Miriam Toews - All My Puny Sorrows

What are you reading?

Thomas Bernhard, he said. The Loser .

Nic, I said, that’s not even funny.

I know, but I am, you asked. Oh, can you give her these? He opened his backpack and gave me a sheaf of papers. They’re e-mails from people. For Elf. Fans. Friends. Claudio sent them. Nic turned away to look out the window. We were close to the airport, following the little airplane signs, through industrial zones and windowless gentlemen’s clubs and massive potholes.

Does anybody ever fix this city? I said. Nic said nothing. We got to the airport and again thanked each other for the efforts being made to help Elf. We hugged and said goodbye, au revoir and adios. All he had was a backpack and it looked half empty. I wondered if he’d bothered to pack anything at all besides his Bernhard and his favourite Chinese authors. How many days again? I called after him. He was walking through revolving doors, trying to negotiate his way through with his pack. He held up both hands like he was under arrest. Ten.

I drove back to my mom’s place. I parked in visitor parking and went running up the stairs to her apartment. Ready to go? I asked her. Nic’s off? she said. Yup, I said, back in ten days. The driver’s door is broken but I’ll try to get it fixed this afternoon. Then I remembered the divorce papers that I’d agreed to sign that afternoon. Could the signing wait one more day, I wondered, after sixteen years of marriage?

When we got to the hospital we couldn’t find Elf. The nurse at the ICU desk said she’d been moved to the Palaveri Building, Psych 2 which was buildings away across the campus or whatever hospital grounds are called. We went down to the fifth floor to check on Auntie Tina and she was asleep but hooked up to more machines than before. She was pale, her mouth a gaping rictus of surprise. Maybe. The nurse said things weren’t looking quite as good as they had been yesterday. There were tiny letters written on her cast, notes to herself it seemed. Cancel book club. Cancel tai chi. Cancel hair appointment. She wouldn’t be going home today after all.

The nurse was wondering if Tina’s kids were on their way from Vancouver and my mom said yes, my niece is coming, and Tina’s husband, but what’s going on?

She said Tina would need to have surgery quickly, in a day or two, to ward off a massive coronary. They were getting her ready for open-heart surgery, injecting her with some type of fluid and keeping her calm, and trying to find an available surgeon to do the operation. But the nurse seemed relaxed about the whole thing. It’s like this sometimes, she said to my mom. Your sister is strong and otherwise very healthy so the operation will be very routine. She’ll probably be able to drive her van back to Vancouver after a few weeks.

We left my aunt sleeping, for the time being, and went off in search of Elf. We took an elevator to the basement and walked through yet another hospital tunnel, baffled and angry. My mother was exhausted but trying to tell me more about Honduran mines. Each step was killing her but there was no place to rest, it was just a smooth empty tunnel like the large intestine of a starving person. I walked ahead of my mom, a little frantic and looking for the door that would take us up to the Psych 2 building. I called to her and my voice echoed. Mom om om om om. She stood still in the centre of the tunnel, she was tiny, an inch tall, and put her hands on her hips. Trouble lights were strung along the ceiling of the tunnel and cast an orange glow on everything. I jogged back to her and asked her how she was doing. She nodded and smiled and took big breaths.

I didn’t tell you about how much water they’re using, she gasped. She was referring to the mining companies.

I honestly don’t know where the door is, I said. She nodded again, smiling, like a mortally injured field commander sending silent, brave messages to his men to go on without him, there was a war to fight. Like the words on Yeats’s grave at the foot of Benbulben in Sligo county: Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by . All we could do was take small, slow steps towards something that might lie ahead, like a door.

We stopped and started, waiting each time for my mom to catch her breath. Soon I stopped saying things because she’d always respond a bit too enthusiastically, valiantly, and even those outbursts of air, like volleys of ammo, were tiring her out. Finally we saw a door that said Exit on it and I pushed it open and we escaped into a stairwell. We had to take several flights up, out of the basement, to the nearest elevator that would take us to the fourth floor, to the Psych 2 ward, and to Elf.

When the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, there was Radek! His violin was strapped to his back like an underwater oxygen tank. I asked him what he was doing here and he said he’d come to see Elfrieda. I had to tell her how much her piano has meant to me, he said.

Oh, I said. I could have passed that along. But thanks.

He looked at my mom. I’m Radek, he said, and held out his hand. My mom said she was pleased to meet him and she left us there in front of the elevators. The rumour said that your sister was in the psychiatry department, he said. That it’s serious, suicide.

Who told you that? I said.

I just wanted to meet her, he said, but they told me visiting hours is over. He asked me how I was and put his hand on my shoulder.

For a second I thought you were here to find me, I said. I guess I had forgotten that you’d moved on.

Wasn’t it you who moved on? he said.

Are you planning to serenade her with your violin? I asked. I smiled hoping it would erase the cattiness, the jealousy embedded in the question.

I had only wanted to wish her well, to thank her.

I know, I said. I get it. I’ll tell her.

But how are you? he said.

I’m fine.

Are you? he said. It must not be true then.

I have to go. I’m really sorry for … you know, everything.

All of this. What I said.

Your time will come, he said.

What is that supposed to mean? I said. I had begun to walk away.

I mean your happiness, he said.

Oh, okay, it sounded more like a threat. But thanks, Radek. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry too.

I turned around and walked back to where he was and shook his hand. I know your libretto thing will be amazing.

And your boat book too. Or … rodeo?

Boat.

Ah yes, boat.

We smiled. We said goodbye.

My mom was sitting outside Elf’s room, on a chair near the nurses’ desk, mustering up her courage to be cheerful, an ambassador of hope, and catching her breath. I went in and sat down beside Elf on her bed and said hey, I’m here. There was nothing in this room but two single beds, one empty, and two small desks with small chairs. There was a small, high window with a cage on it and Jesus dying on a small cross over the door. Elf was motionless in her bed, also small, silent, her face to the wall. I put my hand on her bony hip like a lover in the night. She murmured hi but didn’t turn to look at me. Is that you, Swivelhead? she said. I told her that Nic had left for Spain that morning, although she already knew that, that mom was sitting outside catching her breath, that Aunt Tina’s condition had worsened a bit and now she needed surgery. I asked her how she was feeling. She didn’t answer. I have some fan mail for you, I said. I put the pile of papers on her empty desk. She didn’t answer.

Elf, I said, does Nic know you want to go to Switzerland? She slowly turned then to look at me and shook her head.

He wouldn’t let me, she whispered, he wouldn’t take me. Don’t tell him.

Okay, but I’m so … I don’t know what to do.

Won’t you take me? she asked. Yoli, please. She was serious. Her eyes were bullets. I shook my head, no, I’m not sure about that. What about mom? Have you told her? Elf shook her head again and took hold of my arm.