Recessional: A Novel (61 page)

At the memorial service Reverend Quade reminded the residents of how gracious Marjorie had been, how helpful to everyone, and said in conclusion: “She was a woman who walked with beauty and with music, so we shall send her from us on the wings of the songs she loved,” and from Muley’s tape Mrs. Quade had selected the “Barcarolle,” from
The Tales of Hoffman
, and the duet from
Norma
that had been Marjorie’s favorite. When that duet faded, the listeners started to rise, but then, miraculously, came an angelic, far-off echo of the voices and the ceremony ended.

In the days that followed, the people of the Palms gained a new insight into the meaning of death, for even the least observant could see that Muley Duggan was declining almost as rapidly as his wife had. He did not want to be with people. He told no jokes, and residents found him wandering aimlessly. In Assisted Living the nurses had to tell him to stop tormenting himself by wanting to visit her room, and often at dinnertime Krenek would have to dispatch a waiter to bring him down to a meal he did not want. He sat alone, and while he did not rebuff anyone who might ask to join him, he said little and left abruptly before dessert was served.

One day when he asked to see Reverend Quade she did not wait for him to raise the subject of his wife’s recent death and burial: “All your friends have been worried, Muley, about the grief you are suffering. But those of us who’ve worked with Alzheimer’s patients know it was, in a very real sense, God’s benevolence that allowed her to die without extended agony. When we prayed at the service, Muley, we were thanking God for His kindness.”

“Not me,” Muley said. “She was the loveliest woman God ever made, and I’d have been happy to care for her till the end of my life.”

“We know. Your acts of love enriched us all.”

“Mrs. Quade, do you believe…what does your religion say about this? When I die, will I be reunited with her in heaven?”

This was the brutal question that clergy could never avoid. Death of a loved one was such an overwhelming blow that even people who had never thought much about religious explanations now wanted to
know, and Helen Quade was not one who could answer the question in a way to give the bereaved the assurance they sought. Through the years, and from the teachings of many different societies in which she had served as a missionary, she had developed her own carefully considered idea of the afterlife, but it was not one that she could explain to another, not even a fellow religious leader, in a brief conversation. So, as a sensible leader of her flock, wherever it chanced to be, she had adopted the strategy of answering the terrible question like Muley’s in this manner: “Christianity teaches us that in heaven we shall be granted eternal life, and surely this means that we will be reunited with our loved ones.” She never said or even intimated that the Bible promised reunion with loved ones, nor did she find reassurance on that matter in the Church Fathers. The concept was a late invention, but she felt she was doing little harm in telling those who had already convinced themselves on the subject, “Christianity teaches that we will be reunited,” because some branches of her faith did.

So now, when Muley pressed his question and she saw how eager he was for an affirmative answer she repeated her standard ending “we will be reunited,” and she watched his face glow with a peace that had previously eluded him. He told her: “You can’t imagine how much I loved her, this society figure, attending operas and balls, and me a lousy truck driver who went to smokers when I was making my way in New York. When she accepted me as her second husband, it was like a rainbow filling the sky.” Wondering whether he was saying too much, he added: “It wasn’t money, you understand. Her husband talked a lot but he didn’t leave much. I had far more than she did, and it’s been my money she lived on down here. I wanted you to know.”

“Muley! You don’t have to apologize for anything. All of us in the Palms looked upon your love for Marjorie as a highlight in our experience. You were a wonderful husband,” and when she saw how his face brightened, she repeated: “You will be reunited with her in heaven,” and he left her with a smile and a lighter step.

At about four next morning the Duchess, who had a keen ear for suspicious sounds, telephoned the main desk and told them she had heard a muffled gunshot somewhere in the upper floors. But when the night men investigated, they could find nothing, and the night nurses in Assisted and Extended said they’d heard no sound like that. Dawn came and the night men reported Mrs. Elmore’s call, so Ken Krenek made investigations and uncovered nothing. However, when he checked attendance at dinner that night, a ritual carefully observed
in a large building with many elderly people, he found that Muley Duggan was absent.

