"I hate the position I'm in. I hate what Tim has done to me, made me ashamed of myself and my body and being a woman. Is this why we founded FEM? I never dreamed I'd ever be in this situation, like a forty-dollar whore. Sometime you and I should talk, the way we used to talk before I was busy all the time writing his speeches and making his appointments-the bishop's secretary who makes sure he doesn't reveal in public the fool that he is, the child that he is; I'm the one who has all the responsibility, and I'm treated like garbage."
She handed me some money from her purse, grabbed out at random; I accepted it, and felt vast guilt; but I took the money anyhow. As Kirsten said, it belonged to the Episcopal Church.
"One thing I have learned," she said as we left the bar and emerged into the daylight, "is to read the fine print."
"I'll say one thing for that old lady," I said. "She certainly loosened up your tongue."
"No-it's being out of San Francisco. You haven't seen me out of the Bay Area and Grace Cathedral before. I don't like you and I don't like being a cheap whore and I don't particularly like my life in general. I'm not sure I even like Tim. I'm not sure I want to continue with this, any of this. That apartment-I had a much better apartment before I met Tim, although I suppose that doesn't count; it's not supposed to, anyhow. But I had a very rewarding life. But I was programmed by my DNA to get mixed up with Tim and now some old skuzz-bag rails at me that I'm going to die. You know what my feeling is about that, my real feeling? It no longer matters to me. I knew it anyway. She just read my own thoughts back to me and you know it. That is the one thing that sticks in my mind from this seance or whatever we're supposed to call it: I heard someone express my realizations about myself and my life and what's become of me. It gives me courage to face what I have to face and do what I have to do."
"And what is that?"
"You'll see in due time. I've come to an important decision. This today helped clear my mind. I think I understand." She spoke no further. It was Kirsten's custom to cast a veil of mystery over her connivings; that way, she supposed, she added an element of glamour. But in fact she did not. She only murked up the situation, for herself most of all.
I let the subject drop. Together, then, we sauntered off, in search of ways to spend the church's wealth.
We returned to San Francisco at the end of the week, laden with purchases and feeling tired. The bishop had secured, covertly, not for publication, a post with the Santa Barbara think tank. It would be announced presently that he intended to resign from his post as Bishop of the Diocese of California; the announcement would be coming ineluctably, his decision having been made, his new job arranged for: nailed down. Meanwhile, Kirsten checked into Mount Zion Hospital for further tests.
Her apprehension had made her taciturn and morose; I visited her at the hospital but she had little to say. As I sat beside her bed, ill at ease and wishing I were elsewhere, Kirsten fussed with her hair and complained. I left dissatisfied, with myself, basically; I seemed to have lost my ability to communicate with her-my best friend, really-and our relationship was dwindling, along with her spirits.
At this time, the bishop had in his possession the galleys for his book dealing with Jeff's return from the next world; Tim had decided on the title Here, Tyrant Death, which I had suggested to him; it is from Handel's Belshazzar, and reads in fulclass="underline"
"Here, tyrant Death, thy terrors end. "
He quoted it in context in the book itself.
Busy as always, over-extended and preoccupied with a hundred and one major matters, he elected to bring the galleys to Kirsten in the hospital; he left them with her to proofread and at once departed. I found her lying propped up, a cigarette in one hand, a pen in the other, the long galley-pages propped up on her knees. It was evident that she was furious.
"Can you believe this?" she said, by way of greeting.
"I can do them," I said, seating myself on the edge of the bed.
"Not if I throw up on them."
"After you're dead you'll work even harder."
Kirsten said, "No; I won't work at all. That's the point. As I read over this thing I keep asking myself, Who is going to believe this crap? I mean, it is crap. Let's face it. Look." She pointed to a section on the galley-page and I read it over. My reaction tallied with hers; the prose was turgid, vague and disastrously pompous. Obviously, Tim had dictated it at his rush- rush, speeded-up, let's-get-it-over-with velocity. Equally obviously, he had never once looked back. I thought to myself, The title should be Look Backward, Idiot.
"Start with the final page," I said, "and work forward. That way, you won't have to read it."
"I'm going to drop them. Oops." She simulated dropping the galleys onto the floor, catching them just in time. "Does the order matter on these? Let's shuffle them."
"Write in stuff," I said. "Write in, 'This really sucks.' Or, 'Your mother wears Army boots.'"
Kirsten, pretending to write, said, "'Jeff manifested himself to us naked with his pecker in his hand. He was singing "The Stars and Stripes Forever." ' " Both of us were laughing, now; I collapsed against her and we embraced.
"I'll give you one hundred dollars if you write that in," I said, almost unable to talk.
"I'll just turn it over to the IRA."
"No," I said. "To the IRS."
Kirsten said, "I don't report my earnings. Hookers don't have to." Her mood changed, then; her spirit palpably ebbed away. Gently; she patted me on the arm and then she kissed me.
"What's that for?" I said, touched.
"They think the spot means I have a tumor."
"Oh, no," I said.
"Yep. Well, that's the long and the short of it." She pushed me away, then, with stifled-ill- stifled-anger. "Can they do anything? I mean, they can-"
"They can operate; they can remove the lung."
"And you're still smoking."
"It's a little late to give up cigarettes. What the hell. This raises an interesting question ... I'm not the first to ask it. When you're resurrected in the flesh, are you resurrected in a perfect form or do you have all the scars and injuries and defects you had while alive? Jesus showed Thomas his wounds; he had Thomas thrust his hand into his-Jesus'-.side. Did you know that the church was born from that wound? That's what the Roman Catholics believe. Blood and water flowed from the wound, the spear wound, while he was on the cross. It's a vagina, Jesus' vagina." She did not seem to be joking; she seemed, now, solemn and pensive. "A mystical notion of a spiritual second birth. Christ gave birth to us all."
I seated myself on the chair beside the bed, saying nothing.
The news-the medical report-stunned and terrified me; I could not respond. Kirsten, however, looked composed.
They have given her tranks, I realized. As they do when they deliver this sort of news.
"You consider yourself a Christian now?" I said finally, unable to think up anything else, anything more appropriate. "The fox hole phenomenon," Kirsten said. "What do you think of the title? Here, Tyrant Death. "
"I picked it," I said.
She gazed at me, with intensity.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I said. "Tim said he picked it."
"Well, he did. I gave him the quotation. One among a group; I submitted several."
"When was this?"
"I don't know. Some time ago. I forget. Why?"
Kirsten said, "It's a terrible title. I abominated it when I first saw it. I didn't see it until he dumped these galleys in my lap, literally in my lap. He never asked-" She broke off, then stubbed her cigarette out. "It's like somebody's idea of what a book title ought to consist of. A parody of a book title. By someone who never titled a book before. I'm surprised his editor didn't object."
"Is all this directed at me?" I said.
"I don't know. You figure it out." She began, then, to scrutinize the galleys; she ignored me.