The Executor Part 6

ONE LIFE TO LIVE.

She settled into her own chair, and, in a very dry voice, said, "Suspend judgment, Mr. Geist."

I smiled, sat back, made myself at home.

9.

Soon after I arrived at number forty-nine, the snow began to melt and the house warmed a few degrees, allowing me to walk around without my parka on. I ended up using my s.p.a.ce heater sparingly. It worked almost too well, and if I slept with it on, I had to crack the window a few inches to compensate.

Our schedule was simple. An early riser, Alma was always up before me, and by the time I bathed and dressed I would find her sitting at the kitchen table with toast and tea, the radio on softly, tuned to WCRB, Handel or Bizet. We would discuss the headlines or do the crossword together. Games and puzzles, she said, kept her sharp. Her favorites were cryptics, which I'd never done before but took to quickly.

Following breakfast I would head to the library and read for several hours. Some books for the first time and some for the dozenth. Many of them were too fragile to use-she had dozens of first editions, including Thus Spake Zarathustra Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nausea, Nausea, and and Being and Being and Time-but merely being surrounded by them gave me a sense of peace. This is why I will never own an e-reader: because a row of books is more than a compendium of information. It's a map of all the places your mind has been, a group of friends standing silently by to comfort you. Coc.o.o.ned in books, protected by them, I felt safe, and all that had been plaguing me began to fade, my mind sloughing off the clutter of years. I read for the pleasure of reading, rather than to strip-mine for facts. People sometimes describe meditation as "relaxed wakefulness," which phrase captures the feeling exactly. More often than not I stretched out across the carpet; that I could lie there without nodding off is proof of the quality of the holdings as well as the strength of Alma's tea.

The one book I could not find was her thesis. I was disappointed, but I had to remember that I'd hidden my own dissertation from her; and with so many other wonderful options, it felt ungrateful to ask for anything more.

At noon I fixed us a simple lunch. Alma would quarter a chocolate bar and speak to me in German, to her the only medium suitable for capturing her youth. Prior to my moving in, we'd done plenty of talking, but always about philosophy, and I savored these pieces of biography, which over time I a.s.sembled into a coherent whole.

Born into a family of instrument makers, she had grown up in Vienna's ninth district, Alsergrund, a ten-minute walk from Freud's house. Every day her father would bicycle to Ottakring, near the Gurtel, where he oversaw thirty craftsmen in the making of pianos, harps, and harpsichords. Vividly she recalled for me her visits to his workshop: the close, heady smell of varnish; tools percussing; muscular men in shirtsleeves. Her father liked to tinker, and was constantly trying out designs that had nothing to do with his primary business. "The violin in the music room he made for me when I was born," she said. "He and my mother were both very capable makers and appreciators of things, and theirs was a materialistic romance, highly sensuous in its own way. Accordingly, I distanced myself. It was my nature to be contrary. I suppose that I still am.... Well, the violin came to me freighted with expectations. I think they hoped I would grow up to become a soloist. I never had the talent. Diligence, yes. But my teachers always said that I was excessively technical. I had to get old before I understood what they meant. My sister was far superior."

"What does she play?"

"Did. The cello. My father built it for her, as well. It was never to be, as whatever small degree of ambition she possessed was quashed when she married."

From an early age both girls had studied English and French. Alma, showing a gift for languages, had also received instruction in cla.s.sics, leading to an early fascination with philosophy. In lush detail she described the Gymnasium Gymnasium where she took her qualifying exams, the where she took her qualifying exams, the Kaffeehaus Kaffeehaus where she went for pastry and conversation. It was a good time to be young and curious in Vienna. You knew everyone, provided that you came from a certain cla.s.s and had certain social credentials; the cast of characters she described read like roll call in nerd heaven. where she went for pastry and conversation. It was a good time to be young and curious in Vienna. You knew everyone, provided that you came from a certain cla.s.s and had certain social credentials; the cast of characters she described read like roll call in nerd heaven.

"Have I told you about the time I met Wittgenstein?"

I shook my head.

"His brother Paul-he was a pianist, you know-well, after losing his arm in the War, he commissioned my father to make him a keyboard that would better cater to his impairment. That was the way they were, the Wittgensteins; they bought their way out of problems. He also had Ravel and Strauss write him left-handed concertos.

"Now, this keyboard was supposed to be bi-level, with the higher half of the register here, and the ba.s.s below, like so. I don't believe it was ever built. I do, however, remember Paul visiting our house to discuss the design. The first time he came, my father had me fetch them schnapps, and when I did, Paul pinched me on the cheek.

