Losing Julia (52 page)

I JUST FINISHED
reading Jung’s autobiography:
Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
I was struck by his inability to go to Rome. He said he didn’t have the strength for it; the strength to deal with “the spirit that broods there,” a spirit suffusing every stone and layered back through antiquity. The last time he tried to go he fainted while buying the tickets.

What about me? Would I have the strength to go back to France?

IT WAS ONLY
after the police found me half a mile from Great Oaks after dark and without even my customary sweater that Dr. Tompkins told me, in his roundabout way, that I was losing my mind.

“Early onset,” he said, assuring me that it would never catch up to and overrun the cancer.

“Brain rot, eh?”

“You might want to get your affairs in order.”

“How did you know I was having affairs?”

He didn’t smile.

All I remember is how happy Sarah was to see me when the officer escorted me through the front door just before midnight. And I remember that she hugged me and that she almost cried and I wondered what horrible thing had happened to her until she told me. Then I felt ashamed like a kindergartner who has crapped in his pants. And that’s when it was agreed that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the grounds on my own again.

I waited a long time for sleep that night, and when it came it whisked me far far away all on my own.

NOT MUCH
longer now, Julia. Not much longer at all.

I THINK
most of us are haunted deep within by a sense of lost perfection, by the nagging feeling not just that things could be better but that they once were better; that we can actually, in our hearts, recall a feeling of joy that we cannot reproduce, and
that
is our ultimate agony. It’s not just that we can imagine utter happiness, it’s that we’ve tasted it; perhaps, as Freud would say, at the breast of our mothers. And having tasted it, nothing else tastes the same, which is why so much of life is so bitterly sweet.

I don’t think we ever stop trying to find it again, that sense of infinite well-being and security. Deep in our hearts we all long for a sort of Restoration. That’s what love offers: our only chance back to an ethereal communion we once enjoyed. And maybe that’s why love even at first sight feels so much like a reunion.

And without love? Without love we are like songbirds who cannot sing.

IS JULIA DEAD?
I couldn’t bear to think so.

I WAS LEANING
against an oak tree near the gazebo vomiting when Martin found me.

“You all right?” he asked, putting his hand on my back.

I waved him off and retched again.

“I’ll get a nurse,” he said, turning to go.

“No, stay.”

“But you… ” I vomited again, my whole body convulsing as Martin held on to my shoulder. “Let me get someone,” he said.

“No, please, it’s nothing.” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

You’re sick. I’m going to get the doctor.” He turned again to go.

“Wait.”

He turned back toward me.

“This isn’t the big C it’s the little c,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Cigar. I had a goddamn cigar.”

“You had a cigar? But you don’t smoke.”

“I know I don’t smoke.”

“So why did you have a cigar?” He looked confused.

“Because I wanted one.”

“It made you sick, huh?”

“Yes, it made me sick.” I pushed myself into an upright position.

“Here, let me help you,” he said, taking my arm and leading me across the lawn and back inside.

“I don’t think you should smoke anymore,” he said.

“No, I don’t think I should either.”

GOD, IT’S ME,
Patrick. Patrick Delaney. Patrick E. Delaney. Room four, if that helps. I was just wondering, do the people who believe in you know something I don’t? Do you give them some sort of secret understanding or insight or signal? Because if you do, I believe you’ve overlooked me. (A flick of the lights will suffice.) And if you don’t, why then I’m baffled.

The truth is—and I’ll keep this short because you must be quite pressed for time—the truth is that it’s getting awfully tempting to believe in you, which is to say that the alternatives are looking rather bleak. I hate to say it, Lord, but you may, finally, have me on the ropes. But I was wondering: if you really do exist (and I still have grave doubts), any chance you could lighten up a bit? And must I always do the talking?

I COULDN’T
see Julia for two days. It was raining hard and Sean was sick and there was no way to get away. So all I could do was run to her hotel each day through the rain and leave her a note telling her that I missed her and that I’d try again the next day.

And then I would sit next to Sean’s bed and put wet washcloths on his forehead and sing him “Old King Cole” and “Swanee River” and “Five Little Sailors,” and whenever I thought of sailing for New York I would clench my fists and teeth and struggle not to cry out at the rain.

YESTERDAY
I noticed a scent of bark outside that I had not smelled in years. While the bark lingered in my nose, flushing out ancient treehouses and campfires and games of tag and capture the flag, I noticed that the birds seemed to be singing louder than usual and the leaves on the trees looked more pronounced, almost exaggerated in their lush clarity. I sat perfectly still, waiting for some evidence of a stroke or heart attack. But nothing hurt. I took long deep breaths, slowly at first then one right after another, tasting the air that swirled within my lungs and thinking how the first scent of autumn is like coming across a lost album of childhood photographs.

And today too, I feel, well,
good.
Clearheaded. Crisp even, though it fades in and out. Everything seems to have unusual depth and color as though my senses are on heightened alert. I feel a fullness in my chest. It’s a pleasing fullness; like the deep welling one feels before a good, overdue cry.

Only two things in my life ever had the power to contain me wholly in the present moment: Julia and the German Army. But now? What is this?

It’s death, isn’t it? The encore. I smiled, trying not to laugh as some visitors walked quickly by. Well if this is death’s approach, then I no longer envy those who die abruptly, never experiencing the power of death’s proximity. Let me breathe as deep as I can and close my eyes for a moment. Yes, that feels so peaceful, so relaxing, as though everything is brimming over.