Morning Is a Long Time Coming (21 page)

I had just enough courage to use his name, but not enough to look at him. It wasn’t his face anyway. I know because Roger’s face held such an enormous capacity for joy and
what I was now hearing was infinities removed from joy. “The problem is, Roger,” I explained, “that if I leave for Göttingen tomorrow then I think I’ll have just enough money to cover the trip to Göttingen and then back to the States. But the catch is that I simply can’t afford to spend another franc in Paris.”

“I deserve better treatment than this!”

I heard the words all right, but they didn’t sound like his words, for they were too harsh and alien sounding to have emerged from his lips. “What?”

“Why do you stare at me as though you don’t understand? Do you wish me to repeat?
Certainment.
If that’s the way you felt, then why hold on to me? Unless you are an opportunist, why wait until the last possible moment to tell me of your plans?”

“Because I only found out myself this morning after Dr. Kopelman told me that I was being released.”

“You think I’m going to believe that? For twenty-two days you have nothing to do but rest and think and then today, at the very last moment, you make this incredible decision! Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Why do you doubt me? What ulterior purpose could I have?”

“To hold on to me, dear lady, until I no longer had function for you. Lady, I admire you. You are shrewd!”

“Look, Roger, I know you’re disappointed, but I don’t think you know ... or even believe what you’re saying.”

“Oh, I know ... I know! But you don’t know what you’re doing! You’re leaving me. We love each other—I thought we loved each other, but you’re leaving. And for what? Answer me! For WHAT?”

“I tried to explain it. You told me to trust you, Roger. Told me that you’d understand.”

“Oh, I understand!” he shouted. “I understand!” But his face was so consumed by rage that I doubted that there was enough leftover space there to squeeze in a little understanding. “And I hate what I understand.”

“Oh, please don’t, Roger! And don’t hate me—I can’t stand the idea that we’ll part in anger.”

“Better try to get used to it because I feel more hate for you than I can tell you. You are cold ... money hungry ... and very, very calculating.”

“That’s not true!”

“It’s true,” he said in a voice that could be used for the most ordinary of business transactions. “Love isn’t nearly good enough for you. You want money too. A husband with very much money!”

“I never said that!”

“And there’s something else I could tell you,” said Roger, shifting back into a more comfortable stance. “I suspect that your poppa may be doing exactly the right thing as he chants those Hebrew prayers of the dead over you.”

25

C
ONSIDERING ALL THE
trouble I had falling asleep, I didn’t expect to wake again either so soon or so abruptly, but an ongoing wave of nausea along with the distinct smell of blood rising from my breath encouraged me to snap on the light and move as rapidly as possible through the hospital room toward my connecting closet-sized bathroom. I reached it just in time to see a glob of blood falling from my mouth like a crimson waterfall.

At the first respite, I held tightly to a metal support bar and felt my temperature soar to heights that no thermometer could follow. I reread with sudden interest the sign posted conspicuously above the washbasin:

PRESS BUZZER

FOR ASSISTANCE

Roger. Somebody. Somebody please, please help me. I watched the large sign blur and then darken. The buzzer was within reach, but I couldn’t risk releasing even one hand from the support bar.

Another rush of nausea, and I tenuously held on while opening my mouth wide to make way for the painful passage of still another bloody geyser.

Then it came to me what was happening! The ulcer had perforated and I was hemorrhaging.

PRESS BUZZER

FOR ASSISTANCE

And there was a chance, I wondered if it was a likely chance, that I’d never see another day. It didn’t seem like such a big deal, and yet I was feeling sorry for myself. Nineteen is too young to die. I didn’t want to leave such an unfinished life. With more time, I might have been able to make a better job of it.

Mostly I wanted to leave somebody behind on this earth who would mourn me. Without that it would be as though all my years and all my pain had counted for nothing. As though I had never lived at all.

Would Roger find out? Who would there be to tell him? And if he did find out, would he mourn? Oh, how I’d want
him to! Partly out of revenge. He would suffer as he has made me suffer.

My parents? I think they’d care, but I don’t think they’d care very much. Anyway how many times can you sit
shiva
for the same person?

