Recessional: A Novel (48 page)

When Leitonen bent down, uncovered the young man’s right foot and anointed his big toe, only the gravity with which the doctor performed this ritual suppressed Zorn’s nervous laugh, and he continued reading:

“And the rest of the oil that is in the priest’s hand he shall put upon the head of him that is to be cleansed….”

At these words Leitonen rubbed his greasy left hand in Reed’s hair, deeply and thoroughly, and then came the closing verse:

“And he shall offer one of the turtledoves, or one of the young pigeons, such as he can get….”

And Leitonen pretended to release one turtledove and one pigeon “Such as this poor young man could afford.”

The watchers were dumbfounded by this display, but they remained silent as Leitonen continued: “Jaqmeel, you are now one with the poor man to whom God spoke. Like him, you have been anointed, and like him you have been part of a ritual that was as powerless to halt their plague as my futile rituals are powerless to halt yours. But you are one with that penniless Jew and I am one with that sad, frustrated priest, and may God have mercy upon us all.”

“Why are you telling me these things?” Reed cried weakly, hammering at his sheets and fighting back a convulsive cough, and Leitonen said softly: “Because I want both of us, you and me, patient and doctor, to comprehend the nature of our plague. Again and again through history it has struck, and brave men have striven to combat it as best they could. You and I, Jaqmeel, are lost, futile souls, but we’re part of a parade that reaches back through thousands of years.”

Zorn was watching Reed as the ritual ended and did not see that a fourth figure had entered the cubicle. Reed, who had apparently talked with the newcomer before, welcomed him with a wan smile: “I’m glad you’ve come to save me.” But Dr. Leitonen, far from greeting the man, grabbed his Bible from Andy and strode from the room:
“Zorn, you can testify. I did not see this man; I did not speak to him. I do not know him.” He rushed down the stairs and slammed the door behind him. Mrs. Angelotti’s strong voice echoed: “Nurses, you can testify that neither I nor Dr. Leitonen saw him.”

The stranger who had caused this volcano of action and denial was the one whom Andy had glimpsed briefly that first day, the man in black wearing the Borsalino hat. When Zorn tried to leave the cubicle. Nora surprised him by pleading: “Please stay,” and he could not refuse.

“Name’s Pablo,” the stranger said in a midwestern accent that bore no trace of either Italian or Hispanic heritage. “I change it every week so you can deny you ever saw me, or helped me. You saw the doctor run away. He had to. You heard Mrs. Angelotti say she never saw me sneak into her hospice. You have courage, Doctor, to stay.”

When Zorn asked: “Why do they behave that way?” the stranger jerked his thumb toward the curtained window: “Because those two out there with the camera keep an eagle eye on places like this,” and when Zorn peeked out, careful not to make the curtain move, he saw on the opposite side of the street the same tall man and dumpy woman maintaining their surveillance of the Angel of Mercy.

“Police?”

“Self-appointed. Moral watchdogs on doctors, nurses and people like me. They’re the ones who preach that all human life is sacred. Under no circumstances can death be hastened or abetted. They won’t do a damned thing to help Reed here, or find him a place to die in dignity, but they insist that he struggle through eight or ten months of hellish agony so that in the end he can die in the way they consider proper.”

When Andy peeked out again he saw the couple in a different light. Their self-righteousness angered him, but to his surprise Pablo defended them: “When you remember how Hitler killed off anyone he judged undesirable, like Jews, Gypsies and half-wits, you have to grant that society needs watchdogs, and I accept that life is almost always preferable to death. But AIDS is different. No one in this damned nation seems to realize that. AIDS is death in the midst of life, inescapable and irrevocable. The old rules simply do not apply.”

“Why are you here?” Andy asked, and he said in that flat nasal twang that would have been at home in Texas or Arkansas: “You
must be kidding! I’ve been in all the Florida papers. They’ve nicknamed me the Trusted Friend, but they have it wrong. There are three or four of us doing this work. No one knows who we are and we sure don’t know one another. We’re a solution to a problem, and I’m probably the least of the four. But this fellow”—he indicated Jaqmeel—“knows me from the other place,” and when Zorn looked at the patient, he nodded, and the man in black said: “In that dreadful place, they call for me often.”

“For what?”

“Do you want me to say it right out? The police are after me enough.”

