The Marriage of Sticks Part 20

"No, turn it over. Look at your palm."

It had no lines. Every one had vanished. My palm was smooth as paper. Smooth as skin anywhere else on your body, but not the hand. Not where your past and future are supposed to be mapped out by fate and will.

Disbelieving, I could not raise my eyes when Frances spoke again.

"Miranda!"

"What is this? Why-"

"Listen to me: There were lines on your hand when you entered that stadium. They disappeared when you realized what you are."

"A vampire? When I realized I had lived all these lives? That's when the lines disappeared?" I needed to repeat what she had said so I could fix it somewhere in my reeling mind. Despite the effort to remain sane, my voice teetered on the brink of something very bad. I could barely control myself.

It felt like the big bang theory was being played out all over again-in my brain. Everything I knew was speeding outward toward the farthest reaches of s.p.a.ce. Maybe in a few billion years the fragments would have slowed and cooled enough again to allow some life again, but right now they were only flying out.

Frances held up her own right hand, palm out. Covering it were lines and ridges, highways crossing and separating, a lifetime of lines on skin, a detailed albeit chaotic map of the many days of Frances Hatch.

"What are you saying, Frances?"

She slowly raised her left palm. It was blank. I looked quickly at my left but it was as blank as my right.

She brought the hands together and folded them in her lap. "Palmists disagree about what the individual lines on a hand mean, but most concede those on the left indicate what you're born with and the ones on the right are what you've done with them. Left hand," she raised her blank one. "Right hand."

"Why are both of mine blank?"

"Because now that you have discovered who you really are, you have no fate anymore. Everything from this point on is up to you." She licked her lips. "You're different now."

"From what I learned today, I've been different all my life. All my lives!" I said the last word like a hissing snake.

"But now you know the truth about who you are. That changes everything. Now you can do something about it, Miranda. Everything is up to you from this point."

I looked at my smooth palms again, not sure of what to say or ask. "Tell me about you and Shumda."

"I haven't seen him for seventy years. Not since the day I saved him. That's part of how this works-if you sacrifice yourself for another person, you will never see them again. In most cases, because they never want to see you again. They don't like to be reminded of what you did for them. But if they're young, they never know it happened, because they don't understand.

"In other respects it's tolerable. You simply become a normal human being and live a normal life. You get flu, pay taxes, have kids if you want.... And sooner or later you die. For good. Welcome to the 'mortal coil.' No more VIP lounge for you. Watch out for cholesterol.

"I was extraordinarily lucky, Miranda. I gave my immortality to Shumda, but then went on to live a gorgeous life. Now it's over. I have no complaints." Her eyes betrayed her. As soon as she finished speaking, they shifted to the flowers as if the beautiful cl.u.s.ters knew a secret she didn't want told.

"But Frances, I died! I fell in the theater. I fell off the scaffold in the church-"

"And you came back. Again and again. Normal people don't. They live once and die. We live and die and come back. No one else does that, only us. But that's why people believe in reincarnation-because some of us do return, just not the ones they think. Unsterblich."

"What?"

"Immortal. The German word for it. Shumda loved that word. He said you had to wrap your tongue around it like a kiss."

"That word was on the cradle. It was carved on our baby's cradle."

"I'm not surprised. Everything we experience links up sooner or later. Our separate lives, the smallest details... nothing is left out. You met Hugh because of a discussion about your James and Lolly Adc.o.c.k's paintings. You met me because of her work too. Remember those connect-the-dots coloring books you had as a child? That's us. Everything connects."

"Why now, Frances? Why am I learning this now?"

"Because of love, dear; because you're finally in love and have the opportunity to be selfless. It happens only once in a lifetime, any lifetime. There are big loves and small ones, but only one selfless love. In your case, I a.s.sume it's for your child. I would have thought it was for Hugh, but it wasn't, because you had this revelation after he died."

Without any warning I felt violently ill. I was going to throw up. I slapped a hand over my mouth to try and stop it. I did, but only just.

