The Executor Part 14

"Is it.

"So, day to day, for us, what does that mean? I think, and this is just my opinion, but I do think that it's one based on fact-I think that we, meaning you and I and her, we have to focus on the present. What is happening now. What that leaves us with here, I think, is a balance of power. If you ask me, this is not a bad thing. It's the way it should be. You're there. You're with her. You're the one she sees every day. Something goes wrong, you're the one who can say what occurred. How the situation plays out has a lot to do with what you decide.

"That being the case, whatever happens next is really up to you.

"And I'll tell you something else. My grandma's gone, my mom and dad are gone. So for her, that's it, you know? Just me. What do I need a house for? I don't. I mean, something does happen, it goes down a certain way, fine, it's my house. Okay. But depending on what plays out, you could have it, if you wanted.

"But you know what, though. I can tell that it's not something you feel a hundred percent about. I can see that. That's okay. Of course not; this is something you probably never thought about much, and if you did, you thought about it only from one angle. So let me give you some other angles to consider. It's not a question of you or me. Look at it as a question of what's best for her. It's a question of dignity. You said it yourself: she's not getting any better. She is in pain. That's why I'm saying we have to look at this from her perspective. Is she happy? I mean-you said it yourself. No. She isn't. It's not natural. Is it? Tell me. Is it natural for someone to have to wake up every day and face that kind of pain? Of course not. I mean, it would be unnatural for anyone, but she's the kind of person, it's going to be hard on her, much harder than on your average person. I know that. You You know it. You're not an average kind of person, either, so put yourself in her shoes for a second and ask yourself, 'Is this really what I want?' And you tell me what the answer is going to be." He sat back. "You tell me." know it. You're not an average kind of person, either, so put yourself in her shoes for a second and ask yourself, 'Is this really what I want?' And you tell me what the answer is going to be." He sat back. "You tell me."

I said, "Would you excuse me."

He gestured go ahead. go ahead.

I locked myself inside a bathroom stall and stood a long while ma.s.saging my chest. Had that really happened? Had he offered me the house? Conspired with me over cheeseburgers? Impossible. I knew what he had said. He'd said it and yet he hadn't.

What did he expect?

Did he expect me to do an accounting?

Did he expect that to come out in his favor?

The world was unreal, the floor tiles swimming, the toilet a grinning menace.

I slapped myself across the face.

The waitress had taken my seat in the booth. As I approached, she slid a piece of paper across the table to Eric and stood up, straightening her skirt.

"You take care," she said.

"Will do," he said. To me: "All set?"

I started for the door.

"One sec," he said.

He was holding up the bill.

Reflexively, I reached for my wallet and removed a twenty.

"Hey, thanks," he said, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from me and tossing it on the table. "You didn't have to do that."

Feeling numb, I pushed out into the blinding summer sun. I hadn't intended to pay for him, but somehow I had.

"YOU DON'T NEED TO FIND ME," Eric said as we stood on the corner of Ma.s.s Ave and Prospect. "I got some stuff to do but I'll be around. Meantime, you think it over, and the next time you see her hurting like that, you think about what I told you." He smiled, clapped me on the shoulder, and walked toward the T Through a shimmering cloud of exhaust, I watched him sink underground.

15.

I would never have wished an attack on Alma, of course, but I will admit that right then I was relieved not to have to see her. To sit and chat as though everything was the same-to look her in the eyes-I didn't think I could do it. For several hours I paced around the library, trying to make sense of what had just taken place. would never have wished an attack on Alma, of course, but I will admit that right then I was relieved not to have to see her. To sit and chat as though everything was the same-to look her in the eyes-I didn't think I could do it. For several hours I paced around the library, trying to make sense of what had just taken place.

Tell the police. That's the automatic first response. Tell them what, though? Eric hadn't asked me to do anything, not really. He'd described a set of circ.u.mstances-a sick old woman, a dangling fortune-and left me to reach my own conclusions. Though his intent was unambiguous, when I tried to pin him to anything explicit, I came up empty-handed. So much of what he'd said had been wordless, built into facial expressions, and pauses, and prosody; by talking around his point he made it far more forcefully than he ever could have by stating it outright. He was, I realized, a true Continental, his pitch a masterpiece of dramatic subtext.

