the cassandra pages

Obscurity and Struggle

"I don't know what to tell you," says the doctor. "This is the way it is when someone is dying. It isn't the heart, the kidneys, any one thing anymore. They pass in and out of lucidity. And it's very hard to tell you what to expect." He's a good guy, this doctor, and we don't have unreasonable expectations, of him or of this process. We're all waiting, wishing it could be easier.

There seems to have been a change starting on the weekend. My father-in-law is very weak but still insisting on getting up even though his legs won’t hold him; they're giving him morphine now as well as a sedative, to try to keep his blood pressure down, help his groaning, and keep him a little more manageable because he's been really angry, disoriented, and unable to communicate what he wants. He's refusing his other medications, and today, even water, though he ate last night, and apparently it's been a real struggle to give him the morphine and lorazepam. It seems like we're getting down toward the end but that it's going to be a struggle right up to the final moment; J. and I will be heading down there again tomorrow.

Why the refusal to give up, to go gently? Because peace flowing out of a simple conclusion never suited this contradictory man, whose mind has wrestled with the big questions as long as it could - and perhaps still is, as he grapples with confusion, growing darkness, and the fear he might have been wrong. Life -- the material body and the rational mind -- are what he knows and what he can hold onto as true. The rest: unknowable, and, except in poetic speculation, that was never the territory he wanted to travel.

Waiting

We arrived at his apartment in the evening, the day after he had called and said he was dying and wanted to tell J. he loved him. The next day he had severe angina – the first really intense episode since the angina attack and hospital stay that had precipitated this entire decline - and was given nitroglycerine tablets, then a nitro patch, then some morphine. When we got there he was resting comfortably in his bed, on sunny yellow sheets, wearing a dark blue nightshirt covered with white moons and stars. We didn’t stay long, and told him we’d come back the next day, which we did, arriving there around dinnertime. He refused food, though, having already eaten two big meals earlier in the day.

He moves painfully from the bathroom to his chair in the living room, stopping at the kitchen counter to collapse onto the seat of his walker and be pushed the rest of the way, eyes shut, loud moans accompanying each breath.“Let’s have some action!” he says, his eyes roaming anxiously around the room. “What are we waiting for?”

We sit in our own chairs, waiting, suspended with him in this interminable purgatory. After a cursory “hello” upon noticing us, he sits in his chair, moaning, unseeing, for a long time. Now his eyes open; I move the little rush-seated stool closer to him. “Let’s do something!” he insists, seeming agitated as he searches my face. “I think the three of us should take some action! Where are my shoes?”

“In the back room.”

“They’re hanging on a hook,” he elaborates, and then clutches at the neck of his bathrobe. “Where are my clothes?”

“Also in the back room.”

“What good are they, lying there? Let’s do something! The day is starting.”

It’s six in the evening, but no matter. “What do you want to do?”

No response.

“Shall we pretend it’s morning and we’re going to chapel?” He raises his eyebrows. “If you were going to speak to the students in chapel today, what would you tell them?”

“That I want to DIE!” The words emerge in a growl from between clenched teeth.

“Oh. I’m not sure they’re going to want to hear that.” He gives a slight, very slight, smile.

“When did we get to London?” he asks, suddenly.

“We’re not actually in London."

“Really?”

“No, unfortunately. If we were there we could go to the museum. Like we used to do after breakfast." He gives me another wan smile. I’m thinking fast. What to say next? “We had a lot of good times in London, didn’t we? Do you remember John W.? And Lady W.?”

“She’s dead!”

“Yes.”

“Is he dead now too?”

“No, he’s very much alive and always asks about you.”

“So we’re not in London?  Where are we?”

“In your apartment in X.”

He looks at me, astounded. “Really? Amazing!”

“See, all your books are here. Simone de Beauvoir.” He looked surprised again. “Up there on the shelf. Your daughter arranged all your books for you.”

“Alphabetically?”

“No, they’re more by subject area. That’s a little French section up there: Simone de Beauvoir, Stendhal, Andre Gide... you have a wonderful library.”

“Keep it!”

“I think we probably will. All your children have good libraries.”

He nods, and then sits, silent. At length he rouses himself and makes an announcement to the room: “I know what we’re waiting for.”

“What is that?”

“We’re all waiting for me to die.”

A little stunned, neither of us have any idea what to say, so we are silent as well.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he goes on. “Putting someone in their bed for months and just waiting for them to die.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s Christian.”