My grandparents would care and Sharon might care a lot. And Ruth, oh God, how Ruth would care! I hurt at the sheer quantity of pain that I have already caused her. But I hope it’s like she says, that I’ve given her something too. Only I wish I could remember what it was.

More immediately I regretted the globs of blood that landed on the toilet seat and the even larger puddle at my feet. “Who was it that said
boo
to you, Patricia?” “Nobody said
boo
to me, Mother, honest!” Would the hospital staff consider that indicative of an uncaring (although now deceased) slob? And so good riddance to her! Please don’t. Don’t think that about me because, truth is, I haven’t strength anymore even for holding on.

Also I regretted the way my cotton nightgown was now plastered to me by heavy sweat. It seemed like a particularly unlovely, not to mention unfeminine, way in which to be found dead.

A sudden chill which raised all my goosepimples was now superimposing itself upon the sweat.

PRESS BUZZER

FOR ASSISTANCE

I am reaching beyond my capacity to endure pain. Somebody’s got to help me. I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of dying alone. Please come to me, Roger. Tell me that I will live. Tell me that everything will be all right. And don’t
forget to tell me too that your words were only lies ... only jealous lover lies.

The walls whirled by in a blur as though I were observing them from the side window of a speeding Paris taxi. I saw the moving sign—the bold black letters smearing across the white background as it went rushing by. Even so I knew what it said:

PRESS BUZZER

ROGER’S

FOR ASSISTANCE

I saw my hand reach out to touch the buzzer, but nothing sounded. Sign swiftly speeding. Again my hand reached out to find the buzzer and then I heard it. Heard a very audible buzz.

Dr. Kopelman pulled back my eyelid and peered with a lighted instrument into my eye. “Don’t mind me, sweetheart; I’m just admiring your beautiful eye.”

“Ohh.” I had tried to smile, more for Dr. Kopelman’s benefit than from any overwhelming need of my own for comic relief, but I immediately regretted the effort, for I discovered that even a smile had the power to intensify the pain.

“How do you feel?”

“Sick.”

He patted my hand. “We gave you a shot and that will help ease the pain. And we’re setting up a blood transfusion. That will help too.”

As I slipped a sky blue sweater over my head two weeks later, Dr. Kopelman came into my room to give his “commencement address, part II.” Then the internist abruptly stopped his lecturing to make the observation that I looked “very pretty. Really nifty in street clothes.”

Dr. Kopelman brushed some invisible lint from his tweed jacket before saying that he didn’t want to frighten me, but that he would be “unforgivably remiss” if he failed to warn me that “a hemorrhaging ulcer constituted a life-threatening situation” and that I had to do everything possible to prevent a recurrence.

“I’ll cater to my ulcer exactly as you taught me, Dr. Kopelman.”

He handed me some neatly stapled mimeographed sheets of paper. “Your diet and your instructions. Notice that rule number one concerns the duration of bedrest. For the first two weeks at home, I want you to stay pretty close to your bed. Total relaxation is what you must have. Physical and mental relaxation!”

I located a taxi at the hospital’s front door, but every time the meter clicked, I tried telling myself with monumental calm that money is only money. And I’m not worried. Anyway, taking the bus on this January day in my condition would be nothing less than an offbeat form of suicide. As it is, Kopelman would probably break our patient-doctor relationship if he knew that within less than two hours, I had every expectation of being on that train to Göttingen. I wondered if my doctor would be mollified a little bit if I bought a first class ticket.

At 39 Place St. Sulpice, I confided to the driver that I was “très fatiguée” and that, if he didn’t too much mind maybe
he oughta see to it that I got up the three flights. I also explained that it would take me only a few minutes to pack and from here we’d go directly to the railroad station.

I knocked at the door to our place so tentatively that even the driver commented that only a trained bird dog could have heard it. Then he gave the door a single vigorous whack. When there was no response, I inserted my key into the lock, feeling inordinately relieved that I wouldn’t have to face Roger and profoundly saddened that I wouldn’t get to see him.

