We Are Monsters (14 page)

Throughout this subtle transformation, this fulfillment of Eli's intrinsic potential, Lacy was always there. Always there with her silly puckered lips, soft caresses to the back of his neck after a long day's work, sweet murmurings during their lovemaking and final moments before sleep.
“My sweet little Alpert-fish. Kiss, kiss.”

Lacy often talked about taking a pilgrimage to India to soak in the spiritual culture pervasive throughout their society. She got her wish when the cancer came.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She was wearing a bridal veil when she told him. “Well, it looks like we can stop paying the doctor.” The veil concealed the tears in her eyes but not the sheepish smile on her face. “I'm sick.”

The news shattered Eli's dispassionate-doctor facade. He couldn't accept it. She was so young. The wedding was just three months away. They had a whole life planned together. This was not part of the fantasy. He was reeling. He was in shock.

Not death. Not again.

Lacy grabbed his hands and held them. She sought out his eyes and steadied them. “Just kiss me,” she said. “I'm still alive. Right here, right now. In fact, in this moment I feel as alive as I've ever felt. And all I want—all I need—is a big, wet kiss from my sweet little Alpert-fish.”

Eli's vision narrowed and all he saw was her face, peering at him through the white lace of the veil. She looked every bit the part of a bride. She was beautiful, vivacious. It was impossible to believe that she was dying. He lifted the veil and brought it back over her head. It caught in her hair and pulled it, causing her to gasp in pain. “Sorry,” he said. It's what he always said. They looked at each other and laughed. She stepped forward and Eli cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. The moment didn't last long enough.

Lacy seemed to come more alive as she died. Eli found it almost too much to bear. For the first time, death became something other than a clinical outcome for him. It awakened existential feelings that he had never experienced before. The world began to seem absurd, pointless. Faced with the absolute whim of the universe, Eli felt impotent. Powerless and insignificant. How had he ever felt like he was in control or that his life mattered in any meaningful way? He was nothing more than an organic bag of oozing fluids with an ego. Nothing more than a monkey with a conscious mind.

And Lacy's exuberance in the face of death began to seem irrational. Insane, even. Or was it his inability to accept the most certain of all eventualities that was delusional and insane? Despite himself, he began to resent her. Despite himself, he wished that she were already dead. That would be easier than watching her die.

Or that they had never had met. That would be easiest of all.

Either she is insane, or I am. Or nobody is. Or we all are. Either way, who am I to say? And who am I to keep people caged against their will in asylum cells? Who am I to presume to get them well when I no longer know what being well means?

Eli was in no position to go to India, but he did. By then Lacy looked anorexic. All skin and bones. Yet still she smiled. Still her eyes sparkled and shone. Still she could make him break out in gooseflesh with puckered lips and a “kiss, kiss”. Even if in the back of his mind all he could think about was kissing a corpse.

They called it their honeymoon, but Eli couldn't think of a less romantic place to go. Or a less peaceful place to die. The chaos was overwhelming. He shuffled along the crowded streets in a daze as hordes of people scurried past—the smell of incense commingling with that of roasted flesh and the polluted stench of the Ganges River, where Lacy wanted to bathe. In the water beside the pyre where dead bodies burned.

She was wearing a flowing yellow sari with topaz flowers. It was mesh around the middle and left one shoulder bare.

Eli descended the stairs to the edge of the river, staying one step behind her. The river was a splashing mass of humanity, its tepid water grey like after a load of dirty laundry.

Even in the unbearable heat, Eli had no urge to enter the water as he had promised. The sounds of splashing and mad chatter of foreign tongues ceased to be something experienced externally. It was burrowing inside of him, grabbing handfuls of grey matter and smearing it against the inside of his skull.

In an instant he had a striking epiphany. This was all a mistake. Some cosmic prank. He was not in love with Lacy. He had fallen victim to a rush of silly prepubescent hormones at a time when he felt lonely. He had succumbed to the siren song of desire shown by an attractive woman half his age. This was nothing more than a midlife crisis gone out of control. And it had led him to the bank of this filthy river with a strange girl who was about to die.

