Morgue. Morgue. I forgot it for a moment there, but now I’ve found it. Signal of what’s to come. But that’s all it is. A signal. Not a crippling symptom, not yet. Your parents are both dead?
My father was taken by surprise. Sorry? he said.
Your mother and father? Dead?
My father saw the clear outline of the litigator across from him. Yes, he said.
And you’ve not lost a child of your own?
No.
You grieved for your parents?
Yes, I did. Of course I did.
Can you imagine that grief expanded to encompass the known world, so that no part of the world, no building, no act, no mountain, no facet of language or scientific fact, is not consumed within that grief?
My father held Albert’s gaze.
Sound plausible? Albert said. Now I have your attention, don’t I? Well, there you have it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, lures your eye away from the dead child. I was ten feet away. A pane of glass. A sliding glass door. The house was mine. The swimming pool was mine. It was as much my fault as anyone’s. More my fault, in fact.
My father started to speak.
Let’s skip the attempts to convince me otherwise, all right? Albert said. Let’s be men about this.
My father raised his right hand in surrender. He still couldn’t pick up his drink. Why was that?
I will not, Albert said, enter into the state of blissful ignorance that ate up my father at the end of his life. I refuse. If there is moral rectitude left in this world, it exists in the form of action. Any fool can speak. Anyone can make a claim. My compact with my family, and with my grandson, does not allow me to absolve myself of my role in his death. From here on out, my sole function on this planet is to live as long as possible with his memory, and with the memory of that day. When I can no longer remember it, I am done.
You’ve been diagnosed? my father asked.
I have.
There must be drugs.
None. Nothing reverses the deterioration. I knew this already. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me.
But isn’t it possible that you’re under the influence of that deterioration already?
Of course. But I’ve been to Hopkins, I’ve seen psychologists at Columbia and City. I have affidavits—signed and notarized—confirming that I am of sound mind. Minor memory impairment. All done under the auspices of drawing up a final edition of my will, of course.
Ah, my father said.
In my father, Albert said, it took a decade. A slow, degrading march through a swamp that became deeper and deeper until it had closed over his head. The old bastard deserved worse still, but it wasn’t pleasant. He fell apart like an old house. A shutter came unhinged here, the foundation cracked there. They say there is no standard progression. It can be quite swift. But it seems that nature prefers to drag it out. In my case, too many variables to make an accurate prediction, they tell me. They’re obviously worried if they get it wrong I’ll slap them with a malpractice suit. But two years. I heard from all of them, at one point or another, two years, so I know they’ve identified a common marker, even if they’re too careful to stake their bank accounts on it. They did, however, put their good names behind my current state of sanity.
Two years, my father said.
A death sentence.
And you’re—your state of mind … my father said.
Am I frightened? Yes, yes, it comes with the territory. Here’s the thing, Erwin. You’re trustworthy, at least as trustworthy as any man can be. More to the point, you have no reason to wish me any harm.
Well, I don’t suppose so, my father said. I have the feeling you’re about to tell me why I should think otherwise.
No. Beyond the occasional glass of scotch, we are unconnected. We’re acquaintances, wouldn’t you say?
That’s accurate, my father said.
I wouldn’t think of asking your assistance if I couldn’t offer something of equal value in return.
Have you asked me for assistance? my father said.
I am about to.
Aha, my father said. He eyed his drink.
I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but our secrets shape us, Albert said. They give us form. Without them, we’d be perfect, smooth creatures. Angels, or something like them. But it’s by these distensions that we identify ourselves. By the time you’re my age, you’re bulging with secrets. And the odd thing is, we desire nothing quite so much as to divulge our secrets. We want to give away the very things that make us individuals. I’ve never reached a satisfactory conclusion as to why. Do you have any idea?
My father didn’t have to think about it, though he made a face that communicated that he was thinking on it, when in fact he was thinking not on Albert’s conundrum but on the larger question of why Albert, the pragmatist’s pragmatist, had suddenly thrown a philosophical proof onto the table. My father had, of course, spent decades thinking on the very matter of what we kept to ourselves and what we didn’t. He couldn’t have agreed more with Albert’s assessment of the human predicament.
In most cases, it’s a selfish morality that keeps us from divulging them, my father said. A fear of losing our moral rank in the eyes of those people whose opinions we value.
That’s not a bad thought, Albert said. I’ve never believed morality to be anything more than a trap to save us from our worst impulses—and a badly designed trap, at that. It’s nothing more than weights and balances, each life assigned poundage, and the
