess something's wrong.'

Leisel pulled her hand away and rolled onto her back. She ran her hands along her
stomach.

‘I think I'd like to have children. But I haven't decided how many.'

The architect looked at the square tiles on the ceiling.

‘Why don't we just wait and see?' he said.

Leisel nodded.

‘Come here, you.' He pulled her to him.

There was no way to hide the increasing frequency of his visits to the hospital.
Instead, the architect gave his wife brief but essentially accurate reports on Leisel's
progress: she's stable, she's improving, she's having a tough day. His wife responded
with practiced concern but never asked for detail.

‘Do you have to be this way?' he said one day, in an effort to provoke confrontation.

‘What do you mean? This is me being sympathetic.'

‘You're being patronising.'

‘I'm not sure why it bothers you.'

She was sorting through a box of old papers, searching
for something she'd written,
case notes from when she was at school.

‘Leisel's someone who matters to me and she's going through a tough time.'

‘So I suppose I can expect to meet her soon, since she matters to you, and I'm your
wife?' She waited. ‘I can tell you're in love with her.'

‘Please. She's a child.'

‘She's a thirty-four-year-old woman.'

‘Yes, who thinks she's a child.'

‘And you're, what, her high-school boyfriend?

‘I'm her friend.'

‘I'm not blind.'

She turned to him.

‘You're fucking her, aren't you?'

‘For God's sake. She's sick. She needs someone and I'm trying to help.'

‘She needs you?' His wife dumped a stack of papers back into the box. ‘So selfless,'
she said.

The architect was already leaving the room.

‘I really don't know which of you I feel more sorry for,' she said after him.

He still enjoyed the ritual of arriving at the hospital. It
was a part of the secrecy
and anticipation of it all. The architect would spell her name at the reception desk
and they'd buzz him right in. She'd be dressed and waiting with some story she'd
been saving—something funny one of the patients had done, or a joke the nurse had
told her.