Permanence Read online

  “There’s this conference I’ve been invited to in Italy,” he explains. “I’ll be submitting a paper, giving a lecture, visiting some hospitals.”

  Doctor speaks with some hesitation, as if this doctor whose baby I carry is suddenly suggesting we break his code of ethics. And he is.

  “We could go there…together,” he says, fumbling the words, “if you feel up to it.” Doctor releases his grip on me. He gets up from the couch. He walks back to the window. He places both hands into the pockets of his wool jacket. I see his fingers moving inside the pockets. He is unusually nervous, anxious, almost regretful. He is staring at my reflection in the window.

  “Have you ever been to Venice?” he asks.

  I say nothing for a few beats. I take time to reflect. I feel my stomach, what is developing inside of my stomach.

  “No,” I say almost matter-of-factly. “I’ve never been overseas. But I’ve arranged trips for other people.” What I do not tell doctor is that I haven’t been anywhere really, preferring to stay home, where it’s supposed to be safe.

  I look at my watch. Six-ten.

  Doctor speaks into the window: “You’d love the canals and the deep, dark basin off Piazza San Marco; the gondolas, the trattorias…Venice is like nowhere else on earth. Venice is timeless, permanent. A living museum.”

  “I’ve never been there,” I say. “But I’ve seen all the colorful posters of ‘romantic Venice.’ I’m sure the real romantic Venice is beautiful.”

  “Think about it,” says doctor, stepping away from the window, walking back to his desk. “I’ll be gone for more than a month, which means I won’t see you for quite some time.”

  Doctor looks first at his watch and then he looks at me. He makes a few notes and shuffles through some papers.

  “That’s it for today,” he says. He looks at his watch again.

  I stand up from the patient’s couch, press my hand flat against my stomach. I gather my things—my coat, my bag. I walk to doctor’s desk. But I drop my coat to the floor. When I bend over to pick it up, I spill the contents of my purse. My hands are shaking; my head is buzzing. Doctor comes to me, kneels down beside me on the floor. He helps me replace the items into my pocketbook. Then he sees it, I can tell. We see it together. Folded instructions for a pregnancy test kit. I look at doctor, try to divert his attention. But he does not look up to me the way I expect him to. I replace the instructions back inside my pocketbook.

  I think about life without doctor.

  I think about the time he will be gone away from me and how he has been my only companion during the last six months. I see doctor whether I want to or not, whether I need to or not. But now that doctor tells me he is going away, I know this: I want doctor; I need doctor. I like being with him. My God, he is my lover and the father of the child I am carrying. Am I falling in love with doctor? Perhaps I have already fallen in love with him and do not know it. But one thing is for certain: I will not let him get away. I depend upon him to keep me sane—to keep me without guilt. I don’t know if I can live without him.

  When my purse is refilled with the spilled contents, I step behind doctor’s desk were he has resumed sitting. I allow my hand to gently brush against doctor’s shoulder. But he does not look up at me. He hesitates, then snatches my hand into his. He grips it and holds it. I feel doctor’s feeling grip. This is a grip that tells me doctor is in love with me. It is a grip I find myself wanting to feel. We do not look at one another, but we understand our feelings. Without getting up, without looking at me, doctor releases my hand.

  “I know it’s short notice,” he says in a whisper voice. “But I want you to think about Venice. I leave next week.”

  “I know,” I say. “I will.” But this is a lie. I do not need to think about anything. I cannot bear the thought of living without doctor even though I only see him once a week for a little more than an hour at a time. It’s just knowing he’s there for me that keeps me secure. I have made up my mind about doctor’s offer. Whether I want to travel away from the safety of my home or not, I will go with him. Listen: other than doctor, I have nothing to lose.

  My God, I’m flying

  I will not let doctor go, even for a little while. I need doctor now, in order to live. So I hold to doctor with my life in the bucket seat of this jet plane. I feel my stomach, in my throat. I try not to think about dropping while this jet plane points upward to the heavens.