Suddenly nervous, he called for one of the guards to fetch a master key, and when they entered Muley’s apartment they found him in bed, a heavy revolver in his right hand; a high-caliber bullet had ripped completely through his brain to exit at the top of his skull.

At his funeral service six different men recited his wildest jokes, even the naughty ones, so that there was much laughter as his neighbors recalled his boisterous ways. On a more serious theme, however, Reverend Quade eulogized: “Muley taught us a new definition of the word
love
, and in the end he proved to skeptics that a man truly can die of a broken heart. We watched it happen, and let us pray that this wonderfully loyal man is now reunited with his beautiful bride.”

But she could not bestow benediction upon herself, because she had good reason to suspect that it might have been her reassuring words about an afterlife of reunion in heaven that had encouraged heartbroken Muley Duggan to take his own life in order to join Marjorie. In her distress she asked Ambassador St. Près if he might have time to talk with her, and when he joined her for a walk under the palms, she posed the question: “Did I do something terribly wrong when I promised Muley that he would be reunited with Marjorie? Whom he loved so desperately? And around whom his life was built?”

“If it’s part of your faith, of course you were justified. It seems to have been a significant part of his.”

“That’s the ugly part, Richard. It’s not part of my religion. I find nothing in the Bible that promises reunion with spouses. It’s a late invention, to make people feel easy.” She strode along, kicking at pebbles, then added: “One reads damned little in the Bible about wives. Has it ever bothered you that all twelve of Christ’s apostles were men, and I wouldn’t be able to guess whether any of them had ever been married. Our New Testament is rather silent on the married state. And it isn’t much concerned about remarriage in the hereafter for the good reason that the men weren’t much concerned about it in the here and now.”

“Helen, I must warn you. You’re riding the theme of your book too hard. Look at the great love stories in the Old Testament, as in the last chapter of Proverbs, where women are idealized. I think you can extrapolate from them and deduce the concept that those married on earth will likewise be married in heaven.”

“I have this dreadful fear that it was my counsel, lightly given and
not explained because I did not want to confuse him in his sorrow—” She burst into tears: “I was a poor shepherd to my lamb when I told him something that may have speeded his death. It hangs heavy on me, and then to allow his jokes to be told at his service. I must have been out of my mind these past days.”

“You are not, Helen. You were edging your way along after you were shocked, we all were, by Marjorie Duggan’s death, which we applauded as the termination of an evil and a burden on Muley. I was as deeply shaken as you were—”

“But you were not in a responsible position. I faced a major test and failed. Mea culpa, mea culpa,” and he said: “Those are the sacred words that preface enlightenment, that suggest wisdom is at hand.”

“You’re a dear friend, Richard.” Then as they returned through the grand gate she said: “I have a feeling that I received more meaningful help when I consulted you than poor Muley did when he consulted me.”

For some years, with approval from Chicago, the Palms had allowed the scientist Maxim Lewandowski and his wife, Hilga, to occupy an additional room without additional cost. In this rather small space Max had installed a filing cabinet, a word processor, a computer, a fax machine and a high-quality television set with special controls for easy use of videotapes.

When his burgeoning scientific reputation had been damaged by the controversy over the extra Y chromosome, he was discredited as a serious researcher. And his academic career was ruined. Fortunately both he and his wife found alternative work; they saved their money and were able to move into the Palms at a much reduced rate.

The instruments that crowded his small office had been paid for by a consortium of universities and scientific centers in the United States, England, Sweden and Japan who recognized his unparalleled skill as a researcher. The schools sent him tasks whose solutions would speed their work, and which would be verified by other scientists. What the consortium was seeking, as were hundreds of other researchers in other countries, was an answer to this complex question: What causes Alzheimer’s, why does it strike certain individuals and not others, and what triggers the onset of the disease in which
large deposits of a translucent waxy substance collect in the brain, causing the loss of normal mental functions?

Breaking this gigantic puzzle into its many component parts meant that any brilliant new insight into any portion of the tangle might cast light on half a dozen collateral topics, for as a researcher in Japan pointed out: “We’re looking for needles that can be enlarged into mountain ranges.”

