The nurse flushed. “The dress? Did you really mean it?”
“Why not? I don’t ever wear it myself. I’ve become too thin for it.”
“You could have it taken in.”
Lillian shook her head. “No, no, you have it.”
The nurse picked up the dress as if it were made of glass, and held it up against herself. “I think it’s just my size,” she murmured, looking in the mirror. Then she laid it over a chair. “May I come back for it in a few minutes? I have to go into Number Twenty-six for a moment. She’s left.”
“Left?”
“Yes. An hour ago.”
“Who is Number Twenty-six?”
“The little South American girl from Bogotá.”
“The one with the three relatives visiting? Manuela?”
“Yes. It happened quickly, but it was to be expected.”
“Why are we talking all around it?” Lillian said, embittered by the euphemisms of the sanatorium. “She hasn’t left! She’s dead, dead, done for!”
“Yes, of course,” the nurse replied, intimidated and eyeing the dress, which hung over the chair like a yellow quarantine flag. Lillian saw the look. “Go along,” she said more calmly. “When you come back, you can take the X rays right with you.”
“Good.”
Quickly, Lillian drew the dark, smooth prints out of the envelope and went to the window with them. She could not really read them. The Dalai Lama had sometimes pointed out the crucial shadows and discolorations. For several months, he had not been doing so.
She looked at the shiny grays and blacks that decreed life or death for her. There were her shoulder bones, her spinal column, her ribs; there was her skeleton—and in between the bones the uncanny, shadowy something that meant health or illness. She recalled the earlier pictures, the nebulous gray spots, and tried to find them again. She thought she could see them, and it seemed to her that they had become bigger. Going away from the window, she carried the pictures close to the lamp. She took off the lamp shade, for more light, and suddenly it seemed to her that she was seeing herself after death, after years in the grave, the flesh already decayed to gray earth, and only the bones withstanding dissolution. She laid the films on the table. I’m being a fool again, she thought—but nevertheless she went to the mirror and looked in; she studied her face, the face that was hers and not hers, alien, and nevertheless hers. I don’t know it, not as it really looks, she thought; I don’t know the face that others see; I know only this mirror phantom which is inverted, shows the right side where others see the left; I know only this lie, just as I know only the other lie, while I do not recognize the reality, the skeleton that labors quietly away within me in order to come to the surface. This, she thought, looking at the black glossy film, this is the only real mirror.
She felt her forehead and cheek; she felt the bones underneath, and it seemed to her that they were closer to the skin than they used to be. The flesh is already melting away, she thought; the Unbribable, the Nameless One is already peering out of my eye sockets, or else he is peering invisibly over my shoulder, and his eyes and mine are meeting in the mirror.
“Why, what ever are you doing?” the young nurse asked from behind her. She had returned on her noiseless rubber soles, to collect the dress and the X rays.
“I’m looking in the mirror. I’ve lost three pounds in the last two months.”
“Just recently you gained half a pound.”
“I’ve lost that again.”
“You’re too restless. And you must eat more. It seems to me you’ve been recuperating very well.”
Lillian whirled around. “Why do you nurses always treat us like children?” she said, vastly irritated. “Do you think we believe everything you tell us? Here.” She held the X-ray pictures out to the nurse. “Look at them! I know enough about it. You know the pictures look bad.”
The nurse stared at her in alarm. “Can you read X rays? Have you learned how?”
“Yes, I’ve learned how. I’ve had time enough to.”
That was not true. But all at once Lillian could not retreat. It was as though she were standing on a high tightrope, her hands still clutching the rail of the support at the moment before she would have to let go of it and start walking the rope across the gulf. She could still avoid everything if she kept silent now, and she really wanted to; but something that was stronger than fear impelled her forward. “It’s no secret,” she said quietly. “The doctor himself has told me that I’m not getting any better. I only wanted to see for myself; that’s why I asked you for the prints. I don’t understand why there’s so much play acting in front of the patients. After all, it’s much better to know the score.”
