BUT BY THE TIME her salad comes, Alma isn’t getting along with Richard’s boss. “Richard never said you were counting on my going.”
Emerson’s look is apologetic. “I assumed you would go. He seemed to think so, too.”
“Emerson, I’ve got a life, you know!” Though it doesn’t amount to much right now, Alma thinks. Still, it annoys her that Emerson should assume that she would go along. “Did you tell him that you were counting on my going, too?”
“Of course not. I didn’t want him to feel I didn’t have full confidence in him—”
“But you don’t, do you?” she interrupts.
There is a hesitation, a moment in which he is assessing her as he might a proposal by someone on his staff. “I have full confidence in Richard, or I wouldn’t have let him go. I just thought it would be easier with you along. You’re native. You’re fluent. That counts for a lot, you know.”
“If that’s the way you feel, you should have offered me the job.”
The smile is back. “You want one?”
He’s got her there. Of course, she doesn’t want a job smooth-talking the locals. “Richard says there’s this person who just got hired. It sounds like she’s smoothing out the rough spots. Starr Bell.”
“Starr’s terrific.” Emerson’s eyes take on the soft glow of a happy memory. An intern he mentored. Did it go beyond that? Alma wonders. Emerson has been through several wives. He seems to have any number of children and stepchildren—all of whom he keeps up with, joking about tuitions, orthodontist bills, holiday schedules. A complicated family, broken, melded, amended, which Emerson seems to manage with minimal ill will all around, not unlike his style at HI.
“So, let me get this straight,” Alma says, wondering if Emerson will level with her. He is not one to display his hand even in the best of times. And he’s now got an anxious wife, worried about her man. “Richard’s gone down to set up a green center that this drug company, Swan, that’s doing clinical trials with an AIDS vaccine, is financing for what?”
“A green center is a good thing,” Emerson says, as if surprised Alma should doubt this. But he knows what she means. “It’s a many-pronged approach. Medical care, education, sustainability. I personally think it’s the way to go: you provide a model.”
“It sounds to me like sugar-coating. And I’m surprised you would go along with it, Emerson.” Alma stares at her Bloody Mary mix in its short, fat glass she can’t get her hand around. The drink is sweaty, making a ring on the coaster. There is a little tropical-looking umbrella posed on the brim. She feels disheartened by the picture she is putting together. Surely, Richard would be smart enough to see through some travesty green project, a front for some clinical-testing sweatshop? But no, she thinks, Richard with his goals and his projects wouldn’t be deterred once his heart is set on something.
Emerson is staring down at his steak, which he has not touched. She has ruined his lunch and she doesn’t care. When he glances up, he looks weary and misunderstood, a man who is trying to do good in a troubled world where the solutions are not simple. “Listen to me, Alma. And I’ll back this up with statistics, studies, reports, so you don’t have to take my word for it. Swan is hands-down the most ethical of drug companies—and I’ve worked with several, believe me. Not only do they have informed consent forms that every single participant has to sign, but they commit to continued treatment of all volunteers after the study is over. You can’t just use somebody’s body because they’re poor and oppressed.”
Alma finds herself ruing her quick temper. Emerson is a good guy. He has been a crusader for social justice in the business world from the get-go. In fact, every year a certain percentage of HI’s profits goes into a fund that bails out the likes of Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, Project Hope. But even Emerson has to admit, this two-pronged project is, at best, odd: a green center helping local farmers and a clinic testing an AIDS vaccine? A tractor to weed the garden? “So, why aren’t they testing this vaccine in the States—”
“Oh, but they are. It’s just that, let’s face it, AIDS is much more prevalent in other parts of the world, a lot more sick people in need of drugs, which they can get for free by entering the trials and continue to get until virological failure, and ultimately”—Emerson cocks his head as if to earmark what he’s about to say—“these are the people who stand to gain the most from some breakthrough—”
“And the people who will least be able to afford those medications once they’re approved!” It’s her turn to interrupt.
