Thirst No. 3 (21 page)

“I have to give her more blood,” I say.

“You swore to me you weren’t going to risk that again.”

“I have no choice. She’s going to get her butt kicked.”

“So what? It’s just a stupid race. It’s not worth the risk.”

“It’s the Olympics!”

“So? It’s a bunch of stupid races. Two months from now, no one will remember who won what. Nor will they care.”

“The last transfusion didn’t hurt her. Why should this one?”

“For one thing, you don’t know it didn’t hurt her. Also, I know how attached you are to her, and how your mind works. You just said it—you’re afraid she’s going to get her butt kicked. That’s why you’re going to give her more blood this time.”

“That’s crazy. I’ll give her the same amount.”

“No way. You’re so transparent. You’re going to give her every advantage you can.”

“If I give her a few more ounces, it won’t make any difference.”

Seymour groans. “Oh, brother.”

I shove his leg out of the way and sit beside him.

“You have no idea how much this means to her,” I grumble.

“Gimme a break. I see her every day. It will break her heart to lose. But I’d rather have that happen than she have a heart attack. Your blood is like fire in her veins. An extra ounce might push her over the edge. And for what? A stupid gold medal?”

I smile at him. “You have a crush on her, don’t you?”

He shakes his head and reaches for a cigarette. He smokes—he never used to smoke, not in my stories, at least. “That’s bullshit,” he mutters.

“You love her because she’s the closest thing you’ve found to me.”

“I just found you and I don’t love you.”

“Liar.”

“What are you trying to do, set me up with her?”

“You think she’d want you after being with Matt?”

He lights up and blows smoke in my face. “That’s what I love about you. The way you make me feel so special.”

“I need your help.”

“I know.”

“What do you know?”

“You need me to get Matt out of the way while you give her your blood.”

“Can you do it?”

“Sure. But don’t you think it’s weird how he clings to her when you’re around? I mean, I haven’t known him long, but it’s like he doesn’t trust you with her.”

“It started in Eugene, Oregon.”

“Oh, yeah, you carried her back to her bed. Maybe he saw you.”

“He was sound asleep, I know that for a fact. But the sudden change in her mile times, I think that shook him up. The guy’s more sensitive than he acts.”

“You have a crush on him, don’t you?”

“Please, let’s not start that again.”

“You don’t do a very good job hiding it. Teri’s looking to you for moral support right now, but one of these days she’s going to take your head off.”

“Teri knows I would never betray our friendship.”

“Not unless you could get away with it without her knowing.”

“Christ, you’re a pain in the ass. You’re not at all like the Seymour Dorsten in your books. Now, there was a sweet guy.”

“There was a loser, you mean.” He pauses. “When do you want to do it?”

“Tonight. The longer she has to adjust to my blood the better.”

“You should have given it to her before we left the States.”

“That would have been too soon. Some of the effect would have worn off by now. How are you going to get Matt out of the way?”

“I have a better idea. Wait until Teri returns to the Olympic Village this evening, then sneak in. I assume you can get past their security. This way you won’t have to worry about Matt.
Also, if you’re going to give Teri an extra dose of blood, it’s better if she stays in bed and doesn’t move for the next twelve hours.”

“That’s clever. How’d you get so smart?”

Seymour puffs his cigarette. “If I was so smart, I’d figure out a way to talk you out of this crazy scheme.”

Breaking into the Olympic Village proves to be a snap. I steal a badge from a blond pole-vaulter who looks like me and give the guard at the gate a hard stare when he checks my ID. I could have been a guy with a beard and he would have let me in.

Teri’s awake when I reach her room, although it’s after midnight. The girl’s normally an earlier riser—she must be tense. She wants to know how I got into the Village, but I just wave my hand.

“I have that kind of face. Guards trust me.”

Teri doesn’t dwell on the mystery. She shows me a list of the intervals she ran this morning. “I did ten quarters. I didn’t break sixty-five seconds in one of them.”

“Good. You should be tapering. The first heat’s Tuesday.”

Teri rips the page in half. “You don’t understand. My legs felt heavy. I was struggling when Coach told me to cruise. I couldn’t find my rhythm. I was breathing hard the whole time.”