  “Takeoff,” says doctor, pressing his forearm against my own, holding my hand tightly. “Takeoff is my favorite part of flying.”

  Doctor says this with such an unusual, suspicious smile, I feel he is taking me somewhere I do not belong. And he is. But I press myself against him as we leave the solid ground behind. I feel the lift throughout my body, feel gravity pressing me into my cushioned seat, against my back and legs.

  My hands are shaking.

  I hear the scream of the jet engines and see the mechanical movement of the air flaps along the silver wingspan when doctor points them out to me from where we sit in the rear of the plane, economy class. There are the bright lights that flash in unison above my head. These are the NO SMOKING and the PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT indicator lights, as if seatbelts will make a difference should this jet plane tumble to the solid earth.

  I stare out of the porthole window as a tourist, not a travel agent. I am leaving the solid earth to fly the “Friendly Skies.”

  The land I leave behind is a patchwork of square plots, divided by roads and berms. The buildings appear as tiny boxes until cloud cover and distance cause them to disappear from view.

  I swallow and my ears clear.

  I feel a dull, tight pain just below my belly.

  Flight attendants shuffle about and perform their various duties. They wear these false, reassuring smiles that say this: if I’m not afraid, neither should you be.

  I look at doctor.

  His eyes are closed. Doctor is still smiling. This is completely unlike the doctor I have come to know—the doctor I need for my well- being.

  My God, I’m flying. I’m really flying.

  So far, I think, takeoff is not my favorite part of flying. But landing safely will be.

  Lesson about living life

  This jet plane levels off.

  The overhead PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT indicator lights disappear to the sound of a small chime, like a baby’s toy. The NO SMOKING signs also vanish. Doctor wastes no time.

  He pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket. He lights up, sucks the heavy smoke as though this were his first cigarette ever. He offers me the pack. But I have this mental image of the entire plane going up in flames if doctor were to light a cigarette for me. So I refuse.

  Outside, nothing but peaceful blue skies.

  Inside, doctor sinks back into his seat and blows the thin, white smoke up into the ceiling.

  “Letting go,” he says. “That’s what I call flying.” He takes another, deeper puff of his cigarette and speaks while the smoke oozes from his nose. “It’s the next best thing to challenging your greatest fears and beating them.” He sits back in his bucket seat. Then he comes forward again. He looks at me and waves his cigarette in the air like a baton. “Flying is the next best thing to risking your life and living to tell about it.” I see him pull a sheet of blank paper from his coat pocket. I see what he is writing:

  NEW CONCEPT: PATIENTS MAY OVERCOME SENSELESS FEARS THROUGH FLYING…BUILDS CONFIDENCE, ETC.

  Doctor folds the paper and stores it in his breast pocket along with his pen. He takes another drag of his cigarette. I am traveling with him to Italy because I do not want be without him—without his soothing words or his soothing body.

  Doctor is my drug.

  I say nothing, but I want to tell him this about flying: I’m just not ready yet.

  “Sometimes, Mary Kissmet,” doctor says, “you’ve got to place your life in the hands of something you don’t understand. Not God, but something even more powerful. Trust in fate. You have
to let yourself go, no matter what you think might happen.”

  This, I assume, is doctor’s lesson about living a life in the face of death.

  “You see, I knew that once I got you up into this jet plane, there would be no going back—fear or no fear.”

  I turn to doctor.

  “I never once mentioned a fear of flying.”

  “But I’m your doctor, after all. I know all about fear.”

  “Listen,” I tell him. “It’s not flying I’m afraid of.”

  Doctor smiles a rare smile.

  “You guessed it,” I say. “It’s crashing.” Doctor forces a small laugh. He stamps out his cigarette in the armrest ashtray built into his bucket seat.

  I continue to hold to doctor with my life.

  I feel my stomach.

