The Rhythm of Memory (39 page)

He went to a clinic near his office, where he was examined by an internist, a colleague of his whose opinion he trusted. The doctor, his face serious and his eyes focused on his notes, had listened to Samuel’s complaints. “We’ll take some X rays and do some blood work and see if there is anything there, Samuel. I’ll call you next week with the results.”

The doctor called two days later, his voice painstakingly monotone. “Samuel, your pancreas looks suspicious. We saw some calcifications.” He paused. “I think you’d better come in for a biopsy.”

Samuel didn’t reply.

“Samuel? I know we usually say these things in person. But, as a fellow doctor, I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.” The doctor was trying in vain to sound encouraging. “Let’s get this biopsy done right away and see what’s there. Strictly an outpatient type of thing. Just make sure you bring your wife along. You won’t be able to drive yourself home.”

Samuel ignored the doctor’s last instruction. He had no intention of bringing Kaija with him. There was no need to get her all upset until he knew exactly what was wrong with him. “When should I come?” he asked.

“Come tomorrow. I’ve already scheduled it with the radiologist. One o’clock.”

Samuel hung up the phone. He could feel his hands trembling, and had he not the slight tinge of yellow, he knew his color would be more like his wife’s. The color of snow.

He did not relay to his family the details of his diagnosis. Instead, the following afternoon, he returned to the hospital alone. As if in
a trance, he quietly obeyed the nurses who, with gloved hands, neatly arranged him on the table. The crackling of white paper underneath his back increased his anxiety. He felt them apply the cool blue gel to his abdomen, felt the gentle rolling of the ultrasound.

He awakened to see the radiologist and his doctor talking to each other. Their hushed voices clearly unnerved him.

“That’s it for now,” his doctor told him after the nurse came to help him onto his feet. “I’ll call you in three days when I get the pathology report.”

The doctor then offered to have the receptionist call his patient’s wife.

“Oh, no,” Samuel said quickly. “She couldn’t come. Something came up with our daughter at school. If she can just call me a taxi, I’ll be on my way.”

“Are you sure, Samuel?” The doctor’s face seemed to reveal his suspicions.

“Yes, I’m positive. Please…just a taxi.”

Samuel got dressed and decided to wait for the cab outside. The cold air on his cheeks felt surprisingly refreshing to him. His mind was racing. The last three days were a blur for him. Everything had happened so quickly. He had not anticipated that things would become serious so soon.

All his life, he had preached honesty. He had urged Salomé to tell her husband what had happened to her at the Villa Grimaldi. He had become frustrated with Kaija when he’d learned how she’d withheld the news she could no longer bear children. And now, here he was, doing the very same thing. But he wanted to know all the facts before he upset his family with the difficult reality. The doctor had told him he would know in three days’ time. So, for three torturous days, Samuel Rudin waited.

“Your pathology report came back, Samuel. It revealed a primary pancreatic cancer.”

Samuel remained silent for a moment. He was all too aware of what such a diagnosis meant.

“How much time do I have?”

“I’m afraid that the ultrasound test revealed that the disease has already metastasized to the liver.”

Samuel remained quiet. He knew this meant he had only a few months at best. He felt weak, as though his knees were about to give way. He placed one hand on his desk; the other held the telephone receiver tightly.

“As I’m sure you know, once the disease has metastasized, you are no longer a candidate for curative procedure.” The doctor paused. “Should the need arrive, we can offer you palliative surgery, however.”

Samuel nodded. He had no words left. There was nothing optimistic about his diagnosis. He would have known that even as a first-year medical student.

Thinking aloud, Samuel said, “I’m not going to live to see next year.”

The doctor hesitated. “Samuel, I’m so sorry.” His voice was thick with compassion.

“Me too,” Samuel whispered. “Me too.”

Samuel decided to walk home that evening. The three-kilometer distance from the hospital was exhausting, but he needed the time to reflect.

He had initially thought he would tell Kaija and Sabine about
his condition after dinner. But he reconsidered as soon as he walked into their beautiful, tranquil home and saw their two shining faces.

He didn’t want to see his wife or daughter cry for him. He didn’t want them to twist and sicken themselves over his illness. Instead, he wished they could just accept that everyone must die, only his death would come sooner than they had all expected.

All his life, Samuel had prided himself on being the person who comforted the sick, brought people to terms with their past, and helped them address their future. He had always savored being that person. So the thought that, soon, he would be relegated to the one who needed comforting unnerved him. He knew what would be next for him. He would grow thin, his complexion would turn sallow, and the whites of his eyes would turn yellow, the color of custard. Already he felt an incessant gnawing in his stomach that would only grow worse with time.

How, he wondered, could he convey to his family that he didn’t want to spend his last months being coddled and told to “take it easy”? How could he make it clear that he didn’t want to undergo the painful, extensive treatments that were incapable of curing him, that would only lengthen his soon-to-be-pathetic existence by at most a few weeks?

For another three days, he said nothing of his diagnosis. He sat at the table rearranging the food on his plate to make it appear as though he had eaten. He went to his study and spent a few hours reading over his monthly journals to the sound of classical music to maintain the appearance of regularity. He checked the locks and the window latches, to make sure they were tightly secured as usual. Finally, after taking the morphine tablets that the doctor had prescribed only days before, he lay down and embraced his beloved wife.

She slept gently in his arms. Her blond hair was beginning to show the first traces of gray at the crown. Only a month before, she had commented on the thin lines around her eyes and the featherlight creases by the corners of her smile. He had told her not to worry. What he wanted to say now, what he should have said then, was that she had never been more beautiful. That he wished he could see how she would be in thirty years’ time, when her hair was all white, her skin like rice paper. He would still love her.