“There you go!” He beams at her, as if this were the exact conclusion he wanted her to reach, a conclusion that proves him wrong. “Alma, don’t you see? That’s why these other models are important. You have to create sustainability, not just health. These countries have to get organized. Connect to global markets with green products that can bring them top dollar. Then they’re players. They don’t have to prostitute themselves; they don’t have to be the pleasure palaces for the rich of the world.”
The man is either a saint or a master of spin. And since her husband works for him, Alma has got to believe that Emerson is trying to save the world a lot of grief and given what he’s got to work with, he’s doing the best he can. In fact, this strange bedfellow approach is nothing new. It’s everywhere these days: athletes sporting milk mustaches, beer companies promoting literacy, sports equipment chains giving free flu shots to senior citizens. There’s even a lunch-meat company that once featured one of her books on their Web site. A contest aimed at attracting the sizable population of Latino customers. Win a signed book by Fulana de Tal and a year’s supply of bologna. No matter that the author is vegetarian. Why make a fuss? These spin-offs sell books. Everybody stands to win. No wonder Mario González-Echavarriga went for her literary-integrity jugular.
“Oh, Emerson, I believe you. I know HI’s got an amazing track record. I just want to know Richard’s going to be okay.” Her eyes fill in spite of herself. So much for righteous indignation. She is the weepy, tagalong wife, after all. “It just seemed like if this project is so good, why were the locals so upset with it?”
Emerson has taken a bite of his steak and it is not the way he likes it, she can tell. “Sweetheart,” he’ll tell the waitress later, “you know I like it rare.” He nudges the plate away to show his disapproval and folds his hands before him, as if he means to pray. “That’s my question, too, and believe me, I grilled Starr about this. Why were they so upset? You know what it amounts to? Rumors. Half-digested facts. They hear things and they just knee-jerk react. They don’t know any better.” He could be describing Alma’s own reaction, politely, under the cover of the poor and the ignorant of the third world. “And you know what? I don’t blame them. They’ve been conned before.”
He stares down gloomily at his steak, and his mouth pulls to one side as if to say, And so have I, well done for rare.
AFTER LUNCH, EMERSON ASKS Alma to come up to his office a minute so he can print out some reports for her.
She would rather take off, hide her head in the sand. But she is feeling penitent on so many fronts, and this is one of them. Here she virtually accused her husband’s boss of wrongdoing! Has she ruined something for Richard? she wonders. Maybe she can make it up to Emerson by becoming one of the women he mentors, an older version of Starr Bell, inspired by his soulful genius to go forth and be a force for good in the world.
She enters his office meekly. Everything seems to accuse her, including the screen saver on his big computer, the earth spinning in outer space, Help International unwrapping itself from it like a bandage coming off. He clicks it away, calls up file after file. He is a man intent on her conversion.
The statistics are mind-boggling and heart-stopping. Of the annual global expenditure on health care, 87 percent is spent on 16 percent of the population who represent only 7 percent of the world’s sick. No wonder the drug companies want to focus on that 7 percent, refusing to manufacture drugs that could eradicate third-world
epidemics but that people there can’t pay for. Millions of dollars worth of antidepressants (Alma’s heart sinks, thinking of her own wasteful stash); meanwhile, the pill for sleeping sickness that could eliminate the disease in sub-Saharan Africa can’t be found. But AIDS, ah, AIDS has cut across those first- and third-world borders. These plagues, the great levelers, might end up inadvertently tying the world together.
“Drug companies are willing to invest in finding a solution,” Emerson explains. “Okay, so maybe they’re thinking about their profit margins in the wealthy countries, but you know what? Everyone stands to benefit.”
It’s this conclusion Alma doesn’t quite get to with Emerson. How poor countries are going to benefit from a silver bullet that’s so expensive.
“What?” Emerson has suddenly realized Alma is not with him. “You don’t believe me?”
“Dinero,” Alma says simply. Emerson has a working knowledge of a half-dozen languages, and surely the word for money is one he is familiar with in all of them. “Who is going to make sure—once the third-world trials are over—that the poor folks who can’t afford it get the vaccine?”
