Cheat and Charmer (79 page)

But nothing helped her with the horror of what had happened to Veevi. Dinah couldn’t get used to visiting her. Fear swept over her every time she turned in to the hospital parking lot. Veevi remained heavily sedated, but she was still in indescribable pain. Every time her dressings were changed, she had to have general anesthesia, and when that wore off she needed morphine. It was this presence of unceasing agony, and the knowledge that it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, that ate into Dinah. She felt Veevi’s flesh as her own. For a long time now, she had wondered whether she truly loved her sister. There had been times when she wasn’t sure. But the question no longer even existed. She did not know where she ended and her sister began; she and Veevi were the same body; Veevi was her child, her sister, herself.

“It’s unb-b-b-bearable,” she said to Kirsten when Veevi moaned in pain.

“Yes, I know,” the nurse answered, hooking up a fresh bag of morphine to one of the IV tubes. “How can it not be? She’s your own flesh and blood. But if you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Lasker, try to remove yourself just a little. It will make it easier for you, and if it’s easier for you it will be better for her.”

Every day when she drove the long hours in traffic along the Hollywood Freeway, passing all those streets where the Milligans had lived in stucco bungalows and cramped one-story houses, she said to herself, Thank God Mom and Pop don’t have to see her this way. Thank God they’re not here for this.

Yet it seemed to Dinah that if she had truly loved her sister none of this would have happened. It seemed to her that if she had loved her sister she would have walked out of that room at the Hollywood-Griffith. I sacrificed her for Jake, she told herself. It is not possible to do that to someone you love. I named Veevi because … (Go on, she said to herself behind the wheel, driving away from the hospital and into the western glare, Go on,
say
it) she had never, not even once, been unloved. She had never, ever, been hurt. She had never been passed over. She had never been rejected. And she was never going to be rejected. It was unthinkable. Unimaginable. It was a law of the universe that she would always be adored. For Veevi to be hurt was as impossible as the ocean’s running dry. All she had ever had, Dinah admitted to herself, was Jake and the kids. Before that, there had been nothing and nobody. I did whatever was necessary to keep what I had, and look where it’s brought us now, she said to herself.

S
he stood beside the bed, and reached out to touch Veevi’s hand. The skin was hot with fever. Veevi moved her head back and forth, moaning. Small croaking sounds came from her throat; her breathing was labored.

“She’s in agony, Kirsten,” said Dinah. “C-C-C-Can’t you t-t-turn her? I think she can’t stand lying on her back all the time without moving.”

“Can’t do it, Mrs. Lasker. Mustn’t lose fluids.”

Dinah longed to touch Veevi, to soothe her, and she rubbed her sister’s feet and legs, which were splotched with bruise marks from the endless IV needles. When she touched her sister’s body, she remembered Pop’s words: “It’s food and drink to see you.” It was food and drink to touch her sister’s legs and feet. When she gave blood, it upset her that only a pint could be taken. She wished she had quarts and quarts to give; why couldn’t she give all of her blood to her sister? Her appetite had fled with the phone call in New York, but she forced herself to eat red meat, which she hated, so that she could manufacture new red blood cells—billions of them, all for Veevi.

Dr. Hershel Epstein, the burn doctor at Cedars of Lebanon who was in charge of Veevi’s case, showed Dinah a photograph in a textbook about four inches thick. “We will slice off a piece about this size.” He made a small square with his hands, and held up an instrument. “I call it my cheese slicer. See? We’ll just peel off a thin layer of skin.” He spoke with a soft precision. She nodded. She had driven to his office in Beverly Hills on her way downtown to the hospital. “We’ll take the first piece from your thigh.” He
opened the medical gown she was wearing and, holding his pen just above her right thigh, drew on her skin. “And then we’ll take another piece the same size from the left thigh—about here.” He was tanned, and had one of those chronically peeling noses she associated with tennis players. She could imagine him dressed in white shorts and a striped V-necked tennis sweater, with one of those jaunty khaki hats on his head. “We can take more, when we need to, from your buttocks, your belly, and your back,” he added. He picked up her two arms and held them out and scrutinized them. “You’ve got nice, healthy skin, so we can harvest a good deal of tissue.”

“I’m darker than my sister,” Dinah said. “She was always so fair.”

“Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that she won’t reject your skin. At least, that’s what we’re banking on.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s fine. I’m glad I can d-d-d-do it.”

He scrutinized her body again, and she felt, suddenly, a sexual flutter that surprised and embarrassed her.

“Now, Dinah, you have to be aware that it will be, you know, somewhat disfiguring.” He let go of her arms and showed her another page in the book. “It’ll look like this—kind of bumpy, like oatmeal. I can send you to a guy I know who can smooth it down, but you will have some scarring.”

“I don’t care. It’s not important, compared to the scarring
she’ll
have. You can’t imagine how b-b-b-beautiful she was.”

“Oh yes I can. I remember her movies. Her face isn’t that bad, Dinah. There are the two patches on her cheeks. That’s where we’ll put your skin, to start.”

