Reprisal (30 page)

"I remember," Joanna said, drew in the deepest breath she could, and used that to dive ... dive suddenly and deep into sleep. She did it so quickly that nothing could catch her--not even the girl who bent from her chair to look into Joanna's eyes and watch her go, as if to follow her down.

Two days later, Charis sat through the morning watching Joanna sleep--lying with her long black hair, threaded with ash gray, spread smoky on the pillow.

Her face was drawn, fine lines carved into it across her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. Charis watched her sleep for a long time before bending to kiss her cheek, then sat back in the chair to watch longer.

"I'm a friend of the family--I was her daughter's friend," she'd told the nurses. "I don't think she has anyone else, close." And they'd let her stay.

That had been the evening of the first day, after they'd brought Joanna in from the island. They'd brought her in by helicopter. ... She'd slept, drugged, and when she woke, the doctor had put her to sleep again. Charis had sat by Joanna's bed, watching.

The second day, she woke and Charis spoke to her, and she went back to sleep until late at night, when she woke again and refused to use the bedpan, confused, querulous as a child. Charis had helped her out of bed, and stood by the toilet holding her hand. ... And toward morning, when Joanna cried out in her sleep, Charis had wakened her from that dream, and sat on the bed to hold her until she slept again.

But today, flowers had come and people had come.--A while ago, Charis had gone to get orange juice, and seen White River's dean and his wife, and one of the professors, McCreedy, and his wife, at the nurses station. Charis had stepped into the hall bathroom, and stayed there for a while.

When she'd come out, the White River people had left, and left Joanna dozing, tired by the visit.

Charis sat watching a long time, holding Joanna's hand. Then, in early afternoon, she got up from her chair and was careful to be quiet as she took her purse and safari jacket from the closet. She felt now was the time to leave for a while.--And knew she'd been right when she heard Joanna wake and call her name as she walked down the hall. ... Knew again she'd been right when she passed the nurses station and heard still another visitor--an old lady in an ancient Chanel suit--asking for Mrs. Reed.

It was time to be gone for a while. There was a rhythm to things, like dancing. A rhythm even to contentment.

... The first feelings that happiness brought with it were comfort and weight.

Charis felt those during the long drive back across the state to White River.

She'd put the VW'S torn canvas top down, and drove one-handed, her left arm resting on the top of the car's door. The wind of driving touched and plucked at her hair, trying to get it loose. Touched her blouse front gently, as if it wished to open its buttons to reach her breasts. ...

The results of happiness were not what she'd expected. She'd thought it might make her lighter, ease her over things like an airy high-hurdler.--But now that it was here, now that she was starting over at last and had her place prepared, she felt heavier, more solid rather than less. ... So, happiness seemed to mean settling into things, resting comfortably, as if the world were fine furniture and she could be at ease on it. A strange sensation; it made her smile, driving along, and explained the smiles she'd seen on others.

"I wouldn't call it a nervous breakdown. Don't know what that is, anyway."

Dr. Chao was young--tall for a Chinese-American--and impatient, though he'd been gentle with Joanna. "I'd just say you had a hell of a shock. A series of personal tragedies, and the last one was one too many."

"One too many," Joanna said. She knew she'd been repeating people's phrases.

And that must be annoying. "--I'm sorry to always be repeating what you say."

Dr. Chao reached down and patted her hand. "It's a way of anchoring yourself dealing with people, while you're so distraught. ... You know, we have a psychiatrist coming in part-time on staff here, and we've discussed your situation. She's really nice, might be a good idea to talk to her."

"I'd rather not talk to her.--And I didn't mean to repeat what you'd said.

"Talk to her." That was just part of my own sentence."

"I know," Dr. Chao said. "Don't worry about it. Strictly your sentence." He smiled, seemed to think she was amusing.

"Where's Charis?"

"Charis?"

"The girl who was here with me."

"Oh ... she left. You were feeling better, so I suppose she thought she could go."

"Is she coming back?"