I think hard, trying to choose between various ways of responding. Finally I take the riskiest one. “So, would you prefer the hemlock?” I ask him, speaking gently.

“No,” he says solemnly and sadly. “I wouldn’t drink it.”

“Neither would I, probably. So I guess we just have to wait.”

“I suppose so,” he says, and shuts his eyes.

Beyond and Before

Phone conversations have become almost impossible, and in person, they are at best happy but disjointed. Last week there was a crisis: a narcotic pain medication to try to help him sleep better threw him for a complete loop, resulting in several days of agitated disorientation. He shouted in frustrated Arabic a lot of the time, which we could only decipher with difficulty. And then, gradually, the medication wore off and was cleansed from his system, and he returned to the state he’s been in for a while now: part here, part in the past; fatigued and weak but still able to eat, get up for a few hours of sitting, still appreciative of brief visits even if the memory of them vanishes quickly. It goes like this:

The caregiver helps him into the living room, sometimes using his walker, more and more often the wheelchair. His eyes are nearly closed, and he groans with each step. Finally he lands in his chair, a controlled collapse with helping arms around him, and rests, eyes tightly shut now, while she brings his food, cut into small bites, and sets it on a tray in front of him. At length he opens his eyes and slowly, slowly, reaches for the fork, spears a bite of meat, maneuvers it toward his mouth, opens the mouth, places the morsel on his tongue, begins to chew with his few remaining teeth. This man whose great pleasure was eating, who I’ve seen wolfing down unbelievable portions of food and talking about the abundance and joy of eating for days after a wedding banquet or party – “the shrimp were enormous, and they had a great platter of them! The beef was so succulent, so tasty!” – is exhausted after four or five bites. On a good night, when there is something he especially likes – stuffed grape leaves, for instance - he’ll sit up and go on eating, with long intervals between, for an hour. But more and more it is like this. He’s not drinking enough either, and so the caregiver puts a small bowls of cut-up watermelon in front of him, and he picks at it for a long while.

After the meal he rests and then opens his eyes and looks at us. “I can’t make out who has died, or who died first,” he says, suddenly, sounded remarkably like himself. “I’m not sure if my uncles are still alive. Do you know?”

“Your uncles in Damascus? Is that who you mean?”

“Of course!”

“I think they are probably dead.” (They died forty years ago.)

“I think they may be too. But did my mother die too?”

“Yes.”

“I think she died before Uncle A, because I remember what he said when he heard the news. I can see him coming into the house. But of the rest I am not sure at the moment.”

“Do you remember going to the cemetery in Damascus with your sons?” I put my hand on J.’s shoulder to remind him this was one of them.

He thinks for a minute. “Yes. I remember reading the inscriptions.”

“And those were your parents’ graves…”

He looks unsure. “They may have been,” he says, finally. “How is your father?”

“He’s fine. He’s playing a lot of golf.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Really! So he can still take aim.”

“Yep!”

“Alhamdullilah!” ("All praise belongs to Allah.") At this the J. and I burst out laughing, and he joins us, his shoulders shaking and his face in a big grin. It's the last thing we expect him to say in that context. The caregiver, sitting at her book in the corner, looks up with a surprised smile on her face.

“I brought you the Arabic papers from Montreal, Dad,” says J., when the laughter has passed.

“Oh.” I go over to the table and unfold the papers. “Do you think you can see the headline?” I ask. He shakes his head no. “Here,” I hold it up and show him the big red Arabic letters at the top.

He peers at the writing and sounds some of it out. “You're close -- this one is ‘Phoenicia’: it’s a Lebanese paper,” I tell him. “Look, here’s an ad for travel to Lebanon.” We look at the picture of an airplane in clouds together; I can’t tell if he can see it or not. The caregiver peeks at us, fascinated; she is new and doesn’t know much about him yet. “And look, here’s your old friend Bill Clinton, and Hillary and Obama.” He smiles wanly. “And here’s a priest – actually I think it’s a patriarch.”

At that he brightens up. “Which patriarch?” he asks.

“I don’t know. He’s all dressed up, though.”

“They all do that.”

“Maybe he's Greek,” I say. “I’m not sure and I can’t read any of this!”

He laughs. “Which one is the top now?”

“Which patriarch?”

“Yes, which one do they all defer to?”

“I don’t know but it seems like the Greek patriarch gets the most attention.” We look at an Egyptian paper after that, but he's losing interest, or perhaps it just depresses him to not be able to read any of it. It's hard to tell. I fold the papers and put them away.

“Is this spinach?” he asks, looking at an untouched pile of green on his plate.

