Elf, I say, are you awake? Her eyes stay closed. Elf, I say. She doesn’t respond. I look at my cellphone. There are no messages. I look at the nurses through the glass. They’re in their brightly lit area, talking and laughing and taking notes but I can’t hear them. Elf, I say. Open your eyes. Still no reaction. I put my head gently down onto her stomach where the glass piano is. Elf, I whisper. I don’t know what to do.
We are silent.
Elf, I whisper again. How do you think Nic feels? Do you know what you’re doing? You’re killing people.
Now Elf shifts slightly and puts her hand on my head. I sit up and look at her. Her eyes are open. For once, she looks alarmed. She shakes her head, no, no, no.
Does it make you happy to think of Nic or mom finding your dead body? I’m whispering now too. I’ve become her torturer and I’m so ashamed. I’m so angry and so afraid. I don’t want the nurses to hear me. Elf twists my hand hard and it hurts. Her hands are strong still, from playing. I twist back and she makes a small noise that manages to escape the tube that’s rammed down her throat.
A nurse comes into the room and says oh, she hadn’t seen me sitting there in the dark. She’s new so we introduce ourselves. She turns the light on and sees that both Elf and I are crying and apologizes and switches it off again. I’m overwhelmed by this small act of compassion. She offers to come back in a bit.
No, no, I say, it’s fine now.
I don’t look at Elf. I can feel her begging me not to leave and I pick up all my stuff and say okay, well, see you later, not sure when I’ll be back. I don’t look at her, she can’t speak, she can’t protest because of the tube, and I walk out of the room.
I get as far as the parking lot and then I run back to Elf’s room. I rush in and apologize and she puts her arms up to hug me. I catch my breath as she holds me. I sit up after a minute or two and she taps her heart. You love me? I say. She nods. But there’s more that she wants to say. I pick up the pad of paper that has fallen to the floor and she writes that she is sorry too. She doesn’t want to kill anybody but herself. I know, I say, I nod. I’m afraid of dying alone, she writes, and I nod again. Then she writes the word Switzerland on the paper and circles it and passes it to me. I smile and fold the paper until it’s the size of a pill and put it back into my bag. Let me think, I tell her. Give me time to think.
EN
I WAS DRIVING DOWN CORYDON AVENUE to the restaurant to meet Nic and Tina and my mom for dinner. I had forgotten where we had agreed to meet. I hoped that seeing the restaurant sign would somehow jog my memory so I drove slowly, like a parade float, peering at all the possibilities. But I was thinking about death. If I could get my hands on some barbiturates. And Seconal? There is some combination that if you take with milk … or not with milk. I couldn’t remember the recipe for death. Years ago when I was trying to make a living as a freelance journalist I went to Portland, Oregon, to write a magazine story on assisted suicide. While I was there my cousin Leni’s body was found in the Fraser River where she had pitched herself once and for all into the void. It involved a certain combination of drugs. What was it? Had I made a reservation for six p.m. or seven p.m. at Colosseo? Had I remembered to ask if we could sit on the terrace? Was it Seconal, that active ingredient? I’d have to check my Portland notes, if I still had them.
Nic worked in health science, maybe he could somehow fashion these necessary drugs from bits and pieces of whatever was lying around the office. Hey Nic, can you cobble something together that’ll knock her out for good? Or somehow we could find a doctor willing to bust into a hospital stash and steal them? Or maybe it’s not even stealing if a doctor takes them. Call of duty. Or a willing pharmacist? Maybe a gang. There are a thousand gangsters in Winnipeg with access to illegal drugs. Or guns.
All right, so the brain is an organ that’s made to solve problems so if the problem is life and its unlivability then a rational, working brain would choose to end it. No? I didn’t know what to do. It felt like someone was throwing darts at the side of my head, five seconds apart. It sounded naive to me now and selfish and fearful to say you must live, you must want to live, you have to live. That’s your one imperative, the single rule of the universe. Our family had once been one of those with normal crises like a baby (okay, two babies) born out of wedlock. Our family had once been one of those typical ones that only thinks about killing each other in the abstract. Now I couldn’t think or write. My fingers hated me. I was afraid that when I went to sleep I’d wake to find them wrapped around my throat.
I parked my mother’s car on a side street near the restaurant and phoned Finbar on his cell and left a message: if I were to help my sister die, would I be charged with murder? I hung up. I called back and left another message: I’m not planning to kill my sister, don’t get me wrong, I’m just wondering about the legal implications and all that stuff. Can you help me? I realized then that I wasn’t even sure what kind of law he practised. I think it might have been entertainment law.
I closed my eyes and tried to think. What is love? How do I love her? I was gripping the steering wheel the way my father used to, like he was towing a newly discovered planet behind him, one that held the secrets to the universe.
It was Seconal, definitely! That was the drug. And one hundred pills are necessary for a lethal dose. You empty the powder into something soft like yogurt and eat it. The alternative was Nembutal which was more expensive but easier to take because it came in liquid form. All you have to do is knock back a glass of Nembutal and Bob’s your uncle, as my aunt Tina would say. I wondered if my heart would give out from fear. Why are doctors so uncomfortable with helplessness. What if I’m caught and charged with murder? What will I do in jail? Where will Nora live? In Borneo? What if Elf doesn’t really want to die? What would my mother say? My cell went off and I gasped, I was so startled. It was a text from Nora: If Will’s coming, tell him it’s okay if Anders sleeps over. I texted back: It’s NOT okay! Nora again: You said it was okay if we were rehearsing late and the subways stopped. Me: Fine but he’ll sleep on the couch. Nora: Text Will and tell him not to tell Anders he has to sleep in the laundry room. Me: That’s not a bad idea! There’s an old futon in there and piles of dirty clothes to make forts with. Nora: Mom! Me: N, you’re only fourteen years old. Nora: I’m almost fifteen. God. Remember my birthday? Are you senile now?