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Rudy came ru
“I told you to turn that blasted thing off before we started!” Jacobs shouted at Rudy.
Astrid pistoned her arms up, one right in front of Je
“Sorry, Mr. Jacobs—”
“Shut it OFF, you idiot!”
Charlie snatched the control box out of my hands and slid the switch back to the off position. Now Astrid was making a series of gagging sounds.
“Pastor Da
“Don’t be stupid!” Jacobs snapped. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. He looked twenty years younger. “Norma! Call the gate! Tell them the alarm was an accident!”
“Should I—”
“Go! Go! Goddammit, GO!”
She went.
Astrid’s eyes opened, only there were no eyes, just bulging whites. She gave another of those myoclonic jerks, then slid forward, legs kicking and jerking. Her arms flailed like those of a drowning swimmer. The alarm brayed and brayed. I grabbed her by the hips and shoved her back in her chair before she could land on the floor. The crotch of her slacks was dark, and I could smell strong urine. When I looked up, I saw foam drizzling from one side of her mouth. It fell from her chin to the collar of her blouse, darkening that, too.
The alarm quit.
“Thank God for small favors,” Jacobs said. He was bent forward, hands on his thighs, observing Astrid’s convulsions with interest but no concern.
“We need a doctor!” Je
“Bosh,” Jacobs said. There was a half-smile—the only kind he could manage—on his face. “Did you expect it to be easy? It’s cancer, for God’s sake. Give her a minute and she’ll be—”
“There’s a door in the wall,” Astrid said.
The hoarseness had left her voice. Her eyes rolled back down in their sockets . . . but not together; they came one at a time. When they were back in place, it was Jacobs they were looking at.
“You can’t see it. It’s small and covered with ivy. The ivy is dead. She waits on the other side, above the broken city. Above the paper sky.”
Blood can’t turn cold, not really, but mine seemed to. Something happened, I thought. Something happened, and Mother will be here soon.
“Who?” Jacobs asked. He took one of her hands. The half-smile was gone. “Who waits?”
“Yes.” Her eyes stared into his. “She.”
“Who? Astrid, who?”
She said nothing at first. Then her lips stretched in a terrible grin that showed every tooth in her head. “Not the one you want.”
He slapped her. Astrid’s head jerked to the side. Spittle flew. I shouted in surprise and grabbed his wrist when he raised his hand to do it again. I stopped him, but only with an effort. He was stronger than he had any right to be. It was the kind of strength that comes from hysteria. Or pent-up fury.
“You can’t hit her!” Je
“Stop,” Astrid said. Her voice was weak but lucid. “Stop it, Je
Je
“Why are you yelling at him? Did something happen?”
Yes, I thought. Something happened. Something most surely did.
Astrid turned to Jacobs. “When are you going to do it? You better hurry, because the pain is very . . . very . . .”
The three of us stared at her. No, it was the five of us. Rudy and Norma had crept back into the East Room doorway, and they were staring, too.
“Wait,” Astrid said. “Wait just a darn minute.”
She touched her chest. She cupped the wasted remains of her breasts. She pressed her stomach.
“You did it already, didn’t you? I know you did, because there is no pain!” She pulled in a breath and let it out in an incredulous laugh. “And I can breathe! Je
Je
Jacobs gave me a bemused look that was easy to read: You see, Jamie? I do all the work and the Big G gets all the credit.
Astrid tried to get out of the wheelchair, but her wasted legs wouldn’t hold her. I got her before she could do a face-plant, and put my arms around her.
“Not yet, honey,” I said. “You’re too weak.”
She goggled at me as I eased her back onto the seat. The oxygen mask had gotten twisted around and now hung on the left side of her neck, forgotten.
“Jamie? Is that you? What are you doing here?”
I looked at Jacobs.
“Short-term memory loss after treatment is common,” he said. “Astrid, can you tell me who the president is?”
She looked bewildered at the question but answered with no hesitation. “Obama. And Biden’s the vice president. Am I really better? Will it last?”
“You are and it will, but never mind that now. Tell me—”
“Jamie? Is it really you? Your hair is so white!”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s certainly getting there. Listen to Charlie.”
“I was crazy about you,” she said, “but even though you could play, you could never dance very well unless you were high. We had di
“Right here.”
“I can breathe. I can actually breathe again.” She was crying.
Jacobs snapped his fingers in front of her eyes like a stage hypnotist. “Focus, Astrid. Who brought you here?”
“J-Je
“What did you have for supper last night?”
“Sloop. Sloop and salad.”
He snapped his fingers in front of her swimming eyes again. It made her blink and recoil. The muscles beneath her skin seemed to be tightening and firming even as I watched. It was wonderful and awful.
“Soup. Soup and salad.”
“Very good. What is the door in the wall?”
“Door? I don’t—”
“You said it was covered with ivy. You said there was a broken city on the other side.”
“I . . . don’t remember that.”
“You said she waits. You said . . .” He peered into her uncomprehending face and sighed. “Never mind. You need to rest, my dear.”
“I suppose so,” Astrid said, “but what I’d really like to do is dance. Dance for joy.”
“In time you will.” He patted her hand. He was smiling as he did it, but I had an idea he was deeply disappointed at her failure to remember the door and the city. I was not. I didn’t want to know what she had seen when Charlie’s secret electricity stormed through the deepest recesses of her brain. I didn’t want to know what was waiting behind the hidden door she had spoken of, yet I was afraid I did.
Mother.
Above the paper sky.
• • •
Astrid slept all morning and well into the afternoon. When she woke, she declared herself ravenous. This pleased Jacobs, who told Norma Goldstone to bring “our patient” a toasted cheese sandwich and a small piece of cake with the frosting scraped off. Frosting, he felt, might be too rich for her wasted stomach. Jacobs, Je
“I want the rest,” she said, “but I’m full.”
“Give yourself time,” Je
“I want to go home,” Astrid said.