There’s more to this, Sis. But what do you do in a situation like that? When half your brain thinks this is mad, but the other half is shaking because maybe it’s real? They asked us for nothing, although I doubt there was anything we could do. But after that night whenever I saw or thought of McGann, I liked him enormously. Whatever was wrong with the man, he was afflicted by something terrible. Either insanity or death dreams were clearly out to get him, and he was a goner. But the man remained a bore. A good-natured, good-humored bore who, in the midst of his agony or whatever it was, remained wholly himself, as I assume he’d always been. That’s the only real courage. I mean, few of us go into burning buildings to save others. But watching a person face the worst with grace, uncomplainingly, grateful even for the love and help of others… That’s it, as far as I’m concerned.
Two days later, Caitlin and I decided more or less on the spur of the moment to leave. We’d had enough and weren’t getting any pleasure at all from the place. Our bags were packed and the bill was paid within hour and a half. Neither of us likes saying goodbye to people and, as you can imagine, we were spooked by McGann’s story. It’s not something anyone would be quick to believe, but if you’d been there that night and seen their faces, heard their voices and the conviction in them, you’d know why both of us were uncomfortable in their presence. Then it happened that as we were walking out to the car, we ran right into Miep, who was coming toward the office in a hurry.
Something was clearly wrong. “Miep, are you all right?”
“All right? Oh, well, no. Ian is… Ian is not well.” She was totally preoccupied and her eyes were going everywhere but to us. A light of memory came on in them, and her whole being slowed. She remembered, I guess, what her man had told us the other night.
“He had another dream today, after he came home from the beach. He lay down and it was only a few minutes, but when he woke—” Instead of continuing, she drew a slow line across the lower part of her stomach. Both Caitlin and I jumped at that and asked what could we do. I think we both also started toward their bungalow, but Miep shouted, really shouted, “No!” and there was nothing we could do to convince her to let us help. If that was possible. More than that though, the thing that struck me hardest was her face. When she realized we weren’t going to try to interfere, she looked over our shoulders toward their place, where Ian was, and the expression was both fear and radiance. Was it true? Was he really back there, scarred again by death, scarred again because he hadn’t understood its answers to his questions? Who knows?
On the boat back to the mainland, I remembered what he had said that night about the Moose Church and how people should be allowed to worship whatever they want. That was the look on his girlfriend’s face—the look of one in the presence of what they believe is both the truth and the answer to life. Or death.
Our thoughts,
Jesse
Putting the letter down, I closed my eyes and waited for her to speak.
“Well, what do you think, Wyatt?”
I looked over, but the morning sun sat right on top of her head like a hot yellow crown. I had to squint even to make out the shape of her face.
“I think it’s intriguing.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘intriguing’? Don’t you believe it?”
“Sure I do. That’s been my problem for years—believing. Sometimes I think it’s not leukemia that’s killing me, but terminal believing. Terminal hope.”
“Wyatt, don’t be facetious. This could be it; the thing that could save you. Why aren’t you more—”
“More what? More excited? Sophie, I have cancer. They’ve assured me I’m going to die. That I don’t have much longer to live. God’s doing me a big favor by letting me even be here today. Can you imagine what it’s like living with that in your head every minute of the day?
“In the beginning, when I first knew I was sick, there were all kinds of things in me that simply aren’t anymore. I woke up every morning and cried. I went through a period where I looked at the world twice as hard because I never knew if I’d see any of it again. Life became a three-D movie; I made everything stand out, stand at attention. But even that goes away after a while, strangely enough.
“I read about a woman in New York who had her purse snatched. That’s lousy, right? But know what else the thief did? Started sending things back piece by piece on special occasions in her life. She had a Filofax in her bag where she’d marked her anniversary and kids’ birthdays, things like that. So on her first birthday after the purse was stolen, she got her driver’s license back in the mail. Along with a greeting card from the guy. Next, he sent back her birth certificate. It went on and on. Such a perverse story, but clever too, you know? The man was into dread. He figured out a perfect way to torment her for years. He didn’t want to steal a bag—he wanted to burrow into her life like a tick.”
Sophie nodded but smiled too, as if she knew something I didn’t. She kept smiling when she spoke. “At the same time, it’s almost sexy when you think about it: all that attention and the time he spent at it. How many creeps would go to the trouble of stealing your purse and then sending you a birthday card?”
I knew I could count on my friend to understand. “That’s exactly my point. Death is like the purse snatcher and that’s what’s so goddamned mean. It steals things from you, and then slowly gives some of them back so you start getting confused but hopeful at the same time. If it’s going to steal my purse, then just take it and get the hell out of my life. Don’t send back old credit cards or a license I’ve already replaced.
“I read a letter like this, or an article in the paper, saying some doctor in Osaka claims to have found the cure for cancer in a derivative from plum pits… I don’t want to have any more hope. I don’t want to believe somewhere in the world is a cure or an answer or a guru who’ll be able to take away my fear. I would like to learn how to die now.”
She looked at me disgustedly. “ ‘Your job is to find out what the world is trying to be.’ Whatever happened to that, Wyatt? You were the one who gave me that poem. Does learning how to die also mean learning how to stop living?”
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe you’re full of shit. I don’t think that’s how God wants us to do it, and I’m not talking about going gently into some good night. I’m not experiencing what you are, granted, so maybe I have no right to talk about it at all, but I’m going to anyway. The only way to defeat the purse snatcher is go find him. Find him, show him your face, and say, ‘I’ve found you and you can’t scare me anymore.’ If Death keeps torturing you by sending back stuff you thought was gone, then go find Him and tell Him to stop. I think you learn how to die by… Oh, shit!”
I hadn’t been looking at her as she angrily spoke so I didn’t realize she was crying till I looked up at that last word. Her face was wet with tears but her eyes were furious. “The minute I finished reading this letter I called you, I was so excited. If you can find this Ian guy, he could have the answer! But it doesn’t interest you?”
“Sure it does, but maybe finding the answer doesn’t mean finding a cure for my illness.” I picked up the glass of orange juice and took a long, cold drink. Sophie always squeezed her own juice, and it was a delicious treat. Fresh orange juice, tart and full of stringy pulp that burst with its own taste when you nibbled it.
“Wyatt?”
“Hmm?”
“What is it like?” From the tone of her voice, it was clear what she meant.
Rolling the glass between my hands, I looked down into its orange swirl. “I met a young woman when I was taking my last treatment. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Cancer of the throat that had spread down into her chest… the works. She would have fooled me if I hadn’t known what to look for, because she’d done a good job of disguising herself. Had all her hair, or at least a very good wig, and lots of natural color in her cheeks. But that’s another thing you learn to recognize—what’s real and what’s makeup, wigs, tanning studios… This girl told me the only thing she could do now was wait for the results of her treatments and try to figure out ways of fooling the world into thinking she was one of them. Healthy, whole; a real human being. Because that’s one of the things you learn when you get sick.