The Age of Miracles (4 page)

“Well, I won't listen to this all the way to Brooklyn. I thought we were having a celebration for Sara. I'm too old to be afraid to take chances. I really want to stop talking about it. Sara, tell them to lay off their poor old mother.” She smiled at me and pressed my hand. She kissed me on the cheek. I felt like a criminal and also Judas. We were violating her civil rights. I looked at the soft pretty skin along her hairline. I steeled my heart.

Thirty minutes later we were out in Brooklyn driving along a street with Italian restaurants on every corner. Cary was studying a city map. We found the neighborhood and pulled up before a tall brick duplex with a stone fence and a little courtyard. We parked and Arthur unlocked the gate in the fence and then the front door.

Donald Lang's parents are architects. From the minute we entered the courtyard we could tell we were someplace special. In the small courtyard were two Japanese magnolias and a statue of Venus leaning over to look at her hand. Very elegant and gracious, welcoming. The sidewalk was made of tiles with neat green grass growing in the cracks. Beside the door were pots of geraniums. The door was painted dark red with a brass plate for the combination lock. Inside, the house was stark and contemporary, more like a museum than a house. There were wide white sofas and black leather chairs. There was a television set behind a Chinese screen and Indian carpets on the floors. The kitchen opened into the living room. I opened the refrigerator. There were cheeses and wine and bottled water. “We are in Italy seeing palaces. Be welcome here,” it said on a note propped against the wine bottle. I began to rethink my estimation of Donald Lang now that I had seen his home. No wonder he was so cautious. It was from living in a museum.

Cary and Arthur moved the screen from in front of the television set. “We have a surprise for you,” Cary told her mother. “Sit on the sofa. We want to show you a video.”

“You're full of surprises today. What's going on here, Cary? Is this about drugs? Because I'm not going to countenance anything like that.”

“We want to show you a film,” Arthur said. “We love you, Mother. Don't ask any more questions. Just watch this film for us.”

“It's of you? You made a film for me?”

“Just watch it. Then you'll know.”

“What time is it?”

“Four-thirty. I promise we won't miss the opera.”

“How long is this film?”

“Twenty minutes. Come on, Momma. This is important to us.” We surrounded her. She looked from face to face. Then she gave in. We settled down upon the sofas. Kathleen put the tape in the video player. I stood by the door.

“Lights,” Kathleen said. I turned off the overhead lights. The film came on. A PBS special. The gory details of a face-lift. I waited until the surgeon made the first incision behind the ear. Then I slipped out the door and went into the kitchen and started eating cheese and crackers. I can't stand the sight of blood. I opened all the drawers and cabinets and inspected the silver and the china. Gorham and Spode and handmade pottery. She wouldn't prosecute her own kids, I decided. She wouldn't prosecute
me
.

When I went back into the living room the film was almost over. The patient was propped up in bed in the pressure bandages. Edwina was scrunched back into the sofa. “What time is it?” she was saying. “I appreciate all this but we really need to get back to the hotel.”

“We aren't leaving yet.” Cary walked over to the television set and turned it off. “What did you just see, Mother? What did that mean to you?”

“That you have decided to show me this gory film in the hopes that I will change my mind and not have the surgery done. That's obvious.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, are you going through with this? After what you just have seen?”

“I am fifty-nine years old. I don't have long enough to live to go saving myself a little pain and discomfort. I want to have this done. I'm having it done.”

“Jane Morris was in pain for six months. And she doesn't look that much better. She couldn't wear her glasses for ages. You want to be an invalid for half a year?” This from Cary.

“She doesn't look younger,” Kathleen said. “She just looks like she had a face-lift.”

“Her mouth looks funny,” Arthur added. “You want your mouth to look like that?”

“I am not going to look funny. This man is the best plastic surgeon in the United States. Now let's get going. I appreciate your trying to do this. I'm not mad about it. But we're going to miss the opera. I want to be there before the curtain so we can see the crowd.”

