Permanence Page 9

  Doctor lets the water sit on the table without drinking it. I am thinking about how unusual—how utterly frightening—it is for a doctor to be choking on liquid, not once but twice.

  I think about the weight doctor seems to be losing and the constant cigarette smoking. I see the reflection of the overhead lights in his glasses and his distant eyes. Clearly, something is happening with doctor—something he feels he cannot tell me.

  “I have to be careful not to drink too fast,” he says. “I have to make sure everything goes down the right pipe.” He is sucking on his cigarette, avoiding the stares of the people eating their evening meal in this trattoria in romantic Venice.

  “Life seems very delicate lately,” I add, reaching across the table for one of doctor’s cigarettes. I know I am pregnant and that smoking might affect the child. But I swear, I cannot allow this pregnancy to last.

  “Life…delicate…lately?” comments doctor with a hoarse laugh. “You must be joking.”

  In a place we’ve never been

  I hold to doctor with my life.

  I close my arms around him in bed inside the room we’ve rented above the Grand Canal. We are together in a place we’ve never been and in a way we’ve never been. We have been lovers for months, but now there are no bright, ceiling-mounted lights overhead, no cold leather from the patient’s couch adhering to my back, no mechanical sounds of Albany’s rush-hour traffic going past.

  Listen: in romantic Venice, doctor takes his time.

  There is nothing but the darkness and the intermittent soft yellow lights that come from outside and flash through our room. I listen to the sound of water splashing against the boats and the gondolas that pass beneath us. There are the voices that sing not to doctor and me, but I will make them our own anyway. The voices are soft and distant but can be heard above the accordion music.

  I am not really showing yet, so doctor does not suspect anything about my pregnancy. Or perhaps I am just fooling myself.

  Our underwear and clothing lay in a heap on the floor. When doctor leans over me, separating his body from my own, supporting himself above me with outstretched arms, his eyes wide without his glasses, he trembles as though suddenly deprived of the strength necessary to carry things through. And, I fear, he is. But I feel doctor over me, against me. I take hold of doctor and help him enter me. And together we begin the familiar motion.

  Then doctor says, “I love you, Mary Kismet,” the way I do not expect.

  Here’s what I do: I stop all movement. I make my body rigid. I push doctor off me. This happens not by choice, but by instinct. My actions take little effort, because doctor will not resist. Doctor responds as he should.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” he says, leaning one arm against the mattress. “I’m sorry.”

  I say nothing. I’ve known for a long time now that doctor loves me. After all, why would he invite me to accompany him to Venice? It’s just that doctor has never confirmed his love by saying it. Suspecting love and then hearing it from doctor are two different things.

  “Mary, listen,” he says.

  I jump out of bed. I run into the bathroom, turn on the bright overhead lights. I slam the door closed. I sit at the edge of the bathtub. I run the water in the tub, let it flow into the basin. I listen to the sound of running water. I stare into it. I am consumed with the memory of Jamie and baby. I see their faces in my mind, as if they never left me.

  There is a knock on the bathroom door.

  “Mary,” says the voice. “Mary, I’m sorry. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have spoken about love.”

  I say nothing. I do nothing.

  The water flows into the tub.

  Listen: I’m not afraid of doctor’s love. I’m afraid of my own love. I’m afraid that I will begin to love doctor as much as he loves me. I’m afraid that my love will overpower my need for doctor, and that by loving him, I will forget about baby and Jamie. I’m afraid I will decide to keep doctor’s child, a child that might take the place of baby—the two-year-old toddler Jamie and I lost. Listen: I will never forget about baby. The memory of baby will be with me forever, just like the memory of my mother and my father.

  I stare into the water.

  I run my hand through it.

  “Mary,” doctor repeats. But I try not to listen. I listen instead to the sound of water as it fills the basin.

  In the morning

  In the morning, doctor treats me as though he does not love me at all.