Andy’s fears were confirmed: the Angel of Death had been summoned by Jaqmeel to help him commit suicide. Wanting nothing to do with this criminal action, Zorn tried to flee the cubicle and drag Nora with him, but the Angel barred their way: “You two can help. It’s better if friends remain,” and from his bed Reed, too exhausted by the day’s events to sit up, lay back and pleaded with tears flooding his eyes; “Aunt Nora, stay with me.”

In his nasal voice the Angel consoled the man he had come to help: “You were right, what you told me in that other place. It’s better to leave at the right time and in the right way. A cleaner bed doesn’t mean a cleaner life or a more appropriate death.”

“What are you?” Zorn demanded. “You speak like a clergyman, or a lawyer, or maybe a teacher.”

“You’re partly right.”

“Have you left my name anywhere?”

“So you, too, are afraid? It’s natural…You want to know what I do—well, I was studying to be a high school principal. Needed an M.A. and was close to getting it at a university I won’t name, in a state I won’t name, either. But then I watched two of my friends die with AIDS, and it’s terrible, as Reed will tell you….When I saw that these friends were forbidden to die in decency, I decided I didn’t want to teach children, I wanted to teach our whole society. But I’m only one of many, you know. When churches and courts and hospitals and the police refuse to do what’s right, men like me spring up everywhere. This nation is racked by a terrible plague and we refuse to admit it. Jaqmeel had to call on me as a last resort.”

He went to the bed. “Jaqmeel, have you reconsidered?”

“No,” came the whisper.

“Of your free will you ask me for help?”

“I do.”

“Will you tell your aunt and Dr. Zorn that?”

“I want to go. I can’t stand it any longer. This tunnel, there’s no light at the end.”

Turning back to Zorn and Nora, the Angel said: “You’re not to see what I do. You’re not to remember anything but my name—Pablo,” and from his briefcase he took pills and a syringe and asked Nora to stand by the bed, to allow Jaqmeel to hold her hand. The doomed man took it to his lips and kissed it: “You’re kind to stay with me. The others have all gone,” and he recited a line from a poem Andy did not recognize: “About, about in reel and rout,” and then he said: “I’m ready,” and Nora bent down to kiss him on the forehead.

But when she saw Pablo produce the hideous tools of his forbidden trade—a white pill that might encapsulate a lethal dose of strychnine, and the syringe that could inject a deadly dose of some potent drug—she understood with brutal clarity what was about to happen, and could not bear it. Cradling her nephew’s head against her bosom she wailed: “I cannot watch this, Jaqmeel! You were our boy of gold….” Collapsing in tears, she kissed him fervently, then allowed Pablo to lead her away from the bed and direct her to the stairs: “It’s best if some of us don’t see,” and Andy heard his nurse clop her heavy way down the flight of wooden steps.

All attention now focused on Jaqmeel, to whom Pablo handed two pills with the crisp direction “Swallow them,” and when with difficulty Reed did, Pablo said: “Now let me have your arm,” and the young man extended an arm so thin it was painful to see. “Look away,” Pablo said softly. “Both of you,” so Reed and Zorn, clasping hands, stared at each other.

Whether Pablo injected anything into the wasted arm, and if he did, whether he used a placebo or some powerful drug, Zorn was not allowed to know, but either the pills or the injection had an immediate effect on Jaqmeel, for as he gazed at Zorn, still clinging to the doctor’s hand and grateful for his presence, his eyes slowly glazed over, his breathing stopped, and he found his escape in death.

As Andy unloosed his fingers, Pablo said: “If the police come snooping, describe me in full detail. I won’t be wearing this costume anymore,” and he vanished, leaving Zorn with the dead man and the responsibility of informing Mr. and Mrs. Angelotti what they expected
to hear. Zorn saw that the back door had been left open so that the Angel of Death could escape undetected from the hospice.

Like most retirement centers, the Palms had what the management called “our little secret,” for although the expensive entry buy-in fee was a minimum of $110,000, two or three of the smallest rooms were available on a rental system, just as if they had been part of an expensive hotel.

