Revival (33 page)

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Come,” Jacobs said.

The woman who entered had the plump, matronly figure of the Good Gramma in a children's story and the beady eyes of a dick in a department store. She set a tray down on the table in the parlor, then stood with her hands clasped primly in front of her plain black dress. Jacobs rose with another grimace, then tottered. In my first act as his assistant—in this new stage of our lives, at least—I caught his elbow and steadied him. He thanked me and led me out of the study.

“Norma, I'd like you to meet Jamie Morton. He'll be with us at least through breakfast tomorrow, and back for a longer stay this summer.”

“Pleased,” she said, and held out her hand. I shook it.

“You don't know what a victory that handshake represents for Norma,” Jacobs said. “Since childhood, she's had a deep aversion to touching people. Haven't you, dear? Not a physical problem, you'll notice, but a psychological one. Nevertheless, she's been cured. I think that's interesting, don't you?”

I told Norma it was nice to meet her, holding her hand a moment longer than necessary. I saw her mounting unease, and let loose. Cured, but perhaps not
completely
cured. That was interesting, too.

“Miss Knowlton says she'll bring your patient to dinner a bit early tonight, Mr. Jacobs.”

“All right, Norma. Thank you.”

She left. We ate. It was light fare, but sat heavily in my stomach, just the same. My nerves felt all on the outside, sizzling my skin. Jacobs ate slowly—as if to taunt me—but at last he set aside his empty soup bowl. He seemed about to reach for another slice of bread, then looked at his watch and pushed back from the table instead.

“Come with me,” he said. “I think it's time you saw your old friend.”

 • • •

The door across the hall
was marked RESORT PERSONNEL ONLY. Jacobs led me through a large outer office furnished with bare desks and empty shelves. The door to the inner office was locked.

He said, “Other than the security company that supplies twenty-four-seven gate guards, my staff consists of just Rudy and Norma. And while I trust them both, I see no need to put temptation in their way. And the temptation to peek at the unsuspecting is a strong one, wouldn't you say?”

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure I could have. My mouth was as dry as old carpet. There were a dozen monitors in all, stacked in three rows of four. Jacobs pushed the power button on RESTAURANT CAMERA 3. “I believe this is the one we want.” Cheerful. Like a cross between Pastor Danny and a game show host.

It seemed to take forever before a black-and-white picture swam into view. The restaurant was large, with at least fifty tables, but only one was occupied. Two women were sitting there, but at first I could only see Jenny Knowlton, because Norma blocked the other one out as she bent to serve them their bowls of soup. Jenny was pretty, dark-haired, mid-fifties. I saw her mouth move in a silent
thank you
. Norma nodded, straightened up, stepped away from the table, and I saw what remained of the first girl I ever loved.

If this were a romance, I might say something like, “Although necessarily changed by the passage of years and somewhat wasted by the depredations of disease, her essential beauty remained.” I wish I could, but if I begin lying now, everything I have told so far becomes worthless.

Astrid was a crone in a wheelchair, her face a pallid pouch of flesh from which dark eyes stared listlessly down at food she obviously had no interest in. Her companion had put a large knitted cap—a kind of tam-o'-shanter—on her head, but it had slipped to one side, revealing a bald skull fuzzed with white stubble.

She picked up her spoon with a scrawny hand that was all tendons, then put it down again. The dark-haired woman exhorted her. The pallid creature nodded. Her tam fell off when she did, but Astrid appeared not to notice. She dipped into her soup and raised the spoon slowly to her mouth. Most of its cargo fell off during the trip. She sipped what was left, pooching her lips out in a way that reminded me of how the late Bartleby would take a slice of apple from my hand.

My knees unhinged. If there hadn't been a chair in front of the bank of monitors, I would have gone straight to the floor. Jacobs stood beside me, gnarled hands clasped behind his back, rocking to and fro with a slight smile on his face.

And since this is to be a true account rather than a romance, I must add that I felt a sneaking relief. I would never have to keep my half of our devil's bargain, because there was no way the woman in the wheelchair was coming back. Cancer is the pitbull of diseases, and it had her in its jaws, biting and rending. It would not stop until it had torn her to pieces.