  We remain polite, but distant. We remain silent. Doctor is in a rush. He does not want to be late for his morning conference which, he claims, begins in a half-hour.

  We dress ourselves separately inside the bathroom. I am suddenly embarrassed to be naked in front of doctor in the gray daylight of Venice. And while he showers and dresses, I sit with my knees pressed up against the railing of the balcony with the windows wide open and the breeze blowing steady and cool against my face.

  I drink cappuccino and listen to the voices of the gondoliers and the sound of the water slapping against the boats.

  When doctor enters the room I turn to look at him. He is dressed only in his pants; his hair is wet, combed back flat and neatly against his scalp. His chest is visibly sunken, his arms are like twigs. He is smoking a cigarette, already. He sits at the edge of the bed and tries to catch his breath. I am suddenly reminded of his choking at the trattoria the night before. I am reminded of his choking back home in his office. I feel my stomach, but this is not from doctor’s baby. This is from worry.

  I stand up from the seat and sit by his side on the bed.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Doctor looks at me.

  “Let’s go to a cafe today and just drink,” he says. “When I get back from my conference.”

  “You’re getting far too thin. You haven’t been eating anything.”

  “We’ll eat pizza in the cafe and drink beer. I’ll get fat for you.”

  “I’m worried.”

  Doctor turns to me, forces a smile that seems genuine.

  “Worried?” he asks. “Really worried?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And this worry you claim you have for me is not a sign of love…even an inkling?”

  I sit and stare at him for a moment. I don’t know what to say. I am confused between need and love, love and need. I want doctor more than he knows. My God, I came to Venice with him.

  “Worried,” I say. “That’s all, just worried.” And with that I kiss doctor softly.

  Close your eyes, and remember

  “Close your eyes,” says doctor. “What do you see? What do you feel?”

  What I see is simple. I see nothing.

  But what I feel is not so simple. I feel empty. This is from the loss of baby and Jamie. This is the loss that seems more like a loss since coming to Venice with doctor, since learning about his love for me and the growing feelings I have for him.

  I open my eyes.

  Children shout and run through the rain and around the fountain in the center of the square. A man in a gray suit drapes a trench coat over his head and darts through the square in the rain. He runs past the children, soaking now in their clothing and standing in the empty basin of the fountain. The man disappears into an alleyway. The children laugh in the rain coming down now in sheets.

  Doctor and I sit across from one another at this outdoor cafe with the rain drumming against the canvas canopy above us. This is only moments after doctor has finished with his conference—the once a day conference he leaves our hotel room for first thing in the morning, every morning, since our arrival in Venice, days ago. These are the conferences doctor will not allow me to attend. The boredom, he says, would be overwhelming. So I do not argue with doctor about attending.

  Now we occupy this small outdoor cafe with the rain misting in our faces. I drink Chianti and rest an open hand against my stomach beneath the table. Doctor drinks his beer, taking tiny sips and occasionally touching his th
roat with his fingertips.

  “Hold my hands,” he tells me. He reaches for my hands from across the table. I take his hands into my own and feel his warmth along with the cool, moist feel of the metal table.

  “Close your eyes and remember. Remember everything that happened to you, to Jamie and to baby, as if it occurred moments ago. I want you to remember now so that later, you can forget.”

  I close my eyes. I feel my chest tighten, the walls of my stomach collapse in on itself. The rain suddenly picks up and begins to come down heavier against the canopy. I hear the water running between the cobblestones and streaming into a basin not far away from this table. Even the children who were playing in the empty fountain have run off.

  I open my eyes.

  “Let it go,” insists doctor.

  I close my eyes. In the darkness of my memory I see all of it as it happened, the way I have never forgotten. There were just seven or eight inches of water in the bathtub. I see baby laughing a tight, crumpled-up laugh, playing with the water that came from the spout with his hands, twisting and turning them inside the steady downpour.