So much had occurred since I'd learned I was pregnant that there had been no time to reflect on what it meant. But I knew what Frances said was true. The child inside me meant everything. The daughter from the man I had planned to spend the rest of my life with. The baby I had wanted all my life but avoided thinking about because the possibility of long love and children had faded as I grew older. It was a joy I tried not to think about. Getting older means you have fewer beginnings. Children are the beginning of everything again, no matter how old you are or how fixed in your ways.

The day I learned I was pregnant I had another, altogether different revelation. Riding home on the train to Crane's View, I considered the best way to tell Hugh. Somewhere in the middle of that planning, I was embraced by the thought: I will never be alone again. With this child in my life, I would never be alone again. It was the most warming, intimate, rea.s.suring sensation I have ever known.

While Frances spoke, I unconsciously put both hands on my stomach, but whether for rea.s.surance or protection I didn't know. In a whisper I said, "What's so bad about being normal?"

"Nothing. But it is entirely different from what you've known."

"Different how?"

She thought it over. Once her right hand flew up off the bed as if reaching for something in the air. Only after it had floated back to her lap and she thought some more did she speak. "Being human is a deeper, richer, much sadder experience than you know. Somewhere inside all of their souls, their genes, inside their cells, human beings understand this is all there is. But most of the time they can't figure out what this is. Your spirit is comfortable because it knows that when this dance is finished there'll be another for you. And another."

"What exactly would I be giving up?"

"Your immortality. You would give it to your child. You give it to the person you love as much as yourself. I gave mine to Shumda. They were going to kill him. I couldn't let that happen because I realized I loved him more than my own life."

"How do you give it up-is there some special way?"

She shook her head. "No. It's always different, but instinctively you'll know what to do when the time comes. It's not anything you have to think about."

"What did you do, Frances?"

She closed her eyes. "I set a dog on fire."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you. But it was necessary. When I realized that was what I had to do, I also understood it would cause the change. And it worked. As soon as I had done it, a lawyer appeared and said he could save Shumda. Herr Doktor Pongratz. I'll never forget that name. He said he had read about the case in the Viennese newspapers and had found a little-known law in the Austrian judicial system that would exonerate Shumda. And it did."

"But couldn't someone else have found that law too?"

Frances straightened up and smoothed the sheets around her. "No, because no such law existed until Pongratz found it."

"Can you give your immortality away to anyone, or does it have to be the one you love?"

"To anyone. Once you realize who you are and what you have, it's your decision what to do with it. You can give it to whoever you choose."

We sat silently amid her flowers and the piped in music. I had so many questions to ask.

"Can I have the baby even being who I am? Without giving up the immortality?"

"Yes! Of course you can, Miranda. But you'll destroy it. You'll love it and care for it and do everything in your power to give it a wonderful life. But eventually you'll destroy it because you are what you are. Your ego takes precedence over everything else. And as you've already discovered, it's not always obvious. You can't fight the instinct, no matter how hard you try. It's like pushing against the ocean.

"Whatever you give your daughter you'll end up taking back, times two. Often you won't even know you're doing it, but she will. As with everyone else in your life, you'll ruin things that are fundamental to her well-being. You'll ruin her dreams, sabotage her feelings of self-importance. You'll suck her dry. When she's your age, she'll tell cynical, embittered stories about her mother the b.i.t.c.h. She'll finish by saying she loves you of course, but the less she sees you, the better.

"As an adult, she'll believe the articles in women's magazines and think she's missing everything. She'll wear too much jewelry and her voice will get louder over the years as she realizes fewer and fewer people listen to what she says.

"Look around you. Watch how people function and interact with one another. You'll see this is going on everywhere all the time. People devour each other in the name of love, or family or country. But that's an excuse; they're just hungry and want to be fed. Read their faces, the newspapers, read what it says on their T-shirts! 'I think you're mistaking me for someone who gives a s.h.i.t.' 'My parents went to London but all they brought me back was this lousy T-shirt.' 'So many women, so little time.' 'Whoever dies with the most toys, wins.' They're supposed to be funny, witty, and postmodern, Miranda. But the truth is they're only stating a fact: Me. I come first. Get out of my way."