  I watch the clouds outside this airplane, through the porthole in this window seat doctor requested for us in the rear section of a 747. We are flying in the interest of saving time—risking our lives for convenience sake. But I know this: we fly because doctor makes me face my fears as a part of my treatment.

  So far, so good.

  What I mean is this: I’ m scared to death, but at least I’m still alive.

  Smoke

  And then it happens, the way I knew it would:

  Black smoke and sparks spit out from the engine on the left wing--the wing I can clearly see from my seat in the tail end of this jet plane.

  To my surprise, I do not panic. I feel an odd sort of peace run through my body as if stepping chest deep into warm water. I hardly believe my calm. Neither can doctor when I wake him to point out the fiery wing.

  “Good morning,” says doctor, stirring from his nap.

  “Outside,” I say. “Look outside.”

  Doctor leans forward in his seat. He examines the fire. He says nothing. He sits back in his seat and closes his eyes again. But I know this: he is not sleeping. He is not dreaming. He expects me, I think, to scream out in utter terror. But I don’t.

  We have been flying for nearly eight hours now, through the late afternoon into the night and back to daylight again. I have been counting the hours as they lapsed, one by one, while most of the passengers, including doctor, slept. In less than an hour and we would have made it safely to Rome.

  Black smoke becomes thicker, turns to all-out fire.

  The fire spreads rapidly, engulfing the entire engine. I see other window seat occupants turning their heads to view the fiery spectacle. This is a fiery spectacle that should not be happening.

  The wave of attention moves along the isle to the people occupying the seats in the middle of the plane, four abreast, to the passengers occupying the opposite side of the plane. People lift themselves from their seats—a rough sea of bad news. In a few seconds, everyone in economy class seems aware of the fire.

  Someone shouts.

  “My God, what’s happening?” This is an old woman who occupies a center-aisle seat.

  A flight attendant scurries up and down the aisle. People grab at her skirt, but she pulls away from them, ignoring their hunger for information.

  The plane drops and rises and drops again.

  I feel the movement in my stomach.

  This is more than turbulence. This is, according to doctor, “a sudden shift in the stability of this aircraft…but nothing to be alarmed about.”

  Is he kidding?

  Our jet plane is on fire. Fire and smoke is, I assume, something I should worry about.

  Within seconds, everyone is occupying the port side of this plane, straining to see outside the windows. Doctor takes hold of my arm. “Relax,” he says. But his voice is not the steady, calm voice I remember. His voice has become broken and shaken. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he insists. This time, I do not believe him.

  I try to relax, but my heart feels as though it will explode. My chest tightens. I find it difficult to breathe.

  Why no information from the pilot?

  My stomach closes in on itself.

  Doctor leans over me, bodily. He is getting a better look, I imagine, at the failed engine with the orange and red flame spurting from its tail in the eerie haze of morning. The silence that only moments before shrouded coach class is now destroyed. Confused, meaningless voices turn into shrieks and shouts. I hold tightly to doctor. I say nothing, as if the remaining stability of this jet plane depends upon my silence.

  The NO SMOKING and the PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT indicator lights flash. A gentle chime sound repeats.

  “We’re going to die,” shouts the old woman from the center aisle.

  “Shut up,” shouts another.

  I hear the sound of a baby crying.

  “If God wanted us to fly…,” shouts a drunken man dressed in wrinkled suit with his necktie pulled far down on his chest. “Well, you know,” he says. “Parachutes. God would have had parachutes sewn into our backsides.” He’s laughing a hoarse, smoker’s laugh. He seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly.

  The flight attendant wears a false, confident smile. “Try to remain calm,” she says. “There is no danger whatsoever.”

  Is she joking?

  Other flight attendants move up and down the aisles, making sure smoking materials are extinguished and that all seatbelts are fastened. They gather food trays and drinks. I concentrate on the movements of these airline personnel and hold tightly to doctor.

  “Relax,” he mumbles like a refrain. “Relax.”

  But I am no longer sure if the person he is trying to convince is me or himself.

