 I've been doing for Alba..."I cast my eyes around the party,
looking for Henry. Gomez is showing Sharon how to rumba in the living room.
Everyone seems to be having a good time, but Henry is nowhere in sight. I
haven't seen him for at least forty-five minutes, and I feel a strong urge to find
him, make sure he's okay, make sure he's here. "Excuse me," I tell Kendrick, who
looks like he wants to continue the conversation. "Another time. When it's
quieter." He nods. Nancy Kendrick appears with Colin in tow, making the topic
impossible anyway. They launch into a spirited discussion of ice hockey, and I
escape.
(9:48 p.m.)
Henry: It has become very warm in the house, and I need to cool off, so I am
sitting on the enclosed front porch. I can hear people talking in the living room.
The snow is falling thick and fast now, covering all the cars and bushes, softening
their hard lines and deadening the sound of traffic. It's a beautiful night. I open
the door between the porch and the living room.
"Hey, Gomez."
He comes trotting over and sticks his head through the doorway. "Yeah?"
"Let's go outside."
"It's fucking cold out there."
"Come on, you soft elderly alderman."
Something in my tone does the trick. "All right, all right. Just a minute." He
disappears and comes back after a few minutes wearing his coat and carrying
mine. As I'm angling into it he offers me his hip flask.
"Oh, no thanks."
"Vodka. Puts hair on your chest."
"Clashes with opiates."
"Oh, right. How quickly we forget." Gomez wheels me through the living
room. At the top of the stairs he lifts me out of the chair and I am riding on his
back like a child, like a monkey, and we are out the front door and out of doors
and the cold air is like an exoskeleton. I can smell the liquor in Gomez's sweat.
Somewhere out there behind the sodium vapor Chicago glare there are stars.
"Comrade."
"Umm?"
"Thanks for everything. You've been the best-" I can't see his face, but I can
feel Gomez stiffen beneath all the layers of clothing.
"What are you saying?"
"My own personal fat lady is singing, Gomez. Time's up. Game over."
"When?"
"Soon."
"How soon?"
"I don't know," I lie. Very, very soon. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you-I
know I've been a pain in the ass every now and then," (Gomez laughs) "but it's
been great" (I pause, because I am on the verge of tears) "it's been really great"
(and we stand there, inarticulate American male creatures that we are, our breath
freezing in clouds before us, all the possible words left unspoken now) and
finally I say, "Let's go in," and we do. As Gomez gently replaces me in the
wheelchair he embraces me for a moment, and then walks heavily away without
looking back.
(10:15 p.m.)
Clare: Henry isn't in the living room, which is filled with a small but determined
group of people trying to dance, in a variety of unlikely ways, to the Squirrel Nut
Zippers. Charisse and Matt are doing something that looks like the cha-cha, and
Roberto is dancing with considerable flair with Kimy, who moves delicately but
steadfastly in a kind of fox trot. Gomez has abandoned Sharon for Catherine, who
whoops as he spins her and laughs when he stops dancing to light a cigarette.
Henry isn't in the kitchen, which has been taken over by Raoul and James and
Lourdes and the rest of my artist friends. They are regaling each other with
stories of terrible things art dealers have done to artists, and vice versa. Lourdes
is telling the one about Ed Kienholtz making a kinetic sculpture that drilled a big
hole in his dealer's expensive desk. They all laugh sadistically. I shake my finger
at them. "Don't let Leah hear you," I tease. "Where's Leah?" cries James. "I bet she
has some great stories-" He goes off in search of my dealer, who is drinking
cognac with Mark on the stairs.
Ben is making himself tea. He has a Ziplock baggie with all sorts of foul herbs
in it, which he measures carefully into a tea strainer and dunks into a mug of
steaming water. "Have you seen Henry?" I ask him.
"Yeah, I was just talking to him. He's on the front porch." Ben peers at me.
"I'm kind of worried about him. He seems very sad. He seemed-" Ben stops,
makes a gesture with his hand that means I might be wrong about this "he reminded
me of some patients I have, when they don't expect to be around much longer...."
My stomach tightens.
"He's been very depressed since his feet..."
"I know. But he was talking like he was getting on a train that was leaving
momentarily, you know, he told me-" Ben lowers his voice, which is always very
quiet, so that I can barely hear him: "he told me he loved me, and thanked me.. .I
mean, people, guys don't say that kind of thing if they expect to be around, you
know?" Ben's eyes are swimming behind his glasses, and I put my arms around
him, and we stand like that for a minute, my arms encasing Ben's wasted frame.
