The Believers (26 page)

CHAPTER
17

Karla woke up agitated, mystified. She turned off her alarm clock and looked around the room. "Mike?"

She usually loved the mornings when Mike left for work early. Today, though, the stillness of the apartment felt ominous. She sat up, trying to locate the source of her unease, and abruptly, as the events of the previous evening came back to her, she lay down again. What had she done?
What had she done?
She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, until she saw dancing dots of phosphorescent blue. The weight of her sin lay on her like a rock, pinioning her against the bed. She could not go to work, that was clear. She could not possibly face Khaled. She would have to phone in and pretend to be sick.

In the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and gave a little cry of anguish. Her chin was red and raw where Khaled had burned her with his bristle, and there was a lurid purple-and-green bruise on her hip where she had stumbled against the corner of her desk during their kiss. How would she possibly explain these marks to Mike?

The colleague who answered at the hospital was full of sympathetic concern. "It's probably that stomach flu that everyone's been getting. Poor you, Karla."

Karla grimaced in shame. This was the first time she had missed work in five years, and the only time in her professional life that she had lied in order to do so. "It's no big deal," she said. "I'll probably be fine by tomorrow."

All day she lay on the sofa in her living room, flicking restlessly between daytime soap operas, trying to fend off the visions flitting through her head. It was a disgusting thing she'd done: disgusting and irresponsible and vile. She had not wanted to do it--not really. It had been a temporary madness. He had put his tongue in her belly button. He had even tried to lick--oh, God. What a horrible, horrible man to do that. She was never going to speak to him again.

Mike was upset to come home in the evening and find Karla still in her nightgown. Karla almost never admitted to any sort of incapacity. To have her malingering about the place made him nervous and irritable.

"What's the matter? Are you depressed?" he asked accusingly.

"No," Karla said, "it's just a stomach bug, I told you." This was the first time they had spoken since their fight about her essay. He had already been asleep by the time she got back from the hospital last night. She was shocked to discover that her guilt did not altogether cancel out her lingering fury.

"Why didn't you go to the doctor today?" he demanded.

"There was no point. It's getting better. I'll be up for work tomorrow."

He pointed at her face. "What's that?"

"What?"

He came over and prodded roughly at her chin. "That."

"Ow." She batted him away. "Don't."

"Well, what is it?"

"I don't know. I've been using a new moisturizer. I think it's given me an allergic reaction."

He drew back in distaste. "You should watch out it doesn't get infected."

At work the next day, Karla found a note under her door.

Dear Karla,

I came to find you but you weren't here. I hope everything is all right. Please call me on my cell phone as soon as you get this.

Love,
Khaled

She was still studying it when he walked in.

"You're back," he said, closing the door behind him. "I was worried. Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course." Look at him, she thought. He's nothing. A tubby man with a bald spot.

Khaled smiled. "I'm glad." He stopped and pointed at her chin. "Was that me?"

"Yes."

He paused. "I have done something, and if it was the wrong thing, you must tell me."

"What?"

"I booked a hotel room."

"Oh, God."

"I made it for tomorrow night. I thought, since you have yoga on Thursdays...It's a nice place, you know. Not sleazy."

"Oh God, oh God."

"I'm sorry. It's too soon, you're right."

She looked at him, standing with his eyes to the floor and his arms dangling loosely at his side, like a reprimanded schoolboy. With a suddenness that made him flinch, she grasped his sleeve and pulled him toward her.

The Regency Suites was downtown, in Battery Park City, safely remote from both home and work. To get there, Karla had to take a 4 train, get off at Forty-second Street, take the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, and then catch a 3 train to Chambers Street. She walked the rest of the way, using a map that Khaled had downloaded for her. It was a warm, pink-skied evening, and the streets were crowded with people spilling out from restaurants and bars. On every block, it seemed, there was a different gaggle of tipsy women in miniskirts and strapless tops, screaming merry obscenities at one another.

