when I’m late she and Claire eat dinner together and then Juliette reads to her and puts her to bed. I offered to hire someoneto help with Claire but Juliette won’t hear of it.”
“Of course not. Have a stranger in the house? Pay her a little more. Don’t ask, just put more in the envelope. Refuse to discuss it.”
There were sixteen beds in the cancer room. Visitors came and left, and doctors and nurses made their rounds in felt-soled hospital clogs. When a patient was close to death the nurses put screens around the bed, but the screens could not keep out the sounds. In a patient’s last hours Father Dubert appeared and he whispered in Latin behind the screens, and they could hear the clinking of the glass stopper and those nearby could smell the scent of holy oil. Then the bed was rolled out the door and away to the right, down the hallway to where there was a swinging door with a creaking hinge whose sound everyone in the cancer room came to know very well. Next day the bed came back empty with fresh sheets and a clean name slate on it.
Once in a while Claire came along to visit Mother, but whenever she did she sat terrified and silent in the chair, and on the way home in the taxi she cried, and all the next day she hardly spoke.
Patients with money died more easily because they could pay for morphine. Mother could; Molnar pianos had perhaps killed her, but if so they were now also providing the means to help her be calm and breathe.
They were paying for a kinder death,
une mort plus douce
, Dr. Menasse said.
On one of her last days, Mother gave her the most valuable gift she’d ever given her. It was after lunch on a cloudy day, with the light dim and gentle in the room. The food tray had been taken away, and Mother was sitting up against the pillow with her eyes closed. Hélène thought she was sleeping, but suddenly without opening her eyes Mother said softly, “I know you’re there. I always know it. Give Claire my love. Kiss her for me and tell her not to come any more. But there is something I want to say to you, Hélène. I remembered it last night … I know you’ll do your best with the business, but also never neglect your music. Businesses can disappear through no fault of our own, but your music is all yours. Look after it, and it will see you through.” Her mother opened her eyes and looked at Hélène. “Have I told you that before?”
“No, you haven’t, Maman. Not in that way.” She reached and held her mother’s hand on the blanket.
“Music did see
me
through, Hélène. Especially after your father died. In different ways, because I was never as good as you. But even so, our pianos gave me a wonderful purpose all my life. Your father and you and our fine pianos.”
“Yes, Maman.”
“I know your father was not home very much, but I also know that he was unhappy about that. He would have loved to spend more time with you. The Colonial Office pays them well, but it also works them like slaves … Things weren’t always easy between your father and me. Perhaps you know that, or perhaps you don’t. It doesn’tmatter. It’s much more important that you know I loved your father. I came to love him very much … For a while after he died it was very hard. I felt so lost, sweetheart, but eventually I learned things about myself that I would never have learned otherwise. Even so, nothing was ever the same. Am I repeating myself? Have I said that before?”
“No, you haven’t, Maman. And if you have, it doesn’t matter. I like to hear you talk about Papa.”
She was weeping by then. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but she would not let go of her mother’s hand for fear of losing her.
Two days later the screens were put around the bed, and when Father Dubert arrived in his vestments and with the holy oil, her mother’s face relaxed in the most beautiful way.
Pierre could not come in time for the funeral, but to her surprise Nathan was there. And so on a November
“Of course not. Have a stranger in the house? Pay her a little more. Don’t ask, just put more in the envelope. Refuse to discuss it.”
There were sixteen beds in the cancer room. Visitors came and left, and doctors and nurses made their rounds in felt-soled hospital clogs. When a patient was close to death the nurses put screens around the bed, but the screens could not keep out the sounds. In a patient’s last hours Father Dubert appeared and he whispered in Latin behind the screens, and they could hear the clinking of the glass stopper and those nearby could smell the scent of holy oil. Then the bed was rolled out the door and away to the right, down the hallway to where there was a swinging door with a creaking hinge whose sound everyone in the cancer room came to know very well. Next day the bed came back empty with fresh sheets and a clean name slate on it.
Once in a while Claire came along to visit Mother, but whenever she did she sat terrified and silent in the chair, and on the way home in the taxi she cried, and all the next day she hardly spoke.
Patients with money died more easily because they could pay for morphine. Mother could; Molnar pianos had perhaps killed her, but if so they were now also providing the means to help her be calm and breathe.
They were paying for a kinder death,
une mort plus douce
, Dr. Menasse said.
On one of her last days, Mother gave her the most valuable gift she’d ever given her. It was after lunch on a cloudy day, with the light dim and gentle in the room. The food tray had been taken away, and Mother was sitting up against the pillow with her eyes closed. Hélène thought she was sleeping, but suddenly without opening her eyes Mother said softly, “I know you’re there. I always know it. Give Claire my love. Kiss her for me and tell her not to come any more. But there is something I want to say to you, Hélène. I remembered it last night … I know you’ll do your best with the business, but also never neglect your music. Businesses can disappear through no fault of our own, but your music is all yours. Look after it, and it will see you through.” Her mother opened her eyes and looked at Hélène. “Have I told you that before?”
“No, you haven’t, Maman. Not in that way.” She reached and held her mother’s hand on the blanket.
“Music did see
me
through, Hélène. Especially after your father died. In different ways, because I was never as good as you. But even so, our pianos gave me a wonderful purpose all my life. Your father and you and our fine pianos.”
“Yes, Maman.”
“I know your father was not home very much, but I also know that he was unhappy about that. He would have loved to spend more time with you. The Colonial Office pays them well, but it also works them like slaves … Things weren’t always easy between your father and me. Perhaps you know that, or perhaps you don’t. It doesn’tmatter. It’s much more important that you know I loved your father. I came to love him very much … For a while after he died it was very hard. I felt so lost, sweetheart, but eventually I learned things about myself that I would never have learned otherwise. Even so, nothing was ever the same. Am I repeating myself? Have I said that before?”
“No, you haven’t, Maman. And if you have, it doesn’t matter. I like to hear you talk about Papa.”
She was weeping by then. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but she would not let go of her mother’s hand for fear of losing her.
Two days later the screens were put around the bed, and when Father Dubert arrived in his vestments and with the holy oil, her mother’s face relaxed in the most beautiful way.
Pierre could not come in time for the funeral, but to her surprise Nathan was there. And so on a November
Similar Books
