The Hummingbird (30 page)

CHAPTER 19

I CLOSED THE BLACK BINDER
and placed it quietly on the table. My patient was now breathing as deeply as a bellows, seemingly unaware that I had been reading to him. I stood and went for a walk through the house.

Evidence supporting the Professor was everywhere. The shelves of Japanese books. The gong, of all things.

Still I felt a nagging suspicion. It was too neat. Writing the letter to his daughter, then admitting its falsehood to me, meant he could have it both ways. The fact that in all my years of living in Oregon I had never heard one mention about this series of incidents—the pilot, the apology, the sword—none of it. Could the world forget a story such as this?

The books and gong could have been his wife’s. He had admitted that she made the pottery. All the Japanese he had spoken was rudimentary. A beginning judo student could say as much.

Meanwhile, from a scholarly standpoint, the university’s actions discredited Barclay Reed completely. They didn’t just fire him. They removed his books from the shelves. I could not imagine a more thorough repudiation.

What about his daughter? He had never directly contradicted her accusations. Prickly people can still be right.

Oh, it was a mess. Was I being manipulated by a falsehood, to elevate a narcissist’s dying vanity, or entrusted with a tale that should not disappear? I wanted to believe, and I felt inclined not to believe.

What is the purpose of skepticism? To assert our independence of mind? Or to put ourselves in a position of superiority to the person we suspect?

If I used only my hospice attitude, a different question took precedence: Why withhold the thing the patient most wants? Give him that thing, for the little time he has left. And if it is a lie, then it is a noble one, a fib that means forgiveness, a falsehood that brings a man peace.

I returned to the bedroom. Barclay Reed’s respiration had changed, entering the Cheyne-Stokes phase: a series of increasingly dramatic huffs, followed by long apnea with no breathing at all. For families, that stage can be hard to hear. But I knew it meant that his body was trying to find the right carbon dioxide level, and the normal respiratory feedback system was breaking down. The Professor was not in distress, he was dying.

Somehow that decided it. This story’s truth was necessary for me, and for Michael, and for the Professor. That outweighed the importance of whether the historical record was accurate.

I leaned over the bed rail, bringing my mouth down beside his ear. “Professor. Barclay Reed. If you can hear me, guess what? I just finished your book. I finished
The Sword.
”

He did not move. His raggedy breath continued, like a metronome with a broken spring.

“I want you to know.” I looked into the whorl of his ear, the tiny white hairs, his powerful calm. “I think the story is true. Every word.”

The instant I’d spoken it, I felt relief. “I didn’t look it up, or ask anyone,” I continued. “I just read it. Right here with you, and my mind is made up. I believe it. I believe you.”

There was nothing. No response, not even a hitch in his breathing.

Well. I sat back. Apparently my indecision had come at a price. I’d always believed that hearing was the last to go. But I had waited too long.

I checked my watch to time his respiration cycle, so I knew it was two full minutes before he spoke.

“Good.”

One dart of his tongue around the lips, and silence again.

That was the Professor’s last word. The final lecture.

Later he started a repeating motion, raising his left hand a few inches, rubbing his thumb and forefinger against one another, only to drop his arm with fatigue. Oh, when the weight of your own hand is too much to bear. I studied the Professor, wondering what it was he needed, not understanding his agitation.

Then I recognized the thumb-and-finger motion: It was just like the way he teased that tuft of hair on his forehead.

I pulled my chair against the bedside, reached over, and stroked his brow. His left hand fell to the sheet, and I felt his whole body relax. He liked it. Two fingers, that’s all it took to provide that little bit of care, to mimic and repeat the tugging motion I’d seen him do so many times.

I imagined Barclay Reed as a little boy, upset by something and performing this little gesture of self-comfort, this fidget, and it was an action so small and vulnerable, it filled my heart with pity: for the patient lying there in bed before me, for D who deserved relief from her internal torments, for Michael who I wanted to love so much and so well his demons would disappear, even for myself on what I hoped would be some far distant day.

Must we die? Must everyone at last die? Yes, everyone.

I held the Professor’s hand as he dwindled, his breaths growing longer and slower by the minutest degrees. The night dawdled along. At one point I thought he had ceased. But experience told me what would happen next. After an interval so long I would have thought no person could survive, he took a huge inhale, and continued breathing for hours more. I stayed with him, nothing greater than that, but essential because I stood between Barclay Reed and his being alone. Outside, the night may have wheeled across the sky, but here was the universe’s one still place.

We live our lives on a whole planet, seeing and learning and going from place to place. But eventually there arrives a time for each of us, when our world becomes smaller: one house, one floor of that house, and near the end, one room, one little room to which our whole gigantic life has been reduced.

And when that happens—this is a thing I have witnessed, this is a thing I
know
—that room becomes sacred. It is the holy, modest place in which we will perform perhaps the hardest task of our life: letting it go.

I whispered a bit to the Professor about the importance of historians, about the valor of a vigorous mind, about how much I had enjoyed intellectually jousting with him, even though I had landed one blow to his twenty.

But when it began to feel like chatter, I quieted. Enough words had been said.

I took his hand in both of mine, unafraid of touch now, confident in its power, lowered my temple to the inside of his wrist, pulse on pulse, and held him like that until the breathing stopped. And the drum beneath his skin went still.

BARCLAY REED MADE A HANDSOME CORPSE.
His eyes closed, hair sticking straight up, mouth slightly open. He had a forward set to his jaw, as if he had entered death on his own terms. I could ask no more for any patient. I would want no more for myself.

I went to my briefcase in the kitchen and drew out a blank death certificate. Sitting at his bedside, I filled it out: name and cause. I wrote the date, the fifteenth of August, a Monday, this man’s last day on earth. I checked my watch. Four-eighteen
A.M.