Dr. Zorn, having been told by members of the tertulia of the fascinating talk Lewandowski had given them on his researches, suggested to Krenek that it might be rewarding to invite the scientist to talk informally to the residents about his work, and Kenneth, with his entrepreneurial skill, devised the perfect announcement for the affair:
THE SECRET OF ALZHEIMER’S
, but when Maxim saw the poster he forced Krenek to take it down: “I got into deep trouble when the newspapers proclaimed that I’d uncovered the secret of criminality.” But he did allow:
RECENT ADVANCES IN ALZHEIMER’S
, which attracted a full house of fascinated listeners.

He began soberly with an astonishing fact: “In nations that keep records, Alzheimer’s stands high among the scourges of mankind. The causes of death, in descending order, are heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s.”

This was immediately challenged by several questioners, but he stood his ground: “It’s my business to know. But I’ll have copies made of the studies that prove what I’ve just said,” and he handed Krenek two studies for the Xerox machine.

“The insidious disease produces a massive breakdown of the communicating system in the brain. A translucent waxy substance called an amyloid protein is deposited in areas that clog and finally halt the delivery of messages from one part of the brain to another.

“There is no medical test that will prove that a patient has Alzheimer’s; only an autopsy after death, when the horrible entanglement that can be seen by even an amateur proves that the person had Alzheimer’s. The diagnosis while the patient is still living is simple: ‘We’ve proved that it isn’t anything else, so it has to be Alzheimer’s.’ But as you’ve probably seen for yourselves, the symptoms in people you love are devastating. Loss of memory. Loss of ability to recognize friends or even close family members. Loss of control over bodily functions. A mad desire to break loose and wander. And finally commitment to a bed twenty-four hours a day, and a suspension
of all normal vital functions except mere existence. That’s the hell of Alzheimer’s, a living death.”

“Is that all we know?” asked a woman who suspected her husband might be developing the dreaded affliction.

“We know a tremendous lot, that’s the business we’re in. There seem to be numerous parts of the human system whose malfunctioning could cause Alzheimer’s—the bloodstream, the lining of a vein, the weakness of a crucial part of the brain, a failure of an inhibitor—and at each of these many spots there could be a multitude of things that might go wrong, and to complicate things further, there is a staggering multiplicity of theories—guesses, if you wish—to explain
why
things go wrong.”

“What are the things that can go wrong?” a man asked.

“Well, there are forty-six chromosomes, each strand containing its multitude of genes, perhaps millions in all, and each aberration is susceptible to a hundred or more scientific explanations.”

“That’s an overwhelming problem.”

“Not really. Daunting but not impossible. We have a steadily accumulating knowledge about the chromosomes. We know for instance that a problem in Chromosome four results in Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis seven, eye cancer thirteen, kidney disease sixteen, muscular dystrophy nineteen.” Then he paused, studied the attentive audience and said: “Now follow me closely, taking down numbers if you wish, and I’ll ask Mr. Krenek to bring in the blackboard he has in his office. Here we go into the wonders of the human genetic system.

“Sometime ago it was discovered that Chromosome twenty-one was related to a curious disease. Babies born with three components of twenty-one, as opposed to the normal two, always developed Down’s syndrome, and I’m sure many of you know what that is.”

“Produces mongoloid infants.”

“We don’t use that phrase anymore. It’s already a terrible affliction, doesn’t need an ugly name, too. But the interesting thing is that anyone who has Down’s syndrome also has many of the brain patterns—the tangles, that is—the amyloid-protein blockages of Alzheimer’s. Tests have shown that Chromosome twenty-one is the villain that produces the amyloids.”

“So is the mystery solved?” a man asked.

“Heavens, no! From tests in Sweden we also know that a defect in Chromosome fourteen definitely accounts for the type of Alzheimer’s
that starts conspicuously early in life. So we know firmly that twenty-one and fourteen are somehow involved. So you might think we’d direct all our brainpower on the analysis of those two, and hundreds of brilliant researchers are doing just that.”