“That’s okay. In fact, it might be a good thing. Do you remember that interview you read with Frank Shorter where
he said that your average runner will have a great day only one third of the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Your body’s going through a bad cycle right now. That’s all. You should be grateful. It means you’re going to slip into a good cycle when it counts.”

Teri stares at me, then smiles. “That’s the most pathetic logic I’ve ever heard. The weird thing is, coming from you, it makes me feel better. Why is that, Alisa?”

“Because I know you’re going to win.”

“How do you know?” she asks, serious.

“I operate more on intuition than you might realize. It works better for me than logic, or else it’s a higher form of logic I can’t explain. Just accept that when I see you in the finals, I see you winning. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“It goes beyond confidence. It’s faith.”

“Faith,” Teri whispers, then shakes her head. “They say the first thing a medical student loses is any belief in God. Do you know why?”

“Of course. Gross Anatomy 101. You dissect a human cadaver, and no matter how close you look, you can’t find a soul. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“But where’s the proof? Please, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not trying to attack your faith. I envy it, especially when I hear you talking to Shanti about Krishna.”

“I never chose to believe in Krishna.”

“Then how come you worship him?”

“I don’t worship him. It’s more like I feel he’s near.”

“Why? Talking to you, reading your work, I know you have a vast scientific background. How can you obey a deity that almost surely never existed?”

“Oh, he existed.”

“There’s no proof Krishna or Christ or Buddha ever walked the earth. You’ve read the arguments. All these god men—their lives are like carbon copies of each other. That’s because they were born of the same mythologies. You’re too smart not to see the pattern.”

“Krishna came first, five thousand years ago. Is it possible the other god men might have copied his life story?”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s just an idea. I never met Christ or Buddha. I’m in no position to judge them.”

“But you feel Krishna’s just around the corner?”

I think of Paula and her son, John.

“He might be a little farther away than that. But I suspect if he was here, he’d tell you that you need to get into bed.” Lowering my voice, I catch her eye. Now is not the time for lengthy philosophical discussions. “Look at me, Teri, let me see your eyes. You look exhausted, you need to sleep. Lie down, let your head hit the pillow. That’s good, close your eyes and relax.”

Teri responds to my gaze and suggestions as fast as before, and soon she’s
so deeply asleep she doesn’t feel the prick of my nail as I slice open the vein on her wrist. Seymour knows me well—I cannot help but give her an extra jolt of blood. This is, after all, the Olympics. The competition will be far stronger than it was in Oregon. Teri will need every advantage I can give her.

I’m finished in ten minutes and on the verge of leaving when she suddenly jerks in her sleep. It’s like she’s having a nightmare, which surprises me. I assumed she was too deep to dream. My surprise increases when she raises her arms over her body, as if trying to push away a rapist.

Yet I have underestimated the nature of Teri’s dream.

“Yaksha!” she cries softly, before her arms drop down by her side and she falls into a soundless slumber. I have never uttered his name around her, and yet she has just cried out to the creature who created me. I’m unable to tell if she cried out in fear or for help.

The final is scheduled for nine o’clock at night. The stadium is packed. I have spent freely on scalper tickets, and Matt, Shanti, Seymour, and I sit twenty rows from where the race will finish, at the end of the straightaway.

Unable to leave her teaching job, Lisa has not come with us to London. Nor have Teri’s parents. They feared they would add to her pressure. The four of us watch as Teri stretches and warms up. Coach Tranton is down on the field, but he keeps a distance from his star pupil.

We sat in the identical seats during her two heats, which were spread over the previous two days. In both races Teri ran hard, but far from wisely. In the first heat, she broke to the front of the pack and stayed there for the bulk of the race. No doubt the fire of my blood was partially responsible for her haste, but the pressure was equally to blame. She was a mass of nerves, and was chased down by two Africans on the straightaway and was lucky to finish third.

In the second heat, she listened to her coach and Matt and didn’t make a move until halfway through the race. But again she ran too hard for too long and was fortunate to again finish third. Yet the experience has helped her and Coach Tranton mold a strategy for the final. She plans to hold back until the final lap, and then let it rip. It sounds good in theory, if she is able to control her emotions.

