A man straddles a prone form, his bare rump visible in the dim light. He looks up at my approach, smiles in recognition, decouples, extends his arm toward the object beneath. A young girl lies below him, her face darkened with mud. I shake my head, declining, observing his gap-filled grin, his filthy beard, his still-erect
kamış
. Izzet is his name; I knew him somewhere before. Then he is on her again, grunting, the girl whimpering, the slapping sound of flesh on flesh mixed with the wind. I wonder at it a moment, at why I am here, why I seem to know this place yet not to know it, why I understand this language but cannot place it. I smell the smoke of the campfire, hear the shouts and the groans and the rustles. I feel the wind. I touch my own mouth. A certainty strikes that I have been here before, that I have ridden this horse, spoken these words, borne the same silent witness, watching and waiting. And then it is gone, leaving only the dark and the cold, and the wind. I pull the blanket tighter around me, and continue on through the night.
A man fingers my face.
I do not know my surroundings, my name. Liquid drips on a hard surface, metal rattles, the smell of medicine floats—all familiar, all strange. Am I among enemies? My hands shake, my body tensed in protection, until the round, smooth face of Dr. Harry Wan registers, like a key clicking true in a lock. I recognize the hospital’s bright lights, the static intercom announcements, the smells of plastic and urine. I am Emmett Conn. I am in the United States. It is April 1990.
“How are you this day?”
The dream still tugs at me, the coldness and wind. I smell the sweat of the horse.
“Can you understand me? You may nod yes or no.”
I nod affirmatively. My head is sluggish, not my own.
“Good!”
I remember that Dr. Wan is perpetually cheerful, prone to elaborate bows and exclamations of “wonderful.” He and I are Rotarians, one of the things Carol tossed me into to acclimate me to Wadesboro. That effort failed, but I remain a member. The others have become used to me, or at best feign indifference. I am an outsider—a Yankee, a foreigner. A transplant. An old man.
“You have what looks to be a brain tumor, Mr. Conn.” He smiles as he says this, as if I have won a big prize. “A glioma. It is about the size of a pea, located at the base of the left parietal lobe. We will do a biopsy, confirm the best course of action. We may want to try radiosurgery. It is something new.”
He stops to let this sink in. My daughter Violet leans forward, her frown transformed and whisked into a smile. The edge of her mouth curls like Carol’s, her mother. I haven’t seen her in . . . months? For this I blame myself—we have long had our difficulties. We are in ways so alike. I am pleased she has come now, even under these circumstances.
“Dr. Wan, at my age . . .”
“Shush.” Violet spreads her long fingers. “I spoke to him earlier. Dr. Wan says you are in fantastic shape. He says others older than you have been treated and lived active lives. He is a leader in this field.”
I shake my head no. But I think, To be wanted now. Yes.
She leans farther in, exposing dark gums. Has she dreaded this day? She must care for me, comfort me. “Papa. Please.”
I nod, confused. Her tone has a hunger. Has she told her sister? The boy Wilfred, her son? For a moment it is 1932, and I am working, working. I realize, as I lie here, that the language in the dream had been Turkish.
The doctor moves closer, speaking in low tones, explaining. There are protocols, possibilities. Malignancy, metastasis, radiation, surgery. My eyes water and I fight welling tears; I cry so easily now, whereas earlier in my life I did not cry at all. The treatment he mentions seems so modern, so unappealing. I see myself: “World’s Oldest Patient Receives New Procedure.” Dr. Wan’s face on a journal. I wonder about payments, insurance. Will someone care for Sultan, my cat? But it is all in the distance. In some strange way I am still in the dream, wounded or dying or already dead.
“Okay,” I say.
There are smiles, exhaled breaths.
“You had a head injury once, is that right, Mr. Conn?”
“Yes, in the war.” Violet must have told him. Nineteen fifteen. World War I, not II. It led to my marriage, to my coming to America. To the things I remember. To my life.
“Do you have records?”
I look at Violet. “Yes.”
He looks at me quizzically. “You fought for the U.S.?”
I shake my head. “No.” The headache gains force, like a storm’s gathered winds.
Dr. Wan looks on, beaming.
“Wonderful!” he announces, and exits the room.