  The plane runs smoothly for a few moments. Then it drops and rises again. I feel the drops in altitude in my stomach. This sudden shift in stability forces the entire economy class to shriek, as if on cue. I look at doctor. He is pale. He is breathing heavily. He takes a cigarette from his chest pocket and lights it. But the illuminated sign indicates “no smoking.”

  Doctor ignores the order.

  He lights this cigarette and inhales as though this is his last cigarette. And maybe it is. But a flight attendant discovers the lit cigarette. She is on doctor within seconds, insisting all smoking material be extinguished. Doctor’s smoke is not even given the chance to rise. Doctor puts the cigarette out without an argument. He does this, I’m sure, in the interest of the other passengers. Clearly, with his white face and shaking hands, he is a bundle of raw nerves.

  “We can ride on two engines without a problem,” he says, calmly. “Maybe even one if need be.” I discover that doctor is not looking at me at all, he is looking right through me, perhaps examining the wing and the healthy engines, attempting to determine their fate. He holds to the armrests as if gravity will otherwise force him out of his seat.

  If Jamie were here to tell me we could fly on one or two engines, I would believe him. Jamie is an engineer. He understands engines and how they work or how they fail to work. For now, I have only doctor to believe. And I do not believe him when he speaks about engines. I believe him when he speaks about fear. But listen to this: I think that for all his talent as a psychiatrist, doctor is not trying to convince me with his words. I think doctor is trying to convince himself.

  The mechanics of Emergency Procedure

  The flight attendant stands at the fore of the coach-class compartment. She is smiling. She begins, without introduction, to explain emergency procedure, including the dreaded C word: crash landing.

  I am all ears.

  How this tall, dirty blonde flight attendant manages to hold our attention without panicking is a testament to her self-control and, I assume, faith in something more powerful than herself. Perhaps something mechanical.

  I envy her composure.

  While standing, she places a seat cushion into her abdomen and tells us to observe. Then, while managing to keep the pillow against her abdomen by crouching at the knees, she places both her hands over her head, as if surrendering. I know she does this to simulate the sitting position that may promise to save our lives.

  The flight attenda
nt then lifts a demonstration oxygen mask (an actual mask that has been cut away from its supply of oxygen) and places it over her mouth. She performs this demonstration with exaggerated motions so we do not miss even a single word of her instructions.

  She begins to demonstrate the emergency technique of breathing slowly and (I quote) “normally.” (“In case we’ve forgotten how to breathe,” shouts the drunken man from four seats up.)

  I try to ignore him.

  Next: the flight attendant places a yellow life preserver over her thin shoulders and instructs the economy class passengers to follow suit. Another flight attendant, a woman, hands them out to us one at a time.

  From where I am sitting, I can see the drunken man cradle his life preserver in his arms. “So we don’t drown,” he says, “when we slam into the ocean at seven hundred miles per hour. What we need are some fucking parachutes.”

  Doctor leans into my ear. “Don’t listen to him,” he says. “He’s drunk.”

  “I wish I were drunk.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” says doctor. But I know this: what doctor really means is that I am facing my fears without falling apart.

  The flight attendant describes the process of pulling a small black plug that would release the air into the demonstration life vest she wears around her shoulders. She pulls the plug and the vest begins to fill up with air. The air-filled vest now covers her entire torso. She immediately commands the passengers not to pull our black plugs unless we are specifically instructed to do so.

  But the old woman in the first row pulls the plug on her life vest. She does this, as if this will save her life before it requires saving. The entire coach-class compartment fills with the sound of rushing, whistling air filling this woman’s vest. From my seat I can see the bright yellow, canvas fabric spreading, inflating beyond the edge of her seat and into the narrow aisle. The flight attendant steps forward, attempts to stop the vest from filling. But she is too late. And the old woman and the vest are too far gone.

  I look outside and see the smoking remains of one jet engine.

  I feel my stomach.