Sacrament (10 page)

He Is Lost; He Is Found

i

Is he dreaming?' Adrianna asked Dr Koppelman one day in early I spring, when her visit to sit at Will's bedside
coincided with the physician's rounds.

It was almost four months since the events in Balthazar, and in its own almost miraculous way Will's mauled
and fractured body was mending itself. But the coma was as profound as ever. No sign of motion disturbed the
glacial surface of his state. The nurses moved him regularly so as to prevent his developing bedsores; his bodily
needs were taken care of with drips and catheters. But he did not, would not, wake. And often, when Adrianna
had come to visit him through that dreary Winnipeg winter, and looked down at his placid face, she found
herself wondering: what are you doing?

Hence her question. She normally had an allergic response to doctors, but Koppelman, who insisted on being
called Bernie, was an exception. He was in his early fifties, overweight, and to judge by the stains on his fingers
(and his minted breath) a heavy smoker. He was also honest when it came to his ignorance, which she liked,
even though it meant he didn't really have any answers for her.

'We're as much in the dark as Will is right now,' he went on. 'He may be in a completely closed down state as
far as his consciousness is concerned. On the other hand he may be accessing memories at such a deep level we
can't monitor the brain activity. I just don't know.'

'But he could still come out of it,' Adrianna said, looking down at Will.

'Oh certainly,' Koppelman said. 'At any time. But I can't offer you any guarantees. There are processes at work
in his skull right now that frankly we don't understand.'

'Do you think it makes any difference if I'm here with him?'

'Were you and he very close?'

'You mean lovers? No. We worked together.'

Koppelman nibbled at his thumbnail. 'I've seen cases where the presence of somebody the patient knew at the
bedside did seem to help things. But...'

... you don't think this is one of those.'

Koppelman looked concerned. 'You want my honest opinion?' he said, lowering his voice.

'Yes.'

'People have to get on with their lives. You've done more than a lot of people would, coming here, day in, day
out. You don't live in the city, do you?'

'No. I live in San Francisco.'

'That's right. There was talk about moving Will back, wasn't there?'

'There are a lot of people dying in San Francisco.'

Koppelman looked grim. 'What can I tell you?' he said. 'You could be sitting here for another six months,
another year, and he'd still be in a coma. That's a waste of your life. I know you want to do your best for him but
... you see what I'm saying?'

'Of course.'

'It's painful to hear, I know.'

'It makes sense,' she replied. 'It's just ... I can't quite face the idea of leaving him here.'

'He doesn't know, Adrianna.'

'Then why are you whispering?'

Caught in the act, Koppelman grinned sheepishly. 'I'm only saying the chances are, that wherever he is he
doesn't care about the world out here.' He glanced back towards the bed. 'And you know what? Maybe he's
happy.'

ii

Maybe he's happy. The words haunted Adrianna, reminding her of how often she and Will had talked - deeply,
passionately - about the subject of happiness, and how much she now missed his conversation.

He was not, he had often said, designed for happiness. It was too much like contentment, and contentment was
too much like sleep. He liked discomfort -sought it out, in fact (how often had she been stuck in some grim little
hide, too hot or too cold, and looked over at him to see him grinning from ear to ear? Physical adversity had
reminded him he was alive, and life, he'd told her oh so many times, was his obsession).

Not everybody had found evidence of that affirmation in his work. The critical response to both the books and
exhibitions had often been antagonistic. Few reviewers had questioned Will's skills - he had the temperament,
the vision and the technical grasp to be a great photographer. But why, they complained, did he have to be so
relentlessly grim? Why did he have to seek out images that evoked despair and death when there was so much
beauty in the natural world?

While we may admire Will Rabjohns' consistency of vision, the Time critic had written of 'Feeding the Fire', his
accounts of the way humanity brutalizes and destroys natural phenomena become in turn brutal and destructive
to those

very sensibilities it wishes to arouse to pity or action. The viewer gives up hope in the face of his reports. We
watch the extinction with despairing hearts. Well, Mr Rabjohns, we have dutifully despaired. What now?

It was the same question Adrianna asked herself when Dr Koppelman went about his rounds. What now? She'd
wept, she'd cursed, she'd even found enough of her much-despised Catholic training intact to pray, but none of it
was going to open Will's eyes. And meanwhile, her life was ticking on.

