“Do you have courage, Wyatt? Are you a courageous man?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in a position to find out.”
“Neither have I. But wait a minute. May I read you something else? It’s important.”
“All right.”
He sat unmoving for a moment, as if making a decision, then got up and took another book from a nearby table. “How’s your Bible knowledge these days?”
I shook my head.
“Listen to this.
“ ‘And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the break of the day.
“ ‘And when the man saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
“ ‘And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And Jacob said, I will not let you go, except thou bless me.
“ ‘And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
“ ‘And the man said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
“ ‘And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And the man said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
“ ‘And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’ ”
Jesse closed the book. “It’s one of those famous stories we learn as kids and end up ignoring for the rest of our lives. But I think this says it all. These dreams have been forced on Ian and me. You are being ‘forced’ to die of cancer. They are the same thing. None of us is prepared for the challenge. One minute we’re alone, the next we’re wrestling with a stranger intent on hurting us. No matter what kinds of lives we’ve lived, we’ve never been forced to ‘wrestle’ with anything until now. Can we do it? Do we have any strength? Do we know even one hold? Who knows?
“Now look at Jacob. He didn’t know either, but he dropped everything and jumped right in. One minute he’s traveling with his family, the next he’s wrestling with a total stranger. Then it turns out he’s a good wrestler and can fight this angel or whatever it is to a draw. To fight. I never understood the point of the story, though I’ve been reading the Bible my entire adult life. Courage. Courage means facing what you have to and doing it with no hope that you’ll succeed. ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’ That has got to mean something.”
“But it isn’t God we’re wrestling,” I interjected. “It’s Death! He’s not going to bless us or let us go. He’ll kill the three of us. There’s no way to wrestle Death to the ground or understand Him. There’s only suffering and fear. We’re beaten before we start.”
“Not true! Not if you accept the challenge; not if you’re willing to wrestle. Doesn’t matter if this stranger is God or an angel or Death. If we lie down and say, ‘You win. I quit!’ then we are doomed. Look at me.” He pulled his sweater over his head and pointed to a bandaged shoulder. “I’m getting the same scars as Ian. I’m terrified to fall asleep. Your wounds are inside. There’s no difference; both are deadly. But what if we try to stop our fear and try instead to understand? Only by accepting the challenge did Jacob come to understand who his opponent really was. And he won! He fought an angel to a draw.”
“Death is not an angel!”
“Maybe it is, just not the kind we dreamed of as kids. I saw you looking at the statue downstairs. That’s what we hope for: children with haloes and smiles and blessings for us all. But what if angels are as complex as humans? Good and bad, dangerous and benevolent.”
“That’s clever but it’s not real.”
“How do you know? What if the whole world is Peniel? The angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel. And Israel became a nation. Life is constantly wrestling with forces we don’t understand. Maybe if we win, those forces have to bless us.”
Almost to myself, I murmured, “The policeman in that store said there is free will. We’re allowed to live the way we want until we die.”
Jesse nodded. “Ian said the reason you’re in Vienna now is to find Death in life. Not in sleep like us, because we don’t understand the rules or the territory there so we have no control. Here in the real world, like Jacob. Because Death is here and only you can face Him successfully.”
“What am I supposed to do if I find Him? Play chess with Him?”
“No. Ask all the dangerous questions you can imagine. See if you’re courageous enough to do that. You’re the only person who can save McGann and me. He said that’s one of the things he’s ever fully understood in his dreams: you’re the one.”
“Why me?”
“Why Jacob? Why are we having dreams that eat away at us like hungry mouths? Why do you have cells in your body that hate you so much they want you dead? Because everyone has to wrestle, and some do it for all of us.
“Come over to the window. Let’s look at our angel again.” He stood up and smiled. “Maybe she’ll tell us something this time. I keep hoping.”
I joined him at the window and we looked down at the pretty courtyard below. To my surprise, standing beside the angel were Sophie and Caitlin. I guess they couldn’t see us because neither reacted to our presence, although both were staring up at us with almost identical expressions on their faces—worry, confusion, hope. As if any minute something would happen. As if it already had.
ARLEN
April 20
Dearest Rose,
It was good to talk with you and Roland last week, although I must say again that I like talking to you in these letters just as well. Telephones make me feel so pressured to say everything fast and completely and full and precise and… unnatural. There’s the word for it. Everything is unnatural over the phone, no matter how close the friend or how long the conversation. Don’t you agree? You hear the real, wonderful voice, which is frustrating because it makes the friend almost there; you’re dying to reach through the receiver and pull her through so you can have the rest of her with you too. And no matter how long the call lasts, if there’s a lull or a pause, my mind starts working double-time to think up something, anything to say to fill that dead space, like a disc jockey on the radio. Even with someone like you, my other self—alter ego-soul mate, I feel the need to entertain or at least be interesting so that we get our money’s worth from these transatlantic calls. I know you’ll think that’s stupid—the paranoid actress at work in me, because I really don’t have to feel that way with you, of all people. But I do, so despite being almost with you via the telephone, sometimes I prefer writing you another of our never-ending letters. How long was my last one, twenty pages? Yummy. I love it. On a piece of paper I can take my time, stop for days or hours to think about what I want to tell you with no pressure on, smoke my cigarettes (which you so dramatically hate), and if there are no matches about, I can get up and go looking for some without worrying about irritating you with smoke in your face or leaving you (via the receiver) down on the chair too long.
Because I live so far out of town, the mailman usually doesn’t arrive here till after two in the afternoon, and if he brings something interesting, I torture myself by not opening it right away. Instead, like a stoical child holding a birthday present on her lap for minutes before attacking, I put whatever it is (a letter from you, a book I’ve ordered from America and am dying to read) on the couch. I go to the kitchen, grind some coffee, get out that favorite fat gray cup and the rest of the fixings. Wait around till the kitchen is filled with the great bitter smell of fresh brewed, wondering all the time what’s in that letter, what’s back in the other room waiting for me. Waiting, waiting. Put the coffee on a tray along with a clean ashtray and a Kipferl or a couple of slices of bread if it’s fresh. Take the spread into the living room. Don’t hurry, go slow. Make the wait even more painful and delicious. Walk purposely by the couch and look hungrily at the white mail sitting on that fat chunk of black leather. Go out to the terrace and arrange everything just so. Only when the world out there is perfectly set up am I allowed to go back for the letter and read it.