“Mother.”

“What is it, Kathleen?”

“Your face could look like a mask. You can't do this. We just can't let you do it.”

“You can't stop me.” It became very quiet in the room. Edwina had known all along, I think. I moved back into the doorframe.

“You too, Sara? You're in on this?”

“Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I mean, I didn't think it up, but I think you shouldn't do it. You look fine. I mean, you look beautiful. You're one of the most beautiful women I know. If you do this, you won't be able to exercise for months. Think about it. You might straighten out some lines, but you'll lose your figure. God. I mean, no, I'm not in on it, but I don't want you to be mad at me. Okay, I'm in on it.”

“Leave Sara out,” Arthur said. “If you want to blame someone, blame me.”

“All right.” Edwina stood up and looked around. “I watched the film. Enough is enough. The opera starts at eight. Let's all just go back to the hotel and get dressed and forget all this.”

“We're staying here.” Cary stood up and faced her mother. “We aren't through talking. Do you know how delicate flesh and blood is, how intricate the connections are? The central nervous system, the dendrites, you want all that exposed to the air? The frontal lobes, the brain, Momma. The seeing, smelling, thinking, sensing, talking part. You're going to let somebody cut near that. You look fine. You don't need a goddamn face-lift.”

“It's the money, isn't it? You don't want me to spend money on myself. That's it. It's always money with you, Cary.”

“That's part of it. There isn't enough money for everything and this is going to cost a lot more than you know. Wait a minute. I want to show you something.” Cary left the room to get her purse, which was on a table in the front hall. I looked at my watch. Six o'clock. Fourteen hours to go. How could we keep this up for fourteen hours?

“I want to use the phone.” Edwina walked over to a table and picked up the phone but the phone was dead. We had removed the cords from the phones. She shook her head and pursed her lips together. For a moment I thought she might start yelling. Everyone at the Standfields' yells whenever they like, but usually not at each other, usually just at fate. They sort of yell up in the air.

Cary came back into the room carrying a sheaf of xeroxed papers. “Okay. Read this. This is a list of drugs taken by Jane Morris in a five-month period last year. Her daughter faxed it to us. They're getting ready to sue the doctor so they had to have the records. Look at this. Sit down a moment, Momma. Just read the list.”

“We are going to miss the opera.”

“No, we aren't. We have the car. I'll let you off in front of Lincoln Center.” Cary pushed the sheaf of papers at her and she took them and sat down on the sofa and began to read. I walked over and read over her shoulder. It was a long list of antibiotics and painkillers and sleeping pills and tranquilizers. There was another list of special cosmetics and bandages and a wig. The total for both lists was five thousand, four hundred and thirty dollars.

“I knew it was the money,” Edwina said, glowering at Cary.

“It's your health and mental stability,” Cary shot back. “I don't want a crazy drugged mother.”

Edwina dropped the papers in her lap. She looked around at her children. Then she began to cry. We all drew near. “You are so mean,” she cried. “How can you be so mean to me? I love you so much. I'm trying so hard to find a way to live. Oh, God, I'm trying as hard as I can.”

“Here, take this. It's a vitamin C.” Arthur handed her a pill and a glass of water and she took it and put it in her mouth and swallowed. I couldn't believe she had done it. He handed the pill to her and she took it. Mothers and sons. Explore that if they lock you in a cell.

In five minutes she was nodding. In six she was asleep. “I don't believe you did that,” I said. “You didn't do that while I watched.”

“One Seconal compared to the list you just read?”

We put her to bed on the white sofa where she had fallen asleep. We straightened up the room and turned off the lights and went into the kitchen to sit around and feel guilty. “You and Arthur could go to the opera,” Kathleen said. “Someone should go. She won't wake up. Cary and I can watch her.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “I don't think I could do it.”