She had always dreaded summer. It was the season of disclosure, of floaty fabrics and bare flesh and open toes, the time of year in which her exile from the world of carefree fun and sensual pleasures was driven home most painfully. In preparation for this evening, she had tussled into and out of several outfits, including--madly--some items from her reliquary of "skinny" clothes. She had tried on a rubbery girdle that purported to Make You Lose Ten Pounds Instantly! but alas the pounds had not been lost, only redistributed to either end of the rigid garment. Ultimately, she had opted for a tent-size, calf-length black dress that her mother had once told her made her look like the prow of a ship. She was, she thought, a comically implausible adulteress.

The hotel had an atrium lobby, with a marble floor and several outsize chairs clad in candy-colored velvet dotting its perimeter. Behind the front desk, there was an abstract mural--rough stripes of yellow and red and blue paint--and three clerks, all wearing black suits with mandarin collars. Karla wondered anxiously how much money Khaled had paid for a room in this frighteningly chic establishment. When she approached the desk and gave Khaled's name, she was amazed to receive a smile from the clerk, and more astonished still to be given the room key without any questions or argument. Khaled had not yet arrived.

She rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, clutching her plastic key card. Room 1126 was at the far end of the corridor. She approached it slowly, as if the secret of her assignation were held in a bowl on her head, and it was only by maintaining the most scrupulously even gait that she could keep it from sloshing on the carpet. At the door, she slid her card, now slippery with sweat, into its slot. A green light flashed, and she turned the handle.

She walked around the small beige room, breathing in its chill mustiness. Two tiles of chocolate had been laid on the bed pillows. She picked one up and ate it while considering the brown floral bedcover. She had seen a news program once in which an investigative team had shone infrared light on hotel bedspreads, revealing gruesome palimpsests of semen and bloodstains.

She decided to pull the cover off.

As soon as she had done so, she regretted it. The bed looked horribly bare now, as if an operation were about to be performed on it. And what if Khaled interpreted her gesture as sexual impatience? Hurriedly she shook out the bedspread and put it back on the bed.

Feeling hot and a little breathless, she went to the window to see if it could be opened. When she pushed the curtains aside, she gave a small cry of surprise. The room faced directly onto the site where the World Trade Center had stood. She had never been to Ground Zero before. The idea of making a special trip downtown to gawk at it from a "viewing stand" had always seemed to her in very bad taste. The terrible piles of twisted metal that she had seen in newspaper photographs had been cleared away now. In their place lay an enormous, antiseptic gray scar, surrounded by chicken-wire fence and bathed in the surreal white glow of stadium lights.

She was still staring out at her view when she heard the door half opening behind her.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"Me."

She went to the door and undid the chain. Khaled was standing in the corridor, looking eager and slightly harried, with a plastic bag in his hand. They smiled nervously at one another.

"It's a nice room," she said, gesturing around her like a realtor.

"Really?" he asked. "It's okay? There wasn't a picture on the computer, so I had to take a chance." He paused for a moment to survey the furnishings. "Oh, yes...it's nice."

He pulled out a bottle of wine from his plastic bag. "It's French."

"Lovely."

"The man in the store recommended it."

Karla felt a pang of sadness, picturing Khaled in the wineshop, earnestly canvassing the opinion of experts.

"I think I need to take a shower," he said. "Would you mind?"

"Go ahead."

Karla sat down on the bed and examined the tiger stripes on the carpet where the vacuum had rubbed the pile the wrong way. Everything was wrong. She had made a terrible mistake.

When Khaled returned, he was dressed in one of the hotel's white, waffle-weave robes, with a towel around his neck, like a boxer. "That feels better," he said. "It's so hot outside..." He paused, registering her unhappy expression. "What's the matter?"

She looked away. "I have a bit of a headache."

"Shall I give you a neck rub?"

"No, it's okay."

He sat down heavily on the bed. "You've changed your mind."

She gave a little moan. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"No, it's
not
okay. I hate myself for doing this to you. It's just I've never...I'm not sure I can do something like this."

He nodded. "I understand."

"I'll go halves with you on the room. I was going to anyway..."

"Please," he said sharply. "Don't insult me."

He picked up the bottle of wine that was sitting on the side table and examined it. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have pushed you so fast."

"You didn't push me, Khaled."

He set the bottle carefully back on the table. "I had a dream about you last night, you know."

"Yes?"

"We were in a park together. We were lying on a blanket, eating a dessert--a dessert that we make in Egypt for special occasions, weddings. You liked it very much. You asked for more and more..."