Was it a crime to talk about such things? Did failing to report the conversation make me a party to whatever he did next? Was I legally responsible? Morally? I pictured someone like me walking into the station (in my mind, it looked like a public library, except with guns and thugs), approaching the front desk, and offering, unprompted, a confession. What would that look like to them? Very simply this: I had agreed to help Eric, then backed out. I didn't know why he had chosen me, but surely the police would think he had reason to do so; by offering myself up for scrutiny, I would become a suspect in a crime that hadn't been committed, that might never be committed, the idea of which might never be known to anyone except the two of us. He could easily claim that I had approached him, or that nothing had happened at all. I'd be crying wolf-about myself. No, the police were out. But whom did that leave? Alma? At best she would think me incoherent; more likely, delusional. One or both of the same two problems applied to telling the doctor or any of my friends. Perhaps that was Eric's insurance policy: the knowledge that if I sought help, I would either bring suspicion upon myself or else sound deranged. What came next, then? More cajoling. If that didn't work, threats. Physical intimidation. Or else he'd find another accomplice, and when he did, I would become the man who knew too much.

The next time you see her hurting like that, you think about what I told you.

What was it about me that suggested I would be willing to entertain such a notion? Did he think he could convince me? Did he think I didn't need convincing? I thought about all the times I'd sat beside him, watching him flirt with her. Had I given him the go-ahead ? The wrong kind of look? Had he smiled and nodded at me, and had I smiled and nodded back? What could I have done to bring this on? How long had he been planning this? Since we met? Since our night in Arlington? Had he planned that, too? Were the girls in on it? Was the scene the next morning calculated to achieve some end? But now I really did sound delusional.

Worst of all was the way he had framed the idea, as an act of mercy. An arrow aimed at my soft spots, or did he truly see it that way? Had he had to work on himself, or had it been easy for him? Did the idea drip like cave water, dissolving the bedrock of his conscience? Or had there never been a conscience in the first place?

What about me?

Did he know what he was doing when he put the idea in my head?

We all have thoughts we'd rather not have. While I could not conceive of ever seeing things Eric's way, I did think about what he'd said. How could I not? I couldn't delete the concept. It was, perversely, to the contrary. The more tightly I muzzled it, the more insistently it barked. I thought about it, all right: I thought about it that night, when I heard her hobbling around, and I wanted to go to her, and restrained myself for fear of offending her. I thought about it throughout the following week, when the temperature soared and she got worse and I had to call the doctor once again, and was once again told that there was nothing we could do. So of course I thought about it; like an earworm, it had eaten its way into my consciousness, and I thought about it again when the doorbell rang and he stood on the porch, winking; thought about it as I handed him the envelope with his check; thought about it as I slammed the door and ran to the library to hide myself in a book.

I began to think about it all the time.

Because you couldn't claim that the idea had no upside whatsoever. There was something to be said for alleviating suffering, wasn't there? That was what doctors did, after all: they made people "more comfortable." They adminstered drugs that divorced the mind from reality, painkillers that gradually shut down the body. A slower kind of death, but was it all that different? Not that I was a doctor. Not that I had a mandate to act one way or the other. But when someone was in extremis-as Alma clearly was-did the distinction between what morphine did and what Eric wanted me to do mean anything at all? Was it a question of scale? Of semantics? Say that she had asked me to help her commit suicide. Illegal, perhaps. But immoral? Whom did it help, keeping her alive if she no longer wanted to be alive? Nietzsche tells us that one should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly, and Alma was nothing if not proud. She had told me never to pity her, but given the present state of affairs, that was all I could manage to do. So if-let me say that again: if-if she had asked me to help her end her own life, I would not have hesitated. In fact, I would have felt morally obliged to help her. Now, obviously, that situation would be different from one in which I acted preemptively. By asking, she became the actor instead of the acted-upon, the agent instead of the victim. And, crucially, she had not asked. The whole thing was theoretical, the very thought absurd. But as Bertrand Russell wrote, "Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened of absurdities."