“I can.” Arthur laughed. He was drinking milk and eating cookies. He's going to be a fat man. I will love him even more when he's fat. If he gets fat, I'll get fat. We'll be fat together. If we aren't in jail. “Come on, Sara. Let's go. If no one uses those tickets, she'll have a fit. She'll be madder about wasting those tickets than anything else.”

“She may never speak to us again.” This from Cary. “Get ready for that. She may not pay our tuition next year.”

“Dad will pay it.”

“I think we ought to call him. We ought to let him know about this.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Arthur, you and Sara go back to the hotel and see if there are any messages and then go to the opera. We'll be fine here. She won't wake up for hours.”

We went outside. It was still light, just after seven. We got into the Cadillac and drove into Manhattan and found a parking garage and ran for Lincoln Center. We made it just before they closed the doors.

Das Reingold
. It was superb. A metaphor for how the innocence and beauty of the world were stolen and taken down into the earth to be made into a ring of power. In the second scene, as the curtain rises, the king and queen of the gods are asleep on the ground. It is dawn on a mountain. They have nice clothes and food and weapons but no home. They still have to sleep on the ground like animals. As the sun rises and the mist clears away, a beautiful city appears in the distance. Valhalla, a place for gods to live. Fricka, the queen of the gods, wakes up. She shakes her husband. “Look at that,” she says. “A city for us to live in.”

“I know,” he says. “I paid two giants to build it for us.”

“What did you pay them with?” she says, getting suspicious.

“I gave them your younger sister, Freia, Youth. One of them is madly in love with her.”

“My little sister, Youth? Oh, no, she is the treasure of the world.”

“Well, we couldn't go on sleeping on the ground all our lives. We had to have a city.”

About that time the beautiful younger sister comes running onto the stage with these ugly giants chasing her. She throws herself at her sister's feet, begging for mercy, and in the end the king makes a deal with the giants that he'll go down into the earth and bring back the gold and give it to them in exchange for Freia. “Well, okay,” the giants say. “You have until sundown to get it. Meanwhile, we will keep Freia as a hostage.”

They take her away and as soon as she leaves the stage, the gods begin to age. Their faces wrinkle and they begin to stoop.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper to Arthur. “This is too much metaphor. Let's go to the hotel and get the messages and then go back out to Brooklyn. Let's leave at intermission.”

“There isn't any intermission. It's three hours nonstop. This is German opera.”

“Be quiet,” a man said in a foreign accent. The stage was dark. It was a set change. We grabbed our things and ran.

We went to the hotel and got the phone messages. We called the doctor's answering service and told them Mrs. Standfield had changed her mind and flown back home. We called the concierge and told him to hold the ballet tickets for Tuesday night at the desk. “At least she'll be able to see the ballet,” I said. “That should cheer her up.”

“Nothing's going to cheer her up. She's going to kill us.”

“How long will she sleep?”

“Until five or six in the morning. It was a knockout dose.”

“I couldn't believe she just took it, put it in her mouth and swallowed it.”

“People trust doctors. They even trust first-year medical students.”

“You slipped your mom a Mickey.”

“I know. I did, didn't I?”

“What if she calls the cops?”

“She won't call the cops on us.”

“What if she did?”

“Then there wouldn't be anyone left for her to love. That's what's wrong with her, Sara. That's why she wants to lie down on a table and get butchered. To have a different hope. God knows what she thinks it will do for her. Make her young again. Save her from the giants.”

“She ought to have grandchildren by now. Only none of us wants to have them.”

“It's the new world. People don't get what they think they ought to have. They have to think up new things to want.”

“Elective surgery?”

“Maybe we should have let her do this.” He sat on the bed and took my hand. Such a sweet, fine, chubby medical student. I did love him. That much was true.

“Maybe we should make love.”

“Not right now. We need to get back out there and see what's going on.”

She slept until dawn. “Think how tired she must have been,” Kathleen kept saying. “She's just worn out with watching us grow up.”

“We have to be more careful of her,” Arthur kept saying. “We have to shield her from our pain.”