The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone

'Oh, yeah. I remembered that you turned the radio on for him, and I figured. . well, I thought it couldn't hurt to play something for him that I know he, uh. . likes. The music has a lot of personal associations for him.'

'Does it really?' Carling said in a curiously flat, distant voice. He studied me for a few moments, then looked back into Garth's face. The man seemed momentarily lost in thought.

'Here,' I said, reaching for the earphones, 'let me get those out of your way.'

'No,' Carling said quickly, blocking my outstretched hand. 'It's all right; nothing's in my way.'

Carling removed and emptied Garth's colostomy and urine bags, replaced them with new ones. He again checked my brother's pulse, recorded liquid intake and outtake levels on a chart hanging from a cord attached to the foot of Garth's bed. He continued to appear deep in thought, and he frequently looked back into Garth's face. I still couldn't see any change in Garth's eyes or expression-but the trained eyes of Tommy Carling apparently did. My heart began to beat a little faster, and I could feel the muscles in my stomach tighten.

'So,' Carling said at last as he let the chart drop on its cord and replaced his pen in the pocket of his white coat, 'how are all the little LITs down at the children's hospital?'

'LITs?'

'' Loonies-in-training.''

'Oh,' I said, and smiled. 'They're loony, all right, and some of them aren't so little. How did you know I'd been down there?'

'I'm friendly with a couple of the cottage workers there. We were having a beer last night, and they mentioned this superdwarf who had come in to substitute. How many superdwarfs can there be wandering around here? You made quite an impression-on kids and staff.'

'It's the natural ham in me,' I said, and suddenly felt sad. It was the kind of thing my brother would say.

'You've got some very dangerous kids over there, Mongo,' Carling said seriously.

'Yeah, but you've also got some very pleasant and bright ones-a lot of the suicidals are like that. I really enjoy working there, Tommy.'

'A little different from college teaching, huh?'

'To say the least.'

Being careful not to disturb the tape player or the earphones on my brother's head, Tommy Carling rolled Garth over on his right side, facing away from me. 'Are you hungry, Mongo? I can bring you something to eat.'

'No, thanks,' I replied. The male nurse headed for the door. I cleared my throat, said, 'Tommy?'

Carling paused in the doorway, turned back. 'Yes, Mongo?'

'The music. Do you think I could be harming Garth in any way by playing it for him?'

Carling laughed good-naturedly. 'There are some people who'd claim that listening to Richard Wagner would damage anybody's brain.' He paused, continued seriously: 'No. On the contrary; if I'm right about there being a bit more life in his eyes, it's probably good for him. What harm could music do?'

'In that case … I didn't ask anybody about this, and maybe I should have. If there's any possibility that Garth really is getting something out of the music, I'd hate to see it taken away from him just because I didn't ask permission and somebody's nose got out of joint.'

Tommy Carling smiled easily. 'I won't mention it to Slycke, Mongo. Don't worry about it.' He gave me a thumbs-up sign and walked from the room.

I wanted to play the entire Ring cycle through, opera by opera, with as few interruptions during the course of each opera as possible, and nights seemed the best time to do this. The next day I stopped by the clinic early in the morning, before my third straight day of substituting, and sat and talked with Tommy Carling while he shaved and bathed my brother. I stopped by again after school, then left just before six.

I ate dinner in a pleasant Italian restaurant in nearby Orangeburg, then went back to the apartment, set my alarm clock to wake me at midnight, and went to bed. At midnight I rose, made myself some coffee and shaved, then packed the Walkman and tapes of Die Walkure into my leather shoulder bag, headed over to Building 26.

It seemed there was no guard in the kiosk outside the building at night, and I used my own keys to gain entry to the building, took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Three male nurses I hadn't seen before were standing and talking in the vestibule in front of the elevator, and they seemed startled when the elevator door sighed open and I stepped out. However, after one glance at the ID badge clipped to my shirt pocket, they resumed their conversation.

I couldn't find any psychiatrist around, so I signed my name on a piece of paper I got from one of the nurses, slipped it under Slycke's door. I didn't note the time.

I found Garth rolled over on his left side, staring-as always-at nothing. I covered his face with a towel to protect his eyes, then quietly closed the door and turned on the lights. I uncovered his face, put on the earphones, then loaded the cassette player with the first tape and turned it on. Then I sat down with a magazine to wait through the three hours of Die Walkure.

Siegfried.

The next night I checked the chart at the foot of Garth's bed; there was no indication that chemotherapy had begun. I put the earphones on Garth's head, snapped the first tape of the third opera in the Ring cycle into the cassette player, turned it on.

I'd brought a book with me to read, but I must have nodded off; when I woke up, the book was on the floor by my feet and I had the urgent, distressing feeling that something was wrong-no, not wrong; but different. Strange. I quickly got up, looked around the room; there was no one there, and the door was still closed. Garth, of course, hadn't moved; he was still in the same position, turned away from me on his side, with earphone and half his face hidden by the sheet. I yawned, stretched, glanced at my watch; it was almost time to put in the next cassette. I took the second tape out of my bag, walked around to the other side of the bed-and almost cried out.

Tears were streaming from Garth's eyes, dripping from his face, soaking the sheet beneath him.

'Garth!'

My brother's bloodshot eyes rolled, then came into focus on my face.

'Garth?!' I cried, snatching the earphones from his head. 'Are you all right?! Can you hear me?! Can you talk?!'

The fact that he could indeed hear and understand me was now clearly reflected in Garth's eyes-but that was all. He still couldn't-or wasn't prepared to-talk.

But he was coming back, I thought, slowly riding wave after sonic wave of the most profoundly moving music ever written, dripping tears as evidence of his long, tortuous passage. I would settle for that, not be impatient.

After gently trying and failing for close to twenty minutes to elicit some response in addition to his tears, I put the earphones back on his head, changed the cassette, turned on the Walkman. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hand and smiling down into his tear-streaked face, until the opera was finished. I packed up the tapes and the Walkman, hugged and kissed my brother, then went back to Building 18 and contentedly went to bed. I was confident that I would see some change in Garth in the morning.

I was wrong, and bitterly disappointed.

At eight o'clock, it was impossible to tell that Garth was the same man I had seen copiously weeping only a few hours before; his eyes were once again glassy and vacant, and the only change was that he seemed even paler than usual. I debated whether I should tell Slycke, or Tommy Carling, about what had happened during the night, decided not to. It would have meant trying to explain why the Ring — and only the Ring — could elicit such a response from Garth, and I was not yet prepared to do that, at least not until the complete cycle of four operas was finished.

Despite Garth's present unresponsiveness, I had seen unmistakable evidence that the music of the Ring — combined with the images of horror and unrelenting cruelty that he and I would always associate with it-was a bridge that had reached across the unfathomable void in his mind and touched his consciousness. Now that bridge had to be maintained-and expanded. Now, more than anything, I was afraid of being second-guessed and interfered with. Charles Slycke might be a fine psychiatrist, if not so fine a person, and the D.I.A. facility might be a fine psychiatric clinic, but Der Ring des Nibelungen evoked a realm of consciousness shared by only Garth and me in a way no one else would ever be able to understand. I had