"So vampires are everywhere?"

"Everywhere. They just don't have fangs or sleep in coffins."

"What will happen if I give the baby my immortality? Will she live a happy life?"

"There's no guarantee. She will be a vampire. But you'll be giving her an enormous chance because, if nothing else, she would have all those lives. In a way, that's happiness. Very few of our kind have been willing to make that sacrifice. Even when we find the love of our life, we refuse to give them our immortality."

I told her about the cab ride from Crane's View and seeing my life on screen at the drive-in theater.

"You're doing that to yourself. It's the immortal part of you with the unbelievable powers. The part that was able to free James Stillman. The part that was outside this building staring in the last time you were here. It knows you must decide now and it's afraid you'll make the wrong choice."

"But why show me that scene? Hugh's dead. I can't do anything about that."

"I don't know. But those kinds of bizarre things will continue until you choose. Your magical side can be very persuasive, believe me."

"Frances, that music is driving me crazy. Can you call down to the front desk and ask them to turn it off?"

She held up a finger for me to be quiet. The pastel-colored, ethereal music filled the room. Saint-Saens, Berlioz, Delius-it could have been composed by any of them. It perfectly complemented the brilliant ma.s.s and whirl of the flowers.

I watched her face. It remained expressionless most of the time, but now and then she flinched slightly or gave a faint smile.

"It reminds me of things I've forgotten and what I'm going to lose when I die. 'Only in h.e.l.l is memory exact.' I suppose this is how my trip to h.e.l.l begins. We forget so much over a lifetime. So many brilliant moments and stories. How could we forget, Miranda? Why do we let them go without a struggle? They make us, deepen us; they define who we are. But we live these moments and forget them. We mislay them like a set of keys. How is it possible to be so sloppy with our own life?

"Before you came in, for the first time in fifty years I remembered an October afternoon I spent in Vienna with Shumda. It was right after we'd arrived there, and he hadn't started performing yet. We took a tram to the last stop in Grinzing, then walked up through the vineyards to the Wienerwald and Cobenzl. There's a magnificent view from there down over the whole city.

"On the way home, we stopped at a Heurigen and had a lunch of fried chicken and new white wine. Shumda loved to talk. Almost nothing could stop him once he got going. But in the middle of our meal, right in the middle of taking a bite of chicken, he saw something behind me and absolutely froze. I'd never seen anything like it. I spun around to see what it was, but there was nothing there but two nondescript men sitting at a table drinking wine. Shumda wiped his hands carefully on a handkerchief, then reached into his backpack and took out the book he had been reading the whole summer. It was Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which had just been published.

"He asked how he looked. I said 'Fine, what's the matter with you?' He bit his lip and it was plain he was extremely nervous about something. Shumda was never nervous. He was the most self-confident person I've ever known. He took the book, stood up, and walked across the courtyard to the two men. As he approached, a chow chow came out from under the table and stared at him. Obviously it was protecting the men, and for a moment I thought it was going to bite him. But it was on a leash, and one of them reined it in close.

Shumda looked at the dog and then the men. He held up the book, but instead of speaking, he made the dog talk for him. It said, 'Dr. Freud, you have written a masterpiece. I'm in your debt.' Freud, who wasn't famous for his sense of humor, was bewildered. He kind of harrumphed a bit, said thank you, looked suspiciously at his dog, and finally asked Shumda if he was a performer. Shumda said yes very meekly and invited him to his show when it opened at the Ronacher Theater. Freud tried to smile and be gracious but he really didn't know what to do.

"We left the Heurigen before they did. As we were walking out, Freud and I made eye contact. Pa.s.sing their table I leaned over the great doktor, whom I didn't know from the man in the moon, and said, 'You really should come to his show. He's a genius.' I often wondered if he was there the night you fell."

"You said you forgot things, Frances. Sounds like you remember very well."