  I see myself turning my back to baby for only a moment. I see myself stepping out of the bathroom. Then, quite suddenly, I am back inside the bathroom. I see the tub filling with water, the sight of baby beneath the water, not moving, floating face down, lifeless. I see the water spilling over the basin and onto the ceramic tile floor.

  I squeeze doctor’s hands, feel my fingernails dig into his flesh.

  “Listen!” I shout, “what happened to baby should not have happened at all.”

  Doctor will not release my hands. He is staring into me, the wetness from the rain against my face, against doctor’s face. Doctor pierces my heart, my soul. He is hypnotic. What I tell him now I have never told anyone. Not like this. Not in detail.

  “Baby was not a baby at all,” I say. “He was two years old. Baby was old enough to sit up on his own in the bath. I had a cigarette burning in the kitchen. I left baby alone in his bath and took some time for one, maybe two puffs. No more. Maybe more. But I’m not sure. All it took was one fragile moment and it was all over. I mean it was all over. It was at that moment that baby must have hit his head and gone under.”

  “Let it all out,” insists doctor, holding so tightly to my hands they are beginning to hurt.

  “I stood inside the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. The kitchen was directly across from the bath and baby’s nursery. So I could hear baby. But the warning that came from baby going under was not the kind of warning you might expect. There were no sounds of flailing arms or kicking feet; no yelling, no screaming. There was only the downpour noise of water filling the tub. And baby? My God, when I stepped inside the bathroom, I saw baby floating face down in the water.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I screamed, naturally. My feet wouldn’t move. I was paralyzed. Jamie came rushing in from the living room. He stood there in the doorway. I bent over and lifted baby from the tub. The water was still running, filling the basin. Baby’s arms and body were limp, lips purple, his skin pale. I cradled him like a newborn. I tucked his head between my neck and chest. I held him there, tightly. I thought I could bring baby back just by holding him.”

  “Did you know then?”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “How did you know?”

  “There was no movement, no breathing. Just nothing. And believe me, a mother knows.”

  “Yes. A mother would know.”

  “Bath water covered baby’s body and soaked into my clothing. Jamie just stood inside the doorway. He seemed to have no idea about baby. He seemed startled. When I screamed, I woke Jamie from a sound sleep. Listen: Jamie was smiling at the natural sight of me holding my baby. Everything must have looked as it should have looked.”

  “But nothing was the same.”

  “I screamed again. I held baby out for Jamie to sec, to feel. ‘Baby’s not breathing!’ I screamed. Jamie’s smile dissolved, naturally. He stood there, frozen. He said nothing. He seemed paralyzed, until he staggered forward and caught himself against the sink.”

  “And the bath water…the bath water was still running?”

  “The bath was overflowing, the water running over the sides of the basin. Jamie ran out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I followed him with baby inside my arms. Jamie lifted the telephone receiver. His hands were shaking, trembling. I watched him dial 911, Emergency. He was silent, but breathing heavily.”

  “At least Jamie was doing something.”

  “I waited until I knew that the operator had come on the phone. Jamie tried to speak, but he couldn’t. Until he said, ‘Ambulance. I need an ambulance.’ Then he went silent again. It was only a moment or two later that I realized Jamie couldn’t remember our home address.”

  Like a mother

  Doctor and I sit in silence.

  The heavy rain is now reduced to a cool mist. Doctor releases my hands. I touch my fingers to my wrists as though my hands have been severed and reattached. I still feel the presence of doctor’s grip. I make circular movements about my wrists with my fingers. Now doctor leans back in his chair. His eyes are back to normal. His eyes are no longer the hypnotizing eyes. They are eyes that have become somehow saddened. Doctor is looking at me.

  “How do you feel?” he begs. “How do you feel right now?” He takes a small sip of beer and wipes his mouth. I take a deep drink of my wine. I feel as light as a feather. I am no longer crying, my tears having dried on my face.

  But I ignore doctor’s question. Because I don’t know how to feel or how I am supposed to feel now that I have let go of baby’s story.