26

T
HE LOBBY
of the Hotel Göttingen with its castle-style oak furniture, tapestries of hunting scenes, and leaded glass windows looked every bit as respectable (and infinitely more old world) than the sanctuary of the Jenkinsville First Baptist Church. Good. I was going to need every millimeter of respectability I could get.

The porter, a man too wizened and old to be carrying his own let alone other people’s bags, showed me into a large
room with a massive bed embellished with elaborate carvings. In the bathroom, he curiously turned on both faucets and smiled idiotically when water gushed through the pipes. Actually, I don’t think he began smiling idiotically until I placed a bunch of strange-looking coins in his hand.

That’s when I realized that in my nervousness to give enough, I must have outrageously overtipped him. So be it! I’m not going to worry about it now. Still I can’t afford to go around doing that again. Repeat after me: Spending marks is just like spending real money. And again: Spending marks is just like spending real money.

He quietly closed the door behind himself and I was alone, just me and the telephone. With any luck that slim gray volume beneath it would be the city of Göttingen telephone directory. And so it was. As I lifted the booklet, it opened more or less automatically to the Rs. Rabe, Radis, Radloff.

A lot of the Rs were listed as professors. I guess that’s to be expected in a town that houses one of the oldest universities in the world. Reicher, Reichert, Reider. How old did Anton say this university was? Reiker! Reiker, Prof. E. C. Buhlstrasse 64 ... 7688

I sat down on the bed, cradled the phone in my arms, and warned myself that this was no time to panic. Just take it easy now. Get the feel of the phone. See, not that different from American phones. No rush. After six years of waiting, what’s another few minutes?

Then the room grew uncommonly warm so I took off my coat and unzipped my new fleece-lined boots. My watch, which runs maybe five minutes fast, said 4:18. So, it’s only 4:13 P.M. I tried picturing exactly what she might be doing
now, now at this very moment. Preparing dinner for her family? Maybe also for a few of her husband’s distinguished colleagues who are visiting from a very distant and celebrated university.

It’s dinner-cooking time. The worst possible time to call! The turkey needs basting, the soup needs stirring, and the table needs—LIES! I’m sitting here scaring myself to death with lies. It’s not that way at all. Colleagues don’t come in all that often, and Wednesday isn’t a popular night for a feast.

No, Mrs. Reiker is sitting alone in a favorite wing chair; the lowering afternoon sun speckles the carpet and the arm of her chair. Directly in front of where she sits is an ottoman slipcovered in matching blue linen, but she has no use for an ottoman. Her feet are planted firmly on the floor. But what is far more interesting than where her feet rest is her gaze, which seems completely unlimited by mere architectural considerations. Roof, walls, none of it matters when what you’re seeing isn’t what is, but what was. What once was ...

How he must have filled that room! Anton six years dead. Six years is plenty long enough to soothe the tearing anguish of his death, but maybe no amount of time is enough to soothe something that is no longer there. Something like an emptiness that can never be filled because it’s only a bit of space carved out of air.

That’s it! What I didn’t understand well enough to explain to Roger! I think maybe I could make him understand now. I’d simply tell him: Mrs. Reiker and I, we’re so much alike, suffering as we do from this ... this nothing. So you see, Roger, I feel—I know that by Mrs. Reiker’s and my
pooling our remembrances, we’d both learn to constrict the immovable void.

Suddenly I felt depleted by a combination of hospital lethargy and unaccustomed exertion. I placed the phone back on the bedside table, flipped off my boots, and flopped back across the bed.

When I woke in a darkened room, my stomach let me know that it had been neglected and that a little food was now in order. Kopelman’s third rule: Eat small, but frequent, meals. Always keep something in the stomach.

It was a little after eight o’clock when I left the dining room of the Hotel Göttingen with the sense of well being that comes from eating a fine dinner and drinking a little wine. Dr. Kopelman may be perfectly right about alcohol, but he’s wrong about a little wine. Why, without that wine, I don’t know if I could calm down enough to place the call.

The elevator operator, a strong, solemn man who apparently spends an inordinate amount of his income on hair grease, jumped to his feet in military fashion to guide me inside the well-polished wood-and-brass cubicle. I wondered how many other Jews he had guided ... only to less pleasant destinations. Animal!