The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (61 page)

“It must be a comfort to you,” she said, “to know that she didn’t suffer.”

“Yes.”

“You know, this is the first time I’ve been on this particular floor. What is it they call it?” She was rattling on, perhaps to distract herself.

“The Bioemporium.”

“Yes, that’s it. I guess I wanted to see what it would be like, just in case. For my William.” She tried bravely to smile. “Do you visit her often?”

“As often as possible.”

“I’m sure that must mean a great deal.”

To whom? I thought, but let it pass.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Your husband will recover. He’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

Our legs were touching. It had been so long since I had felt contact with sentient flesh. I thought of asking her for that cup of coffee now, or something more, in the cafeteria. Or a drink.

“I try to believe that,” she said. “It’s the only thing that keeps me going. None of this seems real, does it?”

She forced the delicate corners of her mouth up into a full smile.

“I really should be going now. I could get something for him, couldn’t I? You know, in the gift shop downstairs? I’m told they have a very lovely store right here in the building. And then I’ll be able to give it to him during visiting hours. When he wakes up.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

She said decisively, “I don’t think I’ll be coming to this floor again.”

“Good luck,” I told her. “But first, if you’d like, Emily, I thought – ”

“What was . . . what is your wife’s name? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Karen,” I said. Karen. What was I thinking? Can you forgive me? You can do that, can’t you, sweetheart?

“That’s such a pretty name,” she said.

“Thank you.”

She stood. I did not try to delay her. There are some things that must be set to rest first, before one can go on. You helped remind me of that, didn’t you, Karen? I nearly forgot. But you wouldn’t let me.

“I suppose we won’t be running into each other again,” she said. Her eyes were almost cheerful.

“No.”

“Would you . . . could you do me one small favor?”

I looked at her.

“What do you think I should get him? He has so many nice things. But you’re a man. What would you like to have, if you were in the hospital? God forbid,” she added, smiling warmly.

I sat there. I couldn’t speak. I should have told her the truth then. But I couldn’t. It would have seemed cruel, and that is not part of my nature.

What do you get, I wondered, for a man who has nothing?

I awaken.

The phone is silent.

I go to the medicine cabinet, swallow another fistful of L-tryptophan tablets and settle back down restlessly, hoping for a long and mercifully dreamless nap.

Soon, all too soon and not soon enough, I fall into a deep and troubled sleep.

I awaken to find myself trapped in an airtight box.

I pound on the lid, kicking until my toes are broken and my elbows are torn and bleeding. I reach into my pocket for my lighter, an antique Zippo, thumb the flint. In the sudden flare I am able to read an engraved plate set into the satin. TWENTY-FIVE YEAR GUARANTEE, it says in fancy script. I scream. My throat tears. The lighter catches the white folds and tongues of flame lick my face, spreading rapidly down my squirming body. I inhale fire.

The lid swings open.

Two attendants in white are bending over me, squirting out the flames with a water hose. One of them chuckles.

Wonder how that happened? he says.

Spontaneous combustion? says his partner.

That would make our job a hell of a lot easier, says the other. He coils the hose and I see through burned-away eyelids that it is attached to a sink at the head of a stainless-steel table. The table has grooves running along the sides and a drainage hole at one end.

I scream again, but no sound comes out.

They turn away.

I struggle up out of the coffin. There is no pain. How can that be? I claw at my clothing, baring my seared flesh.

See? I cry. I’m alive!

They do not hear.

I rip at my chest with smoldering hands, the peeled skin rolling up under my fingernails. See the blood in my veins? I shout. I’m not one of them!

Do we have to do this one over? asks the attendant. It’s only a cremation. Who’ll know?

I see the eviscerated remains of others glistening in the sink, in the jars and plastic bags. I grab a scalpel. I slash at my arm. I cut through the smoking cloth of my shirt, laying open fresh incisions like white lips, slicing deeper into muscle and bone.

See? Do I not bleed?

They won’t listen.

I stagger from the embalming chamber, gouging my sides as I bump other caskets which topple, spilling their pale contents onto the mortuary floor.

My body is steaming as I stumble out into the cold, grey dawn.

Where can I go? What is left for me? There must be a place. There must be –

A bell chimes, and I awaken.

Frantically I locate the telephone.

A woman. Her voice is relieved but shaking as she calls my name.

“Thank God you’re home,” she says. “I know it’s late. But I didn’t know who else to call. I’m terribly sorry to bother you. Do you remember me?”

No luck this time. When? I wonder. How much longer?

“You can hear me,” I say to her.

“What?” She makes an effort to mask her hysteria, but I hear her cover the mouthpiece and sob. “We must have a bad connection. I’ll hang up.”

“No. Please.” I sit forward, rubbing invisible cobwebs from my
face. “Of course I remember you. Hello, Mrs Richterhausen.” What time is it? I wonder. “I’m glad you called. How did you know the number?”

“I asked Directory Information. I couldn’t forget your name. You were so kind. I have to talk to someone first, before I go back to the hospital.”

It’s time for her, then. She must face it now; it cannot be put off, not anymore.

“How is your husband?”

“It’s my husband,” she says, not listening. Her voice breaks up momentarily under electrical interference. The signal re-forms, but we are still separated by a grid, as if in an electronic confessional. “At twelve-thirty tonight his, what is it, now?” She bites her lips but cannot control her voice. “His EEG. It . . . stopped. That’s what they say. A straight line. There’s nothing there. They say it’s nonreversible. How can that be?” she asks desperately.

I wait.

“They want you to sign, don’t they, Emily?”