“She looks tired,” Matt complains.

“She looks fine,” Seymour says.

“She has bags under her eyes,” Matt says.

“I don’t think many of these girls slept last night,” Seymour replies.

“I don’t like it. She’s been having nightmares,” Matt says.

“How do you know?” Seymour asks. “You’re not staying with her.”

“She tells me about them,” he replies impatiently. Matt and Seymour are not the best of friends.

“Nightmares about what?” I ask.

“She doesn’t say. But whatever they are, they’re awful. They keep waking her up.”

“It’s the stress,” Seymour says.

“She looks pale. She doesn’t look like herself,” Matt adds.

“She’s running fast, that’s all that matters,” I say.

“Is it?” Matt asks me.

The starter calls the women to their lanes. Since she barely qualified for the final, Teri is assigned an outside lane. Yet the starting line is curved to make up the distance, so it hardly matters. The starter is experienced and quickly lines up the women.

The starter raises her pistol in the air. At the last instant, Teri glances in our direction. I smile and she smiles back. Then she turns her focus back on the track. The starter fires her gun. The women leap forward.

The noise of the crowd is deafening. That is one thing that is lost on TV. We have to shout at each other to be heard over the roar. At least the others have to shout. Even with all the noise, I can hear the rhythm of Teri’s breathing, the sound of her footfalls. She’s running smoothly, and I’m glad. She’s off to a good start.

Teri comes around the track and completes the first lap at the back of the pack. That doesn’t bother us. The leader of the race is running too fast and is bound to fade. Also, the pack is tightly bunched. In reality, Teri isn’t far from the leader, at most five meters behind.

Teri moves up slightly. Now she’s running in the second lane, which forces her to run farther on the curves, but none of us can blame her. The African and European women are more aggressive than their American counterparts. They don’t mind pushing and shoving their way into a more favorable position. In Oregon, in the trials, we never saw a woman use her hands or arms against another runner. Here, the only person not fighting back is Teri.

The second lap follows the pattern of the first, only Teri pulls closer to the front. It bothers me that she has run another lap in the second lane. She won’t feel the extra distance until the end, but then it could be crucial. The leader—a sacrificial Kenyan rabbit if I ever saw one—continues to push a world-record pace. I feel sorry for the woman, because I know she’s been chosen by her coach and teammates to forgo any chance of winning so the favorites on her team can win medals. The greatest burden is always on the leader of the race, especially in the metric mile. The leader breaks the air resistance for those behind her.

Going into the third lap, Teri finally manages to slip into the first lane. This is both good and bad. She is well sheltered from any stray breeze. She is running the minimum distance. But now she has entered the frenzy of skin-scraping spikes and swinging elbows. The toughest women in the world are inches apart and running almost flat out. I’m amazed no one has tripped and gone down so far. But there’s time—the last lap sometimes resembles a boxing match.

At two and a half laps the rabbit falters, and her teammates sweep past her. The Kenyans and Ethiopians make up half the field. A twenty-five-year-old Kenyan named Radhur Jamur pushes into the lead and quickly opens up a five-meter lead. Her ability to accelerate catches the others off guard. Yet they should have been wary of her. Jamur is the world-record holder at the distance and has already won a gold medal in the 800-meter race.

Jamur is still in the lead when they swing around in front of us and the bell sounds. In the screaming stands, the four of us look at each other and shake our heads. Teri is still running fast in the middle of the pack, in the first lane, but now she’s boxed in. She has no choice but to fight her way to the outside. It will cost her energy and time, but she’ll lose if she stays where she’s at.

While Matt and Seymour shout at the top of their lungs, I close my eyes and go still. I let myself feel Teri, her pain, her anxiety, and I dissolve so deeply into her I feel as if my mind is closer to the track than to the stands. Yet the pain is nothing to me, I have suffered tortures much worse than what Teri’s going through. And her nerves—I feel as we blend together, a sudden upsurge of confidence washes away all her petty fears. She has not come this far to lose, neither of us has, and if she has to kick some butt to win, then so be it.
The gold medal is hers, it will be hers.