“Most patients can’t bear it.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me? I can bear it.”
Lillian had the sense of an infinite circus tent below her, all hushed with expectation.
“But you say you already know,” the nurse replied uncertainly.
“What?” Lillian asked breathlessly.
“Your X rays—since you can read them.”
The stillness of expectation was no longer a stillness. It was a high, strange ringing in her ears. “Of course I know the cavities aren’t getting any smaller,” Lillian said with effort. “That happens often enough.”
“Of course.” Relieved, the nurse began to chatter. “There are always fluctuations. Ups and downs. Little relapses happen all the time. Especially in winter.”
“And in spring,” Lillian said. “And in summer. And in fall.”
The nurse laughed. “You have a sense of humor. If only you’d take things a bit easier. And follow the doctor’s orders. He knows best, after all.”
“I will, from now on. Don’t forget your dress.”
Lillian could hardly wait for the nurse to leave. It seemed to her that a whiff of death had come into the room with her, carried from Manuela’s room in the folds of the white uniform. How little she suspects, Lillian thought. How little the whole lot of them suspect. Why doesn’t she go? How slowly and with what disgusting pleasure she is laying the dress over her arm!
“You’ll pick up a few pounds quickly enough,” the nurse said. “The thing is to eat all the good things on the menu. Tonight, for example. There’s a wonderful chocolate pudding with vanilla sauce for dessert.”
———
I provoked it, Lillian thought. Not because I’m courageous, but because I’m afraid. I lied. I wanted to hear the opposite; in spite of everything, we always want to hear the opposite.
There was a knock, and Hollmann came in. “Clerfayt is leaving tomorrow. Tonight is full moon. The usual party up at the ski lodge. How about the two of slipping out and driving up there with him?”
“You slipping out again?”
“For the last time. And this is different.”
“Manuela has died.”
“So I’ve heard. It’s a blessing for everyone concerned. For those three relations—and probably for Manuela, too.”
“You talk like Clerfayt,” Lillian said angrily.
“I imagine that after a while we’ll all have to talk like Clerfayt,” Hollmann replied quietly. “In his case, the perspective is shorter, which is why what he says sounds harsher. He lives from one race to the next. And every year the chances get to be more and more against him. Shall we go out with him tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s his last evening. And whatever we do is not going to bring Manuela back.”
“You’re talking like him again.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“When is he leaving?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. He wants to get down out of the mountains before it starts snowing. The weather forecast says a big snowstorm by tomorrow night.”
“Is he going alone?” Lillian asked, with effort.
“Yes. You coming tonight?”
Lillian did not answer. So many things were tumbling down upon her all at once. She must thin
k everything over. But what was there to think over, really? What else had she been doing for months but think things over? All that was left was to make a decision.
“Didn’t you say you were going to be more careful from now on?” she asked.
“Not tonight. Dolores, Maria, and Charles are coming, too. Josef is at the door. If we sneak out of here at ten o’clock, we’ll make the cable car in time. It’s running till one o’clock tonight. I’ll come for you.” Hollmann laughed. “Then from tomorrow on, I’m going to be the goddamdest most-careful patient in the sanatorium. But tonight we’re celebrating.”
“What?”
“Anything. That there’s a full moon. That Giuseppe has come. That we’re alive. Or celebrating farewells.”
“Or that we’re going to be model patients from tomorrow on?”
“That, too. I’ll come for you. It’s a costume party—you haven’t forgotten?”
“No.”
Hollmann closed the door behind him. Tomorrow, Lillian thought. Tomorrow—what had suddenly happened to it? It was a tomorrow different from all yesterday’s tomorrows. By tomorrow evening, Clerfayt would have left and the sanatorium routine would again spread over everything—like the wet snow which came in on the sickly wind—soft, gentle, covering everything, slowly smothering everything. Not me, she thought. Not me!