Around us people are chattering, ignoring us. "I don't want to outlive anybody"
Ben says. "Jesus. After drinking this awful stuff and just generally being a bloody
martyr for fifteen years I think I've earned the right to have everybody I know file
past my casket and say, 'He died with his boots on.' Or something like that. I'm
counting on Henry to be there quoting Donne, ' Death, be not proud, you stupid
motherfucker.' It'll be beautiful."
I laugh. "Well, if Henry can't make it, I'll come. I do a mean imitation of
Henry." I raise one eyebrow, lift my chin, lower my voice: " 'One short sleep past,
we wake eternally, And Death shall be sitting in the kitchen in his underwear at three in the
morning, doing last week's crossword puzzle-'" Ben cracks up. I kiss his pale smooth
cheek and move on.
Henry is sitting by himself on the front porch, in the dark, watching it snow.
I've hardly glanced out the window all day, and now I realize that it's been
snowing steadily for hours. Snowplows are rattling down Lincoln Avenue, and
our neighbors are out shoveling their walks. Although the porch is enclosed it's
still cold out here.
"Come inside," I say. I am standing beside him, watching a dog bounding in
the snow across the street. Henry puts his arm around my waist and leans his
head on my hip.
"I wish we could just stop time now," he says. I'm running my fingers through
his hair. It's stiffer and thicker than it used to be, before it went gray.
"Clare," he says.
"Henry."
"It's time..." He stops.
"What?"
"It's...I'm...."
"My God." I sit down on the divan, facing Henry. "But-don't. Just- stay." I
squeeze his hands tightly.
"It has already happened. Here, let me sit next to you." He swings himself out
of his chair and onto the divan. We lie back on the cold cloth. I am shivering in
my thin dress. In the house people are laughing and dancing. Henry puts his arm
around me, warming me.
"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me invite all these people?" I don't
want to be angry, but I am.
"I don't want you to be alone...after. And I wanted to say goodbye to
everyone. It's been good, it was a good last hurrah..." We lie there silently for a
while. The snow falls, silently.
"What time is it?"
I check my watch. "A little after eleven." Oh, God. Henry grabs a blanket from
the other chair, and we wrap it around each other. I can't believe this. I knew that
it was coming, soon, had to come sooner or later, but here it is, and we are just
lying here, waiting-
"Oh, why can't we do something!" I whisper into Henry's neck.
"Clare-" Henry's arms are wrapped around me. I close my eyes,
"Stop it. Refuse to let it happen. Change it,"
"Oh, Clare." Henry's voice is soft and I look up at him, and his eyes shine with
tears in the light reflected by the snow. I lay my cheek against Henry's shoulder.
He strokes my hair. We stay like this for a long time. Henry is sweating. I put my
hand on his face and he's burning up with fever.
"What time is it?"
"Almost midnight."
"I'm scared." I twine my arms through his, wrap my legs around his. It's
impossible to believe that Henry, so solid, my lover, this real body, which I am
holding pressed to mine with all my strength, could ever disappear:
"Kiss me!"
I am kissing Henry, and then I am alone, under the blanket, on the divan, on
the cold porch. It is still snowing. Inside, the record stops, and I hear Gomez say,
"Ten! nine! eight!" and everyone says, all together, "seven! six! five! four! three!
two! one! Happy New Year!" and a champagne cork pops, and everyone starts
talking all at once, and someone says, "Where are Henry and Clare?" Outside in
the street someone sets off firecrackers. I put my head in my hands and I wait.
III
A TREATISE ON LONGING
His forty-third year. His small time's end. His time-
Who saw Infinity through the countless cracks
In the blank skin of things, and died of it.
- A. S. Byatt, Possession
She followed slowly, taking a long time,
as though there were some obstacle in the way;
and yet: as though, once it was overcome,
she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.
- from Going Blind,
Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell
Saturday, October 27, 1984/Monday, January 1, 2007 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35)
Henry: The sky is blank and I'm falling into the tall dry grass let it be quick and
even as I try to be still the crack of a rifle sounds, far away, surely nothing to do
with me but no: I am slammed to the ground, I look at my belly which has
opened up like a pomegranate, a soup of entrails and blood cradled in the bowl
of my body; it doesn't hurt at all that can't be right but I can only admire this cubist
version of my insides someone is running all I want is to see Clare before before I am
screaming her name Clare, Clare and Clare leans over me, crying, and Alba
whispers, "Daddy...."
"Love you..."
"Henry-"
"Always...."
"Oh God oh God-"
"World enough...."
"No!"
"And time..."
"Henry!"
Clare: The living room is very still. Everyone stands fixed