glasses it all looked even darker, nearly apocalyptic. I walked fast. The wise thing to do would have been to take the car, but I turned a deaf ear to it, leaving it behind to sulk by itself. As a finishing touch I’d taken one of Betty’s purses. I held it close to me-it kept my boobs from slipping. I walked with my eyes riveted to the sidewalk, paying no attention to the catcalls that the bums throw at every single girl who passes by-I couldn’t waste my time. I tried not to think of anything.
When I got to the hospital, I hid behind a tree and exhaled two or three times, like wind howling through the branches. Then I walked toward the entrance with my purse under my arm-no hesitation, head high, with the poise of a gal who’s used to ruling an empire. I felt nothing at all as I went through the door-not the tiniest bit of uneasiness. For once I wasn’t carrying an electrified fence on my shoulders, no blood poisoning, no spontaneous combustion or lateral paralysis. I almost looked back to see what I was missing, but I was already on the stairway.
On the second floor, I ran into a group of orderlies. Though I’d just touched up my makeup, all they ogled were my breasts. They were too big, I knew it, and now every last one of them was undressing me with his eyes. To escape, I ducked into the first room I came to.
There was a guy in bed, a tube in his arm and a tube up his nose. He was not in great shape. He opened his eyes when I came in, waiting for the orderlies to pass by. We looked at each other-we obviously didn’t have a lot to talk about, but we looked at each other. For a fraction of a second, I wanted to unplug him. Though I didn’t make a move, the guy started shaking his head no. I gave up on the idea. I cracked the door open to make sure the coast was clear.
Betty. Room number seven. I slid in silently and closed the door behind me. It was dark. Clouds, or simply nightfall, it was hard to tell. There was a tiny light above her bed, so pallid it made my blood run cold. A nightlight when it’s not yet night is like a crippled child. I wedged the door closed with a chair. I ripped off my wig and took off my glasses. I sat down on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t sleeping.
“Want some gum?” I said.
It did no good to search my memory-I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her voice. Or the last words we’d exchanged. Probably something like:
“Hey, who do you have to fuck to get some sugar around here?”
“Have you tried looking in the bottom drawer?”
I wrapped my tutti-frutti back up-it turned out I didn’t want any either. I grabbed the pitcher of water off the nightstand and downed half of it.
“Want some?” I asked.
They hadn’t tied her down. The straps hung on the floor, like chocolate bars left out in the sun. I acted like she wasn’t gone, like she was still there. I needed to talk.
“The hardest thing is going to be getting you dressed,” I said. “Especially if you don’t help…”
I took my glove off and ran my hand under her nightgown, caressing her breasts. An elephant’s memory is nothing compared to mine. I could remember every square millimeter of her skin. Give me her cells, all jumbled up, and I’ll put them back together for you in perfect order. I teased her belly, her arms, her legs. Finally, I closed my hand over her furry patch-nothing had changed. I felt real joy at that precise moment-a simple pleasure, almost animal. I put my glove back on. Of course the pleasure would have been a thousand times greater had she reacted. But then again, where could you ever find the kind of happiness that would have been-in commercials? At the bottom of Santa Claus’s sack? On the top floor of the Tower of Babel?
“All right, we’d better hurry. We have to go…”
I took her chin and put my lips to hers. She never unclenched her teeth. It was still wonderful. I managed to get a little of her saliva on my lower lip. Her mouth-I ate it ever so gently. I slid my hand behind her neck and pulled her to me, my nose grazing in her hair. If this goes on, it’s me who’ll go nuts, I thought, me who’ll come apart at the seams. I took out a Kleenex and wiped her lips-I’d gotten lipstick all over them.
“We still have a long way to go,” I said.
A doll, docile and silent. They’d filled her to the gills with drugs. They’d already thrown the first shovel of dirt over her. The right thing to do would have been to ambush them all and slit their throats for being what they were-doctors, nurses, pharmacists, the whole clique; not to mention everyone who’d pushed her to that point, slave drivers, people who crush you under their thumbs, those who offend you, lie to you, use you; people who don’t give a shit if you’re one of a kind, people who glow brighter in the bullshit, stand taller on hills of crap, who weigh you down like a ball and chain. It wouldn’t have made me feel any better, though. Wading through the rivers of their blood, I wouldn’t be much better off. Like it or not, what’s done is done, as they say-and though I’m not the kind of guy who gives up hope at the drop of a hat, I understood that sometimes the world seems like the worst of all possible Hells. It depends on how you look at it. May God strike me dead: sitting on that bed in that room, for the longest minute of my life, I’d never seen anything so odious or black. Above us, the storm broke loose. I shook.
“I need you to make one last effort,” I sighed.
The first drops splattered against the window, like insects on a windshield. I bent over her delicately and took hold of one of the straps. I put the tip of it through the buckle and pulled tight. One for her legs. She didn’t move.
“You okay? It doesn’t hurt, does it?” I asked.
Outside was the deluge. It was like being inside the Nautilus. I picked up another strap and put it around her arms and chest, just under her breasts. I pulled it tight. She stared at the ceiling with her one eye. Nothing I did interested her. The moment had come to test my strength.
“I have to tell you something…” I started.
I took one of the pillows from beneath her head, one with blue stripes. I wasn’t shaking-for her I could do anything without shaking, I’d already proven that-I was just a little warmer was all.
“…you and me, we’re like two fingers of the same hand,” I went on. “And nothing can ever change that.”
I probably could have found something more clever to say or, better still, kept quiet. But at the time it seemed innocent enough-a little parade of improvised words. She would have liked that. It was a confection, written in whipped cream, not in stone.
I counted to seven hundred fifty, then stood up. I took the pillow off her face. The rain was making a hell of a din. For some reason I had a pain in my side. I didn’t look at her. I undid the straps. I put the pillow back where it had been.
I turned toward the wall, thinking that something was going to happen. Nothing happened. It just kept raining and raining. The light stayed where it was, and so did the walls-and there I was, with my white gloves and false breasts, waiting for some message from death. But no message came. Was I going to get out of this with only a pain in the side?
I put my wig back on. Just before leaving, I turned and glanced at her for the last time. I expected some horrific sight, but in the end she just looked like she was sleeping. Yet she came up with one more thing to make me happy-she knew how to do it. Her mouth was open slightly. I noticed a pack of Kleenex on the nightstand. It took me a moment to understand, then I started crying. Yes, she was still watching over me, showing me which way to go, even though she was no longer of this world. Her sending me this last sign flooded me with a river of fire.
I rushed back to the bed and kissed her hair, then grabbed the Kleenex and shoved all I could into her mouth, all the way down. I had a spasm-I almost threw up-but it passed. What I want is to be able to be proud of you, she’d said.
When I left, everybody must have been on coffee break. No one was in the halls, and almost no one was in the lobby. I went unnoticed. It was totally dark. The gutters were overflowing down the whole side of the building. It smelled bad-dried-out grass that’s been wet again. The rain was a luminous portcullis of electric wire. I turned my collar up, put my purse on top of my head, and dove into it.
I ran. I had the sensation that someone was chasing me with a flamethrower. I had to take my glasses off to see, but I didn’t slow down. As one might expect, there was no one on the street, so I didn’t worry about my makeup-luckily I hadn’t put on any mascara. I got a lot on my fingers trying to wipe my face off-l must have really smeared it good. Fortunately, you couldn’t see three yards in front of you.
I ran like a poisoned rat caught in a web of pearls. I didn’t slow down for intersections. Plipliplip went the rain; flap flap flap I went; baroombaroom went the thunder. The rain fell straight down. It stung my face-I swallowed
