A History of the Present Illness (19 page)

He'd heard? Already? She'd only just heard herself.

“The nurse.” He waved a hand toward the closed door. “You must have told whoever brought you over . . .”

But she hadn't. Apparently, at the New Israel, even husband-wife arguments were part of the public record.

The doctor leaned forward. “It would be totally understandable if, under the circumstances, you felt sad or upset.”

She resisted the urge to say
No shit, Sherlock
. Sometimes it was better just to keep quiet.

“Hey,” he said gently, ducking his head so they were eye to eye. “I want to help you. But I need you to help me too.”

She wondered whether he'd grown up without a father, so feminine were his movements and gestures. But before she could ask, someone knocked at the exam-room door. The doctor swiveled and stood. He didn't push off, simply rose and crossed the room in two quick strides. At the door, he said, “When I'm done here,” then he pivoted—really it was more of a pirouette—took one giant step, and lowered himself to a perfect landing on his stool.

She winced. The poor man. He would never find a wife. Besides, what could be explained to someone so young and agile?

“Sorry,” he said. “Where were we?”

As she recalled, they had been at the part where he'd commented that her distress at the dissolution of her sixty-two-year marriage might be something other than pathologic.

When she didn't answer, he launched into the usual questions about the pain in her back and shoulders and hips and the shadows she saw whenever she looked at anything head-on. Then he asked her a series of questions, circling yeses or noes as she told him that yes, she'd dropped most of her activities and interests, and yes, her life was empty and boring, and yes, she often felt helpless, hopeless, and worthless, which
explained why no, she was not basically satisfied with her life, and no, she did not feel happy most—or even some—of the time, and no, she certainly did not think it was wonderful to be alive now. Finally, he opened the chart that was the sum total of her life at the New Israel and began writing.

Sitting up exhausted her. The pain in her joints and spine had begun to crescendo from its usual hum to a chorus of distinct but colluding voices. She looked at the clock. It was still morning. All the time and effort Zeni and the aides had spent getting her up and dressed and across two buildings for her appointment, and after all that, there remained nothing but worse pain and another long, empty day ahead.

“There's never enough time, is there?” the doctor asked without looking up.

There was, she thought, but only once you had no use for it.

He wheeled her out into the reception area. “You'll take one pill at night before bed,” he said. “This medicine isn't a cure for grief, but it might help make things bearable.”

More wasted time and money, she thought as he disappeared back into the exam room. Unless this one was a magic pill that would help her recover her eyesight, independence, house, and husband.

When the lunch bell rang, he hurried to meet his friends at what would soon be his regular table. He loved that the dining room in Jaffa was nothing like the one in Tel Aviv 5, with its wheelchairs and feeding tables. Here, residents walked themselves to and from meals and sat four to a table, the tables in two neat rows, each with a crisp white tablecloth and a bright yellow flower in a tiny vase at its center.

Someone called his name, and he scanned the room until he spotted Gisela waving from a table at the back. She was
sitting with Stanley Luft, who played fiddle and mandolin for We Three Hebes.

“We thought you forgot us,” Stanley said when he was close enough to hear.

“Not a chance.” He glanced at Gisela. “I had a business meeting this morning that ran late. Luckily, it went very well.”

Gisela smiled slightly, but in accordance with their plan, she didn't otherwise acknowledge his good news.

“We're still waiting on our fourth.” Stanley pointed his spoon at the last open seat at their table. “A recent arrival,” he said. “And supposedly a very big deal in St. Louis, but the daughter and grandkids are here.”

No matter how functional they were, the New Israel residents were assigned seat placards so they could be served whatever diet their physician had ordered. Sitting down, he saw that Gisela had diabetic/weight reduction and Stanley had renal, low salt. He had regular and could only hope the others had noticed.

Gisela spoke with her mouth full. “We met her at breakfast, but big deal or not, if she keeps with the lateness, they'll move her to Eilat like that Tova Fishman last month.”

“What's she like?” he asked.

