I removed my arm from under her head without waking her, which was difficult because her head seemed so soft to me, even the small bump centered on the back under her hair, and I exited to the living room window and looked at the yellow streetlights on the snow and dialed my cellular.
My father answered at his store. I asked how Zahira looked.
“Not good,” he said. “Although that is temporary. But this disease will still make it difficult.”
“It will make what difficult?”
“Finding her a husband,” he said.
It was a mistake to call him. “I cannot believe that is what concerns you,” I said.
“Her health concerns me as well. But this presents an additional problem.”
“If a man is foolish enough not to be interested in her because of this, then he does not merit her anyway.”
“Is that all you called to say?” he asked. “That I’m an old man who doesn’t understand how the modern world works? I’m merely looking out for her.”
“That isn’t looking out for her.” The few lights of the buildings in the neighborhood produced yellow constellations against the black sky. “And she doesn’t need you to do so.”
“Then I should let her go where she pleases, and maybe next time she will end up in the burn unit as well?”
“Unless you quarantine her in a room, there are too many dangers in the world to defend her against,” I said. “And even if you quarantine her, there are still some dangers you cannot prevent.”
He didn’t say anything. “Is the hospital room comfortable for her?” I asked.
“It has been updated since I was last here, but it still has a certain smell I dislike,” he said. “And the doctors speak to me as if I am a child.”
“That must be very frustrating for you,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“She tells me the doctors are informing her well, and that she is doing her own research.”
“Yes,” he said again.
“Is she explaining the concepts to you?”
“And to Haami,” he said. “Which is even more difficult.”
I almost laughed, but I interrupted myself. “It is unfortunate the doctors there do not possess the communication skills she has,” I said.
“Yes,” he said for a third time.
The door to Rebecca’s room was still closed.
I said, “I am in a relationship here with a Jewish female.”
He was mute for such a long time that I thought we might be disconnected. Finally he said, “It is not my preference. But I cannot quarantine you in a room.”
Then he added one word: “Either.”
That word was an important one. And when I heard it, I knew what I had to do the next day.
There was some noise, and he said he had a customer. I said, “I have one question.” It was difficult for me to ask, but I forced myself to state it as if it were a strategy question in a business conference: “Do you remember the Beatles song mother often used to sing to me when I went to sleep?”
I heard him ask the customer to wait. My eyes became fatigued, and the lights of the buildings across the street spread out like gold dust.
Then he said, “I do not remember it, but I know the title was a female’s name.” The customer yelled at him, and we disconnected.
I put down my cellular. I still couldn’t remember the song.
My eyes refocused and the yellow lights outside sharpened into small squares and one room powered off its lights while another one near it simultaneously powered on.
This line entered my brain:
Her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering, in the sun.
And the metaphor of floating sky suddenly made me access a brief memory of my mother singing that part of the song “Julia” to me while sitting on the side of my bed. That was all I could recall. Then I lost the memory of the sound and image. But at least I had it for a few moments, and I remembered that the Beatles also sang about blended emotions, and the pressure bottlenecked behind my eyes again, and I told myself to be strong and to repress it, but then I considered that maybe it was in fact stronger to allow it to happen, so I let myself release, and for several minutes I could not control it, which typically panics me but now it didn’t because it wasn’t exclusively sad, it was also blended, and Rebecca entered the living room and petted my back in a circular pattern with her hand and we stood there mutely for several minutes until I stabilized, and she kept her hand on my back and we returned to her bed and remained mute, which I valued.
bluff = display confidence when your holdings are valueless to leverage the ignorance of the other party
card shark = a card player who bluffs and succeeds
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: DECEMBER 31
The day of my meeting with Mr. Schrub I let Kapitoil run on autopilot. The scrolling white numbers on the black monitor blurred like a snowstorm the entire morning.
In the afternoon I walked all the way uptown through the snow to Mr. Schrub’s apartment. My external concentration was so low that a garbage truck almost crashed into me on Broadway. It was almost amusing to me how you can be so focused on macro concerns, but it requires only a micro event like that to impact everything.
When I arrived at Mr. Schrub’s apartment, I had to check in as before. The receptionist called upstairs and then told me that Mr. Schrub was coming downstairs. I waited 20 minutes, however, and each minute I grew more panicked. But I reminded myself that this was possibly part of his negotiation strategy.
Finally Mr. Schrub arrived with his briefcase. “Let’s take a walk,” he said. “I’ve been cooped up all day.”
We crossed the street to Central Park without talking. As we passed a white horse with black markings attached to a carriage, Mr. Schrub asked, “Feel like a carriage ride? I’m always up for one, but Helena says it’s cruel to the animals.”
I consented, and he arranged a ride with the driver, an Indian man with glasses that were highly concave.
We covered ourselves with blankets and the horse pulled us into the park, away from all the dirty snow where people had walked and onto a clean interior path. Our breath made small clouds in front of our faces like exhaust from a car.
Mr. Schrub put his briefcase on his lap over the blanket and opened it. “I’ve got the contract ready. You can sign now, but we’ll wait until you have a lawyer cosign it so you can be sure you understand all its terms. I think you’ll find it very generous.”
He handed me the stack of papers. In bolded font was the price for the program. It was even higher than what he said at the fund-raiser. Something happens when you see a number attached to a currency symbol, instead of just thinking about it. It becomes more real. Sometimes I enjoy examining my bank account for that reason: Unless I observe evidence, I still don’t believe someone is paying me for what I would also do for free.
There was a division in the path, and Mr. Schrub asked the driver to turn left, but because it was windy and we were behind him and the horse made so much noise, Mr. Schrub had to yell at him three times before he finally heard, and the horse angled northwest. Its body was perspiring even though the temperature was below freezing.