All My Puny Sorrows (23 page)

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.

Yolandi, she said, listen to me. Listen very carefully, okay? Mom and Nic can’t know. They wouldn’t let me go. Nic still believes in some kind of medicine that will cure me and mom believes in … I don’t know what exactly, maybe God, or odds, I don’t know, but she’ll never give up. I’m begging you, Yoli, you’re the only one who understands. Don’t you?

Do you mean we would sneak off to Zurich? I asked. Just the two of us? That would never work.

Why not?

Because doctors there have to determine that you’re sane!

I
am
sane, she said. So you’ve checked it out already?

I googled it.

And it makes sense, right? said Elf.

I don’t know about that, I said. I couldn’t look at her. Her eyes were huge. Her nails were hurting me.

Yoli, she said. I’m afraid to die alone.

Well what about not dying at all? I said.

Yoli, she said. I feel like I’m begging for my life.

Okay but Nic would obviously notice within five minutes that you were gone and he’d find you, he’d figure it out somehow, some kind of paper trail and then he’d hate me and mom would have a heart attack and it probably wouldn’t even work out. It’s just so improbable, Elf, it’s ridiculous. You can’t just sneak off to freaking Zurich in the night. It’s not like a neighbour’s backyard pool—

Yoli, if you love—

I DO love you! God!

I heard our mother speaking in her calm but lethal voice outside Elf’s door. She was telling the nurse that Elf hadn’t seen a doctor in days. The nurse told my mom the doctor was very
busy. My mom told the nurse what she had told me the night before, that Elf was a human being. The nurse wasn’t Janice. My mom was asking where Janice was. The nurse who was not Janice was telling my mom that she agreed with her, Elf was a human being, but that she was also a patient in the hospital and was expected to co-operate. Why? asked my mother. What does co-operation have to do with her getting well? Is co-operation even a symptom of mental health or just something you need from the patients to be able to control every last damn person here with medication and browbeating? She’ll eat when she feels like eating. Like you, like me, not when we’re told to eat. And if she doesn’t want to talk, so what? My daughter is more intelligent than the entire psychiatric staff put—

Mom! I said. Come in here. My mom came into the room and the nurse escaped to her post.

Sweetheart, my mom said, and kissed Elf on the brow. Elf smiled and said hi and asked her if she was okay and said she was shocked to hear about Auntie Tina needing surgery.

Oh I’m absolutely fine, said my mom. And Tina will be okay. I had the exact same surgery, remember? After that safari? How are you? Elf shrugged and looked around the shitty room in a type of awe like it was one of the great cathedrals of Europe.

How does the poem go again? I asked my mom.

What? she said. What poem?

That Ezra Pound poem. Your favourite one.

Oh! “In a Station of the Metro”?

Yeah, that’s it, I said. What is it about it that you like so much? I don’t know, said my mom. It’s short. She laughed. Why do you ask?

I don’t know, I said, no reason. I was just curious. I have to sign my divorce papers this afternoon.

The Vegas wedding was legit? said Elf. She turned to our mother. You know about Pound’s fascist leanings, don’t you, mom?

Honey, the nurses want you to eat a little something, said my mom. I didn’t know he was a fascist!

How are the kids? my sister asked.

My mother looked at me.

Good, I think, I said. Will’s occupying some politician’s office today in Toronto protesting a crime bill or something like that and you can watch a live feed of it online. He’s staying with Nora.

What do you mean? asked my mom.

You can watch it while it’s happening, I said. On your computer.

Good grief, said my mom. What channel?

Elf smiled faintly and said to say hi to him and Nora. She asked what had been happening the last time I checked out the live feed of his protest. Honey, is this a hard day for you? asked my mom. We both looked at her. They were batting balloons around and some of them were lying in sleeping bags, I said. The cops came and then left again so who knows. Will said they’ll leave if the cops ask them to. What crime bill? asked my mom. Having to do with prisons and policing, I said. He’s an anarchist now.

Will is? said my mom. Oh no!

No, no, I’m kidding, I said, unsure if I was or wasn’t. I had forgotten about my mother’s Russian association with murderous anarchists. She excused herself to use the bathroom and I whispered to Elf just let me think, okay? And you think too, like really think.