"On one of these occasions he brought a second man along with him. I was quite struck by this stranger, with his hair sticking up and his eyes spinning in his head. All throughout the meeting he kept getting up and leaving the study to walk around the foyer in circles, rubbing his temples, muttering to himself as though in a trance. I sat at the top of the steps, watching him. He did not seem to see me at all; then, suddenly, he looked in my direction and asked what I was learning in school. You may recall that Wittgenstein once worked as a country schoolmaster. He held rather strong opinions on education, and when I described my curriculum to him, he began to berate me for its incompleteness, as though I had chosen it."

"How old were you?"

"Oh, no more than five or six. I thought him barbarous. He had no notion of how to talk to people. That was clear to me even then. His brother heard the commotion and came out of the study. 'd.a.m.n it, Ludi,' he shouted. 'Leave the poor child alone.' Well, that did it. Wittgenstein gave me a look-I'd never seen a look of such hate-and he slunk off to the kitchen, where he stayed for the duration of his visit."

My jaw was hanging open. "My G.o.d."

"Yes," said Alma. "He was a queer man."

"That's unbelievable."

"Oh, it was quite real, I a.s.sure you."

"No, I mean-I know people who would kill to experience that."

"Then they are stupid. Among the few things worth killing for, let us not count the right to be hara.s.sed by an arrogant madman."

She told me frankly, and without regret, that she had never married, ignoring the pleas of relatives and suitors and setting out to see the world, traveling by boat and propeller plane, jouncing along in decommissioned jeeps driven by toothless, tattooed, rifle-toting men. China, Russia, Egypt ... all places a single woman traveling alone would have a difficult time these days. Back in the fifties? I could scarcely imagine it. She had been shot at in Afghanistan. She had survived a derailment in Punjab. She had been threatened with imprisonment in Burma. She had been in Ghana on the day Nkrumah declared independence, missing the festivities due to a monthlong bout of malaria. "Should you go," she said, "I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to bring a mosquito net."

Her journeys brought her, finally, to the United States, which she spent four years exploring. Among other adventures, she had ridden from New York to San Francisco on a motorcycle. Rarely did she stop in one place long enough to make friends. "This is a country more interesting for what one fails to find than what one does find," she said. In 1963 she came to Cambridge, taking a job teaching German at a private school. Though she had intended to stay no more than a year, somehow-she faltered when she said this-somehow, this place had become her home.

How she missed Vienna, though. The culture, the learning, the life life. Everywhere you looked, there was music and art. It was all impossibly Romantic. She had once gone to a party at the home of a man who owned a dozen Klimts, one of which he kept in his kitchen, on the door to his icebox. During ball season the parties never stopped, orgies of booze and waltz that ran till five in the morning, when the dancehalls burst open, spilling everyone out, men staggering into lampposts and women running barefoot in their gowns. Those with sufficient strength and foresight would pick themselves up and go for Katerftuhstuck, Katerftuhstuck, the morning-after breakfast, consisting of pickled herring and strong black coffee, guaranteed to stop a hangover dead. the morning-after breakfast, consisting of pickled herring and strong black coffee, guaranteed to stop a hangover dead.

All that was gone now. She hadn't been back since the eighties, finding it too depressing. Her Vienna-the real Vienna-existed only in her memories, and I understood that my job was to provide her a canvas on which to re-create them. I did my best. I listened with enthusiasm; I tried to ask intelligent questions. When she mentioned the impossibility of finding a decent Sachertorte Sachertorte in Boston, I went to the Science Center and downloaded several recipes, baking up one a day, every day for two weeks, until at last I managed to produce something she winkingly deemed "an impressive fraud." From then on I made it fresh every Monday. in Boston, I went to the Science Center and downloaded several recipes, baking up one a day, every day for two weeks, until at last I managed to produce something she winkingly deemed "an impressive fraud." From then on I made it fresh every Monday.

Following lunch, we watched the soaps. Even in this she revealed herself as discriminating. Aside from One Life to Live, One Life to Live, she enjoyed she enjoyed As the World Turns As the World Turns and and Guiding Light. General Hospital Guiding Light. General Hospital she abhorred as "inelegant"; she abhorred as "inelegant"; The Young and the Restless The Young and the Restless and and The Bold and the Beautiful The Bold and the Beautiful were both "implausible." When she said that, I couldn't hold back a laugh. She started laughing, too. "One must never abandon one's critical faculties," she said. were both "implausible." When she said that, I couldn't hold back a laugh. She started laughing, too. "One must never abandon one's critical faculties," she said.