Toward the end of August a rather odd person moved into one of the rentals. He was sixty-three and seemed much too young to be entering a retirement facility. His records showed that he was educated at Holy Cross, had a law degree from one of the smaller night schools in Cambridge and was the father of six children who lived in various parts of the nation; his wife had died of cancer. Dr. Zorn noted the entry which said that Clarence Hasslebrook had suffered, in his mid-fifties, what his doctors described as “a nervous breakdown occasioned by a mixture of too much work and unrelieved tension.” Apparently the tension had later been relieved, for in subsequent years he had performed as one of the minor members of an undistinguished Boston law firm. Why he had quit what seemed to have been a lucrative position was not disclosed.

Curiously, all arrangements for Hasslebrook’s residence at the Palms had been arranged not by him but by a woman member of his law firm, who paid a year’s rental in advance. Administration did not see the man himself before he moved in, but the woman assured everyone: “You’ll love this man. He’s one of the best.”

Zorn, of course, was more than pleased to enroll yet another single to occupy one of the hard-to-rent bed-sitting rooms, but when he met Hasslebrook as the latter moved his meager belongings into his quarters, he feared that he was welcoming an unknown quantity, for the man had a shifty look and an apologetic manner that ill matched the incongruous propriety of his dress. In Florida heat he wore a New England three-piece suit that looked a bit too tight, the trouser legs a bit too short. It had been carelessly tailored in a fabric that did not hold its shape, and from long usage had acquired a sheen at vulnerable spots. He wore a nondescript blue tie that showed signs of having been worn incessantly, and a pair of black wing-tip shoes that needed polishing. His appearance was definitely not that of the typical Palms male inhabitant. Also, he moved in an unusual manner,
leaning forward from the waist as if eager to make a strong impression even on strangers whom he obviously did not really care to meet. Zorn saw him as one who warranted close attention.

When he first appeared in the dining room, Dr. Zorn led him to the long table, where he was quite out of place in his dark three-piece because all the other men were in colorful tropical wear. Raúl Jiménez and Chris Mallory were wearing pastel guayaberas and the other men wore lightweight clothes of simple cut. When the newcomer said, “I see that dress goes by different rules here,” two of the men volunteered to guide him to the good shops. He aroused further attention by refusing to divulge anything about his previous life beyond saying: “I worked in Boston. Involved with minor business negotiations,” which masked the fact that everyone already knew, that he had been a lawyer.

Among the women he gained approval by ostentatiously rising from his chair whenever a woman came to the table or left, and since this was a buffet night, he was up and down like a jack-in-the-box until Senator Raborn warned: “You keep on doing that, Mr. Hasslebrook, you’ll turn into a yo-yo. Besides, our ladies are not accustomed to such gallantry.”

“My mother made me do it. I can’t break the habit,” he replied and Señora Jiménez said: “Don’t! We women like to be reminded that there are still gentlemen in the world.”

“That name Hasslebrook?” President Armitage asked. “I can’t place its derivation.”

“It must be German,” the stranger said, but unlike other newcomers to whom Armitage had posed that question as a polite way to invite some revealing account of family histories, the man volunteered nothing else.

Armitage, whose former positions had required him to know as much as possible about visiting professors whom he might want to bring to his faculty or who were actually applying, was not satisfied with this abrupt response: “I’d guess that the original ending must have been something like
bruch
or
burg
. Contaminated by American usage?” No response. “Or arbitrarily modified by immigration officials when your ancestors came over?” When even this elicited no reply, Armitage asked: “The word itself, as a word, or perhaps a combination of words? Does it have any specific meaning in German?” The man shrugged his shoulders, and Armitage became so frustrated, and indeed angry, that he refused to drop the subject: “I’ve often
speculated about the composition of my name. Seems to have come over from France during the Norman Conquest. First part must have related to armament of some kind. Suffix
tage
? It must have related to an occupation or an act—like perhaps a man who supplied arms or sharpened them or heaven knows what.” The man repeated his shrug, at which Armitage abandoned him.

Señora Jiménez was more charitable, influenced perhaps by the fact that Hasslebrook had twice held her chair for her: “Sir, tonight’s buffet. No waiters. You take your plate and pick the goodies you prefer. Here, I’ll take you,” and she led the way to the far end of the dining room where a generous assortment of hot dishes, well-prepared vegetables and desserts awaited. Under her expert guidance, Mr. Hasslebrook selected a slice of prime roast beef, well charred; three vegetables not overcooked; and the rich whole-wheat bread featured in any meal served in John Taggart’s establishments. Because of his concern about cholesterol the newcomer declined dessert.