  So here’s what I do: I lift my wine glass above the table to make a toast. This gesture is not for the remembrance of baby. This gesture is for doctor. A congratulations for forcing baby’s story out of me.

  “Never more,” I say. But I’m not sure doctor understands. I’m not sure I understand. I smile, but of course, doctor will not smile. He lifts his glass, half-full with beer, and tips it against mine. The glasses clink.

  “Never more,” I repeat as we bring our glasses to our lips.

  And then it happens again: when doctor drinks, his eyes widen, nearly roll back inside his head. He makes a small choking cough and beer runs over his lips and onto his chin. Doctor quickly places the glass of beer back down on the metal table. He holds to his throat with his hand.

  I raise myself from my seat, poised to save doctor.

  But this time, he does not choke.

  Doctor catches himself before the choking begins.

  I go to doctor anyway. I slap him once, twice, on the back. But doctor raises his head while placing his fist over his mouth, squelching a cough.

  “I’m fine,” he says, quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  But I know this is a lie.

  “You were about to choke again,” I say, stepping away from doctor and returning to my seat.

  Doctor retrieves a cigarette from the pack in his chest pocket and lights it. Naturally. The smoke rises up to the canopy above us.

  “You don’t have to fuss over me,” he says, but he is only trying to divert my attention from the problem he is clearly fighting.

  I feel my stomach and doctor’s baby. I feel rainwater misting against my face.

  I see the sight of baby being rushed down the concrete stairs of my apartment building in the arms of a paramedic. I see the water from the bathtub that had soaked through the bathroom floor and stained the plaster walls of the stairwell.

  “There I go again,” I say, sitting far back in my chair and taking one last sip of the Chianti.

  “What do you mean?” asks doctor, his voice scratchy, his voice forced and raw. He is taking small, careful drags of his cigarette.

  “Acting like a mother,” I say.

  “Well, you know what they say.”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  “Well,” says doctor, coughing, his voice
returning to normal. “Once a mother, always a mother.”

  Doctor offers me an unusual smile that screams, Bad choice of words.

  Here’s what I do: I raise my empty wine glass far above the table. Doctor just sits there frowning. “Well,” I say. “One last toast.” Doctor chooses silence.

  “Come on,” I say. “Join in.” I am on the verge of shouting now.

  “No,” says doctor, “don’t do this.”

  “But I want to. I have to.”

  “Please, Mary, stop it.”

  “Here’s to motherhood!” I shout, allowing the empty wine glass to slip away from my hand so that it shatters against the cobblestones. “Never more!” I scream. “Do you understand me?”

  Doctor just sits there, stunned.

  “Never…fucking…more.”

  Mind and soul

  Doctor and I spend the rest of the afternoon at the outdoor cafe, drinking and smoking. It isn’t long before I begin to forget about the baby I am carrying for doctor. And through this uneasy time, doctor does something that is so unlike him: he tries to make me laugh. He attempts to force a smile onto my face. But I am not smiling any more than I am laughing.

  “Try not to be so serious,” he says. “My God, now that you are releasing the tragic memories of baby, try to concentrate on the happy side of life.” He lifts his glass above the table.

  I glance down at the glass that has shattered at the cobblestones.

  “Happy times,” doctor continues, “like having a drink at an outdoor cafe in lovely Venice.”

  Doctor frowns again, as though for him, holding onto a smile is a supreme effort.

  “Your face,” he says.

  “How’s that?” I ask, before sipping from a new glass of Chianti.

  “Your forehead wrinkles when you become serious,” says doctor, issuing a short laugh.

  “Oh,” I say, remembering my father. “I know.”

  “But I like it,” says doctor. “It makes your deep almond eyes even deeper. Even more attractive.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “And you’re beautiful, Mary Kismet.”

  “You’re embarrassing me,” I say, my face feeling blood warm and yet wet from the rain. I pull back my hair with my hands.