Frances Itani - Requiem

“What’s wrong, Lena? Have you seen the doctor?” Something inside me had gone still.

“I called,” she said. “I have an appointment first thing Monday, before classes.”

But the words came out slurred, and she closed her eyes and I saw what was happening, and I ran to the phone.

Emergency response was fast. Miss Carrie stood at the top of her veranda step when she saw the flashing lights, but I had no chance to speak to her. Other neighbours had come outside and were standing on the sidewalk as Lena was carried out of the house on a stretcher.

I was told which hospital she was being taken to, and followed in my car. My heart was racing; my throat was dry. I hadn’t stopped to phone Greg, or leave him a message. Everything that was happening—Lena’s faltering attempts to speak, Basil’s frantic barking, the solemn faces of neighbours as I pulled away from the house, the streets through which I drove, which suddenly seemed hostile and unfamiliar—everything was telescoped, as if each part of the emergency had conspired to occupy less space and less time than real space and real time. The ambulance left me far behind and Lena was already in Emergency by the time I parked my car and ran to the entrance.

It took me a few minutes to find her, to find out which curtain she was behind, and another few minutes before I was permitted behind the curtain with her. The doctors on duty were blunt. From the Emergency Room, I phoned Greg and told him to come home at once.

A bleak smile from her hospital bed. A grim one from me, in response. Bleak information delivered and received. She moved her left hand, gestured towards her body beneath the covers. There was an IV hooked up to her arm.

“Look at me. I’m pulled down in a heap. Like one of your fractured and broken smalls.”

But I wasn’t protecting her now. I hadn’t kept her safe.

She had difficulty speaking. “I have so much to give up,” she said. Tears running now, unchecked. “You and Greg.”

“He’s on his way,” I said. “He’s coming. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“He’ll carry on doing what he’s already begun,” she said. “He loves his life.”

I leaned my forehead into the sheets, felt the ridge at the edge of the mattress. Closed my eyes. I wanted to banish the encompassing gloom.

“Don’t give up hope, Lena. Please don’t,” I said.

I felt her drifting.

She brought herself back. But her look was so distant, any bit of hope I’d had now drained away.

Her condition changed quickly. There was no time to think of what more to say or not say. A word once uttered is beyond the reach of four galloping horses , Okuma-san had always told me. But I had no words to utter that could save her.

In the morning, I went home to feed Basil, to change clothes, to speak with Miss Carrie and to pick up Greg at the airport. Lena was now in Intensive Care. Miss Carrie immediately took a taxi to the hospital and said she would stay on the unit until Greg and I arrived. At home, Basil had taken up position at the top of the stairs, his head over the top step. He was keeping watch over the front door below, and he was upset. He hadn’t kept his pack together. His disintegrating pack. I knew how that felt.

While I was collecting the few items I needed to take back to the hospital, Basil began to drag his mattress again. It seemed that no matter which direction I looked, he was crossing a room or passing through a doorway, the mattress in his teeth.

Before I left for the airport, I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and looked at a framed photo of Lena on the dresser. I stared, but what I was seeing was fragmentation. Because of the lighting at the time the photo had been taken, only half of her face was visible, the left. It was obvious that she was ready to explode in laughter. How could I tell, from her left eye, from the shadow of her lip, from the vertical line of her nose to her darkened chin?

I could. I just could. I removed the photo from the frame and stored it. The Lena I had left at the hospital had no laughter, no smile. And I wanted her refocused; I wanted to make her whole.

When Greg and I returned from hospital that night, after Lena had become unconscious and had not reawakened, after she had died of a massive stroke, we saw the lights on at Miss Carrie’s and we went there first, to tell her. The three of us stood inside Miss Carrie’s front entrance, next to the hellhole, and held one another, and wept for what we could scarcely believe, wept for what each of us had so suddenly lost.

Greg and I let ourselves into our own home. When we turned on the lights, we saw that Basil had methodically ripped every bit of his mattress to shreds. Pieces of white wadding were scattered in every room over the entire main floor.

K eep river as your focus , Lena always told me.

And there it is. The deep canyon, the great Fraser River on my left, teeming with its own life, cutting its way through mountain, rock, soil, eroding as it flows.

I’ve decided to take a long route from Kamloops, and I approach from the south. The highway has been narrow and winding, hugging the side of the mountain for miles. Warnings of rock slides have been posted along the way, and I grip the wheel and glance up, wondering if I’d be able to shoot ahead, even if I had warning. It’s easy to imagine tons of loose boulders up there, hanging by threads.

I have been listening to what Okuma-san described as the last masterpiece written by Beethoven, the last string quartet, op. 135, the one Beethoven finished the year before he died. I chose its fourth movement to be performed at Okuma-san’s funeral, and now, it is perfect for this day, the notes floating to the highest peaks. I left this valley fifty-one years ago on a bus with Okuma-san, and now, I listen to the music he loved. There is a delicacy to this quartet, a reminder of contrasts, of opposites, the more so while I’m surrounded by the majesty of the mountains. Everything comes together. Perhaps everything Beethoven knew. Maybe he had some grand vision of humanity. Muss es sein? he asked. Must it be? And he answered his own question. Es muss sein . It must be.

IN THE LATE SUMMER of 1967, I was about to move to London, England, on a scholarship. I had finished a degree in fine arts several years earlier and had been living in a small apartment in downtown Montreal. I was painting, and sharing the apartment with an artist named Peter. We had become friends, and we both had part-time jobs. I worked at an antiquarian bookstore west of Atwater during the day, and attended classes at the Museum of Fine Arts in the evenings. Peter worked for a private gallery on Sherbrooke Street and attended the same classes. Each of us had submitted a painting to the jury for the museum’s spring exhibition, and we were ecstatic to learn that our work had been selected. It was the final exhibition of that type, and it was my first painting to be accepted for a large exhibit. It was also the year of Expo 67, when the world came to Montreal. Every chance I had, I took the Metro to the Expo site and visited the gallery, the outdoor works by Giacometti and Henry Moore, the photography exhibit, the many splendid pavilions. Everything seemed possible that year.

In August, I travelled by train to Ottawa to spend a week with Okuma-san before departing for London. He had made a life for himself in Ottawa. It was a quiet place, and it suited him. Although he had retired from teaching two years earlier, he had remained active in the music world. He had bought a piano and he played for himself, but not publicly. The pain in his left hand had worsened over the years and he suffered from arthritis. But he listened to music constantly and he had become known as a Beethoven expert. He gave talks and lectures and wrote program notes and published a number of important papers. I had met most of his friends. They attended concerts together and performed, and some were members of the church Okuma-san attended in the west end of the city.