“Yes. Do you want to try some?” He shakes his head no, and when the caregiver asks if he's finished he says yes, and she takes the tray away. But he doesn’t seem tired enough yet to want us to leave.

“Guess what I’m reading?” I ask, taking a chance.

“What?”

“Plato.”

“Good for you. Which one?”

“The Republic. I read it forty years ago but it’s better this time around.”

He nods but I’m not sure if he’s remembering, or connecting.

“I didn’t remember how lively the dialogues were. He can be very funny too. He was a very smart man, your friend Socrates.”

“Not always,” he says, shaking his head. “The smartest one of my uncles was your father, the one I always met coming back down the hill.”

It's hard to make these quick adjustments, but we're getting better at it. Who did he think I was now? A cousin, obviously…“In Damascus?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“The one with the orchard in Bludan?”

“They both had orchards.” His eyes roll up toward the ceiling; it's easier to follow the memory than make an explanation. “Oh, the figs we used to eat from those trees!”

Conversing with Aged Men

I just started re-reading Plato's Republic, and in the first three pages came across this dialogue; I wonder if my father-in-law remembers these thoughts from his friends. I'm sorry that it feels too late to read it out loud to him - but maybe I can try. In better days, he would have like that - and what's said here - a lot.

You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us.

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age' --Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is --I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles, --are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on --Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself."

Plato's Republic, Part One, Prelude.

99

(I've removed the video link, as I said I would, and rewritten some of the copy below to reflect the dialogue that was previously in the audio. You - and he - are all back in the realm of the imagination now.)

It was a good day. When we brought the cake in, he sighed and said, "I'm afraid I might make the hundred!" He cut it himself, ate two pieces (when he wasn't busy shelling the green almonds) and after a while reached for the knife again.

"Do you want another piece?" we asked.

"I seem to like it!" he said, helping himself. There were a few presents, many cards, and two shiny mylar balloons, which he marveled at, remarking, "These are the first balloons I've ever been given!" - probably true, he hasn't ever seemed like the balloon type but today, he liked them.

His face had lit up when we gave him the package of green almonds and he figured out what they were. Immediately he set to work trying to crack them - with his few remaining teeth. I took a hammer out onto the balcony and split some for him on the concrete floor. When he got the first nutmeat into his mouth, he smiled and nodded."They don't taste quite the same as they did," he said.

"Well, they've probably been traveling for a while." He nodded, that was true, but he kept eating them anyway.

"Where are they from?" the caregiver asked. "Are they really from Syria?"

My father-in-law looked in her direction and nodded, his mouth full.

"They're from the Middle Eastern market, but I don't know from where. Maybe even California; a friend of mine there says she has a big crop on her trees."

"They're from Bludan," J. said, and his father raised his eyebrows approvingly.

The nuts looked good though - soft and white, as if you took a blanched almond and soaked it in water. "What do you call them in Arabic?" I asked.

M. looked up and said, "Loz. L-O-Z." He split another nuts form its inner shell with a practiced thumb. "The almond-seller used to walk along the streets, calling out "Loz!" - he sold the almonds whole, soaked in water, and we'd go down and buy them -- delicious. These don't taste quite like that."

He had noticed that we were taking pictures. When we said goodbye, he thanked us and said gently, "I probably won't be with you next year, but I hope you will have many happy memories thanks to all the beautiful pictures J. has been taking. He must have hundreds!"

"Thousands, is more like it. I think he has more of you than of any other person."

"Really??" he said, looking rather pleased.

Green Almonds

"It's Beth." The caregiver was trying to hand him the telephone. I was trying a second time; J. had just called and his father had sounded like he couldn't hear him; after a few words he had put the phone down on the bed and apparently given up. When I called back the caregiver said he wouldn't talk to her at all this afternoon, and asked grumpily why she kept waking him up in the middle of the night. "Do you want to try?" she had asked, and I said sure. "It's Beth. Your daughter-in-law," she repeated. In the background I heard him say, "I can't talk to ANYone."

"It's OK," I told her, when she came back on and apologetically tried to explain. "It's getting pretty impossible to talk to him on the phone. Don't worry."