Then I sat back. There was no hurry, of course. It is not an emergency when a man is dead. For a while, nothing needs to be done.

After a time of feeling his death, accepting it, I positioned the Professor in bed. No one would see him in this comfortable pose, but I would know, and that was enough. It was something I did every time, out of respect. His mouth hung open. I tucked the black binder, of all things, under his jaw to hold it closed. I cried a little. That made wet darknesses on his white shirt, so I stepped away from the bed.

“Barclay Reed, the world is a lesser place without you.”

I called Central Office, which would retrieve the message at six and relay it promptly to a funeral director. When I put the Professor’s shaving kit away, the bathroom cabinet’s glass shelf made what felt like excessive noise.

That gave me an idea. I went into the living room, no one to worry about offending now. I stood wide-legged before the gong. Lifting the cloth-headed hammer from its little leather sling, I drew back and gave the thing a good hard whack.

The sound was so loud it obliterated thought. A great harsh clanging crash. After that, a long steady drone, the gong wobbling back and forth on its straps, the edges blurring with vibration. Fully half a minute later when I slid the hammer into its sling, still the metal hummed. I had to respect its determination to keep ringing.

All at once I realized that my clothes were still damp. No wonder I felt clammy. I’d been sitting in wet jeans for eleven hours.

The laundry room felt unduly bright. I switched off the overhead, and, undressing in the light from the Professor’s bedroom, I tossed all my things in the dryer. While they tumbled, I wrapped myself in a towel and returned to the living room.

Day was approaching. Dim light crept down the skin of the lake. Another idea came to me.

I slid open the glass door and tiptoed out. No other houses had lights on inside yet. I tossed the towel over a chaise and stood naked at the dock’s edge. It felt as if some kind of ritual were under way, and my nudity was solemn. But when my skin grew goosebumps, I knew I could not linger.

Feet together, I took a deep breath and dove into forbidden Lake Oswego.

The water was fantastic, clean, and warmer than the air. I stroked out fifty yards or so, feeling the ocean’s salt rinse from my hair, beach sand fall from my skin. I took a big gulp of the lake and it was delicious.

The light was growing, so I swam hard back to the dock. Draping the towel over me, I lay on the chaise and shivered while the sun came up. It was modest at first, peach tones on the clouds highest overhead. But then it grew, until the whole eastern sky was a chaos of reds and pinks. At last the sun broke the horizon, a streak of yellow beaming down the lake, and I understood what Barclay Reed had said. His dock truly was a magnificent place for a sunrise. I felt grateful to him.

After dressing I checked on the Professor, who now was pale and cool. I slid the binder out from under his chin, and his mouth remained closed. I leaned over him. “Good-bye, smart man.”

Collecting unused medicines and the last of the paperwork, I piled it on the black binder and brought everything out to my car. Standing there, though, I had a moment of doubt. Did I really believe the story of Ichiro Soga? Had I been overly persuaded by the needs of a dying man? Was there any real way of knowing?

A query on my phone told me that the public library in Brookings opened at nine. A search for directions said it was a solid five-hour drive. If I left first thing after the crew arrived, I could be home by dinner.

Which made me think of food. Back inside, I reheated a plate of Cheryl’s untouched Chinese. By the time I’d eaten and cleaned up, it was six-thirty. I picked up my phone again. I could have texted Michael and told him my plan, but no. It was time to call Deirdre.

I USED THE INTERSTATE AS FAR AS EUGENE,
then turned for the coast. Normally my road trips went inland, up the Columbia River gorge: foodie towns, jock towns, with giant windmills spinning on the ridge. Now I saw the other Oregon, rural and rugged. Trees grew beside the road so densely, I felt like I was driving through a tunnel. I reached some logged-out lands, stumps across the hillside looking like an old man’s crew cut. The traffic crawled, logging trucks and tourists. Eventually I reached a glimmering place, the roadsides opened, and I saw the source of all that light: the Pacific, endless and green.

As I continued south, stone monoliths began rising from the sea—like Cannon Beach, but bigger and wilder. A sign warned that I had entered a tsunami zone. I reached for the phone to text Michael about it, but there was no service and I hurried on.

All along the way there were signs counting down the distance to Brookings. Still the place took me by surprise. Not its existence, but its era. My imagination had frozen the town in 1962. Now the fast-food chains, traffic lights, and contemporary cars seemed out of place. Then I spotted businesses named Azalea: a real estate office, a bowling alley. And then Azalea Park, whose pull I could not resist. I climbed out of the car and trotted through the place: Redwoods overhead like great mothers with broad skirts, a chapel facing the ocean, and beyond the baseball diamond, a fantastic vista of the Chetco River far below.

The view had a calming effect on me, and what I found waiting there was Michael. Healthy or ill, he lived in my still place, in my quiet heart.

I could have called him, but it was time to go. Time to find out.

One turn off the coast highway brought me to the Chetco Community Public Library—handsome yellow clapboard and gray stone. For a minute I sat in the car, preparing myself. I wanted to believe the Professor. I wanted my hopes for Michael to be based on more than a loving lie.

The foyer featured an elaborate carving of a whale. A metal bin on wheels sat below the overnight return box. I took a deep breath and went in.

The woman at the main counter was tall and gray haired. Bent to a computer without sitting down, she had the tense motions of a person under stress. She gave me a half-second glance. “Yes?”

“Hi,” I said. “I’m here to research something.”

“Reference.” She pointed with a pen.

I followed her gesture to a desk where an enormous man sat sorting some papers. He wore the cleanest, whitest shirt I’d ever seen. An elastic band circled each of his arms, holding golden plastic wings onto his back.