Walker Percy - The Thanatos Syndrome

“Very good,” I say as briskly, frowning to keep from smiling. “Why don’t you call him and tell him I’ll be there.”

“Don’t you worry.” She’s already on the phone.

What Father Smith has told her and she me without knowing it is that he needs me tomorrow morning. Milton must be sick again. It’s a little code. Neither of us likes to upset Ellen. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. A Jewish girl, a visit from royalty. Gifts.

“He says fine.” She’s pleased. “I think it’s a valuable connection for you.”

“You may be right.”

In blows Mickey LaFaye, brushing past me and Ellen in the outer office without a word, headed for the sofa in the inner office.

Ellen and I exchange looks, shrugs. She’s still pleased.

Mickey’s back on the couch as she used to be, facing the window. No Duchess of Alba she now. She’s almost Christina again. She’s quite beautiful actually, but beginning to be ravaged again, thin, cheeks shadowed under her French-Indian cheekbones, but not yet too thin, not yet wholly Christina. I wonder if she has stopped eating.

“Mickey, please come over here and sit where we can see each other.”

She does.

She doesn’t mind looking at me.

“Well, Mickey?”

“I—” She breaks off, nods as if nodding could finish the sentence.

“I’m—”

“Yes.”

“I’m having an—”

“You’re having an attack.”

“Yes.”

“Of—”

“I’m — Driving over I was terrified — of killing someone.”

“Well?” Well.

Her great black eyes, as rounded as a frightened child’s, are full on me. One hand is holding the other. She is actually wringing her hands, something you seldom see.

“Are you afraid, Mickey?”

“It’s — It’s not like anything I ever had before. Something is about to happen. I dread something, but I don’t know what it is—” Her eyes fall away, unconverge, as if she saw something, someone, behind me, far away but approaching. Now she’s nodding, reassuring herself. “Now isn’t that something?”

“What?”

“My life is fine. Durel is fine. My kids are fine. My horses are fine. My painting is fine. But—” She stops, eyes coming back to me, focused, seeking out. She gives a little laugh.

“Well?” Well.

“Could I talk about it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that dream I had, about being in the cellar of my grandmother’s farmhouse in Vermont and the smell of winter apples and the stranger coming?”

“Yes.”

“Could we work on that?”

“Sure.”

“I had it again. Last night and the night before.”

“I see.” Well well.

“Did I say or did you say that perhaps the stranger might be someone trying to tell me something?”

“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter what I said. What do you think now?”

“You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think the stranger is trying to tell me something.”

“Yes?”

“I also think the stranger has something to do with the terror.”

“I see. How?”

“He is not someone to be terrified of, yet I am terrified.”

“I see.”

“Do you know who the stranger is?”

“Who do you think he is?”

“I think the stranger is part of myself.”

“I see.”

“I am trying to tell myself something. I mean a part of me I don’t really know, yet the deepest part of me, is trying to—”

“Yes?”

“Could I talk about it?”

“Yes.”

She falls silent, but her eyes are softer, livelier, are searching mine as if I were the mirror of her very self. She lets go of her hand. She almost smiles. She ducks her head and touches the nape of her neck as she used to.

“Well?” I say.

She opens her mouth to speak.

Well well well.