This was not the only issue in play. She'd found a lover here in Winnipeg (an ambulance driver, of all things); a
fellow called Neil, who was far from her ideal of manhood but who was plainly attracted to her. She owed him
answers to the questions he asked her nightly: why couldn't they move in together; just try it out for a couple of
months, see if it worked?

She sat down on the bed beside Will, took his hand in hers and told him what was going through her head.

'I know I'll be pulled in to this half-assed relationship with Neil if I hang around here, and he's probably more
your type than he is mine. He's a bear, you know. He hasn't got a hairy back-'she added hurriedly -I know you
hate hairy backs, but he's big - and a bit of a Junk in a sexy kind of way, but I can't live with him, Will. I can't.
And I can't live here. I mean, I was staying for him and for you, and right now you're not taking any notice of
me and he's taking too much notice, so it's a bad deal all around. Life's not a rehearsal, right? Isn't that one of
Cornelius' pearls of wisdom? He's gone back to Baltimore, by the way. I don't hear from him, which is probably
for the best because he always annoyed the fuck out of me. Anyhow, he had that line about life not being a
rehearsal and he's right. If I hang around here I'm going to end up moving in with Neil and we're just going to
get cosy when you're going to open your eyes - and Will, you are going to open your eyes -and you're going to
say we gotta go to Antarctica. And Neil's going to say: no you're not. And I'm going to say: yes I am. And
there'll be tears, and they won't be mine. I can't do that to him. He deserves better.

'So ... what am I saying? I'm saying I have to take Neil out for a beer and tell him it's not going to work, then I
have to haul my ass back to San Francisco, and get my shit together, because baby thanks to you I have never
been so untogether in my whole damn life.'

She dropped her voice to a whisper. 'You know why. It's not something we've talked about and if you had your
eyes open right now I wouldn't be saying it because what's the use? But Will: I love you. I love you so much
and most of the time it's okay, because we get to work together and I figure you love me back, in your way.
Okay, it's not the way I'd really like it, if I had the choice, but I don't so I'll take whatever I can. And that's all
you're getting. And if you can hear this, you should know

buddy, when you wake up I will deny every fucking word, okay? Every fucking word.' She got up from beside
the bed, feeling tears close. 'Damn you, Will,' she said. 'All you have to do is open your eyes. It's not that
difficult. There's so much to see, Will. It's icy fucking cold, but there's this great clean light on everything: you'd
like it. Just. Open. Your. Eyes.' She watched and waited, as if by force of thought she could stir him. But there
was no motion, except the mechanical rising and falling of his chest.
'Okay. I can take a hint. I'd better get going. I'll come visit you again before I go.' She leaned over him and
lightly kissed him on the forehead. 'I tell you Will, wherever the hell you are, it's not as good as it is out here.
Come back and see me, see the world, okay? We're missing you.'

The morning after the incident at the Courthouse Will woke in a wretched state: aching from head to foot. He
tried to get out of bed, but his legs replayed their imbecilities of the night before and down he went, with such a
shout (more of surprise than pain) that his mother came running, to find him sprawled on the floor, teeth
chattering. He was duly diagnosed as having 'flu, and put back to bed, where he was plied with aspirin and
scrambled eggs.
Sleet had come in the night, and slapped against the window through most of the day. He wanted to be out in
it. His fever would turn the icy downpour to steam, he thought, as soon as it fell on him. He'd walk back to the
Courthouse like one of the children from the Bible who'd been burned in a furnace but had come out alive;
steaming, he'd walk the muddy track, back to where Jacob and Rosa kept their strange counsel. Naked, he'd go,
yes naked, through the hedgerow, scraped and nicked, until he got to the door, where Jacob would be waiting to
teach him wisdom, and Rosa would be waiting to tell him what an extraordinary boy he was. Into the
Courthouse he'd go, into the heart of their secret world, where everything was love and fire, fire and love.
All this, if he could only get up and out of bed. But his body was cheating him. It was all he could do to get as
far as the toilet, and even then he had to hold onto the sink with one hand and his penis - which looked very
shrivelled and ashamed of itself right now - with the other, to be sure he wouldn't fall over, his head was
spinning so much. Just after lunch the doctor came to see him. She was a softly-spoken woman with short,
white hair, though she didn't look old enough to have white hair, and a gentle smile. She told him he'd get well
as long as he didn't get out of bed and took the medicine she was going to prescribe, then reassured his mother
that he'd be right as rain in a week or so.
A week? Will thought. He couldn't wait a week to be back with Jacob and Rosa. As soon as the doctor and his
mother had gone he got up and made his uncertain way to the window. The sleet was thickening into snow, and
it was sticking a little on the tops of the hills. He watched his breath come and go on the cold glass, and
determined that he would make himself strong, damn it, simply by telling himself to do so.