“See for yourself.” Gisela, still chewing, jutted her chin toward the path between the tables behind him.

He tried to turn his head but found he couldn't rotate it far enough, so instead he backed up his chair and stood just as the new person approached the table.

“Oh,” said a voice on the low end of contralto. “A gentleman.”

He pulled out her chair. She wore a white silk blouse over a black and white striped skirt and had tied back her silver hair
with a thin velvet ribbon. She was gorgeous and clearly knew it, taking her time as she reached the table. In her right hand was a silver-tipped ebony cane that matched her outfit but that she didn't appear to need.

He waited as she leaned the cane against the wall and greeted the others. Finally, she turned to him and extended her hand as Stanley made the introductions.

She wore a perfume he didn't recognize. He let his wrists brush her shoulders as he pushed in her chair. Returning to his seat, he realized he was still smiling.

Gisela looked from him to the newcomer. “Mary O'Brien,” she said. “Not exactly a Jewish name.”

Mary nodded at the server who brought her plate. “My fourth husband was Irish.”

“Fourth?” Stanley repeated with raised eyebrows.

“Unlucky in love,” she said, tucking her napkin over the large bow at the neck of her blouse. She added both salt and pepper to her soup before tasting it, then tore her bread into chunks and dropped it in as well.

It was all he could do not to stare. He took a bite of his sandwich and concentrated on chewing, aware of Gisela's eyes on him and also, for the first time, of how he might inadvertently have raised her expectations of their relationship.

On the far side of the room, an argument erupted at one of the tables of Russians.

“Luck, schmuck,” Gisela said to Mary. “Maybe you're like those gold diggers over there, just pretending to be a Yid to get in here.”

“Oh come on,” Stanley said. “Who would have the last laugh if Russian Christians started posing as Jews in order to find comfort and security in America? Honestly, who would even make that up?”

Once, he might have been as oblivious as Stanley, at least where it came to females. Now he realized he had only seconds to defuse the situation with Gisela. Pointing across the aisle, he said, “So that guy over there with the schnoz, that Vladimyr Moyshe Vaynshteyn—he isn't Jewish?”

Stanley and Mary laughed.

Gisela's nostrils flared. “I didn't say they were all crooks, but you can't always know what people are up to.”

“No,” he said with a wink. “And they
are
often up to something.”

He watched her relax. She knew perfectly well she was the only one he'd consulted about leaving Ruth and moving to Jaffa.

Mary blew on a spoonful of her soup. “What does it matter? Maybe some things are quite simply other people's business.”

“Take that approach around here,” Stanley warned, “and you'll die of boredom.”

“Here, here,” seconded Gisela, raising her water glass.

After each sip of her soup, Mary licked the corners of her lips to make sure she had it all. He could not imagine that a woman with an appetite like that wouldn't have other, equally compelling passions.

“And the name Mary?” he asked as the servers cleared their plates.

“Oh, that.” Mary laughed. “We lived in Crown Heights, a world of Malkas and Leahs. To my mother, it was both original and wholly American.”

He laughed, unable to contain himself. He couldn't wait to get into his new room and start his new life.

The knock on the door came just as a hideously tattooed young chef on TV poured chipotle chocolate sauce over potato-chip-
crusted pan-seared elk. “Come in,” she said when Zeni was already well into the room.

“You do not drink?” asked the nurse, lifting the full can of liquid food from the bedside table.

She hated the supplements and how Harold and the staff seemed to believe they would transform her, somehow solving all her troubles. Every day, the little cans arrived at ten in the morning, two in the afternoon, and before bed. And without help, she couldn't even pour the sick-sweet liquid down the sink or find a place to hide the unopened containers.

Zeni pulled up the shades and opened a window. “It is good for you.”

“Like hell.” She pushed the can away and pulled the pillow over her head.

They went through this every day. Early on, Zeni had tried to coax her, offering different flavors, occasionally attempting to bargain or command. Eventually they'd reached their current standoff, neither of them with any illusions about the outcome of the conversation.

