Swansong (14 page)

9

Great White

I sit at the kitchen table while the chickpeas roast in the oven.  The clock above the stove reads seven o’clock.  Dad had this recipe—rosemary and garlic—I just hope I got it right.

Dad.  He’s gone.  Sometimes I find myself getting used to his absence.  But then I’ll think something like,
Dad used to water the plants for Mom
, or
Dad used to buy his pants from the maternity department
, and the past tense throws me off kilter, socks me in the chest with the weight of a brick wall.  No, I’m never going to hear his voice again.  No, he’s never going to tease me because I can’t reach the mantelpiece.  I don’t have a mantelpiece anymore.  I don’t have a father anymore.  Or a mother.  Or a best friend.

And is it really okay to get used to their absence?  If I get used to it, will I forget all about them?  Will they fade away in the recesses of my mind?  I don’t think that’s right.  They didn’t ask to die.  They didn’t ask to be forgotten.

Qadar
, Azel said.

I rub the dull ache in my forehead.

I can hear the news playing on the television outside.  I guess it’s safe now.  I guess they stopped playing footage of the car crash.

You know what I think is weird?  The media vultures—or their absence.  They never came after Jude or me for a picture, a statement.  I’m glad; but I’m surprised.  I’ve seen the way they dog assault victims and their families.  Like stray hounds ripping apart garbage bags for scraps.  I don’t think much of reporters.  They’re always looking for the bad news.  They’re always looking for ways to push their agenda. 
Iranian women like martial arts.  This must mean they’re suppressed in their home lives.  Native American men parked their cars in Wounded Knee for a political summit.  This must mean they’re planning a hostile takeover.

I guess I don’t believe in the black-and-white world they want us living in.

I open my cell phone.  I consider browsing news sites, but wind up e-mailing Kory instead.  It’s Sunday night, and I’m in my pajamas.  I’d go to school in my pajamas if I could.  Why do they make pajamas so comfortable, then tell us we can’t wear them outside?  It seems like a conspiracy.

My fingers hover over the cell phone’s keypad.

Rudolf Steiner
, I type.

I don’t know where the impulse came from.  I don’t know what I expect to find.  The search engine gives me more than three million results.  I click on the third result.  As far as numbers go, I’ve never liked One.

A man’s face stares back at me in grainy black and white.  His forehead is heavy, his chin weak.  His eyes—I can’t explain it—they’re imbued with a mischief the dated photograph doesn’t manage to hide.

1861 - 1925
, the blurb begins. 
Celebrated neuroscientist from Austria-Hungary (now Croatia).  Core member of the Theosophical society and founder of Anthroposophy (“Spiritual Science”).  Steiner’s interest in neuroscience began at age nine, when he claimed to have had an out-of-body experience in which he met with his deceased aunt.

I lay the cell phone on the table.  I swallow.  Out-of-body experience.  Deceased aunt.

Deceased parents.  Deceased best friend.

I touch the swan hanging from my right wrist.  Of course it’s crazy.  It’s crazy, right?  Science is one thing.  Spirit is another.

There’s a nebula shaped like a swan.  The universe is singing.

Judas sticks his head in the kitchen.  He shuffles inside.  “You’re wearing that?”

I shift free from my reverie.  “What?” I ask.  I roll back my pajama sleeves.  “I just washed them two days ago.”

Jude’s dressed nicely, his sports coat old but durable.  It’s actually kind of shocking.  If he were anyone else, I’d assume he’s going on a date.  But I know that can’t be true, because Jude’s something of a sworn eunuch.  “Nobody in their right mind pursues a relationship with a felon,” he told me once.

“Did you forget?” he asks me.

The blood in my veins feels frozen.  “What?  Forget what?”

His face around his scars is smooth and calm.  I know it’s for my benefit.  “We’re going to church tonight.  You said you’d come with me.”

“O-Oh—”

“Do you want to stay home?”