The ski lodge was perched high above the village, and once a month in winter, at full moon, it was kept open at night for a torchlight ski run. The Palace Hotel had sent a small gypsy band up for the party, two violinists and a cembalo player. They brought the cembalo up with them; there was no piano in the lodge.
The guests came in ski clothes or costumes. Charles Ney and Hollmann wore pasted-on mustaches for disguise. Charles Ney was in evening dress, which he wore as a costume; he had no opportunity to use it normally. Dolores Palmer wore a dress of Spanish lace and a mantilla embroidered with sequins. Lillian Dunkerque had on her light-blue slacks and a short fur jacket.
The lodge was jammed, but Clerfayt had managed to reserve a table at the window; the headwaiter of the Palace Hotel, which also managed the lodge, was a racing fan.
Lillian was very excited. She stared out into the dramatic night. Somewhere high above the mountains a storm was raging, though there were no signs of it down below. The moon slipped out from behind the tattered clouds and plunged back into them, and the shadows of the clouds brought the white slopes to life, as though gigantic phantom flamingos were flying over the landscape with monstrous wings.
A big fire was blazing in the fireplace of the lodge. There was punch and wine to drink. “What would you like?” Clerfayt asked. “It’s all hot drinks, punch and mulled wine, but the waiter has put in some vodka and cognac for us if we want it. I let him take Giuseppe on a drive through the village this afternoon. He fouled two plugs and felt marvelous. Would you care for cognac? Though this is a night for mulled wine.”
“Good,” Lillian said. “Mulled wine.”
The waiter brought the glasses. “When are you going tomorrow?” Lillian asked.
“Before dark.”
“Where?”
“To Paris. Are you coming along?”
“Yes,” Lillian replied.
Clerfayt laughed; he did not believe her. “All right,” he said. “But you’d better not take much baggage with you. Giuseppe isn’t built for it.”
“I’d only need one suitcase. The rest could be sent. Where will we be making our first stop?”
“We’ll drive out of the snow country, because you hate it so much. Not very far. Over the mountains to the Ticino. To Lake Maggiore. It’s already spring there.”
“And then?”
“To Geneva.”
“And then?”
“To Paris.”
“Can’t we drive straight to Paris?”
“We would have to leave tonight. It’s too far for one day.”
“Can you make it there in one day from Lake Maggiore?”
Clerfayt began looking at her more closely. Up to this moment, he had thought it all a game; but these questions were too specific for a game. “One long day’s driving will get you there,” he said. “But why? Don’t you want to see the meadows of flowering narcissus around Geneva? Everyone wants to see them.”
“I can see them as we drive past.”
On the terrace, fireworks were being shot off. Rockets streaked up, Catherine wheels dashed sparks, and then came big rockets that rose high and red and then, when they seemed to have exhausted themselves in their solitary flight, suddenly burst into sheaves of gold and green and blue and dropped back to earth again in a shower of glittering stars.
“Good Lord!” Hollmann whispered. “The Dalai Lama!”
“Where?”
“At the door. He’s just come in.”
Sure enough, there was the doctor, standing pale and bald-headed in the doorway, surveying the racket in the lodge. He was wearing a gray suit. Someone plumped a paper hat on his head. He knocked it off and moved toward a table fairly close to the door.
“Who would have figured on that!” Hollmann said. “What are we going to do now?”
“Not a thing,” Lillian said.
“Shouldn’t we kind of try to disappear into the crowd and slip out?”
“No.”
“He won’t recognize you with your mustache,” Dolores Palmer said.
“But he’ll recognize you. And Lillian. Especially Lillian.”
“We can sit so that he doesn’t see their faces,” Charles Ney said, standing up. Dolores changed places with him, and Maria Savini took Hollmann’s chair. Clerfayt smiled with amusement and looked across at Lillian, to see whether she wished to change with him. She shook her head.