Karla snorted. "That figures."

"And then, after a time," Khaled said, "I began to undress you." He shot her a cautious, sidelong glance. "It was very quiet. There was no one else around. You had a beautiful smile on your face."

Karla took a deep breath.

"It went very slowly," he went on. "You were wearing many layers of clothing, and every time I removed a garment, I had to stop to look at you. There was honeysuckle nearby, and the scent was very strong. I wanted..." He paused. "Well, when I finally uncovered your..." He bowed his head. His hands were shaking.

Karla stood up and went toward the door.

"Don't!" he said. "It's all right. I'll stop."

She halted. "No, it's not that. I just...if we're going to..." She smiled apologetically. "I need the lights off."

CHAPTER
18

"Thank you for coming in this afternoon," Dr. Krauss said, shutting his office door and gesturing for Audrey and Rosa to sit down. "I hope the timing wasn't too inconvenient for you." He perched on the side of his desk with one buttock on, one buttock off. "I've asked for this meeting because--"

"Have you been away somewhere?" Audrey interrupted.

He paused, perplexed. "Uh, yes, actually. I was just in Hawaii with my family."

"I thought so. You look like you got some sun damage."

"Ha, yes." His hand rose defensively to his florid neck. "You're right, I did get a bit burned, I'm afraid."

"That's not good. I'd have thought you being a doctor, you'd be extra careful about the sun."

He chuckled good-humoredly. "Well, we doctors aren't infallible, you know."

"Tell me about it," Audrey said unsmilingly.

He pulled himself up straight. "
Anyway
, as I--"

"Hawaii, did you say? That must have been nice. Pricey, though I expect."

The doctor's eyelashes fluttered. "Well, we got a very good deal on the flights, so actually it wasn't too--"

Rosa scowled at the ceiling, infuriated by her mother's childish baiting of the doctor. "You were saying, Dr. Krauss?"

"Yes, right. Well, now..." His left foot began to beat a tattoo against the side of the desk. "In cases like Joel's, there often comes a moment--a very difficult moment for all concerned--when we have to take a long, hard look at the value of continuing the rehabilitation effort. Joel is, as you know, dealing with a number of health issues. The influenza is obviously the main concern at the moment, but there is also the infection around his trach site and the decubitus ulcers--"

"What are decubitus ulcers?" Rosa asked.

"Bedsores," Audrey said. "He means the bedsores. Which, by the way, Joel wouldn't have, if he'd been getting proper care in this place--"

Dr. Krauss made an odd, gargling sound somewhere in the back of his throat: a synecdoche of laughter. "That's not
quite
fair, Mrs. Litvinoff--"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Dr. Krauss ploughed on. "As you know, the most recent EEGs were not encouraging. On the basis of those results we have to conclude that Joel's chances of regaining a reasonable degree of mental function are very slim indeed at this point. If we then take into account his age and the length of time that he has been unconscious, and the various infections that he's fighting, there seems to me to be a strong case for reassessing his care plan."

Rosa glanced at her mother. Audrey was sitting quite still, gazing at a vicious little bouquet of sharpened pencils on Dr. Krauss's desk.

"What would that mean, exactly?" Rosa asked.

The doctor made a steeple with his hands. "Well. There are several options you might want to think about. Joel has never had a DNR order, so that would be a place to start. Some families who find themselves in this situation will choose to withhold antibiotics, which is really a way of allowing nature to take its course. There is also the option of taking out the feeding tube--"

"Joel's got bedsores!" Audrey cried. "My mum had bedsores. No one suggested killing her off because of them."

"No, no, of course not. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The bedsores are just one of a raft of serious problems that Joel is confronting."

"It was
you
who bloody gave him the bedsores, and now you're using them as an excuse to exterminate him."

"Okay," Rosa said, quickly. "You've given us a lot to think about, Doctor. We appreciate your having been so straightforward. Perhaps the best thing now is for us to go away and discuss this with the rest of the family."

"Joel's not making them enough money," Audrey said, once they had left the doctor's office. "That's what this is about, you know. They want to get rid of him, so they can put someone more profitable in his bed."