If there was nothing on, I ran errands or read some more. At three o'clock she joined me in the library for our official conversation, and before dinner-which she ordered from the market, prepared in tins, and which we ate in the kitchen, never at the formal dining table-I went out for a long walk, my mind digesting everything it had taken in that day.

It was a wonderful way to live, at once relaxing and invigorating. If I had anything at all to complain about, it was the maid, a stout Romanian with loaf-like b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a three-dimensional birthmark on her upper lip. Once a week she pulled up at dawn in a blue Subaru station wagon, its headlights held on with duct tape. Letting herself in through the service porch, she undertook to wake me with her racket, galumphing around the house, humming to herself in a minor key as she dusted and swept, pausing only to shoot me spiteful glances as I stumbled out to brush my teeth. Her dislike for me was understandable (although no more pleasant for that). I added to her workload, and as I later learned, Alma paid her a flat fee, rather than by the hour. Before I showed up, she must have been making a killing. Now she had to contend with extra laundry-extra male laundry-and three extra rooms. She therefore went out of her way to disturb me, following me around the house, treading heavily, breathing heavily, and always humming. humming. Everything she sang sounded like a funeral march. The Eastern Bloc must have been a sad place to grow up. Everything she sang sounded like a funeral march. The Eastern Bloc must have been a sad place to grow up.

I don't think she knew my name, referring to me in the third person or, less often, as "sir," p.r.o.nounced seer and dripping with sarcasm. I wonder who she thought I was. A young lover? A grandson? I decided to kill her with kindness. I thanked her for small favors. I complimented her voice. She started to make eye contact with me, and I thought I'd begun to bridge the gap, until the following week, when she barged into my bedroom at six A.M., vacuum roaring. I groggily ordered her to leave.

"Sorry, seer," she said, slamming the door as she went.

Giving up, I began spending those mornings out of the house, using them to catch up on e-mail. That I could go a week at a stretch without withdrawal proved that I needed the outside world a lot less than I'd thought. It's amazing how much of what pa.s.ses for communication is garbage. No phone, no Internet-and no worse off. Other than Alma, there were few people I wanted to talk to, and doubtless Yasmina had been spreading propaganda, telling our friends her side of the story. I ignored Evites; I grew addicted to the DELETE b.u.t.ton. My world was shrinking, and that suited me fine.

WE EACH LIVE to a rhythm, one that dictates the way we speak, move, and interact with our environment. Some people like to leave their mark. Enter a room after they've been in it and find the furniture displaced, the lampshades askew. Others, like me, live in the background. Throughout my adult life I'd had roommates, and in every case my rhythm clashed with that of those around me, Yasmina being the one exception. I had come to miss that kind of easy syncopation, and it was a joy to feel it once again. With Alma I felt both unalone and uncrowded. She gave off such quiet, steady vitality that I could sense her across the house. We kept in constant communication, trading witticisms from adjacent rooms, rea.s.suring each other with our footsteps.

Comforting as it was to be near her, it was proportionally upsetting when she took ill. In my first five weeks of residence, she had four attacks. I'd know something was up the instant I exited the library to find a certain stillness hanging in the air, our rhythms decoupled. These episodes were unbearably random. One lasted an hour; another, all afternoon; and though she continued to insist that she was in no real danger-recovering by the next day-I had serious difficulty sitting on my hands. It was to my great relief that she told me her doctor was due for a visit. I came home from my walk on the designated afternoon and saw a green BMW parked in the driveway, a gaunt woman half into the driver's seat.

"You must be Joseph. Paulette Cargill."

We shook hands. "I didn't realize doctors still made housecalls."

"I don't. Alma is exceptional."

"That she is. I hope everything's okay?"

The doctor made a slightly helpless gesture. "It's the same," she said. She then gave me a mini-lecture on trigeminal neuralgia and the difficulties of case management. "Surgery helped for a little while, that was back in oh-two, but the pain started to come back about eighteen months ago. We've discussed trying again, although in my opinion-and she agrees-it's the wrong choice. At her age, every additional year brings greater risk of complications. We could do more harm than good. The goal at this point is to get the pain to a more bearable level, not to cure it. I'm afraid that's simply not realistic."

"She keeps saying she isn't in danger."

"She's not. Actually, she made a point of telling me to rea.s.sure you. She says you're worrying yourself to death."

"Yes, well, it's worrying."

"In your position I'd feel the same way. Aside from the discomfort, though, she's in perfect health. With her bloodwork, she could live to be a hundred."

A silence, as we both considered the implications of that statement.

"Will it get worse?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"But it won't get better."

Another silence.

"We're all doing the best we can," she said.

I said nothing.

"That goes for you, too," she said.