“You change, too, Lillian,” Charles said. “Otherwise he’ll spot you, and tomorrow there’ll be hell to pay.”
Lillian looked across at the Dalai Lama’s pale face and colorless eyes; it floated above the tables like a moon, sometimes obscured by the crowd and then appearing again like the real moon emerging from between clouds.
“No,” she said. “I’ll sit right here.”
The skiers were preparing to set out. “Aren’t you going with them?” Dolores asked Clerfayt. He was in ski clothes.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s much too dangerous for me.”
Dolores laughed. “He really means it,” Hollmann said. “Whatever you can’t do perfectly is dangerous.”
“And if you can do it perfectly?” Lillian asked.
“Then it’s even more dangerous,” Clerfayt said. “You get careless.”
They went out to see the descent. Hollmann, Charles Ney, Maria, and Dolores slipped through in the confusion of everyone’s leaving; Lillian walked without haste, at Clerfayt’s side, past the doctor’s colorless eyes.
They tramped across the firmly trod path in the snow to the starting point. The fiery smoke of the torches cast shifting shadows across faces and snow. The first skiers shot down the moonlit slope, torches held high in their hands. They rapidly became glowing dots and vanished behind other, lower slopes. Lillian watched the skiers go, plunging down the slope as if plunging into life—the way the rockets that had reached the highest point of their flight had dropped back to earth in a rain of stars.
“When are we leaving tomorrow?” she asked Clerfayt.
He looked up. And understood her at once. “Whenever you like,” he replied. “At any time. Even after dark. Or earlier. Or later, if you can’t be ready.”
“No need to delay. I can pack fast. When do you want to go?”
“Around four o’clock.”
“I can be ready by four.”
“Good. I’ll come for you.”
Clerfayt looked down again, following the track of the skiers.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Lillian said. “You can just drop me off in Paris. I’ll go along like—” She fumbled for a word.
“Like a hitchhiker?” Clerfayt suggested.
“Yes. E
xactly.”
“All right.”
She felt that she was trembling. She studied Clerfayt. He asked no questions. I don’t have to explain anything to him, she thought. He takes me at my word. What to me is the decision of my life is to him only the kind of ordinary decision people make every day. Perhaps he doesn’t even think me particularly sick; I suppose it takes an auto smashup to convince him that someone is really incapacitated. She felt to her surprise as if a burden she had borne for years were sliding from her shoulders. Here was the first person in years who was not concerned about her illness. It made her happy in a strange way. It was as if she had crossed a frontier hitherto impassable to her. Her sickness, which had always been like an opaque window between herself and the world, no longer existed, at least for the moment. Instead, life lay outspread before her, breathtakingly clear and wide, flooded with moonlight; life with clouds and valleys and happenings. And she belonged to it, she was no longer excluded from it; she stood like all the others, the healthy people, at the starting point, a burning, crackling torch in her hand, ready for the steep drop, the rush down and into life. What had Clerfayt said once? That the most desirable thing in life was to be able to choose your own death, because then death could not kill you like a rat or extinguish you, suffocate you, when you were not ready. She was ready. She trembled, but she was ready.
Chapter Six
VOLKOV FOUND HER next morning occupied with her suitcases. “Packing, Dusha? This early?”
“Yes, Boris, I’m packing.”
“What for? You’ll unpack everything again in a few days.”
He had seen her packing this way several times. It came over her every year, like the impulse of migratory birds to fly away in spring and in fall. Then the suitcases would stand around for a few days, sometimes even for a few weeks, until Lillian lost courage and gave up.
“I’m going, Boris,” she said. She dreaded this conversation. “This time I really am going.”
He leaned against the door and watched her. Dresses and coats were lying on the bed, sweaters and nightgowns hanging from the curtain rod and the knob of the bathroom door. High-heeled shoes stood on the dressing table and the chairs, and a pile of ski things had been dumped on the floor near the balcony.