“People like you and me,” Emerson says, pointing to her, then himself. It’s so refreshingly naive, she almost laughs in joyful glee. But under the joy, she feels uneasy. How can this guy be running a top-notch international aid company and think like this? Robin Hood in a pinstriped suit. Except it’s Vermont. He’s wearing fancy dress jeans and a bomber jacket. Her beloved is now in the hands of this possible messiah or madman, she can’t be sure. But one thing she does know (this much history she has absorbed): in any salvation scenario there are bound to be casualties.
“Think about it, Alma, seriously. In this world where we’re all so interconnected—travel, migrations, e-mail—you’re going to tell me that we in the first world will have a vaccine for AIDS, and we’re going to keep it to ourselves. Nope. The world won’t stand for it. You and I won’t stand for it.”
He’s damn right. She finds herself nodding agreement.
“But we’ve got to go at it step by step. Paul Farmer calls it the long defeat, fighting the long defeat, making common cause with the losers. But you know what? We’re going to win. But first we’ve got to help the Pharmas find the solution.”
“Yeah,” she says, overcome by his passionate intensity. “We have to.” This guy could be Balmis, she thinks. Then who is Richard? Who is she?
“And meanwhile, while the testing is going on, the DR ends up with a green center. Folks participating in the study get free treatment. This is just the beginning, Alma.”
She’s looking over his shoulder as he’s calling up Web site after Web site on his big computer, studies he keeps printing out for her. Already her hands are full. She’s not going to read all this stuff. In fact, she’s going to put it in her recycle box and use it for grocery lists, to fill the fax machine for printouts of Richard’s faxes. To make hard copies of her own musings about Isabel, the orphans, Balmis.
“Emerson, really, this is enough.” She tries to stop him, but he has already pressed the button, and his printer is jetting out a copy of yet another article.
“Last one, promise!” He laughs, as he collects the printout and staples it together for her. Should she tell him not to staple it, that it’s going straight into the recycle box, that she has already decided what he has probably been hoping for all along, she is going to join Richard?
“Just one last question,” Alma says, as the phone buzzer goes off. “Does Swan know what you’re up to?” They can’t know this guy’s not just working for them. He’s trying to save the world!
Emerson lifts his eyebrows. The smile is vague. Alma doesn’t live in his world, and her ideas about it are formed by biased, left-hearted compatriots, Tera and friends, the Nation, Richard after hours. She doesn’t know how to read between the lines of the powerful.
“Mr. Armstrong, Mozambique is on line 2.”
“How about Starr,” Alma persists. “Does she know?”
“Starr is terrific.” Emerson beams his disarming smile. He lifts a hand in farewell and turns his attention to the receiver at his ear. “Emerson here. What’s up?”
Alma feels shaky as she walks out of the offices of Help International, loaded down with the statistics of sadness. Hope and history have to rhyme. Emerson is working toward it; Tera is working toward it, Richard. Alma should be, too! But she has gotten in her own way—no one else to blame. She recalls how when Richard’s dad was dying, a man she dearly loved, she hovered over him in the hospital, reluctant even when visiting time was up to leave him alone. In his final hours, he became agitated, hallucinating that he was driving a runaway car. He kept gripping the wheel, struggling to get control of this imaginary vehicle, headed for death. “Oh, Dad!” Alma wept. “How can I help?”
And the answer came back to her, his last words on earth, which stung with their appropriateness, “Just get out of the way!”
ON THE WAY HOME, Alma decides to drop in on Helen. She’s debating whether to tell Helen of her plan to join Richard. One thing for sure, Alma will stick around until after Thanksgiving. No way she is going to miss Helen’s good-bye party. But afterward, well, Helen will understand. She has plenty of people around—maybe too many—and as the team has explained, toward the end people are just plain tired. All their systems are shutting down. Family members and friends should not feel hurt if a loved one only wants one or two people by her side. All the more reason to tell Helen now, so she knows that Alma might not be around for the final good-bye.