"I haven't done anything," I said.

"But you have. Her mood is excellent."

"I guess so."

"Trust me. I've been caring for her for fifteen years. This is as good as it gets."

I tried not to think about how bad it could get.

"Just keep doing exactly what you're doing. I've been bugging her for years to find someone to talk to. What she needs is to make the most of moments when she's pain-free."

I nodded.

"Like I said, I don't make housecalls. Alma is ..." The doctor touched her heart. "Call me anytime."

Inside, Alma was at the kitchen table, two plates and two forks and the remainder of that week's Sachertorte Sachertorte set out before her. She looked up when I entered, smiling her enigmatic smile. I saw it now as an expression of impenetrability, a hard veneer of sadness. Pain has long been a source of interest to philosophers as an experience that is both universal and incommunicable. There's a sense in which it's harder to watch someone else in pain than it is to endure that same pain yourself: we have no more potent reminder of our alone-ness. It is pain that sets limits on empathy, drawing a bright line around what we can ever hope to know about another. At that moment I wanted badly to stand in Alma's place, and knowing that I could not made me ache twice over. set out before her. She looked up when I entered, smiling her enigmatic smile. I saw it now as an expression of impenetrability, a hard veneer of sadness. Pain has long been a source of interest to philosophers as an experience that is both universal and incommunicable. There's a sense in which it's harder to watch someone else in pain than it is to endure that same pain yourself: we have no more potent reminder of our alone-ness. It is pain that sets limits on empathy, drawing a bright line around what we can ever hope to know about another. At that moment I wanted badly to stand in Alma's place, and knowing that I could not made me ache twice over.

She picked up the cake knife, made to cut herself a largish piece. "A little extra for me today. I believe I deserve it."

We ate in silence. Or rather, I did; she in fact ate nothing at all, eroding the cake with her fork, prodding the little sachet of whipped cream until it deflated. I got up to rinse the plates and behind me heard her chair sc.r.a.pe the floor.

"I am very tired and should like to lie down. If I am not up for dinner, I a.s.sume you can fend for yourself."

"Is there anything I can do?" I said.

Her face then pa.s.sed through many phases, all of them obscure to me. "I only hope that you shan't pity me."

"Never," I said. "Never in a million years."

She nodded, turned, disappeared.

I reminded myself what the doctor had told me; I tried to accept that this nothing, this shackled pa.s.sivity, was as much as I could do. A bitter pill, for it was at that very moment, when she was too weak to talk, that I began to appreciate the depth of my debt to Alma. Whatever comfort I afforded her, she had already advanced me tenfold. For that I will forever be grateful, looking back on those early days as the happiest of my life, all the more so for how fleetingly they pa.s.sed.

10.

What it sounds like," Drew said, "is Harold and Maude." Harold and Maude."

It was late March. I'd ventured out of the house in a feeble attempt to maintain the fiction that I still had a social life. To thank him for repeatedly putting me up, I bought us lunch at Darwin's: deli sandwiches and macaroons the size of trumpet mutes. We took our food to Harvard Yard, where we sat on the steps of University Hall and watched j.a.panese tourists snap photos of frazzled undergraduates.

Drew's real name was Zhongxue. A computer scientist by training, he came from Shanghai by way of Milwaukee. We'd met in the artificial-intelligence seminar and become fast friends. Like me, he was All but Dissertation; unlike me, he had stopped of his own volition, dropping out to play poker full-time. He now made his living shaking down bachelor parties at Foxwoods. His parents wept whenever he called.

"Please," I said.

"All I'm saying, it's a strange way to talk about a lady old enough to be your grandmother."

I said nothing. I couldn't think of how to describe my feelings for Alma. One deeply uncomfortable dream aside, I didn't find her attractive, not per se. Obviously not. If we'd met fifty years ago... But this was now, and given the circ.u.mstances, I could not reasonably look on her as an erotic subject.

But it wasn't quite friendship, either. These days, friendship is cheap and fungible; go on the Internet and you can collect two thousand "friends." That kind of friendship is meaningless, and I considered it blasphemous to apply the term to Alma.

The closest fit I could come up with was Platonic love, not in the colloquial sense but according to its original definition: a spiritual love, one that transcends physicality, that goes beyond s.e.x, beyond death. True Platonic love is the fusion of two minds.

"She's the most interesting person I know," I said.

"I'll bet." He growled, clawed the air.

"Idiot."

"Seriously, I'm happy for you. I don't understand you, but I'm happy for you."

"Stop it."

"What."

"Stop saying you're happy for me."

"But I am."

"I'm not dating dating her." her."