Dawn approaches
in a softening gray. Men mutter, distant, a breeze stifling words and brief bursts of rough laughter. A fire glints and sparks but I am separate, removed. Leaves rustle in trees that shield the starlight spread beyond.
I sit with my back against a trunk’s smoothness, watching and listening. Leaves turn and still. Birds twitter, one swooping down to peck in the near darkness. I watch the way its head moves, its tail flicks. It lifts its beak up to gulp food in and swallow. Does it feel pleasure? Know pain? It stares at me one-eyed. Then it flits away.
I turn my head to the campfire, to the dark shapes before it. Beyond lie the others, those permitted no fires, those that sleep on the ground in the cold and dream of home or of death. Some will not wake to this dawn, others may rise but will fall, unable to continue. Some will give up, the older ones or the children, or those who have lost almost everything else. Others will trudge on, stumble to the next campsite, collapse, rise again. At first some cried and complained and begged for water, but most of those are now gone. Only the sturdy remain, and those still with valuables useful for bribes. Maybe seven hundred, from what had once been two thousand. Shuffling, marching, day after day.
I think on how I have come to be here, a tiredness muddling my memory so that bits emerge, almost unwillingly. My name, Ahmet. My father’s name, Mehmed. The certainty that the next town is not far. The necessity of reporting to officials in Katma. The days it will take for the return journey home. The fact that my father is dead, that his death sent me here. That I must complete this assignment to gain entry into the army. It all swirls together, then washes away, caught in a blurred exhaustion of dim dream and remembrance. My head nods. I must wake. There are obligations, responsibilities.
I stand, fumbling in my trousers. My urine crackles on dry leaves. Another sound intrudes, or perhaps a smell. I whirl to find a figure standing apart in the gloom. I release myself with one hand, grab my rifle with the other. I adjust my clothing. The figure backs away.
“Who is it?” I ask, pointing the rifle.
The figure continues its retreat.
“Halt! ”
The figure stops. I draw closer, the rifle erect in front of me, leaves crunching beneath my feet. I near the edge of the trees.
It is a woman. One of them—the baggy, dark clothes, the braided hair, the large eyes. Out trying to escape, or perhaps murder a guard. I have heard of such things. My charges have been mostly docile, cowed into submission by deprivation and the judicious culling of their men. But I must take care.
I stick the rifle barrel under her chin, lifting her face. I edge her backward, into a plume of glimmering light.
Her face hangs words half formed in my throat. She has mismatched eyes, one dark, the other light, as if neither perfect gene could be denied by her mother. I attribute it at first to the starlight. I even turn her a full rotation to get a better, closer look. The thought strikes that she has been blinded in the light eye, but I know this is not true, as both eyes are alive, reflecting the heavens stretched and glowing above us. I stand silent, struck by this oddity, wondering how I have not seen it before, how she has survived this long march without others taking advantage. She is beautiful beyond the exoticism. She is maybe in her early teens, the small rise of breasts evident beneath the oversized garments.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice almost shaky. I could have this girl, now, here on the ground, if I wished.
The eyes stare back, unblinking, as if detached from the body. They resemble, in a way, the blank eyes of a corpse, vacant, almost unseeing. I wonder again if she has suffered some injury.
I finger the rifle. My mouth lathers and dries.
“I was collecting eucalyptus leaves,” the girl says quietly. She raises an arm to indicate a bag held in one hand. She does not seem afraid like the others, nor hateful, nor particularly submissive. When I touch my hand to her face, she neither flinches nor cries. Her skin is soft, cooled by the breath of the wind.
I release my hand. We stand for some time, until I step aside to let her pass. I feel confused afterward, as to my actions, as to why I made no move to take her. I convince myself I am merely saving her for later, like a man who saves his sweets for after his meal.
I turn before she vanishes under the trees. “What is your name?” I ask.
She does not respond, or if she does, her name is lost in the leaves.
3
These things I know:
I served in the Ottoman army, I was part of a unit, I fought the British at what they call Gallipoli. I was wounded, my face and head and clothes so battered I was mistaken for a British soldier. I was evacuated to a British hospital ship, then a military facility in London. I have admission slips, dates, facts. I have lost my memory, yes, but these things are documented. And then this dream comes, this fantasy, but I see no soldiers. This could be any place. Any time.