The world had never felt so small and yet so large. Gravity became an absurd theory that was about to give way, sending him flying off into the whirling cosmos, out to the farthest reaches of infinity. He was disoriented and felt faint. His vision lost fluidity, turning into a snippet of snapshots instead. He had to sit down.

Lacy stopped on the landing that entered into the river. She began to disrobe, unwinding the sari from her body like an exotic offering to the bathers below. Finally, she stood naked, facing the brackish water, her back a birdcage of bones, her gaunt head held high. She descended into the water. She never once looked back.

The sun was a large orange blur. It ate up the atmosphere. Heat waves created a cascading shimmer across its bloated surface as it lumbered towards the horizon.

Lacy lowered herself underwater. Seconds went by, minutes.

Eli began to suspect suicide. He began to question whether or not she had ever actually existed, or if he had followed his fantasy all the way to this anticlimactic conclusion.

Then he saw her, a small turtle shell creating a gentle wake in the flowing water. She had just poked her eyes and nose up over the surface, like a hippopotamus in the African wild. She stayed that way for a long while, occasionally blinking. Just breathing in the noxious stench of the river through her nose and watching the scene around her.

These were two worlds. One real, one unreal. One peaceful, the other chaotic. Eli's mind was incapable of processing the scene as one he could relate with in any way. Therefore, it felt increasingly illusionary. And his inability to adjust aggravated his unease. His life existed on the other side of the planet. There, he held responsibility. People depended on him in important ways. He wondered whether that world still existed or if he had crossed over into this new reality and would have to find his way anew. He could not fathom how Lacy was capable of integrating herself so completely into this frightening environment. Especially when she was so close to crossing over into the most foreign land of all. All he wanted was to take her back to a more familiar place where he could appreciate her final moments. Where he could offer support while she died. Eli began to rock back and forth, holding himself out of fear of falling apart.

Lacy rose higher, the water reaching to just below her emaciated breasts. She cupped her hands in the water and splashed it on her face and poured it over her head. She leaned back and shook her head so that her hair separated into tangled strands. Water flew from her hair and body, glinting like ice in the torrid air.

She began to wash herself, pouring handfuls down her neck and over her extended arms. Every movement was slow and deliberate, sensual. Her nipples became sharp, her body prickled with puckered skin. It was like spying through a hole in the bathroom window as a woman bathed. And then Eli watched in horror as men began to take notice, circling around her and wading closer.

A man approached. His dreadlocked hair was grey and perched atop his head like a cone, his wiry beard wet and plastered to his chest. He was nearly as gaunt as Lacy, with a smile just as wide and twice as bright. They began talking with exaggerated gestures.

Eli could hear their laughter tinkling through the squall of splashing water and chittering tongues. His own crying was silent.

The man appeared to be coaxing her, instructing her to turn around. She did. The man approached her from behind. At first, she covered her breasts in her first act of self-conscious modesty. But the man said something that relaxed her and she raised her arms overhead and began to lean back towards him, falling against the current. The man grabbed her by the forearms and walked backwards so that her body began to float. She looked like a piece of white flotsam in the brown filth. Lacy's face was contorted in concentration, but she soon relaxed and let the water flow around her. Her smile returned.

Others came towards her, men and women both. Naked and clothed. They reached out and began washing her, their hands indiscriminately passing over her breasts and the patch of dark hair between her legs. They lifted her—Eli heard her squeal and laugh—and spun her slowly in a circle as they splashed her with water. They began to chant a spirited song of celebration. They were smiling, their eyes bright. Lacy let her head hang back and hair drift along the water. Then they brought her back down and eased her to her feet. One by one they touched her head and bowed with their hands clasped before them in blessing and slowly walked away.

Lacy began to wade towards the shore. She faltered and went under, then reemerged, sputtering. She slipped and fell again. Eli tensed as though about to rise, he struggled to see her through the tears in his eyes. She came back up, her head bowed, weakened and in need of help. Eli remained seated. The man with the dreadlocks splashed over and offered support, helping guide her to the shore.

She staggered up the steps, leaving her sari lying on the landing. When she made it to Eli she collapsed into his arms, shivering despite the oppressive heat. Eli pulled her close and held her. Her teeth were chattering, and when she looked up into his face her eyes were glazed and empty. Her body was a shell.

