Lara Vapnyar - Still Here

No, he couldn’t be spared that. When Vica had first started working at Bing Ruskin, Christine had explained to her the necessity for the lines. Everything at Bing Ruskin was designed to make the machinery of the hospital run most efficiently. Doctors and technicians were moving swiftly from one appointment to the next, the expensive equipment was working at its full capacity. The interns worked their endless shifts. The precise number of personnel was determined by the cost efficiency. And if that meant less efficiency and longer waits for the patients, so be it. The patients were thought of not as important clients to whom you were supposed to suck up for the benefit of your business, but as faceless insignificant consumers who should be grateful for the services provided.

Vica got very angry at Christine back then. She had just started working there and she wanted to think of herself as part of a team concerned with saving lives, helping people, rather than making money off their pain. But the longer she worked at Bing Ruskin, the more she saw the truth of Christine’s words. In a couple of years, Vica started to see the hospital as a huge chemical processing plant, where the patients were treated like the chemical matter to be processed, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

What a relief it was to finally exit the hospital at her lunch break. Vica never ate her lunch in the hospital’s cafeteria; it was important for her to leave the place even if only for fifteen minutes or so. To go out onto the street, even if their block was always teeming with ambulances, people on stretchers, people in wheelchairs. This time there was an unusual commotion by the ER wing. There was a lineup of news vans and a small crowd by the entrance. She saw Tolik sitting on the stoop of his van and walked up to him. He was drinking coffee from a paper cup and munching on a meat pie. “Want a pie, little nurse?” he asked Vica. “Still warm. I got them in Brighton Beach on my last run to Brooklyn.”

“What’s all that about?” she asked, pointing to the ER wing.

“You didn’t hear? Some famous actor died this morning. It’s all over the news.”

“Who?” Vica cried.

“Ivan Grail,” Tolik said. “I think that’s his name.”

“Ethan!”

Vica took out her phone and checked her news feeds. There was the obituary.

Ethan Grail, the former TV actor who made his breakthrough in the

Legends of the Dorm

series and who evolved into the richly nuanced, award-winning

film

star, infusing his performances with deep empathy, staggering emotional power, and brilliant wit, died this morning in the emergency room of the Bing Ruskin Cancer Center, following a heroic battle with a non-small-cell lung cancer. He was thirty-two.

Vica’s hands started to shake so hard that she couldn’t finish reading. She’d seen Ethan only last week. He’d said to her “See you soon.” The doctors had given him a year and that was just a few months ago. He wasn’t ready! This wasn’t fair!

“Did you know him?” Tolik asked.

Vica nodded, unable to speak.

“I’m not a big fan of the movies myself,” Tolik said. “Natasha and the kids love that shit, but I just fall asleep right in the middle.”

Vica nodded again and started to walk away.

“Take your pie!” Tolik said.

Vica took a pie and hurried away from the hospital to the nearest coffee place. She ordered a hot tea and sat down at a corner table.

All her social media was abuzz with the news of Ethan’s death. Twitter and Facebook were bursting with stills and movie clips all featuring a handsome, lively Ethan, even as his ravaged, exhausted body was lying in the depths of Bing Ruskin’s morgue.

Vica found it insulting. But what she really hated was the speed with which some of Ethan’s fans appropriated his death. Fellow actors shared news of upcoming films featuring Ethan and themselves. Journalists jumped at the opportunity to rehash their old profiles on Ethan. Ordinary individuals dug up and posted their selfies with him. Those who didn’t have a photo to share just described their devastating sadness, all-consuming grief, and shattering despair. Come on! Vica thought. He was just an actor you saw a couple of times a year on a screen — you can’t be despairing! I actually knew him! Still, the worst was a huge portrait of a sad German shepherd with the byline: “Ethan’s costar Brunhilde mourns his death.” She wondered who had broken the news to Brunhilde. And how. Did they show her a photo of Ethan Grail and then tear it to pieces? Or did they use sign language? Vica heard that some monkeys knew how to sign, but she wasn’t so sure about dogs. If they did, they must have signed: “Guess, what, Brunhilde, your old pal Ethan just kicked the bucket.” And the dog signed back: “Fuck. This makes me sad.”

Vica felt that this absurd public outpouring stole her grief from her, cheapened it somehow, cheapened the memory of someone she might have considered a friend. She had a momentary urge to share this with Sergey. He would’ve been just as appalled at she was.

She really had to stop thinking about Sergey! He was gone. Gone, gone, gone!

Perhaps she could share this with Franc.

Vica looked at her watch — it was time to go back. She finished her meat pie, threw away her empty cup, and rushed back to Bing Ruskin.

In the elevator, everybody was discussing Ethan Grail. “Have you heard?” “Right here in the hospital!” “In this hospital? I might have seen him?” “What a loss!” “Such a talent!” “Such a handsome man!”

On the radiology floor, all the staff was talking about Ethan as well. Vica saw Santiago and Liliana by the coffee machine, both staring at their phones. Sharing the news with each other that their friends had shared on Facebook. Vica rushed past them to her room.

Eric texted her just as she was finishing with the last patient. His fat friend Gavin, whom Sergey used to call Sir Eatalot, invited him for a sleepover. Their homework was very light and there was no school the next day. “Okay,” Vica texted back, “but no junk food.” “Sure, Mom,” Eric wrote, “we’ll have a carrots ’n’ broccoli night.” She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. Her evening was suddenly free. She could spend some time with Franc. Maybe even have dinner in one of those East Village cafés near where he lived? She dialed his number. He wasn’t picking up. Perhaps he couldn’t hear the ring because of his hearing problem. She texted him. Waited for the reply. None came. She finished up at the office. Changed back into her street clothes. Poured herself some tepid coffee. Texted Franc again to see if he’d gotten her previous text. Franc hated spontaneity. He liked to arrange their dates well in advance, which made Vica a little suspicious. Made her wonder if he was seeing other women as well. Or if he wasn’t as available as he claimed to be.

Christine peeked into Vica’s room and said that Sam, a nurse from the endocrine cancers floor, was inviting everybody to her place for a makeshift Ethan Grail party. “We’ll just drink beer and watch Ethan’s comedies on Netflix.”

Getting drunk and laughing at Ethan’s antics on the very day he died?

Vica said that she had to rush home.

Soon everybody from her shift had left, but there was still no word from Franc. Vica checked her phone again. Nothing. It was stupid to hang out in the hospital waiting for him. Vica exited the building and walked toward her bus stop. The X5 bus arrived within minutes. A thin line of people formed for boarding. But what if Franc called when she was on the bus? She wouldn’t be able to get off. Vica decided to walk toward the East Village. It would take her half an hour or so. If Franc called, she would meet him; if he didn’t, she would just take the X1 bus to Staten Island, the one that stopped downtown. It was unfair that Vica worked in the city but so rarely got to enjoy it. The light had changed to that deep golden color that only came up an hour before sunset on a very bright day. The buildings were lit up as if by an invisible lamp. She had forgotten how much she loved New York, what a pleasure it was just to walk down the street, looking up, savoring the sights.