To the Plaza.’
Before we left, she wound her hair up with a big comb. Did it make her older, not to have hair long at the cheek? Or younger—to have dared that high sweep? I couldn’t decide.
She said, ‘It’s time. And it should be white.’
A LL THIS WEEK WE have been immobilized. By a woman Rupert has not seen for over thirty years and I have never met. Gertrude herself never phoned. Apparently that is not her way. If she has a way that she herself is aware of. Rupert says she used not to. We do not speak of her easily now. Who could?
We took the bus. We no longer take the subway because of the stairs, and its general rottenness. I’m stingy on taxis, except in emergencies. The bus is an old favorite. Even at eleven in the morning, the widows’ hour, it’s not as full of the old as the crosstowns are, and it gets us out, along a route we know so well. Rupert always enumerates as we pass. ‘The flower market,’ he says. ‘Those buildings quiver with humidity. People don’t realize. Whole caverns of green storage, in the rear.’ At Thirty-fourth Street he said: ‘Macy’s is like a large, square fact. Of course it would be. Herald Square.’
Then, when we are stuck in traffic for a while: ‘That British voice that called. I suppose it was the nurse?’
A matter-of-fact woman, the day after the one with Sherm and Kit. Mrs Acker would be going into hospital for a three-day treatment, then wished to see both of us, the third day after that.
‘Please hold on until I get my husband,’ I said.
When Rupert came on the line the voice repeated its message. I was to be sure to come as well.
When Rupert hung up he said: ‘Mrs Acker. That’s new. She never took a man’s name before, married to him or not. Wonder could that be the theater man? Owned a lot of them. Not in London. Palladiums. Brighton, Blackpool, places like that. Must be. Sounds like her. To have floated along there.’
I’d waited a couple of hours. Then I’d said: ‘You didn’t say for sure you would go. Or we would?’
‘No.’
May one ignore the shrewd narcissism of the dying? Or must one skip to it?
In the bus, when we reached Forty-seventh Street, the jewelers’ center, Rupert said: ‘Whatever she was, she’s on Mount Neboh now.’
We both know our Bible. That’s the one where Moses went up to get the commandments from God. I was glad Rupert hadn’t said Gethsemane.
‘I’ll do whatever you do,’ I said.
Then we were a block from the Plaza. Then we were there.
On those opulent steps I said: ‘A peculiar place to choose to die. When you can choose. As apparently she can.’
He took my arm. ‘Always could.’
After we got the number of Mrs Acker’s suite from the desk clerk I said: ‘What disease has she—that she can specify what day she’ll see us? After so-and-so many days’ treatment.’
‘Maybe they can’t really. But she can. She always specified.’
This was more than he had said of her in all the week just past. I know my role. I have to get it out of him, help him to answer her. Help us to.
At the line of phones where you ring up on your own, all are busy. As we wait I say: ‘That day Sherm told us. And Quinn came knocking. I thought it was her knock. I thought she would be asking for us to take her in.’
Just then a phone became free. After Rupert had sent up our name and hung up he stayed there for a minute gazing at the receiver, then bowed to the next applicant and led me away.
‘If that were all she’ll ask,’ he said.
In the elevator we were alone by the time we reached her floor.
‘Who the hell does she think she’s commanding?’ he said.
I know the answer to that one. So does he. If he can ask me that, nothing else much matters. I am his real wife. He wants me to say it for us.
I say—as lightly as I can—‘Death.’
T HERE ARE TWO SISTERS in charge. Sister McClellan, the one who called us, speaks in that balanced voice we first heard. The voice of reality, constantly
Before we left, she wound her hair up with a big comb. Did it make her older, not to have hair long at the cheek? Or younger—to have dared that high sweep? I couldn’t decide.
She said, ‘It’s time. And it should be white.’
A LL THIS WEEK WE have been immobilized. By a woman Rupert has not seen for over thirty years and I have never met. Gertrude herself never phoned. Apparently that is not her way. If she has a way that she herself is aware of. Rupert says she used not to. We do not speak of her easily now. Who could?
We took the bus. We no longer take the subway because of the stairs, and its general rottenness. I’m stingy on taxis, except in emergencies. The bus is an old favorite. Even at eleven in the morning, the widows’ hour, it’s not as full of the old as the crosstowns are, and it gets us out, along a route we know so well. Rupert always enumerates as we pass. ‘The flower market,’ he says. ‘Those buildings quiver with humidity. People don’t realize. Whole caverns of green storage, in the rear.’ At Thirty-fourth Street he said: ‘Macy’s is like a large, square fact. Of course it would be. Herald Square.’
Then, when we are stuck in traffic for a while: ‘That British voice that called. I suppose it was the nurse?’
A matter-of-fact woman, the day after the one with Sherm and Kit. Mrs Acker would be going into hospital for a three-day treatment, then wished to see both of us, the third day after that.
‘Please hold on until I get my husband,’ I said.
When Rupert came on the line the voice repeated its message. I was to be sure to come as well.
When Rupert hung up he said: ‘Mrs Acker. That’s new. She never took a man’s name before, married to him or not. Wonder could that be the theater man? Owned a lot of them. Not in London. Palladiums. Brighton, Blackpool, places like that. Must be. Sounds like her. To have floated along there.’
I’d waited a couple of hours. Then I’d said: ‘You didn’t say for sure you would go. Or we would?’
‘No.’
May one ignore the shrewd narcissism of the dying? Or must one skip to it?
In the bus, when we reached Forty-seventh Street, the jewelers’ center, Rupert said: ‘Whatever she was, she’s on Mount Neboh now.’
We both know our Bible. That’s the one where Moses went up to get the commandments from God. I was glad Rupert hadn’t said Gethsemane.
‘I’ll do whatever you do,’ I said.
Then we were a block from the Plaza. Then we were there.
On those opulent steps I said: ‘A peculiar place to choose to die. When you can choose. As apparently she can.’
He took my arm. ‘Always could.’
After we got the number of Mrs Acker’s suite from the desk clerk I said: ‘What disease has she—that she can specify what day she’ll see us? After so-and-so many days’ treatment.’
‘Maybe they can’t really. But she can. She always specified.’
This was more than he had said of her in all the week just past. I know my role. I have to get it out of him, help him to answer her. Help us to.
At the line of phones where you ring up on your own, all are busy. As we wait I say: ‘That day Sherm told us. And Quinn came knocking. I thought it was her knock. I thought she would be asking for us to take her in.’
Just then a phone became free. After Rupert had sent up our name and hung up he stayed there for a minute gazing at the receiver, then bowed to the next applicant and led me away.
‘If that were all she’ll ask,’ he said.
In the elevator we were alone by the time we reached her floor.
‘Who the hell does she think she’s commanding?’ he said.
I know the answer to that one. So does he. If he can ask me that, nothing else much matters. I am his real wife. He wants me to say it for us.
I say—as lightly as I can—‘Death.’
T HERE ARE TWO SISTERS in charge. Sister McClellan, the one who called us, speaks in that balanced voice we first heard. The voice of reality, constantly
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