Chang-Rae Lee - A Gesture Life

IT IS THE MORNING of my leaving and who should arrive to pick me up, bouqueted with lilies, but my friend and realtor and the likely future executor of my estate, Ms. Olivia Crawford, C.R.S. She tells me someone from the hospital left a message on her machine last night, to alert her that I was to be discharged today. She is almost certain that Renny Banerjee was the caller, though of course working through a third party, some nurse or assistant with a crowingly high-pitched nasal voice.

I don’t inform Liv that it was in fact I who asked that someone to call — that someone being Nurse Dolly, who is one of those people who can seem insulted by any query whatsoever, and is thus naturally excellent at keeping secrets — not because I’m bashful for having requested her help, but because Liv herself looks deliciously intrigued by the idea that Renny Banerjee might be coming around again, perhaps finally regretting his decision to change every last one of his door locks. I don’t wish to dissuade her from this suspicion, as Renny himself, stopping in on his way home last night, all but admitted to me that he’s been driving by Liv’s office at odd hours, as well as her condominium, to check whether someone else’s car might regularly be there.

Matchmaker I’m not, and yet it gives me a shimmering, pearly gleam of joy to think of the two of them together again. Renny with his flashing, wicked grin and disarming bouts of tenderness, and Liv, of course, just being herself, a one-woman corporation and salvage crew and instant remodeling service, all in one.

“Now, Doc,” she says, setting the immense bouquet on the rolling tray at the foot of the bed. “I brought this up solely for the purpose of letting everyone know how completely recovered you are. I don’t believe in flowers only when you enter the hospital. You need even more lovely arrangements on getting out.”

“From the grand looks of that bouquet, it may seem that I am ‘getting out’ forever.”

“Doc!” she gasps, as if the idea were some awful, blaspheming joke. “You’re always making it seem that I want you gone. Really. You’re so awful these days! And cruel.”

“It’s the hospital, I think.”

“Well, it’s great timing, then, that I’ve come for you.” As she flutters about like a hotel maid, and not looking the least bit odd in her slimming Italian blazer and silk scarf with the stirrup pattern, I realize what it is about her that I have always revered. Liv Crawford is helplessly, perhaps even morbidly industrious. She has already tidied up the room and made the bed, placing my hospital gowns in the plastic hamper in the bathroom and wiping down the surfaces with the used towels. All this because it is there to do, the same way she entered the ruined family room of my house and saw what was needed and lighted up the touchpad of her cellular phone, to call forth restorative good order. She’s come with pictures of the renovations, all disarmingly, exactingly right. In a few minutes she will escort me out and drive me back swiftly to Bedley Run and show me the door to my prime vintage home, every last tint and scent of offending smoke steam-cleaned from the carpets, from the drapes, from the antiqued upholstery of the chairs, the place in showcase, immaculate, pristine and classic condition, appearing just as though I have not lived there every day for the last thirty years of my life.

And I think how strange (as well as lucky) it is that Liv Crawford is also the only person I could have called for such a task, whether I wished to or not.

“Hey, Doc, are these take-home slippers?” she now asks me, lifting a flattened baby-blue terry pair from beneath the bed.

“Whatever you think.”

“They’re sweet, in a downmarket sort of way. You can use them outside, before and after your swims.”

“Yes, I can. Dr. Weil, however, is afraid my shingles will worsen with the chemicals.”

“That’s his malpractice premium talking. He’s not a dermatologist, so what does he know?”

“Physicians must all have broad, sound training.”

“Maybe you do, Doc, but I’m not so sure about Larry Weil.”

“He’s told me he’s a graduate of the Yale Medical School.”

“So what!” Liv cries. “The man plays golf four times a week. Two handicap, or so Renny used to tell me. Now how good a doctor can he really be?”

“He’s perfectly fine,” I say, feeling as though I’ve been his only defender. The nurses have also been harsh critics, as was Renny Banerjee the other day. And yet I’ve witnessed nothing to suggest that he’s anything but a competent, knowledgeable physician. He is a good doctor, I am sure, but not what they call gung-ho, or else inspirational, in the way some are. What is obvious, unfortunately for him, is his somewhat stereotypical physician’s mien, the stiff brush of his manner, the prickly tongue, that put-out-ness that is rarely endearing in a man so young, all of which is no doubt due to his frustration (as he’s often expressed) that he works in this sleepy upcountry hospital instead of in a big-city research and teaching institution with his own lab assistants and grant writers and ambitions of scientific glory.

I remember how I was when I was his age, heady with the quiet arrogance of a newly minted officer, feeling wise and capable and in command of any contingencies. Though not a true physician, I had been fully trained in field and emergency medicine in order to aid and sustain my comrades, to save them whenever possible, fulfilling my duty for Nation and Emperor. And while I was grateful for being part of what we all considered the greater destiny and the mandate of our people, I had hoped, too, that my preparation and training would be tested and confirmed by live experiences, however difficult and horrible; and more specifically, that my truest mettle would show itself in the crucible of the battlefield, and so prove to anyone who might suspect otherwise the worthiness of raising me away from the lowly quarters of my kin and reveal the essential, inner spirit that is within us all. And yet still I have always wondered if training or rearing tells more than the simple earth and ash and blood from which we come, or whether these social inurements eventually fall away, like the moldering garments of the dead, to reveal the underlying bones.

Liv Crawford, I have a feeling, would contend that neither is the case; it is what one does, right now, in the very fact of the act, that she champions. I like to hope that this is not simply the realtor modality. And the right now for her, thank goodness, is the business of getting me home.

“Ready, Doc?”

“Yes, Liv, I think so. Liv?”

“What, Doc?”

“I want to thank you for your efforts on my behalf. I am truly grateful.”

“Don’t start like this, Doc, or you’ll get me misty.”

“But I must tell you. Dousing the fire, helping to pull me out, the house renovations. Your coming today. I could not have asked a blood relative to do any of these things.”

“The office head put me up to it,” she says lamely, trying not to look at me. “She wants the exclusive someday. She’s already written on the board that it’ll be the listing of the year.”

“But you must know that the house would be no one’s but yours to sell.”

Liv smiles, almost shyly, obviously having difficulty with self-admissions of generosity and kindness. Of course she’s known. But she too much likes — and depends on — the blustery cover of commerce.

“You know me, Doc. I never take anything for granted. Not until closing. And even then, I make sure to read everyone’s signature and date. Make sure it’s right on the line.”

“Perhaps I ought to leave it in my will, that you’re to sell my house.”