A whistling intrudes, followed by a rub of footsteps and a volcanic “Good morning!” Harry Wan’s smooth face appears.
“Hello, Mr. Conn.”
“Yes. What is it?” I sound impatient. I see the verdict in Dr. Wan’s eyes before he opens his mouth.
“It is a glioma, malignant. A small one, less than one centimeter. We are fortunate to catch it this early. As these tumors grow larger, they infiltrate surrounding tissue like a spider, and as such become hard to remove without damaging the brain.”
He continues on, but I am looking at Violet, thinking of when she was young, her hair blond like a duckling’s. Her sister, Lissette, was blond, too. Carol’s hair was golden-white, like a swan’s feathers, before it became thin and dull gray. Even her eyebrows were light-colored. Carol, who brought me to America when I spoke almost no English, who endured years of treatment before her own silent death. I remember her shuffling, her walker with the tennis balls cupped at the ends, her mind opaque and floating. The way her head cocked as if some silent voice spoke to her. And now me. Is surgery not wasted on a man of my age? I stare up at the ceiling, wondering if a question has been asked and not answered. “Okay,” I say, when a silence emerges. My voice is faint. I see myself lingering, extending. Clinging. If I were stronger I would turn and demand that they leave me, that nature be left to take its certain course. Even buildings and machines wear down and break. But instead I clear my throat and push my lips to a smile. They look on, expecting me to say something more but I am silent. I find nothing to say.
“We’d like to do the surgery on Wednesday,” Dr. Wan says. “You’ll be fitted into a frame, similar in some respects to the halo used for the biopsy.”
I had dozed through much of the biopsy, awake only to bits of the procedure: the cold, sterile room, the prick of the anesthetic’s injection, the brush and crackle of face masks and gowns. I squint now at Harry Wan, noting for the first time the large mole on his face. He is speaking, but the sound seems to come from the mole. “You will experience . . . fatigue,” the mole says. “The medication will . . . help you.”
I shift position, my arms on my chest. Harry Wan smiles and departs. I have feared hospitals, as far back as the war. For a time I had dreams of lying like a caterpillar in a big white bed, restrained and unable to move. I would wake screaming, my arms waving and circling. Carol would then calm me, hold me, watch as I stood to prove I could walk. Such dreams stopped, long ago. I usually sleep well. But now these dreams come.
I look around. The wall, the ceiling, the curtain are white. A crack runs in the ceiling, disappearing over my head.
“Papa. Does your head still hurt?”
It does not. The pain from before has departed. But I need to tell her. “These . . . these dreams,” I whisper. “They come. They are like . . .” I go no further. It is silly now.
“Dreams?” Violet looms above me. “I’ll ask Dr. Wan about it. Maybe it’s the medication.”
I nod. So silly. So
foreign
.
She drives me home. The day is bright, plastic. We pass a child walking, a man bent on a bicycle. I rode a bicycle to work for years, not a fancy one like this man’s, but an upright, with fenders and a basket up front for my tools. Gone now, like so much else, though I still feel the pull of the chain, and the rhythm. I remember teaching the girls to ride, the glee on Violet’s small face at the moment she balanced, her tricks after that—no hands, standing on the seat, steering backward. The bell on her bike that gave a strange, strident ring. A crow lifts in flight and I think on how odd it is, she and I, this history swerving between us. Can conversation be had without the past so intruding? We do not try now. We do not speak. I stare out at oak trees and moss hanging like beards. I have lived here forty years but it is not so familiar. A man mows circles with a riding mower, an old woman lifts her paper from her driveway and stares. The car’s brakes squeak. The azaleas in my yard need pruning, and trimming.
The house is empty since Carol died. The hospital bed, the linens, the diapers, the medicines—all gone. I cared for her myself until almost the end. It became my routine, my obligation. I grew to accept and abhor it. I envision now a new bed, new medicines, a silver wheelchair. Accidents of the bowel and bladder. Days spent being cleaned, transported to doctors, plied with medication, fed vegetable mush. I cannot bear the thought of these things, or of having them done now for me.