“Turn it off,” I whispered.

Jacobs leaned toward me. “I beg your pardon? My ears aren't as good as they used to be these da—”

“You heard me perfectly well, Charlie.
Turn it off
.”

He did.

 • • •

We were kissing beneath the fire escape
of Eureka Grange No. 7 as the snow swirled down. Astrid was blowing cigarette smoke into my mouth while the tip of her tongue slipped back and forth, first along my upper lip and then inside it, lightly caressing the line of my gum. My hand was squeezing her breast, although there wasn't much to feel because of the heavy parka she was wearing.

Kiss me forever
, I thought.
Kiss me forever so I don't have to see where the years have taken us and what you've become
.

But no kiss goes on forever. She pulled back and I saw the ashen face inside the fur of her hood, the dusty eyes, the slack mouth. The tongue that had been inside my mouth was black and peeling. I had been kissing a corpse.

Or maybe not, because the lips rose in a grin.

“Something happened,” Astrid said. “Didn't it, Jamie? Something happened, and Mother will be here soon.”

 • • •

I jerked awake with a gasp
. I had gone to bed in my skivvies, but now I was naked and standing in the corner. I had the pen from the bedside table curled in my right hand and was using it to jab at my left forearm, where there was a small but growing constellation of blue dots. I dropped it on the floor and staggered backward.

Stress
, I thought.
It was stress that brought on Hugh's prismatics at the Norris County revival, and it was stress tonight. Besides, it's not like you poured salt in your eyes. Or came around to find yourself outside gobbling dirt
.

It was quarter past four, that deadly time of morning when it's too late to go back to sleep and still too early to rise and shine. I pulled a book from the smaller of my two bags, sat down by the window, and opened it. My eyes took in the words just as my mouth had taken in Norma's soup and salad: without tasting. Eventually I stopped trying and just looked out into the darkness, waiting for dawn.

It was a long time coming.

 • • •

I took breakfast in Jacobs's suite
 . . . if you can call a single piece of toast and half a cup of tea breakfast. Charlie, on the other hand, worked his way through a fruit cup, scrambled eggs, and a goodly heap of homefries. Skinny as he was, it was hard to tell where he put it. On the table by the door was a mahogany box. In it, he told me, were his healing instruments.

“I no longer use rings. No need of them, now that my performing career is over.”

“When are you going to start? I want to get it over with and get out of here.”

“Very soon. Your old friend dozes through her days, but doesn't sleep much at night. Last night will have been a particularly difficult one for her, because I told Miss Knowlton to withhold her midnight pain meds—they depress the brainwaves. We'll do our business in the East Room. It's my favorite at this time of day. If you and I didn't know God is a profitable and self-sustaining construct of the worlds' churches, the morning light would be almost enough to make us believers again.”

He leaned forward, looking at me earnestly.

“There's no need for you to be a part of this, you know. I saw how upset you were last night. I'll need your help this summer, but this morning either Rudy or Miss Knowlton can assist me. Why don't you come back tomorrow? Pop over to Harlow. Visit your brother and his family. I think that, were you to do that, you'd see an entirely different Astrid Soderberg on your return.”

In a way, that was exactly what I was afraid of, because since leaving Harlow, Charlie Jacobs had made a career of trickery. As Pastor Danny, he had displayed pigs' livers and declared them to be extracted tumors. It was not a résumé that inspired trust. Could I be absolutely sure the haggard woman in the wheelchair actually
was
Astrid Soderberg?

My heart said she was; my head told my heart to be careful and trust nothing. The Knowlton woman could be an accomplice—a shill, in carny terms. The next half hour was going to be an ordeal, but I had no intention of ducking out and allowing Jacobs to affect a sham cure. Of course he would need the real Astrid to pull it off, but many lucrative years on the revival circuit made that a possibility, especially if my long-ago girlfriend found herself hard up financially in her old age.