Rosa stared bleakly down the corridor. "Let's not worry about what
they
want, Mom. The question is, What do
we
want? What would
Dad
want? I mean, if there's really no chance that he'll get better--"

"
Ohh
, I see where this is going. You agree with Ichabod Crane, do you? You think we should just kill him?"

"Would you stop it, Mom? You're not the only one who loves him, you know. This is difficult for all of us. I'm just saying, if he has no quality of life--"

"How the fuck do you know if he has quality of life? You're not in his brain, are you? There's this book I read that says there's a lot of evidence to suggest coma patients have rich dream lives. Who are you to say that's not worthwhile?"

"Oh,
Mom.
"

"What? This isn't bullshit. Read the book if you don't believe me."

"He's in a vegetative state, Mom. Vegetables don't have rich dream lives."

"Well, thanks for the morale raiser. Thanks a fucking lot. That really makes me feel super."

"I'm not trying to make you feel good. I'm trying to figure out what's best for Dad."

"And I'm not? Is that what you're saying?" Audrey hitched up the strap of her handbag and began to stride away down the hall.

"Where are you going?"

Audrey waved her hand vaguely. "I don't know. I'll be back in a bit."

While she was waiting for Audrey to return, Rosa sat in her father's room, going through the pile of CDs in his bedside cabinet. During the early stages of Joel's coma, Audrey had demanded that music be played in his room at all times. But the hope that he might be triggered into consciousness by a familiar chord progression or lyric had long since faded: these days, the CDs were rarely brought out. Rosa gloomily inspected the titles:
Strauss's Last Songs
,
Louis and Ella
,
Aretha Franklin Sings Gospel
, Bach's
St. Matthew Passion
, Handel's
Coronation Anthems....
She smiled. She and her father had once had a furious fight about the
Coronation Anthems
. She had attacked him for taking pleasure in "reactionary" music that celebrated monarchy.

"But sweetie," he'd replied, "this is some of the loveliest music ever composed."

"There's no such thing as aesthetic 'loveliness' independent of politics and ideology, Dad."

"Isn't there? Well, then you're just going to have to forgive your father his little weakness..."

"
Why
? Why should you be forgiven? Why shouldn't you be held to account for your contradictions?"

"Well, you know, Rosa, I've always said, self-contradiction is one of the occupational hazards of being an American progressive--"

"Bullshit. You just want to have your cake and eat it."

"Listen, I respect your need to establish your independence from me. Challenging your parents is a necessary and valuable stage in your development. But right now, you're being a little bit of a pill--"

"You're such a hypocrite! You sit around, congratulating yourself on how much you hate the system, how committed you are to the struggle. But the minute I object to one of your sacred pieces of classy art, you tell me to shut up."

Joel finally lost his temper. "How
dare
you talk to me that way! You little brat! You think you can lecture
me
on socialism? I've spent my life--"

"Yeah, I know. You've spent your life protecting the few pathetic rights that the ruling elite sees fit to grant its workers."

Oh, what an abominable creep she had been! All those years she had tortured him with her lectures--and for what? Not a single one of her precious principles had survived the test of time. Now her father was going to die, and she would never have the chance to say she was sorry or to ask his forgiveness.

She took the disc out of its box and slipped it into the CD player. It would have suited her remorseful mood to be slain by the beauty of what she had once so arrogantly dismissed, but in truth, the music still sounded pretty silly to her. A bunch of snobby-sounding Englishmen tootling fruitily about King-worship. She was about to turn it off when a tall woman with long, silvery dreadlocks came into the room.

"I'm sorry," the woman said, "I was told there was no one with him. I'll come back later."

"It's okay." Rosa waved her in. "You don't need to go."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

The woman studied her face. "You must be Joel's daughter."

"Yes, I'm Rosa."

The woman did not introduce herself, and there was something grand in her manner that made Rosa hesitant to inquire her name. Perhaps she expected Rosa to know. She walked over to the foot of the bed now and considered Joel's waxen form. "How is he doing?"

"Not too good," Rosa said. "He's got a bunch of different infections. They're pretty worried about him."

The woman nodded. "Right."