He'll be 99 on Wednesday. I wonder if he knows, somehow. We're planning to be there, but there's not much point having a celebration, though we may make a cake for the care team as a small way of acknowledging all their efforts. As he slips further and further away, into places and times where we cannot follow, we all try to keep him contented and comfortable, with varying degrees of success. He's confused most of the time now, always turned upside down about what time of day it is, often about where, and sometimes about who. On good days he's still sweet and amusing, speaking in Arabic or sometimes in French, and apologizing when the caregivers remind him they can't understand him. On bad days he's confused, angry, frustrated. But even on good days, lucid comments follow disoriented ones, and there are long spaces between thoughts and utterances; his eyes close as if he's asleep, but often he's just resting, as if each thought is a heavy weight to gather and then push out onto his tongue.

Last week I came into the apartment after I got back from visiting my own father, who at 83 had just competed - and done quite well - in table tennis at the New York State senior games; I can barely keep up with him. My father-in-law was dressed and sitting in his wheelchair in the sun on his balcony, and when he saw my head appear behind his son's, his eyes brightened and he smiled. "Hello!" he said. "Sit down. How was your father?" But the conversation faltered quickly; he just seemed too tired to sustain any train of thought and I didn't want to contribute to his fatigue. I sat and held his hand, unsure if he was aware of me, and after a while he asked to go inside out of the sun.

After a short rest he opened his eye and seemed more alert and connected. He asked what we were eating these days. I mentioned a few things, and said that the grapes had been good lately.

"Such grapes we had from my uncle's vineyards in Bludan!" he exclaimed.

"What else?" I asked.

"Figs, apples..."

"Are you hungry now?"

"Not hungry, but I feel like I want to eat."

"You mean, just have something to chew on?"

"Yes," he smiled, as if he was relieved someone understood, but when the three of us suggested several things, he just shook his head no, smiling rather sadly.

"He's been asking for nuts today but he refuses what I offer," the caregiver said. She was a young woman of twenty-two or so, pretty, with dark hair and eyes, wearing large star-shaped earrings.

"What kind of nuts have you been thinking about?" I asked him.

"Green almonds."

"Ah! I've seen them but never eaten any. How do you do it?"

He explained how you crack and remove the outer covering, to reveal another shell that has to be removed in turn.

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"Yes, but that's the point. You sit and do it all day... We got those in Bludan too, there were lots of different kinds of nuts in my uncle's orchard."

"I'll look this week and see if I can find you any, sometimes they have them at the market."

He seemed to sleep again after this burst of conversation, and then opened his eyes. "Tell me," he said, lowering his voice just slightly and giving a small nod toward the caregiver who sat at the desk a mere six feet away. "Is this a Bludani girl?"

"I don't know," I said, looking over at her; she smiled. "What do you think?"

He gave her another appraising glance and said, "I don't know where these girls come from. But I think this one looks more like a city girl."

An Outing

The caregiver called at 3:30 pm, her usually calm voice betraying a slight note of panic. "They've been gone since 10 this morning and I'm getting worried about your father. He can't stay out this long! Do you have any idea what's happened?"

My father-in-law's brother and sister-in-law arrived yesterday from Florida. Uncle A. is nearly as hard-of-hearing as his older brother, but his wife is younger, resourceful, and capable and usually exhibits a lot of common sense. We were pretty sure they had taken J.'s father somewhere - but where might that be, and why had they been gone so long?

"Call me when they get back," J. said. To me, he said, "They've probably taken him back to their hotel room, and he's lying on the floor and they're feeding him grapes and he's in seventh heaven."

I raised my eyebrows; that sounded doubtful to me, at least for this long a time. "He'll be totally exhausted," I said. "But who knows what they've gotten into."

In another half hour, the phone rang again: it was Uncle's wife. "Well, we had an adventure," she said.

"Is my father still alive?" J. asked, dryly.

"Oh yes!" She is a North Carolinian with a warm voice and a Southern accent. Her husband is a very funny man and a storyteller like his brother; we're fond of both of them. "When we arrived around 10:00 this morning, your father said he wanted to go to his old church."

Oh, really! That in itself was amazing; he's barely been out of the apartment for six weeks, and has barely enough stamina to stay up in a wheelchair for an hour at a time; other than one trip to the doctor, a few lunches in the dining room, and an appearance last week, in our care, at the memorial service for a friend at the retirement home - in the gathering room just a short distance away from his own apartment - he's had no desire to go anywhere. But, OK, that's what he said he wanted, and what did they know, not being privy to recent history? They were there to make him happy, and spend time together: off they optimistically went.

"So we loaded him into his wheelchair and got him into our rental car," she continued. "I wasn't sure which of his old churches he meant, or how to get there, but I was certain once we got going he'd know the way. But when we got onto the highway I realized he had absolutely no idea where he was or where we were going, and of course we didn't know either. So I went in the way I kind of remembered, and we drove around for a while, not finding anything very familiar, and of course neither your father nor his brother were of any help. They were shouting away at each other, though, perfectly happy."