“No.  No, I’ll—”  I stand.  The room dips around me.  “Don’t let dinner burn,” I murmur.

I hurry out of the kitchen, into my bedroom.  Sometimes I forget I’m not broken.  Then I forget something small, something trivial, and it all comes crashing back to me.

Crashes.  I’m sick of crashes.

* * * * *

I dress in the nicest dress I can find—green velvet—and white stockings.  After dinner I follow Jude outside the apartment building.  He starts toward the underground parking lot.  I stop him, my hand around his wrist.

“What’s the matter?”  He looks back at me.

“Do we have to take the car?”

I know it’s probably irrational of me.  I’ve been okay—mostly okay—with getting into Judas’ car.  That’s probably because I can’t remember the accident.

Tonight I don’t want to get into anyone’s car.  I don’t even want to look at cars.  Mom—and Dad—and Jocelyn—

“We can walk,” Jude says.  “Come on.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.  I follow him to the street corner.  “Thank you,” I say.

“You’re my sister,” he says.

He says it like it makes all the difference in the world.  I swallow a lump of emotion.  He could have killed a whole college full of cardinals.  He’s still my brother.  That’s powerful.  I don’t know anything more powerful than family.

He tousles my hair.  We set off west through The Spit.  Neon pink lights advertise nude bars outside shady buildings and dilapidated trailers.

“You’re interested in Rudolf Steiner?” Judas asks.

Hearing his name under the cold stars surprises me.  “How did you know about—?”

“You left your cell phone open,” Judas says.

Oh.  I did, didn’t I.

“Neuroscience,” I explain lamely.  “After what happened…you know, the accident…”

“I know.”

He knows.  It feels nice to have somebody who knows.

“You know he was a theosophist?” Judas asks me.

I tear my eyes away from a spinning holographic disc outside a shooting gallery.  I don’t mean the kind with guns.  Authorities just don’t care anymore.  Nobody cares about anything.

“Theosophy?” I ask.

“It’s this inclusive society that incorporates every race, every religion.  Multiple truths adding up to one truth.  It came out of twelfth century Islam.”

I think of Azel.  I feel hot-headed, dizzy.

“Hey, Jude?” I ask.  I hurry on before he can snicker.  “Do you think we exist outside of our bodies?”

Judas glances down at me, sideways.  “Like how?”

“Like…the soul, I guess.”

“I have no idea,” Judas admits.

“Really?”

“Really.  But I’m not taking any chances.  If there’s a God, I want to get back on his good side.”

“Really…”

“You know what thoughts are?  Bioelectric pulses in your brain.  Bioelectricity is energy.  Energy can’t be destroyed.  Maybe you can use that knowledge to argue that your thoughts live on somewhere once you’ve died.  Maybe ‘soul’ is the poor man’s term for consciousness.  But…hell.  I don’t know.”

“The Law of Conservation of Energy?”  One of the few Physics lessons I actually remember.  “That law also says energy can’t be created from nothing.  All the energy that exists always existed.  But when you think a new thought, that’s a new bioelectric pulse.  It never existed before.  But how can that be true without breaking all the laws that hold the universe together?”

Judas shrugs.  “Science doesn’t know everything,” Judas says.  “You know about the Placebo Effect?”

“Isn’t that…”  I rack my brain.  “After childbirth, right?”  Should I be talking about this with my brother?

Judas stares at me.  “No.”

“Oh.”

“In 2002,” Judas says, “four doctors—Petrovic, Kalso, Petersson, and Ingvar—treated a group of men between twenty and twenty-seven who were suffering from second-degree burns.  Only half of the men were given real meds.  Without being told, the other half were given sugar pills.”

“Why would they do that?”  It sounds cruel.

“To prove a point,” Judas says.  “The men who were given fake meds experienced the same symptoms as the ones who were given the real deal.  Their pain went away.  Their skin mended.  They didn’t know until years later that they hadn’t been on any medication at all.”