"Well, I suppose she could--but you're not going to be with us much longer, Mrs. Reed. You're much better; it was just a matter of shock, collapse due to shock ... call it battle fatigue. And a hospital is not the best place to recover from grief. Continued medication isn't going to be good for you, either."

"I'm better."

"Yes. ... So I don't see any reason why you couldn't be released tomorrow."

"I can be released tomorrow," Joanna said, made a baby's face and began to cry. "This is so ridiculous," she said--tried to say that, and had to put her hands up to cover her face so she could speak through her fingers.

"... Maybe day after tomorrow," said Dr. Chao.

Greg was in Charis's room when she went up. He was sitting at her desk, reading, and looked as though he'd been waiting there a long time.

"Jesus, I've been coming up here the last two days. Where have you been?"

"I was with Mrs. Reed."

"Wow. With her mother?"

"That's right." Charis opened her closet door, put her overnight bag in--reminded herself to do a wash--and hung up her safari jacket.

"Better you than me, man. ... Well, what are we going to do? I don't know what to say to anybody."

"Have you talked to anyone about this, Greg?"

"You said not to."

"That's right. We don't need to say anything, Greg. It would be really smart just to keep quiet about it--because believe me, people are going to be asking." Charis sat on her bed, kicked off her loafers. "--It's a death.

Campus cops and plenty of people are going to keep coming around." Tired from the drive, the nights sitting up at the hospital, she stretched out and closed her eyes. She could do the wash when Greg left, take a hot shower, then sleep.

"--There's nothing to say, anyway. You never even got a chance to talk to her, try to make her feel better."

"She was gone--I mean, I went up on the roof and it was dark and there was nobody there ... just people yelling down on the sidewalk."

"I know, Greggis." She could take a nap now, shower and do the wash later.

"--ation your fault. If it was anybody's fault, it was mine. I should have gone to the college clinic, no matter what Becky said. I should have told them she was just so ... sad, so desperate." Charis yawned; it was hard to stay awake.

"What did you tell her mom?"

"Like as little as possible." She could do the wash tomorrow; it was just underwear, socks, jeans, and a sweatshirt. "--And when the campus cops get around to you, you do the same. I'm damn sure going to keep my mouth shut."

"Why? We were trying to help her."

"Why? Listen, if you tell people about our being so concerned and trying to help ... and she was in love with you and so forth? If you do that, Greg, then believe me--long after the details, the facts of Becky's suicide, are forgotten, your part in it is going to be remembered. You will be the guy who had something to do with a young girl's death-period."

"Shit. ..."

"You just let people know you were personally involved with her at all--and thanks to campus gossip, and the dean's office, and the net chat rooms, that will follow you all the time you're at White River, and right into graduate school. For the rest of your life, Greggis, you'd never know when Becky's death could rise up and bite you."

"Oh, man. No good deed goes unpunished --and I never even talked to her!"

"I know.--Anyway, I intend to keep my mouth shut about having anything to do with this, except being shocked and saddened--and that's true enough. I've done my crying for Rebecca."

"Okay ... okay. You know, I never knew anybody who killed themselves. It's extremely unreal."

"Yes, it is.--So, no matter who asks us, we were really surprised, and we're very sad about it because Becky was a nice girl. But she did seem pretty upset by those deaths in her family. Period."

"Period. ... You know, this is the first tragedy I've been involved with."

"What a lucky guy. ..."

Joanna lay in summer light made brighter by reflection of her room's cool white. The window blinds slatted sunshine to fine stripes across the walls.

She lay resting, reflecting on being alone--with no one left to love or be loved by. Her family now stood separate, on the other side of everything. They were there--or nowhere--and she was here, solitary as a wandering animal, with only food and shelter as necessary concerns. A cheeseburger, a clean motel room, some pleasant landscape view ... those sorts of limited pleasures, like the coolness of her bed's sheets as she lay, lunch over.

She could do as she pleased--and had to please no one, wonder about no one, worry about no one. Now she was alone in the castle of herself, free to wander from room to room, view to view ... and had to let no one in, admit no guest, no intruder, and no messenger, since there would be no news to receive that might concern her ... until at last, after many years, a doctor at the drawbridge confirmed her sentence of death.