"Eventually we got to Q__, - it was close to noon by then - and I saw a restaurant and said,'Well! Let's have lunch!' so we all went in and ate. Your father had poached eggs and toast and seemed fine; he'd given up, or forgotten about, trying to get to the church. When we were done we got him back in the car and started for home. But in a couple of miles I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw your father pulling at his clothes and realized, 'Ohmigod, he's got to go to the bathroom.' I was measuring the distance to the woods in my mind's eye, but just then we came upon a Baptist church with a few cars still in the driveway, so I pulled in and explained the situation and asked if they could help us, and they said 'of course!' and three men came out and got him in there. Then we started for home again, and have just gotten back." (It may not have been North Carolina, but it was Baptist, and -- she must have felt -- close to salvation.)

Unbelievable.

In another half hour, our phone rang again. It was my father-in-law. "They've just left and I'm totally exhausted!" he told J. "I don't know where we were, but it took three Episcopal priests to carry me into the bathroom!"

Missing Children

When we arrived a day or two later my hands were full with a tray of kibbeh and a bouquet of forsythia from our bush at home, just beginning to bloom. The caregiver said he was fast asleep. They had been having a bit of a crisis, she said, her voice betraying her agitation though she tried to speak calmly. She was young, and obviously worried whether she’d done the right thing during an unexpected situation. He’d had another episode of confusion in the middle of the night, she said, when he insisted two children had been entrusted to his care but they had become lost and were somewhere in the apartment. At one point he even wanted to call the police. When the nurses tried to dissuade him he’d become angry and belligerent, ordering them out of his sight. (“It’s so ironic,” J. said to me later, “for someone who never seemed aware of his own children.”) In the morning, after initially refusing to take any medication at all, an additional sedative had been given and he’d calmed down and gone to sleep. We felt responsible; in discussion with two of the caregivers and J.’s brother, plus listening to my father-in-law’s complaints about his inability to do anything but sleep, we’d decided the previous day to ask for less daytime sedation in the hope that he could function better, with less drowsiness and more focus, during the day. They had cut out two doses of the usual tranquilizer and this, possibly, had been the result.

But at the time, I sat and listened to the caregiver, who was clearly upset, recounting what had happened and how she had dealt with it, while J. sat by his sleeping father’s bed. When I heard my father-in-law’s voice I excused myself and went in. “Hello!” he said. “How good to see you!”

“How are you?”

“I’ve been confused,” he immediately admitted. “There’s been this story about two children…but now I can’t figure out if I made it up, or if the nurse made it up and I went along with it. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Do you think it was a dream?”

“It seems like it must have been, but it felt very real.”

“Do you think they’re here now? Are you still worried about them?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He smiled faintly. “I’m afraid I got quite angry. But these people who stay here were driving me crazy! They watch me like hawks. The minute I move, they pop up out of nowhere and want to help me – it’s maddening! So I told them, ‘Get out!! If I need you I’ll call you!’” His face softened: “They are all very nice people, kind and decent. But they’re stupid, and fat. And now I think they’ve been out there talking on the phone all day – probably about me – but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”

The caregiver had indeed been on the phone a lot, and he was able to hear more than he let on. “It’s got to be really frustrating for you. Do you feel trapped?”

“Yes!”

“We know you’d rather be on your own – anybody would - but if you want to stay here, the place requires this kind of care if they feel you’re at risk for falling.”

“I just don’t want them to hover over me this way.” He mimed a woman’s voice: “‘Can I get you a glass of water? Can I help you go to the bathroom?’” and then thundered, “Leave me alone!” His face, angry and mournful, turned to look up at us. “Well, never mind. But it’s not fun.”

“I know, Dad. I’m sorry,” said J.

“C’est la vie. And I haven’t seen a doctor in weeks. She’s made three appointments and canceled them all.”

We didn’t realize the doctor had canceled. “Has your nurse been in to see you, you know, the black woman who you like?”

“Yes, she comes regularly, she takes my blood pressure and listens to my heart and massages my back, but she doesn’t tell me anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t tell me what’s wrong, or suggest anything they can do about it.” This same hospice nurse had told us on the phone that when she came he had seemed to be sleeping, and she didn’t want to wake him, so she hadn’t said anything to him.

‘You’d like someone to give you more information.”

