My goodness, Ulrike!
I didn’t mean to offend! The cancer and the hospital . . .
Yes, yes. What does the life of one boring, cancerous monstrosity matter.
Wlibgis, I didn’t mean it! Forgive me.
This thing, that Wlibgis was finally “talking” to them, and they hadn’t realized it, was worth at least one horrified wave of guilt. And Ulrike wasn’t the only one to blame. No one had been interested in Wlibgis.
Wlibgis, this feels so natural to all of us, you participating. Am I right?
Yes!
Much more natural than being jerked around like this!
First the Sahara Desert, then an ambulance . . .
Careening along the streets of Marseilles with blaring sirens . . .
Just think if you had to tell someone else about all of this!
Why would that be so hard? Here, I’ll try: “We travel back and forth across the world visiting each other’s places of death and then moving on . . .”
And one of us is always left behind . . .
True! One got a bullet in the brain, and then there were six!
A subway train stung one, and then there were five.
What are you saying? Really, that’s too much.
A second choked his little self . . .
A big bear hugged a third . . .
A fourth got frizzled up . . .
What the hell are you taking about, Shlomith? Polina?
Then there’s that strange one . . .
Yes, how did it go . . . ?
A yellow herring swallowed one . . .
Red!
No, yellow.
Red.
Yellow.
Red.
Yellow! In Russian that part of the rhyme is translated . Definitely not . I’m sure of it.
What are you talking about?!
“Ten Little Indians.”
Who are they?
We’re all Indians in the face of death . . .
Well, yes. Let’s get back to the subject.
The thing from which the conversation constantly slips into trivialities lies breathing ever more haltingly on the hospital bed. Wlibgis clearly doesn’t have long to live. Although blithe chatter, prattle, and yacking seems to entice some of the women with increasing purposefulness, as if they are completely unable to keep their thoughts in check, some of them thankfully understand that this cannot go on. That self-discipline is necessary now: Wlibgis has to be escorted beyond the veil with due decorum.
Wlibgis, tell us, do we have time?
What do you mean?
I mean the moment when you have to fling yourself . . .
Or do something else before your final departure.
Ah, time. All I have is time . . . I’m leaving after a protracted illness, isn’t that dull? Be careful not to fall asleep . . .
Don’t be angry, Wlibgis.
We’ve acted poorly. Forgive us.
Wlibgis, you know best whether we need to hurry. If there’s time, you could tell us something?
For instance, tell us what kind of life you had!
And how you liked us?
Yes, did you enjoy our company?
Did you understand a word of what we were talking about when we were where we came from?
Did you know English?
At the moment of death, there might be better things to do than quiz the departing about her foreign language skills. There the women float around gray, pale Wlibgis, who is barely conscious any more. So did she ever learn English during her life? Well, Wlibgis knows a word or two, just like Rosa and Maimuna. But because she, unlike them, hasn’t been able to express anything verbally, they realize suddenly, at the last moment, that she is more valuable than anyone. Not for herself, of course, but as a mirror. There can never be too many mirrors. Not even in these circumstances. Have you enjoyed our company? Traces of narcissism cling tight to a person. How did you like us? Approaching death doesn’t ennoble anyone, even if they are all plunging one by one into nothingness.
Wlibgis controls herself remarkably well. Although she has never practiced meditation, somehow she suddenly succeeds in emptying her mind. She concentrates and concentrates, gathering strength. Recklessly she prolongs the silence.
The colossal hospital complex, which resembles a giant mouth organ, sprawls along Groot Weezenland. If the women had swayed over to the window, and if the blinds had been open, as they waited for Wlibgis’s answer they could have admired the eight-story view of the Zwarte Water, one of Zwolle’s numerous rivers, which in this part of the city had been shaped into the form of a star. The shape was from a time when the river in question had not been a river but a water barrier constructed to protect the city and followed the pure lines of the Dutch version of a type of bastion fortification originally developed in Italy.
But the blinds are closed, so the slanting rays of the morning sun won’t bother Wlibgis as she lies in bed. Only a few beams of light find their way through small holes into the dim room, which is primarily lit by a lava lamp that resembles a space shuttle and which Melinda brought to help her grandmother feel better. “It’s fun to look at, and it helps you fall asleep.” In the glass capsule of the lava lamp, in the turquoise oil-based liquid, electric blue drops of wax form in various sizes and shapes, and Wlibgis did like watching their magma-like movements before falling asleep.
Ulrike glances toward the window. What kind of place are they in? Is there a city outside? This has to be a city, since the room is a large hospital room. What is the view like? Are leaves in the trees? Is snow on the ground? There is light, so at least it is day. But they can’t open the blinds. They can’t do anything worldly, not pick up the ballpoint pen on the floor, not stroke Wlibgis’s fragile face framed by her wig. Only the floating Wlibgis herself can touch the Wlibgis lying in the bed, and she only at the very final moment, perhaps.
The unease begins to swell. Polina, Shlomith, Ulrike, and Rosa Imaculada wait for Wlibgis’s answer, swaying, each flickering in a different spot. The awkward question, Do you know English? echoes in