Yo, I have thought, said Elf. That’s all I’ve been doing. Is it not obvious?

I know, I said, but can’t you just think about it a bit longer? Or then stop thinking and start just observing things around you. I can’t do it without Nic being there, definitely not—plus this is so crazy. It’s not—

Why not? said Elf. I’m not his child. I can go with or without his permission. Obviously I want him to be there with us but he would never let it happen. We could go now while he’s away.

No way.

What do you mean just observing? It’s impossible not to have thoughts. Even if they’re superficial that doesn’t mean there isn’t some form of brain activity—

I know, I said, but don’t you want him to—

Hey why don’t I get some lunch from the cafeteria and bring it here, said my mom. We hadn’t noticed she was back from the washroom. We can have lunch in here, the three of us! And I’ll check on Tina on my way back.

They won’t let you, said Elf. I’m supposed to go to the cafeteria at mealtimes.

I’ll hide it, said my mom. I’ll smuggle it in.

Let me go, I said. You can barely breathe. They’ll end up admitting you too. And I have a backpack for stashing the food.

A nurse came in with an enormous bouquet of flowers. These came for you just now, said the nurse. Aren’t they beautiful?

Oh, they are! said my mother. Wow! I nodded and smiled and leaned over to smell them.

From Joanna and Ekko. Is Ekko her husband or something? I asked. Elf nodded. The nurse said she’d try to find a vase big
enough for the flowers. I thanked her profusely. I was trying to get her to approve of at least one of our miscreant members.

Well these are a lovely addition to the room, don’t you think, Elf, said my mom. How thoughtful of them!

Look at these blue ones, I said. How do you get blue flowers?

Honey, said my mom. Blue flowers do exist in nature. They’re symbols of something, I think. In poetry.

Oh really? I said.

Of inspiration, maybe, or of the infinite, said my mother. Die blaue blume.

Can you take them out? said Elf. Can you take them away?

I flew into my aunt’s room, said hi, ta-dah! I put the giant bouquet onto her bedside table and she laughed. My goodness! How delightful! she said. They’re from Elf, I said.

I told her I was sorry about the latest developments, that Elf and my mom and I were going to have a quick lunch and then my mom and I would both come back here, to her ward, and visit properly. She waved off any urgency, meh, relax, if your mother can do it I can do it, and laughed again. She was talking about the surgery. She held up her arm, the one with the plaster cast, and said it was really bugging her. Did I want to write something on it? I wrote
I love you, Auntie Tina!
She looked at it and told me she loved me too. She asked me to get her a pen or a stir stick or something that she could stick into her cast so she could scratch her arm. It was driving her nuts. What are these numbers? I asked her. She told me she had written down Sheila’s and Esther’s cellphone numbers on her cast. Sheila and Esther were her daughters, my cousins. They were older
than me and Leni, their sister who died, and often babysat us by giving us giant bags of red Twizzlers as hush money and sneaking out with their boyfriends. Leni and I would wait for them to leave and then go out and wander around town by ourselves until we’d eaten all the Twizzlers and the bedtime siren had gone off at the fire hall. Tina asked me to bring her a Starbucks coffee—but don’t tell the nurses. Just sneak it in. Small black. I told her I was a mule already, no problem, she could count on me.

I went over to the nurses’ desk and asked if they knew when she’d have her surgery. Tomorrow morning at six, they told me. With Dr. Kevorkian. At least that’s what it sounded like to me. I went back to my aunt’s bed. So, tomorrow! I said. I sounded hysterical to myself.

Yup, said my aunt. Going under the knife. They’ve been drawing on my body, mapping it all out. Cut along the dotted line. What a hoot.

I asked her about my cousins, her kids, were they both coming.

Sheila called, she said, and she and Frank are getting here this afternoon.

I quickly e-mailed Sheila from my BlackBerry and told her to send me her flight info and I’d pick them up at the airport. Frank was my uncle, Tina’s stalwart and jokey husband. He could barely walk from diabetes but he was game to travel here to be by Tina’s side. I kissed my aunt and she held me tightly, incredible strength for a pre-op heart patient, and looked me in the eye. Yolandi, she said, give my love to Elfrieda. Tell her I love her and tell her that I know she loves me too. She needs to hear that.