Rosa glanced at her approvingly. A lot of Joel's visitors felt obliged to convey their grief in tiresomely graphic ways. It was a relief not to have to cater to any showy misery.

"This is nice," the woman said, gesturing at the CD player.

"Yes."

They stood and listened.

Upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in vesture of gold

"It's Handel," Rosa said, after a moment.

The woman's brows arched in amusement. "I know."

"I'm sorry," Rosa said, blushing. "
I
don't know anything about classical music, so I stupidly assume that other people don't."

From behind them now, there came a cry--a piercing ululation of pain and surprise. They swung around to see Audrey standing wild-eyed on the threshold. "Get out, you whore!" she screamed.

Rosa stared at her in horror. "Mom,
please
, we have a visitor!"

"She's the one I'm talking to!" Audrey screamed. "Go on! Get out! Get ooouut!"

Her mouth was open so wide that Rosa could see the vaulted arch of her palate and the uvula waggling lewdly at the back of her throat.

The woman spoke with icy composure. "Calm down, Audrey. I didn't come here to fight with you."

There was a moment's silence and then Audrey rushed forward, her arm held high in the air, ready to strike.

For a while, Karla feared disaster. She was graceless. Gargantuan. Her arms kept getting trapped in awkward positions. She did not know how to kiss properly. Khaled was sure to be disgusted by her. In a spirit of preemption, she grew cold and critical. His mouth was too wet. He was too heavy. His crowing enthusiasm was embarrassing and jejune. Mike, in his poker-faced decorousness, had never shamed her by looking at her or making her look at him. He had certainly never
spoken
during the act.

At length, Khaled got up to fetch a condom from his jacket. Lying back on the pillows, Karla watched him as he moved across the room in a knock-kneed trot, his arms shielding his belly and his hands cupping his groin, like a man in a sex farce.

"You're shy!" she exclaimed.

He turned around. "A bit, yes." He glanced down at himself. "I am not a hunk, I'm afraid."

The candor of it astonished her. How trustingly he laid himself bare! It was as if the possibility that they would be anything other than kind and forgiving of one another had not occurred to him. The tight little fist of tension in her stomach began to unfurl now. She felt giddy, freed, like a child who has finally escaped adult oversight. In this hotel room--in this bed--they could do
anything
, she thought, and no one would stop them. "Quick," she whispered, holding out her arms to him. "Quick, come here." She was not making a discovery, it seemed to her, so much as retrieving long-forgotten knowledge. For once upon a time, before unhappy experience had inhibited her imagination, had she not
assumed
that adult love would be this way? Had she not, in her virginal innocence, had a presentiment of just this infinite sensual possibility?

Later, she slept. When she awoke, she found Khaled sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her. A thin shaft of blue light lay across the bedspread.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Eight o'clock. Five minutes past. When do you have to leave?"

"Soon." She paused. "Not for a while."

They smiled at one another. "Did you look out of the window yet?" she asked.

"No."

"Go look."

She observed him tenderly as he went over to the window. His soft round torso and skinny legs reminded her of the figures that she and her siblings used to make with potatoes and cocktail sticks when they were children.

"Oh!" he said, when he pulled back the curtains. He stood looking out for a moment or two. Then he drew the curtains and came back to bed.

"My cousin, he owns a deli in Yonkers," he said as he lay down beside her. "After 9/11, the police came to his home and took him away for questioning. They wanted"--he began to laugh softly--"they wanted to know why he had a picture of the Twin Towers on the wall of his restaurant."

"You're kidding!" Karla said. "How long did they keep him?"

"Oh, not very long. Maybe two days."

"My God, that's terrible!"

"Well, he didn't like it, being put in jail like a common criminal. But there were people who had much worse."

"There's American justice for you."

Khaled shook his head. "You're always saying bad things about America. This is a beautiful country. You don't know."

Karla sat up. "How can you say that after what you just told me?"

"My cousin wasn't beaten or tortured. He was set free after two days. In other places in the world, we would never have seen him again."

"Khaled! America is bombing civilians in Afghanistan, and any minute now, we're going to invade Iraq. That's all okay with you?"

"Oh--" Khaled waved his hand. "All countries are like this. All of them--they would do just the same if they had as much money and power as America. It's the way the world works, the way people are."