Now she waited. Soon she'd hear the door shut, and then she could decide whether to go to the trouble of sitting back up to see which chef had made the best use of the required crazy ingredients in order to win the contest's cash prize.

The bed moved behind her. Surely, today of all days, Zeni wasn't going to force her to drink the so-called food?

A hand touched her back and began gently rubbing. She tried to shrug it off, but then a second hand began massaging the other side. The hands, small and strong, moved up and down her back, then side to side. They kneaded, pressed, and pounded, lingering on the tightest and most tender spots. She could hardly bear it at first, and then she wished it would go on forever. Why had Zeni never done this before? Warmth
rose from her neck and along her spine, where for the longest time there'd been only pain.

After a while the hands slowed, then stopped. “Me too,” Zeni said quietly. “No more husband.”

She rolled over, and they looked at each other.

“What happened?”

“He said I have too many opinions, and I am too fat.”

Zeni definitely had her opinions, but she wasn't fat. It made no sense.

The nurse ran her hands along her torso, showing the shape hidden beneath her scrub top. “Now I am not fat, but before, yes. For one year I ate only dinner. No breakfast, no lunch, no McDonald's, no
pancit
. I wanted him to feel sorry about leaving.” She stood up. “You can do the same.”

Ruth waved away the idea.

Zeni parked the wheelchair alongside the bed. “In the Philippines, we have a dog. This dog, she love another dog down the road. For a long time, you see one dog, you see both dogs. Then that other dog he found a different dog to be his friend. For a while, my dog stayed only at home. She did not run around like before. Then one day I see her go down the road to the house of the other dog and pee. They shoo her, but every day she go back. She pee again.”

“Did she get her boyfriend back?”

Zeni shook her head. “You do not understand. Harold goes everywhere. He meets many people. You stay always on Tel Aviv five.” She dropped soap and shampoo into the carry bag at the back of the wheelchair. “Maybe some people do not know even that he has a wife.”

Clearly, she had underestimated Zeni. Not only did she have chutzpah but she understood perfectly what made Harold tick.

*

He stared in disbelief at his closet. While he was in the music room, Ruth had had one of the aides take his suits to Jaffa 314.

“You said you were moving,” she explained. “I figured you'd want out right away.”

“The damn room's not ready yet. I can eat in the dining room, but I can't move in until after the High Holidays.”

“Poor man. How will you bear it?”

“Look. I didn't have to tell you now, but I did so you'd have time to adjust before I left.”

“So considerate. Always a gentleman. Now, that should impress your friends.”

He didn't have time for this. Not one jacket remained, and he had to find something nice enough to wear to temple. He'd never make it to Jaffa and back with a suit in time for services.

She rolled up behind him. He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her propel herself. If his leaving got her up and moving, it would be a bonus beyond his wildest dreams. She too could be happy at the New Israel if she let herself. He was sure of it.

“What I don't understand,” she said, “is why you're going to services in the first place. You don't believe in God. You never went before we moved in here.”

So she was up, but otherwise unchanged. He moved pants right to left in his closet. There was nothing appropriate for him to wear, certainly nothing nice enough to impress Mary O'Brien. “I believe in community. Everyone's going.”

She laughed. “Everyone? The atheist Russians? Those living corpses on Masada who don't even know their own names anymore?”

“Of course not. What's gotten into you?”

Incredibly, she didn't offer another snide retort. She looked as if she were actually thinking about the answer to his question.

“Get out of my way,” she commanded. When he did, she rolled up to the closet and scanned his clothes. Suddenly he realized what had changed. They'd finally convinced her to take a shower. There was a special one down the hall with a waterproof support chair and room for an aide. Her hair no longer lay along her head in greasy clumps. She smelled of soap and shampoo.

“The linen trousers,” she said. “The blue shirt, the belt with the banjo buckle, and your navy silk tie. It's not a suit, but you'll look pretty sharp.”