Heathern (20 page)

"Shut up, Thatcher." When anger rushed into Susie's
spirit, her voice lowered until she sounded as if she'd been
born to broadcast. "Won't you ever let him be?"

"You can only baby him so much. He's going to have to
find out what a tough world this is, darlin'. He can't be as
stupid as he looks-"

Junior could bear his parents' opinions no longer; without a word he leapt from his chair.

"Where you think you're going? Come back here, goddamn your ass-"

He tripped before he'd gone five feet, falling into one of
the immovable house guards stationed around the table. Junior punched the man in the sides and stomach, flailing
his fists to no evident effect; then, he dashed from the room.

"You have to speak to him in public like that?" Susie
asked; anger increased her hunger, and her rate of intake,
and within moments she was spooning food into her mouth
as one starving. "In front of these people?"

"You're smothering the little bastard, darlin'," said
Thatcher. "Mark my words, he'll turn out funnier than he
already is 'cause of you, you can bet on it-"

"Well, he won't be like you-"

"What'd be the matter with that?"

"Just shut up, Thatcher, please shut up--

"If he just talked normal like a normal person-"

"It's fucking Thanksgiving, Thatcher, so shut the fuck
up-

"I know my holidays," he said. "Don't you be telling me
to shut up-

"I'll tell you-"

We waited to hear what she threatened to tell. An aphasic
look passed over her face, as if she was unable to say what
her brain insisted she should relate. Lifting her chin as if for
a facial exercise, she rubbed her neck; pushing herself from
the table, Susie slapped her knees with her hands in an
offbeat rhythm. When she coughed it came without sound.

"Darlin' -?" Thatcher asked, staring dumbly at his wife;
she pointed to her throat. "Sue-?"

"She's choking," Avi said. No sooner had he said it than
he reached her, lifting her from her chair as she slumped.
Encircling her waist, clasping his hands across her stomach,
he shoved up and in, attempting to dislodge what she'd
aspirated.

"Help her, dammit-" Thatcher shouted.

Susie flopped in Avi's arms as if she were stuffed with
rags; closed her eyes, holding in tears, and showed no signs
of recovery. Thatcher jumped from his seat, and, without warning, began hitting Avi in the face, seeming to have
decided that it was his fault that she so suffered, his
frustration total, his rage absolute, screaming without
words, slapping as Avi squeezed. Cuts opened above Avi's
eyes; blood reddened the corners of his mouth, and I turned
away. Avi seemed oblivious to Thatcher's blows as he
undertook his work; appeared almost at peace, as if he felt
he was receiving the payment he deserved for all that he
had done.

"Get away," Thatcher shouted, shoving Avi aside, embracing his wife in his own arms, applying so vigorous a
grip as to lift her feet off the floor. Her purple lightened with
gray undertones. As they grappled there without sound I
thought how like some private drama glimpsed briefly
through a window in the night the scene seemed to be; by
the crowd's noise I gathered that they were not so detached
as I.

"She's dying-"

"Oh, God, Susan-"

"Help her."

Her arms dangled, her fingers snatched at air, her toes
turned inward, brushing against the floor. A feeling as
reprehensible as it was human entered me, and at that
moment I knew I would be glad to watch her die; that I
could have no trouble hearing, no problem forgetting, this
scream in the night. Then, awakened as if by a siren's
sound, I felt Lester take my arm.

"Together," he said, without speaking. "It has to be.
Come on."

As in a painfully clear and fully recollected dream we
glided across the room. Thatcher held his wife closely, as if
to keep her soul from escaping; he'd so exhausted himself
that we had no trouble pushing him gently aside. We lay
Susie down upon the floor; Lester knelt before her, between
her legs. I took my position behind her, propping up her body, putting my arms around her waist, clasping my hands
beneath her heavy breasts.

"Close your eyes," Lester said, placing his hands upon
her temples. Her perfume was sharp in my nostrils, a
fragrant blend of spice and oranges, a clove-stuffed potpourri worn as if to ward away the plague. My hands grew
ever-warmer as I pressed them into her flesh; warmth rose
through my arms, over my face, sent a column of fire rising
up my spine.