There is something about the noble sick. They never want to disturb anyone. But after about a week had passed, Samuel realized he would not be able to keep his illness a secret any longer and that it wouldn’t be a quiet ending for him.

Already, his jaundice had intensified, and Kaija still prodded him to go to the doctor. She feared he had hepatitis or a malfunctioning of the liver. He began wearing pajamas to mask his protruding ribs and a stomach that seemed to cave in like a balloon that had lost all its air.

He had no choice but to tell them. So he canceled his appointments for the afternoon and spent the day sitting in his office trying to think of the best way to break the news.

That evening, he arrived home early. His black hair was wet with perspiration around his temples, and his eyelids seemed tired and weighed heavily over his warm, brown eyes.

“Come in from the cold, darling!” Kaija beckoned. “You know you haven’t been well lately. What are you doing walking home instead of taking the bus!”

She took off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Why don’t you go upstairs and
help Sabine with her Spanish homework? She’s been bothering me all day to quiz her on the verbs.”

“All right, but later, I need to talk to you both,” he said.

“How about after dinner, sweetheart?” she called. She was already back in the kitchen with her head buried in the stove.

“Okay,” he sighed. He felt as though he were in a trance. All his movements seemed to be in slow motion. He picked up his satchel and slowly made his way upstairs.

“Daddy? Is that you?” Sabine called. “Can you help me with these verbs before dinner? Mommy said you would do a better job.”

Samuel had barely made his way up the stairs before he saw the bright-eyed face of his thirteen-year-old daughter peeking through the crack of her bedroom door.

“Of course,
älskling
. Let me just unpack my things.”

He walked down the hallway to his study and turned on the light. His office was his retreat. There he could play his music, savor a cup of tea, and write in his journals without being disturbed. The crimson walls were studded with his diplomas, his certificate of residency, and a few of his treasured maps.

It smelled of books. He had always loved that aroma, for it had the capacity to calm him. Until now, when everything that had previously given him so much pleasure suddenly seemed rather pointless. He only wanted to be with his wife and child.

He went to his daughter’s room and, for the first time, saw many things that had previously escaped his notice. He looked out from her bed and saw her small, childlike collections of painted ceramics, her dolls, and the sticker albums and souvenirs that lined her shelves.

As he helped with her Spanish homework, he yearned to savor these priceless, few remaining moments between them. He would
suggest a verb and she would conjugate it. He knew his daughter had spent all day trying to memorize the different tenses, but it was difficult for him to remain focused. He had to concentrate to avoid breaking down and crying.

The same feelings of wanting to grow old with his wife were matched by his desire to see his daughter grow up to be a woman, married with her own children. He would be denied sharing those things, never witnessing these milestones in his family’s lives. That alone made him crumple like wet tissue when he was again by himself in his office.

His stomach was on fire and needles were floating in his lower intestines. He aimlessly cut at his food. His throat tensed. He didn’t know how he would be able to get out the words that needed to be said.

“I have cancer.” His eyes remained focused on his plate.

The words fell out.

“What?” Kaija’s fork dropped from her hand. The sound of chipped porcelain rang in the air.

“I met with the doctor as I promised, and…it’s not an ulcer.”

Both Kaija and Sabine were staring at him. He felt the weight of their eyes. When he raised his head, he saw that both their faces were white as eggshells.

“Daddy!” Sabine cried. “What are you saying? Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes, Samuel…what are you saying?” Kaija’s voice cracked before she could utter anything more.

“It seems I have cancer of the pancreas.”

The room fell silent.

“I didn’t want to have to tell you this way…” His voice was weak, his head felt dizzy.

“Cancer of the pancreas?” Kaija whispered. Again, her words seemed to choke in her throat. She covered her mouth with her fingers. “Oh my God, Samuel. Oh my God.”

Later that evening, as she lay sobbing in his arms, Samuel tried to explain to Kaija the desperateness of his illness and the futility of any treatment.

“No, no,” she insisted. “We must have hope. There are treatments, I’m sure of it! You—we—must fight this!”

“No, Kaija,” he told her firmly. “There is nothing. The treatments available will only be painful. They’ll only weaken me. I want…” He hesitated. “I need to live the next months as close to the way I have lived my whole life.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand, Samuel! I don’t. Wouldn’t you rather live a few more weeks and spend that time with Sabine and me? Wouldn’t you choose life at any cost?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I honestly wouldn’t.”

“I don’t understand you! After all we’ve been through, how can you give up without a fight?” she cried as she pushed her face into her pillow and ran her small fingers deep into the mattress. “You’re being selfish, Samuel. You’re not thinking about how your wife and child might feel about this!”

“Kaija,” he said softly, retrieving her from the cocoon of twisted sheets and mounds of pillows. “I need to live, truly live, not just delay my death. I want to remember everything, not just spend my last days in a morphine haze. I need…to know the difference between your face and a cloud of steam.” She could feel his tears beginning as he pressed himself against the veil of her nightgown, and she thought that night they would both drown in the sadness that flooded the room.

V
ESTERÅS
, S
WEDEN

M
AY
1985

Samuel pressed Kaija to go with him to Mikkeli, the town in Finland that bordered the forest where she was born. For years, he had wanted them to return to his wife’s birthplace. “We’ll visit the grave of your mother,” he told her as he lay wrapped in her arms. “Before I go, I want to see the pale blue and saffron-yellow buildings of Helsinki. I want to walk in the Karelian forest and bathe in the cold, deep lakes.”