He started right then and there: 'I will be strong. I will be strong. I will-'
He stopped in mid-flow, hearing his Papa's voice in the hall below, and then the sound of his footstep on the
stairs. He started back to his bed, and just made the safety of the covers when the door opened and his father
came in, his face more forbidding than the sky outside the window.
'All right,' he said, without a word of greeting, 'I want an explanation from you, my lad, and I don't want any
of your lies. I want the truth.' Will said nothing. 'You know why I'm home early?' his father demanded. 'Well?'
'No.'

'I got a call from Mr Cunningham. Damn lunatic, calling me in the middle of the day. He tracked me down, he
said, tracked me down, because his son's in a terrible state. Can't stop the boy crying, apparently, because of
some damn thing you've been up to with him.' Hugo approached Will's bed. 'Now I want to know what stupid
stories you've been putting in this brat's head, and don't shake your head at me like that, young man, you're not
talking to your mother now. I want answers and I want the truth, you hear me?'
'Sherwood's ... not quite right ...' Will said.
'What the hell's that supposed to mean?' Hugo said, spittle flecking his lips.
'He says things without really knowing what he's saying.'
'I don't care what's wrong with the little bugger. I just don't want his father coming to find me and accusing
me of raising a complete idiot. That's what he called you. An idiot! Which you may be, by the way. Have you
got no sense?'
Will was starting to get tearful. 'Sherwood's my friend,' he spluttered.
'He's not quite right, you said.'
'He isn't.'
'So what does that make you? If you're his friend, what does that make you? Have you got no sense? What
were you up to?'
'We just went looking around, and he ... he got scared ... that's all.'
'You've got a peculiar idea of fun, putting nonsense into a little boy's head.' He shook his head. 'Where'd you
get it all from?' he said, already giving up on his son. Plainly he didn't want an answer, though Will so much
wanted to give him one, so much wanted to say: I didn't make up anything, you dead-eyed old man. You don't
know what I know, you don't see what I see, you don't understand any of it-
But he didn't dare speak the words, of course. He just cast down his eyes, and let his father's contempt fall on
his head until it was all used up.

Later, his mother came in with pills for him to take. 'I heard your father having a talk with you,' she said. 'You
know he's sometimes harsher than he means to be.'
'I know.'
'He says things.'
'I know what he says and I know what he means,' Will replied. 'He wishes I was dead and Nathaniel wasn't.
So do you.' He shrugged, the ease of the words, the ease of the pain he knew he was causing, exhilarating. 'It's
no big deal,' he said. 'I'm sorry I'm not as good as Nathaniel, but I can't do anything about it.' All the time he
was talking, looking at his mother, it was not her he was seeing, it was Jacob, giving him a moth to burn, Jacob
smiling at him.
'Stop it,' his mother said. 'I won't listen to you talking like this. The way you behave. Take your pills.' Her
manner suddenly became detached, as though she didn't quite recognize the boy lying in the bed. 'Are you
hungry?'
'Yes.'

'I'll have Adele heat up some soup for you. Just make sure you stay under the blankets. And take your pills.'
As she exited she threw her son an almost fearful look, the way Miss Hartley had at school. Then she was
gone. Will swallowed the pills. His body still ached and his head still spun, but he wasn't going to wait very
long, he'd already decided, before he was up and out. He'd drink the soup (he'd need the sustenance for the
journey ahead) and then he'd dress and go back to the Courthouse. With his plan made he got out of bed again
to test the strength of his legs. They didn't feel as unreliable as they had a little while before. With some
encouragement, they'd get him where he needed to go.