"Push," Lester said. Without warning my memories
burned through my walls.

-Push.

The smell of cloved oranges suffused the ward's antiseptic air, overcoming alcohol's refreshing sting when I inhaled, holding open my mouth as if I were drowning, and
wished to sink all the sooner. The hospital room's lights
were so bright I thought they must be trying to set my eyes
aflame, so that I might never speak later of what I saw.
When I moved my head, first to one side, then to the other, I
glimpsed my face, framed by askew halos, reflected in
surrounding mirrors. Susie readjusted me, taking hold of
my head in her hands, turning my face toward hers. My
eyelids seemed weighed down with lead; as she kept her
unwavering watch over me I believed, looking up, that she
had been suspended from the ceiling, and wondered why.

-Push, Thatcher said.

-Like a train, Gus said. Breathe in. Out. Gets air in the
head.

-Push, the doctor said.

Susie held me firmly, as if suspecting I might try to turn
my head too quickly, and so snap my neck: offering no
consolation, whispering no assurance, she took rather than
brought, comfort. I couldn't see what was happening; the
notion came to me that they'd decided to dissect me, for
want of better to do. Glancing toward my feet I found that I couldn't see them; my legs served as framework for a
snow-white tent; heads bobbed beyond its peaks, as if an
encampment were climbing in. Susie pressed her hands
against my skull. I began not to notice so much, after that;
the pain elsewhere grew too great. My thighs shivered with
the touch of chilled metal; I imagined them taking up
shards of shattered mirror in order to scrape me away.

-Push.

A baby, I thought, realizing I was pushing without
thinking; though I couldn't feel my body I felt too well the
pain. I'd never known how large the smallest baby might
feel. My pelvis seemed to be coming apart; I clenched my
teeth together, wishing I had something to chew. Looking
up, I stared directly into Susie's inverted eyes, so black and
still that they could have been shaped from obsidian. I hurt
all the more, once it was done.

-A boy, I heard Thatcher say.

-Competition, said Susie.

"Push."

Opening my eyes, feeling her shivers as she rasped out an
unending cough, I allowed her to pull away. Blots of wet
potato smeared Lester's shirtfront. He fell to one side; blood
streamed from his nose and he lay on the floor hyperventilating, shaking as if too much voltage had shot through
him. Thatcher helped Susie to her feet; I crawled over to
Lester, gathered him up and cradled him in my arms,
pressing my hand beneath his nose to halt the flow of
blood. What remaining sense of time I retained disappeared
as I sat there holding him; I would have been content to
remain as we were, frozen in our pose unto eternity.

"Mother," he said, seeing me, not seeing me. I smoothed
his hair; a moment longer and the bleeding stopped.
Thatcher and Susie made noises that could have been those
of laughter or of tears; I couldn't tell and had no desire to
look. That I could be, in these circumstances, a bringer of
life struck me as being incomprehensibly unfair, knowing as I did that having stolen one person from the grave, I'd
allowed another to be led closer to his own.

"You okay?" I whispered. He nodded, not opening his
eyes, resembling a newborn kitten as he lay there. The
room's silence jarred me into more mundane consciousness; raising my head to see where everyone had gone, I
saw them all still there. They stared at Lester; even Susie
looked up from her husband's bosom long enough to
glance our way, as quickly turning back toward him, her
features holding as much of anger as of shame, and not a
sign of gratitude. I could only imagine that, having seen the
face of her angel of death, she recognized it as one she'd
known all along.

"God bless," said Thatcher. "God bless us. I was right,
Susie, I was right. Wasn't I? I was right. God bless-"

"God damn," Lester whispered, so that only I could hear.
Bernard edged closer to us, holding his drink, keeping his
distance, his face no less pale than Lester's. He looked
down upon us as if from a mountaintop, for the first time
since I'd known him seeing through me as he stared at
another.

"Hallelulah," Bernard said. If I hadn't known better I'd
have sworn he understood.

That night, later on, Lester and I talked our hours away.