“But that’s…”  The skin on the back of my neck prickles.  That’s crazy.  Is that even legal?

“That’s the Placebo Effect,” Jude says.  “Mind over matter.  Science observes this stuff all the time without being able to explain it.  You know what else science can’t explain?  Why bikes don’t fall over while you’re riding them.  The torque and gyroscopic forces generated by bike pedals aren’t strong enough to keep the front and back wheels balanced at the same time.  That’s a proven fact.  Someone just hasn’t told Tour de France yet.”

We wait on the street corner for the light to change.  A car zips down the street, its horn blaring the theme song from The Godfather.

“Do you believe in out-of-body experiences?” I blurt out.

Judas doesn’t look at me.  He puts his hands in the pockets of his sports coat.  He rolls his shoulders back.  I can see the contemplation on his scar-laden profile, scars on his cheek and mouth tightening, loosening.

“Don’t know much about that,” Jude says.  “They say near-death experiences are the result of neurons firing inside your brain.”

“So it’s all in your head.”

“Something you’re not telling me?”

“No.”  Why am I lying?  Why am I so afraid?

The traffic light changes.  Jude holds my arm when we cross the street.

“Listen,” Jude says.  “Just because something doesn’t exist outside of your head doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist at all.”

“How do you mean…?”

“Isn’t the way we interact with the world based entirely on the way we perceive it?  We can’t perceive the world as anything but human beings.  A color that looks green or orange to human eyes appears as something else altogether to a dog’s eyes.  ‘Green’ and ‘orange’ don’t exist outside the human skull.  Does that mean they aren’t real?”

This is the same man who told me Isaac Newton discovered the apple.  “How do you know all this stuff?”

“The Bible wasn’t the only book I read in lockup.”

If I think about it a little longer, I’m sure it’ll make sense.

* * * * *

The church looks out of place in The Spit.  It’s tiny, faux brick, with low stone steps and giant oak doors.  It doesn’t have a steeple.  Across the street is a bagel shop, its windows glowing with yellow light.  I’m surprised it’s still open at this hour.

Equally surprising is the thickness of the throng outside the church.  I didn’t think anyone remembered God in this Godless city.  A deacon props the doors open.  We flock into the narthex, then the nave.

I’ve never been a very religious person.  Even now I’m not sure I believe that there’s anything out there more intelligent than humans.  I have to admit, though, that there’s something soothing about the inside of a church.  I like the way the heavy stone floors echo underfoot.  I like the way the stained glass windows swim around you in an opaque haze.  Even the little baptismal fonts are calming, the water tepid and crystalline.  Soft murmurs fill the nave as the men and women take to the pews.  Judas wants to sit in the back; so we do.  A nook in the wall to our right houses a marble statue of a lachrymose woman.  I’m not sure which saint she’s supposed to be.

The priest climbs the carpeted blue predella.  He takes to the pulpit on the altar.  It’s here that my attention wanders.  My eyes wander about the church.  Corporate types hide their cell phones on their laps while the priest gives his homily.  I guess they want their salvation as cheap as they can get it.  And in the front row—behind where the choir should be—a girl in salmon and yellow, rosy curls reaching her shoulders.  I recognize her right away.

“That girl goes to school with me,” I whisper to Judas.

He waves me off
, although I’m not sure he heard me to begin with.  I forgot—no talking when the priest talks.

The back of Annwn’s head is distracting.  The candles at the front of the church make her hair shine.  Strawberry blonde is a weird color, isn’t it?  It’s red.  It’s blonde.  It’s almost pink.  She’s sitting alone, I realize.  There’s a respectable girth between her and the stranger to her right.  Every time I see her, she’s alone.  I feel sorry for her.  I think I should be her friend.

The priest calls on everyone to receive communion.  Judas stands and gets in line.  I stay in my seat.  I listen to the organ player striking her keys.  I breathe in the incense, smoky, spicy.

I don’t know why I’m here—but I don’t think I mind.