One person she is sure she can’t tell ahead of time is Richard. It has to be a surprise. Otherwise, he will surely say no. Especially if he senses her decision has anything to do with even the tiniest doubt about his competence. His safety. Her jealousy. Yes, she might as well admit it to herself, she doesn’t like the idea of this terrific Starr hanging out with her beloved, who goes on lonely after-dinner strolls through the village. She has given him his own key to the Swan office. What next? If her husband runs into trouble with her countrymen, Alma wants to be the one to save him. She feels ashamed of her small-minded intention. So much for altruism as her sole motivation.
Alma knocks on Helen’s door. Another change, knocking, instead of what used to be her knock: opening the door and calling out, Helen! And it’s not only because Mickey and other people are around. Alma feels a new formality around Helen. A respect due to the dying, which is what Helen has become, instead of her old friend whose house she can walk into, whose fridge she can open and help herself to its contents.
When no one answers or calls out for her to come in, Alma nudges the door open. Angry voices are coming from the back of the house, Mickey’s and, now and then, Helen’s. A fight is going on.
“Please, Mickey, please,” Helen is pleading. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You can, but you won’t help me,” Mickey accuses. What a time to be asking Helen for help! Doesn’t Mickey know his mother is at death’s door? The doctor has amended his hopeful prognosis of six months. Helen might not last the year. The guy is unbalanced, Helen as much as said so. With a queasy feeling in her gut, Alma remembers Tera’s remark about Mickey’s being up to something.
She considers calling out. Surely, that would break up the argument. But then, after Alma leaves, Helen will be left in whatever untenable situation she is in. And knowing Helen, she won’t complain about it. Alma should find out what Mickey is up to and report him to the team. They’ll know what to do with the former Marine. They’re trained to handle difficult situations at these dire junctions when, so they’ve explained, unfinished family business is likely to get stirred up again.
“I always want to help you. I do.” Helen sounds so frail. What is she doing up? Has she returned to using her walker? “But this thing is crazy, Mickey. You can’t let Hannah talk you into this!”
Hannah … Hannah. The name sounds familiar, but Alma is too caught up trying to figure out what crazy thing Mickey is ta
lking about to unravel who this Hannah person might be.
“Forget it, okay? Just forget it! I knew you wouldn’t do it. You can be everybody else’s mother! But you won’t help your own son!”
Helen is sobbing now. Alma cannot bear to hear her old friend cry this way. She feels pulled to the rescue as a mother might by the sound of her infant wailing in another room. “Hello!” Alma calls out. “Helen! It’s me! Hello!”
A deathly silence follows her call. Alma walks down the front hall, craning her neck to look into the empty living room. She is pretty sure the voices were coming from the kitchen.
In a matter of seconds that seem endless, she hears the clomping of Helen’s walker on the linoleum. Then the bang of the back door. In a moment Helen will turn that corner into the hall, her face distraught; her eyes red; her thin, white hair falling out of its plaintive ponytail; and there’s a fifty-fifty chance that when Alma asks her, “Helen, are you all right?” the old woman will say, “I’m fine, dear.”
And it’s as she is waiting for this moment that Alma’s memory finally makes the connection. The AIDS caller was named Hannah, so Tera said. Hannah McSomething. There can’t be two of them. Hannah McMullen, Mickey’s sick wife!
When Helen comes into view, Alma doesn’t even ask. “I heard the fighting, Helen,” she confesses. “You shouldn’t have to put up with this.”
The old woman bows her head, sobbing inside her walker.
ALMA IS STILL AIMING on leaving after Thanksgiving to join Richard, but she keeps delaying calling the airlines. She wants to be sure Helen will be all right. Surprisingly, Helen has been on the upswing since the Mickey incident. Maybe Helen will stick around for a lot longer than the doctor predicted. Maybe fighting with her son gives her a reason to go on living—she can’t die until she makes peace with him.