An unlikely scenario, to be sure. What it came down to was the responsibility I felt to see this through to what was certain to be a bitter end.

“I'll stick around.”

“As you like.” He smiled, and although the bad side of his mouth still wouldn't cooperate, there was nothing sneery about this one. “It will be nice to work with you again. Like the old days in Tulsa.”

A soft knock came at the door. It was Rudy. “The women are in the East Room, Mr. Jacobs. Miss Knowlton says they're ready when you are. She says the sooner the better, because Miss Soderberg is in a lot of discomfort.”

 • • •

I walked side by side with Jacobs
down the hall, carrying the mahogany box under my arm, until we got to the East Wing. There my nerve temporarily failed me, and I let Jacobs go in while I stood in the doorway.

He didn't notice. All his attention—and considerable ­charisma—was focused on the women. “Jenny and Astrid!” he said heartily. “My two favorite ladies!”

Jenny Knowlton gave his outstretched hand a token touch—enough for me to see that her fingers were straight and seemingly untouched by arthritis. Astrid made no attempt to raise her own hand. She was hunched in her wheelchair, peering up at him. There was an oxygen mask over the lower half of her face, and a tank on a wheelie-cart beside her.

Jenny said something to Jacobs, too low to hear, and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, we must waste no time. Jamie, would you—” He looked around, saw I wasn't there, and beckoned to me impatiently.

It was no more than a dozen steps to the center of the room, which was filled with brilliant early light, but those steps seemed to take a very long time. It was as if I were walking underwater.

Astrid glanced at me with the disinterested eyes of one expending all her energy to cope with her pain. She showed no recognition, only looked down at her lap again, and I had a moment's relief. Then her head jerked up. Her mouth fell open inside the transparent mask. She covered her face with her hands, knocking the mask aside. It was only part incredulity, I think. Most of it was horror, that I should see her in such a state.

She might have hidden behind her hands longer, but she didn't have the strength for it and they dropped into her lap. She was crying. The tears washed her eyes and made them young again. Any doubts I might have had about her identity passed away. It was Astrid, all right. Still the young girl I'd loved, now living inside the failing wreck of a sick old woman's body.

“Jamie?” Her voice was as hoarse as a jackdaw's.

I got on one knee, like a swain about to propose. “Yeah, honey. It's me.” I took one of her hands, turned it over, and kissed the palm. The skin was cold.

“You should go away. I don't want you to . . .” There was a whistling sound as she drew in breath. “. . . to see me like this. I don't want
anyone
to see me like this.”

“It's all right.”
Because Charlie's going to make you better
, I wanted to add, but didn't. Because Astrid was beyond help.

Jacobs had drawn Jenny away and was conversing with her, giving us our moment of privacy. The hell of being with Charlie was that sometimes he could be tender.

“Cigarettes,” she said in that hoarse jackdaw voice. “What a stupid way to kill yourself. And I knew better, which makes it even stupider.
Everybody
knows better. Do you want to know something funny? I still want them.” She laughed, and that turned into a harsh chain of coughs that clearly hurt her. “Smuggled in three packs. Jenny found them and took them away. As if it would make any difference now.”

“Hush,” I said.

“I stopped. For seven months, I stopped. If the baby had lived, I might have stopped for good. Something . . .” She drew a deep, wheezing breath. “Something tricks us. That's what I believe.”

“It's wonderful to see you.”

“You're a beautiful liar, Jamie. What's he got on you?”

I said nothing.

“Well, never mind.” Her hand had strayed to the back of my head, just as it used to when we were making out, and for one horrible moment I thought she might try to kiss me with that dying mouth. “You kept your hair. It's lovely and thick. I lost mine. Chemo.”

“It'll grow back.”

“No it won't. This . . .” She looked around. Her breath whistled like a child's toy. “A fool's errand. And I'm the fool.”

Jacobs led Jenny back. “It's time to do this thing.” Then, to Astrid: “It won't take long, my dear, and there will be no pain. I expect you'll pass out, but most people have no awareness of that.”