He felt conspicuous holding her naked body, like he was doing something inappropriate and would soon be scolded. She began to shudder, even while her body radiated heat. Her skin felt feverish. Eli rubbed her arms with his hands and pulled her closer, resting his cheek against the top of her head to contain the heat. She reeked of the river, and the polluted water began to soak through his clothes. He fought to keep from cringing.

The shuddering intensified, turning into spasms. She was convulsing. Her teeth were clacking and then her tongue flopped forward and became jammed between her jaws. Blood rushed over her chin and streamed down her neck in bright-red rivulets.

The riverside turned quiet. All Eli could hear was the sound of Lacy straining against the convulsions—a prolonged moan as though from electrocution. Her body went rigid, her eyes opened wide, her mouth turned down in a grimace and her neck extended in a stretch of rigid tendons. It reminded him of shock therapy. It reminded him of…

A tight, reedy exhalation passed through her contorted mouth, pushing out every last bit of air until there was a final gasp followed by dry click at the back of her throat. Her eyes fixed in place, gazing up over Eli's head at the crimson sky. Her head fell back and her body went limp. Eli eased her to the stone step beside him and stood, looking down on her skeletal frame.

She had never made it out of the water. Whatever comprised Lacy's spirit, her soul, was now flowing along the tide of the Ganges River. Eli had not been able to say goodbye.

The chant began again, the ceremonial song. Shadows emerged around Eli's feet, rippling across Lacy's decimated corpse. Eli looked up and saw villagers approaching, their eyes bright and merry, their combined voices rich and strong. They wore tattered wraps and threadbare saris. Some wore nothing at all. But they danced like they possessed all of the world's riches. They smiled as though eternal joy sprung purely from their song.

They were coming for her—for Lacy—crowding forward, creating a dense wall of writhing humanity. Their chanting grew louder, it echoed in Eli's ears. The dense heat was suffocating. This was not the death he had imagined. The eloquent farewell. The kiss goodbye. The ceremonial closing of the eyes.

Lacy looked like a Holocaust victim shucked from the shower stalls to bake in the oversized sun. And these strangers, these haggardly paupers with their misappropriated song, were not meant to be cast in this last chapter, this final agonizing act.

As they closed in, so too did the world. It was like
he
was being confined to a coffin. He began to ward away the villagers by swinging his arm, his eyes wide and wild, river water and sweat flinging from his clenched fist.

A man stepped calmly from the crowd. It was the man who had first approached Lacy in the river, the one with the beehive of dreadlocked hair and long, flowing beard. He was clearly mad—he smiled like a lunatic in the face of Eli's swinging fist. The man took another step forward; Eli's fist now swung less than an inch from his face, nearly brushing the tip of his nose. He took another step as Eli's arm bounded off his opposite shoulder and returned in a violent backswing.

Eli halted his arm just before it crashed into the man's head. The man didn't even flinch. He placed his hand on Eli's chest, directly over his heart.

It felt like the air cooled thirty degrees. The oppressive wall of people seemed to move several steps back, lifting the sense of claustrophobia from Eli's chest. The tenor of the chant changed; he could hear its beauty; he could perceive its intent. The man before Eli now looked like an angel, like love incarnate.

Eli peered down and saw Lacy as he'd first met her. Comfortable with herself, even in death. And he understood—this was how she had meant it to be.

The man spoke English with an Indian accent, “Do not let your heart rage against her.” Eli could feel his heart swell pleasantly under the man's gentle hand. “You have known her many times. Her love will never leave you. Please, my son, be at peace.”

Silent tears began to flow down Eli's face. He trapped the man's hand against his chest and closed his eyes and cried. The crowd came forward, touching him, embracing him. Their love was something real, and in it he could feel Lacy's love as well. That, too, had been real. And even though she had died, he knew it would last forever. More, he knew that it had always been.

They lifted Lacy up onto their shoulders and carried her lifeless body to the fire. The sky had turned cobalt blue with a bloody slash along the horizon. A few bright lights were flickering above, ancient fire from the corpses of long-dead stars.
Stardust and death, it's all we are,
Eli thought as he gazed overhead, the night sky now filled with unbridled beauty and inexplicable wonder.
Hello, star. We send our death fire back towards you.