“Yes.” Her voice is tortured as she says, “It’s a good thing, isn’t it? You said so yourself, this afternoon. You know about these things. Your wife . . .”

“We’re not talking about my wife now, are we?”

“But they say it’s right. The doctor said that.”

“What is, Emily?”

“The life-support,” she says pathetically. “The Maintenance.” She still does not know what she is saying. “My husband can be of great value to medical science. Not all the usable organs can be taken at once. They may not be matched up with recipients for some time. That’s why the Maintenance is so important. It’s safer, more efficient than storage. Isn’t that so?”

“Don’t think of it as ‘life-support,’ Emily. Don’t fool yourself. There is no longer any life to be supported.”

“But he’s not dead!”

“No.”

“Then his body must be kept alive . . .”

“Not alive, either,” I say. “Your husband is now – and will continue to be – neither alive nor dead. Do you understand that?”

It is too much. She breaks down. “H-how can I decide? I can’t tell them to pull the plug. How could I do that to him?”

“Isn’t there a decision involved in
not
pulling the plug?”

“But it’s for the good of mankind, that’s what they say. For people not yet born. Isn’t that true? Help me,” she says imploringly. “You’re a good man. I need to be sure that he won’t suffer. Do you think he would want it this way? It was what your wife wanted, wasn’t it? At
least this way you’re able to visit, to go on seeing her. That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“He won’t feel a thing, if that’s what you’re asking. He doesn’t now, and he never will. Not ever again.”

“Then it’s all right?”

I wait.

“She’s at peace, isn’t she, despite everything? It all seems so ghastly, somehow. I don’t know what to do. Help me, please . . .”

“Emily,” I say with great difficulty. But it must be done. “Do you understand what will happen to your husband if you authorize the Maintenance?”

She does not answer.

“Only this. Listen: this is how it begins. First he will be connected to an IBM cell separator, to keep track of leucocytes, platelets, red cells, antigens that can’t be stored. He will be used around the clock to manufacture an endless red tide for transfusions – ”

“But transfusions save lives!”

“Not just transfusions, Emily. His veins will be a battleground for viruses, for pneumonia, hepatitis, leukemia, live cancers. And then his body will be drained off, like a stuck pig’s, and a new supply of experimental toxins pumped in, so that he can go on producing antitoxins for them. Listen to me. He will begin to decay inside, Emily. He will be riddled with disease, tumors, parasites. He will stink with fever. His heart will deform, his brain fester with tubercules, his body cavities run with infection. His hair will fall, his skin yellow, his teeth splinter and rot. In the name of science, Emily, in the name of their beloved research.”

I pause.

“That is, if he’s one of the lucky ones.”

“But the transplants . . .”

“Yes, that’s right! You are so right, Emily. If not the blood, then the transplants. They will take him organ by organ, cell by cell. And it will take years. As long as the machines can keep the lungs and heart moving. And finally, after they’ve taken his eyes, his kidneys and the rest, it will be time for his nerve tissue, his lymph nodes, his testes. They will drill out his bone marrow, and when there is no more of that left it will be time to remove his stomach and intestines, as soon as they learn how to transplant those parts, too. And they will. Believe me, they will.”

“No, please . . .”

“And when he’s been thoroughly, efficiently gutted – or when his body has eaten itself from the inside out – when there is nothing left but a respirated sac bathed from within by its own excrement, do you know what they will do then?
Do you?
Then they will begin to strip
the skin from his limbs, from his skull, a few millimeters at a time, for grafting and re-grafting, until – ”

“Stop!”

“Take him, Emily! Take your William out of there now, tonight, before the technicians can get their bloody hands on him! Sign nothing! Take him home. Take him away and bury him forever. Do that much for him. And for yourself. Let him rest. Give him that one last, most precious gift. Grant him his final peace. You can do that much, can’t you?
Can’t you
?”

From far away, across miles of the city, I hear the phone drop and then clack dully into place. But only after I have heard another sound, one that I pray I will never hear again.

Godspeed, Emily
, I think, weeping.
Godspeed
.

I resume my vigil.

I try to awaken, and cannot.

There is a machine outside my door. It eats people, chews them up and spits out only what it can’t use. It wants to get me, I know it does, but I’m not going to let it.

The call I have been waiting for will never come.

I’m sure of it now. The doctor, or his nurse or secretary or dialing machine, will never announce that they are done at last, that the procedure is no longer cost-effective, that her remains will be released for burial or cremation. Not yesterday, not today, not ever.

I have cut her arteries with stolen scalpels. I have dug with an ice pick deep into her brain, hoping to sever her motor centers. I have probed for her ganglia and nerve cords. I have pierced her eardrums. I have inserted needles, trying to puncture her heart and lungs. I have hidden caustics in the folds of her throat. I have ruined her eyes. But it’s no use. It will never be enough.

They will never be done with her.

When I go to the hospital today she will not be there. She will already have been given to the interns for their spinal taps and arteriograms, for surgical practice on a cadaver that is neither alive nor dead. She will belong to the meat cutters, to the first-year med students with their dull knives and stained cross sections . . .

But I know what I will do.

I will search the floors and labs and secret doors of the wing, and when I find her I will steal her silently away; I will give her safe passage. I can do that much, can’t I? I will take her to a place where even they can’t reach, beyond the boundaries that separate the living
from the dead. I will carry her over the threshold and into that realm, wherever it may be.

And there I will stay with her, to be there with her, to take refuge with her among the dead. I will tear at my body and my corruption until we are one in soft asylum. And there I will remain, living with death for whatever may be left of eternity.

Wish me Godspeed.