How odd, she thought, with a quiver. Her skin on Veevi’s face. She had wondered all her life why she hadn’t been given that face, or a face just like it. And now her own skin would be Veevi’s—on Veevi’s cheeks, saving what was left of that commanding loveliness.

Dr. Epstein clicked and unclicked his ballpoint pen with his exquisitely clean hands and manicured nails.

“When can we start?” she said. “I’m ready now. Today.”

He explained that if Veevi could hold on for another three weeks or so, until January, they could begin. Until then, they had to keep fighting infection, build her strength, get her to the point where she could accept the grafts. He would harvest skin from the older daughter, too.

“Claire?”

He nodded.

“Oh, no. Don’t take hers. She’s so young and pretty. As for me, you can flay me alive for all I care.”

He smiled at her with a look of playful wisdom. “Now, you wouldn’t be of any use to anybody without your skin. So I’d advise you to keep it.”

The situation was kind of unusual, Kirsten explained to Dinah out in the hallway, while Dorshka stood on one side of the bed, crooning a Yiddish lullaby to Veevi, and Anya Engel stood on the other, holding Veevi’s bluish fingers. The two women were covered head to toe in green hospital gowns; both of them wore masks. Anya had come to the hospital to give blood and bring flowers, but she hadn’t been allowed to carry the flowers into the room and had left them at the nurses’ station; the environment in Mrs. Albrecht’s room, Kirsten had explained, had to be kept sterile. Dinah found it difficult to leave Veevi for even a minute, but with the two women keeping watch over Veevi like fluffy hens, she was free to step outside.

“We’ve discovered why the morphine isn’t as effective with your sister, Mrs. Lasker,” Kirsten said. “You see, her body has become so accustomed to alcohol and barbiturates that the morphine just can’t do that much. The relief isn’t as deep, and it wears off faster. If we give her more, we’re taking too big a risk.”

But it was also because the morphine wasn’t getting that much mileage that Veevi was beginning to have lucid moments. Dinah went in and stood at the foot of the bed. Veevi lay very still; her eyes were half open. All three women bent over to listen, because she was trying to say something and her voice was faint: “… such a funny dream, you know, a parade! And there was … a character, Eisenhower! With the bluest eyes, and he loves me! Have you ever!” Dinah rejoiced at that
have you ever!
It meant that Veevi was still there. Dinah, Dorshka, Anya—all three of them laughed, wanting Veevi to know they were listening. A smile hovered around Veevi’s mouth. “Gone now,” she said to Anya with a hoarse laugh. “Beauty all gone! Oh God, such a burden, dear. Oh, you have no idea! All gone now.”

Dinah couldn’t see Anya’s face, only her eyes, above the mask, and her forehead, which contracted, as if she wanted to protest something. It seemed to Dinah that Veevi was apologizing to Anya for having been beautiful, as if she were accepting punishment.

“Not true, sweetie,” Anya said. “You still have your marvelous face.”

Veevi opened her eyes wide and looked at Anya. “No,” she said. “All gone. Mirror. I wanna mirror.”

“There’s no need for a mirror, darling. It’s not all gone, and you will still be the envy of us all,” Dorshka said definitively before she and Anya slipped away, leaving the two sisters alone. Veevi and Dinah began to talk, and Kirsten, who day after day had kept Veevi from dying, heard between them a patter that was indistinguishable from the sound of hummingbirds’ wings—low rapid murmurings, flutterings, whirrings, always interspersed with laughter. It was a good sign.

That Mrs. Lasker, Kirsten thought, even with that awful stutter, had bent over her sister every day, talking through the mask, getting Mrs. Albrecht to laugh or smile or talk a little. She overheard Mrs. Lasker telling stories, and often they were about their father and their childhood. “ ‘This is no time for jollification!’ ” she heard Mrs. Lasker say, and that seemed to trigger a memory for Mrs. Albrecht and made her laugh. “ ‘You could be a power in this town!’ ” Mrs. Lasker said to Mrs. Albrecht another time, after the visit of an important-looking older woman, and again there came laughter.

One day she heard them making plans. That was good. They were talking about the future: that was very good. She saw Mrs. Lasker pull up her skirt and show her sister where the grafts would come from. Mrs. Lasker apologized for not being allowed to give her sister a cigarette; Mrs. Albrecht constantly made that smoking motion, bringing her hand to her mouth as if she were holding a cigarette and taking a puff on it, especially whenever she came out of the anesthesia for the dressing changes. They talked about Mr. Lasker’s show in New York and what a big hit it was, and how Mr. Lasker was coming home for Christmas and on Christmas Eve they were going to drive all the children into Beverly Hills to see the the colors spouting from the Indian fountain and the Santa Claus and his reindeer installed above the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire.

Mrs. Lasker sounded so happy when Mrs. Albrecht said she was going to start her own literary agency, and that way she could do what she had always loved to do: read books and talk to authors. And she would have an office right in her own house, so no one would ever have to see her, she said.

“N-N-N-Nonsense,” said Mrs. Lasker. “You won’t have to hide from anybody.”

Mrs. Albrecht said, “You’re too nice, Dinah. You’re lying about my face. I know about my face. Hideous! Give me a mirror. Let me see my face.”