A "sentence" of death ... as if there were some written phrase--with subject, adverb, verb, and object--that was death. Death described so perfectly, so completely, that the description became the thing itself, a phrase that if spoken, killed all who heard it.

She, a poet, might have made that perfect sentence, a sentence of death. She might have written it in rough draft, or spoken it by chance --not realizing its accidental perfection. But those nearest, closest to her, had heard or read, and died.

These losses seemed part of a pattern past rational cause or interruption.

She'd tried action to break open and reveal its secret machinery--tried that, and exposed only the fishermen's desperation.

Small wheels squeaked in the hall. Some patient being borne past, to hope or hopelessness.

... The fishermen, rough innocents. Of course the Russians, or whoever, must be taking advantage of the Asconsett people in the trade--as the dealers and thugs of Providence and Boston were certainly taking advantage of them. Even as criminals, the captains--clumsy and old-fashioned in their seaboots and sou'westers, their heavy hands net-scarred and scored by salty weather--even as criminals they would eventually lose their boats, as their time was already lost to them.

In Manning's, she had accomplished only an adventure, an incompetent bandage for her injury. Poor protection against savage ill chance, ill chance again, and inconsolable regret.-And proved so swiftly, in only the time it took a young girl to fall three stories onto stone.

... Now, there was only dinner to look forward to. This evening's dinner, supposed to be chicken, peas, orange sherbet and a roll. A solitary animal had dinner to look forward to, and sleep.

There was that dinner, the chicken dinner, yesterday evening.

And today, breakfast, sunshine at the window, and another visitor. Francie, up from New York and doing more than an agent's duty to a fiscally very minor author.

Francie Pincus didn't look New York publishing at all. She was large, easy, flushed, and freckled, with soft brown curls--an Iowa farm woman out of place.

Francie's calm and good nature ran all through her, so bad news seemed to bruise only for a day or two, then vanish.

This news, Joanna's news, had overpowered those defenses, so it was a pale, large, damp-eyed agent who wandered into the hospital room as if it must be the wrong one, and Joanna not her published poet after all.

"Oh, Jesus ... Jesus, Joanna." And this heavy woman, in a badly fitting blue suit, sagged onto the bedside and put out a strong, plump hand to pat Joanna's. Francie scented with strong florals. It was lavender today; she smelled like a linen closet.

"It's all over," Joanna said, and couldn't think why she'd said it. Perhaps she'd meant she had no one else to lose.

"Rebecca," Francie said, china-blue eyes slightly popped and glaring with a rage of loss. Childless, she'd loved Rebecca--been happy to offer her apartment for overnights, happy to escort first the child ... then the young woman to museums and Broadway musicals on her infrequent visits to the city.

Joanna wanted to join her in anger, and speak Rebecca's name--but that seemed impossible to say aloud, so she only nodded and gripped Francie's strong freckled hand.

Francie sat and said no more for a long time--time enough for the sun to shift the room's shadows slightly. Then she said, "What a fucking shame," and bent over Joanna, her bulk breezing lavender, to kiss her loudly on the cheek, an almost comic smacking kiss.

After that, she sat silent another while--her weight affecting the shape of the mattress. She sat for those slow minutes more, a soft blue monument ...

then suddenly got to her feet with a large animal's swift heave, squeezed Joanna's hand, let it go, and walked to the door and out.

Then she ducked back in, only her large head showing, said, "No business to speak of--nothing important. Oh, Christ. ..." And was gone.

Joanna lay in her white bed in her white room, and feared more visitors, but no other visitors came. She lay and waited for lunch ... found herself smiling once. The weight of tragedy, grown too great, might tilt the balance to comedy. She had lost too much-almost a pratfall, a blow with a bladder, a shove over the back of a surprise clown. She felt she was drifting away into only observation, and might see humor in the Auschwitz ovens.

Only the pain kept her human--the bright hook of agony was in her mouth, it had driven through her gum and jaw, so there was no point beside that point.