"Everyone does have their reasons," he said. "As do
They. It scares Them as it scares us."

"Why have I stayed there as long as I have?" I asked.

"Where would you have gone?" We lay in darkness in my
lightless house; we didn't have to see each other in order to
talk. "What would you have done?"

"I know now what I could have done-"

"You didn't then," he said. "Don't let blame lay its head
in the wrong bed, Joanna."

"There were things I could have done," I said. "That
really is the greatest sin. Seeing evil and doing nothing."

"Children learn their parents' sins better than their
virtues," Lester said. "We should expect no more from
Them than They expect from us. Only once will change
come overnight and until that day comes you have to fight
as you can, when you can. Until then, you get by."

"You almost sound like Bernard."

"Even a blind hog roots up an acorn, now and then."

"I've spent years trying to be like him," I said. "Like the
Drydens. I shouldn't deserve better than they deserve. Avi
knows that, he's accepted it. You saw him this afternoon-"

"He does as he does for different reasons," Lester said.
"Why are you so hard on yourself?"

"I've always thought someone should be," I said. "I
wanted her to die. For what they did."

"A human response to human acts. It's understandable."

"Not to me," I said. "Not now, not anymore. Not to me
or to you or-"

"Understandable to Them," he said. "Joanna, the godlike
in humanity is bad as well as good, and the evil that lives in
people more than meets its match in Theirs."

"That's no excuse," I said. "I've brought so much of this
down on myself. Some of my friends always said I must be
an emotional masochist-"

"Most people are," he said. "I suppose I am. Don't you
think a certain masochism is essential in a messiah? A
certain sadism on Their part is sure unavoidable."

"But now I see how much I could have done differently-"

"When he was alive the other afternoon Gus told me
something," Lester said. "He believed that if he hadn't gone
to the knoll that day history since then would have been
very different. Therefore he thought he was the one to bear
ultimate responsibility for why the world is the way it is,
today."

"He told you that?"

"In so many words."

"What did you say?"

"I asked him if he wasn't unsure whose shot was truly the
one that killed. That it could have been Oswald, after all. He
told me, it didn't matter, he was there, he could have done
something else. The more he talked the more it became
clear to me that he was as troubled for having to bear the
guilt without receiving recognition as over anything else. I
told him that as far as I understood it, neither he, nor
Oswald, nor even Kennedy could have been there and
everything would still have happened as it did. That didn't
improve his mood. I suppose I could have predicted that."

"If so much is predestined by Them why do They give us
what we perceive as free will?"

"It is free will as to how we get there. It's all in the
perspective. It's more worthwhile to consider how much
worse it all could have been."

"How?"

He had no answer; I suspect he knew, but saw no need to
say. "What did the Drydens do to your baby, Joanna?"

"I don't want to think about it-"

"You thought about it earlier today," he said. "The baby
was unplanned?"

So much of my life seemed to have happened so long ago,
in another country, to another person, as I supposed it had.
As I grew older the sense of disconnection pervaded my
spirit, the feeling that moments existed only as they occurred; when certain stray memories eked their way into my
soul they were, to a point, easy enough to slough off as
nothing more than vague recollections of shows once seen,
of books once read. Only when my guard slipped accidentally, as it had that afternoon, or deliberately, as it did now,
could I relive a life consciously lost.

"I'd broken up with Avi but hadn't told him yet," I said.
"About the same time Thatcher had to go on a business trip to Buenos Aires. Bernard wasn't able to make it. I was sent
in his place. I'd only seen Thatcher once or twice before
then, and never for so long a time. During the flight down
he noticed me, I guess. He fished with all his lures. He
seemed so different then, so charming, so-"

"So he hooked you," said Lester.

"At forty thousand feet," I said. "I'd come to suspect that
I was sterile, but I wasn't. At first I thought I could get an
abortion. The only way I could have made the connections
was through Thatcher, and he wouldn't hear of it, as I've
said--

"He knew it was his baby?"

"There was the possibility it was Avi's," I said. "A
fifty-fifty chance."

"He knew that." I nodded. "And Susie?"