So when, a few weeks later, she stopped watching her soaps, complaining that the whine of the television nauseated her, I thought about it.

When I heard her vomiting up my Sachertorte, Sachertorte, I thought about it some more. I thought about it some more.

I thought and thought and thought.

It was possible (scarcely so, but that will suffice) that that was what she did did want, if only she weren't too proud to ask for help. Everything I knew about her (and I knew her well, didn't I, knew her better than anyone else) told me that she would not readily confess to weakness. She never called the doctor; I did. She never asked for me to bring food up to her room; I did that on my own, knowing she was too tired to do it herself. She never asked for these things-she never would have; they were beneath her-but she was grateful when I did them for her. This is love: antic.i.p.ating another's needs, providing what they cannot or will not ask for. want, if only she weren't too proud to ask for help. Everything I knew about her (and I knew her well, didn't I, knew her better than anyone else) told me that she would not readily confess to weakness. She never called the doctor; I did. She never asked for me to bring food up to her room; I did that on my own, knowing she was too tired to do it herself. She never asked for these things-she never would have; they were beneath her-but she was grateful when I did them for her. This is love: antic.i.p.ating another's needs, providing what they cannot or will not ask for.

Another thought experiment: eventually she would die of one cause or another, and if I was still around when that happened, in one or five or twenty years, I would be out on the street. (Twenty years? Did I really intend to stick around that long? But this was all theoretical.) At that point, Eric would have no motivation to give me the house, not when he could sell it for profit and I had done nothing for him. On the other hand, if she left the house to him, and he gave the house to me ... it was repellent, of course, but the thought was there. I had a flexible mind, and though I would never-never never-never-put these theories into practice, it was in my nature to ask questions, probe the abstract, conceive of possible worlds. One could make an argument-an anemic argument but an argument nonetheless-that by acting now, I was simply securing my future, allowing myself to one day return to my writing in peace and quiet-something Alma herself had encouraged me to do. She believed in me. She told me all the time. In a certain sense, I would be carrying out her wishes. I could live in the house until I completed my dissertation-or beyond-or I could sell it and find a place of my own.... I'd never owned property. I didn't know anything about t.i.tles and deeds. How did it work? Could Eric simply gift me a house? Wouldn't that look suspicious? Of course it would; we'd have to let some time pa.s.s before I took possession, in the meantime I could rent it out, it'd be easy enough to find tenants, they could pay in cash.

And but so now these once-harmless thoughts had grown terrifyingly specific, terrifyingly concrete, and though I'd done nothing-nothing at all except treat her well and think-I felt guilty, I felt sick, I tormented and lacerated myself, I lost my appet.i.te, I had heartburn, I had palpitations, my head hurt, my liver hurt, I could not sleep. And while these terrifyingly specific and concrete thoughts were bad enough qua themselves, they seemed factorially worse when I realized what they said about the kind of person I'd become. Not only was I the kind of person who would marshal arguments in favor of murdering someone who had done nothing but good for him-someone he loved-but I would do so solely for material gain. It was this that frightened me most. I had grown fat and happy, drunk on comfort. I had come to take for granted that I should have food and shelter and books and beautiful objects; I had come to possess these things in my mind, so that they were not luxuries to be wary of but necessities to plan around. It was not a chair that I sat on: it was my chair my chair, and, if not willing to kill for it, I was willing to allow the thought of its loss to serve as a premise for the vilest fantasies. I was impure. I was a merchant in the temple. And so I afflicted myself: I fasted. I read until the text blurred and my eyes burned. I brushed my teeth until I spat blood. I did calisthenics to exhaustion. I slept on the floor without a pillow. I took no pleasure in these exertions, like a man wallowing in a toothache. I wanted to be free. But my l.u.s.t, once provoked, could not be undone: I desired.