"I'm remembering everything now. The music has been doing that to me. It brings back Freud's smell when I bent over to talk to him. The yellowness of the chestnuts on the ground in the courtyard of that Heurigen. They fell from the trees in spiky sh.e.l.ls. You peeled, them open and inside was a shiny brown chestnut. People collected them and fed them to the animals at the Schonbrunn zoo."

"Do you like remembering these things? You sound so sad."

"Well, it is sad watching your house burn down. When there's nothing you can do about it, you have to stand and watch. You remember the things inside you're losing. It's hard, but it reminds me of how rich my life was. G.o.d, I had a good one."

"But I'm looking at your face, Frances. You're not remembering only good things, are you?"

She wouldn't answer.

Is it better to remember all we've lost? Especially when we know it's gone forever? And what about the bad memories? The bad times, bad people, bad choices, bad plans-should we be reminded of them?

I didn't think so, especially not in Frances's case. In her retelling, even her good memories, the Freud stories and their like, trailed an aroma of melancholy and loss that stank. Even in a room filled with the most exotic flowers.

"I'll go now. I'm going back to Crane's View."

She closed her eyes and nodded. She knew I had no other choice. "If you leave here tonight, you can't come back until after you've decided. You won't be protected."

"I don't want to be protected." I bent over and kissed the old woman high on her forehead. She smelled of talc.u.m powder. "Thank you for everything, Frances. Even after all that's happened, I still love you very much."

"And I love you. The one thing I always regretted was not having a child. A daughter. Now, having known you, I know what it would have been like and I regret it even more."

I touched her cheek and left. I walked into the hall and closed the door behind me.

After two steps I started shaking so much I couldn't move. I wasn't ready yet. I had thought I was but I was wrong. Five more minutes with Frances. A few more questions. I just needed five more minutes with my friend. Then I would be all right and able to go on to whatever was next. She would understand that. She would know how to stop my shakes and push the demons back.

I returned to her door and opened it. The music was playing. Frances sat with her face in her hands weeping so hard her whole body shook violently.

"Oh Jesus, Frances!"

She looked up. Her face was crimson. Her cheeks were shiny from tears. She waved a hand at me to leave. I did not know how to help, how to save my friend from a fate so hopeless and decided. But I could fetch the doctor. Maybe the doctor had something that could calm her down and at least let her rest.

Dr. Zabalino was downstairs in the lobby talking to the receptionist. The sight of me racing toward her must have said everything. I started explaining what happened but she was hurrying for the elevator before I was three sentences in. I started after her but she stopped and slammed a hand against my chest.

"No! If you want to stay here and be protected, don't move till I get back. But you cannot come with me! Think of Frances. Something you said obviously upset her. She's very weak and this is bad for her. I don't want her seeing you again now." She took her hand away but kept both hands wide open at her sides, as if ready to shove me again if I tried accompanying her. She walked to the elevator, entered, turned around and faced me. As the doors slid closed, she said, "Don't go anywhere. Stay here and you'll be safe."

The light above the door illuminated the floor numbers. When it stopped at Frances's, I turned and walked to the receptionist. She wasn't ignoring me or reading poetry this time. Her eyes were bright and alert, like those of a small animal that's just realized a much bigger one is very close.

"What happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

I slapped my hands down on the desk loud enough to make her cringe. "Don't give me s.h.i.t! What happens now?"

"Usually the doctors can fix things. Dr. Zabalino is very good. She'll know how to help your friend. But it'll be harder to help you because you haven't chosen yet. That's the worst. Making up your mind, because there are so many reasons for and against it. That's why you should stay here until you've decided. Fieberglas is the safest place for you. Outside it's very, very dangerous. There are things out there-"

"Tell the doctor I left."

"You can't!"

"I don't want to be here. I've got to-Just tell her I left."

"But-"

The clatter of my heels against the stone floor rang out again in that quiet place as I walked to the door. Through a window, I saw Erik Peterson in his taxicab, the light from the portable TV flickering on his face. I pushed open the heavy front door. The air outside was cold and smelled of pine and stone. I felt no desire to return to the "safety" of the building.

"Erik? Let's go home."