I had hardly seen any of my friends since the night of my birthday. Now I began frantically calling people, making plans, meeting for c.o.c.ktails, going to movies, engaging in all manner of trifling chatter, drinking myself stupid; that is what wine is for. Still I had no peace, and as Indian summer arrived, I again took to the streets, rambling over miles, sweating through my sportcoat, smothered by heat and dust, abused by the racket of jackhammers and the clang of construction, tripping over piles of bricks laid out across the brick sidewalk, Eric's grinning face blooming in shop windows and on strangers; and I turned and fled into the bosom of the crowds, hounded by guilt, haunted by the awareness of my own power, the knowledge that I had the capacity to do evil, even if I chose not to exercise it. One cannot fire the gun until one recognizes it exists and that it is clutched in one's own two hands. When that happens, one wants to fire it, because that is what guns are for.

And I felt guilty for feeling guilty, because I had no right to dismember myself for something I hadn't done. All I'd done was think. What's wrong with thinking? Was anyone ever hurt by a thought? I had no control over which images my brain chose to present to me, did I? One must distinguish theory from practice. I repeated to myself G. E. Moore's famous proof of the existence of an external reality. "Here is a hand," he said, holding out one palm, "and here is another." I held my hands out. They were clean.

But I could not do anything to prevent it when, at night, in my dreams, I really did kill Alma. Was that my fault? I could not stop the thoughts from coming. I dreamt of strangling her. Bludgeoning her. Stabbing her with a kitchen knife. I dreamt of riding a horse, a red-eyed horse, across her body, trampling her to death. The horse was large and fiery; its nostrils shot steam; its hooves crushed her bones to jelly. I halved her skull with an axe, spattered her brains across the carpet, wiped my hands on my shirt. I crammed pieces of paper down her throat, filling her throat with paper, her smile widening as the light left her eyes, her lips mouthing Thank you, Thank you, Mr. Geist. Mr. Geist.

[image]

"HOT AS h.e.l.l," said Eric.

"Is that my nephew?" called Alma. "Tell him to come in."

I stood aside to allow him into the entry hall, then went to my room and closed the door. I lay down on the bed and tried to nap, but I was trembling so violently that it was impossible, and anyway their voices from the library kept me awake. I was about to leave the house when Alma knocked and asked if I would be so kind as to heat up dinner.

I rose to my duties, then sat at the kitchen table, pretending to work the crossword.

"What's up."

He stood before me, his lean body curved against the doorframe.

"She's taking a bath," he said. "She'll be down soon."

I said nothing.

"Gimme a clue," he said.

Still I didn't answer, and he sat down across from me.

"Hey, I'm making conversation. Isn't that what you do?" He sat back, laced his fingers behind his head. "Come on, let me try one."

I said nothing.

"You think about what I told you?"

I said nothing.

"You must've thought about it a little."

I said nothing.

He said, "I don't know what you're so worked up about."

"I'm not worked up."

Silence.

"I'm no good at those things, anyway," he said.

I said nothing.

"You know, I really think we should talk it over."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Sure there is."

I said nothing.

"Let's talk," he said.

I said, "I told the police."

For a moment he paled. Then the smile. "Oh, yeah?"

I nodded.

"What did you tell them."

"Everything you said to me."

"What did I say to you."

"You know what you said."

"No, I don't."

"Then there's nothing I can tell you."

He smiled again. "Didn't I say you're a s.h.i.tty liar?"

"I'm not lying."

"Okay," he said. "Well, then, I guess we'll have to wait and see."

"I guess so."

"You guess right. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. Either way, it's okay. I mean, you can tell them whatever you want. I mean, it was your idea."

I looked at him.

"Sure," he said. "I mean, you're the one came to me. Right? Of course you did. You're the one asked me to make a deal. You asked for the house. So, I mean, if they're going to come talk to me about anything, I'm going to have to tell them the truth. And the truth is that I love my auntie. I thought you did, too. But, look, man. If they ask me what happened, I'm going to have to tell them what you said."

Though I had tried to prepare myself for this moment, I still felt completely upended. "Tell them what."

"Lots of things."

"Like what."

"Oh, you know."

"No. I don't."

"Think," he said. "It'll come to you."

A silence.

I said, "Do you expect this to change my mind?"