“Yes! And I’m suspicious of the medications. The night nurse gives them to me in yogurt, which is awful – and I don’t trust her.” (She was the one who had sent him the hospital, the event he considers to have precipitated this whole crisis.) “So last night and this morning I refused to take them.”

“I thought you said you could swallow the pills better in yogurt,” said J. His father made a face.

“So you’d feel better if you could talk it over with your doctor.”

“Definitely.” He lowered his voice, just slightly. “I don’t think they know what they’re doing here, really. They mean well, and they are awfully kind, but…they are not the same as a doctor. And I also want something for my digestion.”

“OK,” we said. “We’ll see what we can do…

(to be continued tomorrow)

"Think of them in Spain"

A few weeks ago we were talking about memory and remembering, when I asked him what the word for “remember” was in Arabic.

“Thakr means to remember,” he explained. “That is, to remember by thinking. In Arabic we have a number of words for different aspects of memory…thakira is the storage of memory – as in, ‘I have no memory of it.’ Thakkirini means ‘remind me.’” He thought for a minute and then announced, “Strangely, thakr is also the word for male…tadakirru is to exchange memories, tathkira is an identity card.”

“It’s an incredibly rich language – you can play around with it and say a great deal…and still be vague if you wish! It’s terribly imaginative and yet unreal. I came to love Arabic not so much because of my teachers but because it stimulated my thinking. It’s beautiful, romantic, picturesque… “ He shut his eyes and smiled while pictures of gardens and fig trees laden with ripe fruit, no doubt, played in his mind.

“Can you remember any lines of poetry with these words for memory in them?” I asked.

He said, “Oh yes, we have a poem… just a minute…“ and began reciting. Then he translated, as usual:

“'If you want to think of the Arabs, think of them in Spain’…and the second line I recited was ‘Remember me every time the sun sets in Andalucia.’ Spain, you see, became the paradise of the Arabs, it was the height of Arab artistic and creative achievement. “

“Did you ever go there?”

“Oh yes. I loved it. But when I stood and looked at the Alhambra I felt like a tourist.  I mean –it’s magnificent – but I didn’t connect with it as if it had anything to do with me. “ He paused.

“I’d like to see it myself.”

“Yes, you should go. Actually, if I were younger and had time left, I’d want to do a study of the Arabs in Spain.” He lay there and thought for a few minutes, and then opened his eyes wide, looking mischievous. “Sometimes I have secret doubts about the creativity of the Arabs. But they were great borrowers! Look even at the Dome of the Rock – copied! Whatever they found, they said ‘give it to me!’ Even taboulleh, probably!”

Al-Sidq

Al-Sidq: Truthfulness that permits neither falsehood nor hypocrisy.

“How are you tonight?” I ask on the phone.

“I’m dying.”

“It doesn’t seem imminent…”

“I’m losing substance. I feel detached from the world, from everyone and everything.”

There’s a forlorn note in his voice.  I ask if he’s had any visitors today, and he says he’s had only one. Did he get up? No, he had spent the day in bed.

“I feel totally out of touch with the world, in a way I’ve never felt before,” he repeats. “They brought me the New York Times and I couldn’t read it. I can’t  hear, I can’t read, I can’t get out…”

“It’s got to be very difficult. Can someone read you the headlines at least?

“My friend M. did that. She’s a very good girl.” He pauses, and the silence stretches out.

“I’m going to become a Muslim,” he announces suddenly.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yes. As the end approaches… ‘lā ilāha illā-llāh, anna muḥammadan rasūlu-llā…’ I listen, dumbfounded – this, I know, is the shahada, the Muslim confession of faith, which, if said with complete sincerity, knowledge, and attention defined by seven conditions, including al-Sidq,  is all that is required for a person to become a Muslim. After the simple Arabic profession, “There is no God but God and Mohammad is his prophet,” he continues reciting more verses, perhaps some of the kalimias, which are further professions of faith.

The Arabic is beautiful and he’s putting a lot of feeling into the recitation. I am holding my breath.  He gets to the end and then says, “It’s amazing that they got so many people to agree to this.” I exhale silently; this time, at least, he is proving true to form.

“But you are actually rather sympathetic,” I say.

“I’m sympathetic because Mohammad gave us a way to be unified, a cultural identity. ‘Today I am making you a nation!’  It’s a beautiful concept! But the Arabs never fully embraced it.” He sighs. “I need to teach you some more Arabic.”

“I’d like to learn more. I wish I had done it earlier.”

“I really wish I had someone to speak Arabic with. It’s necessary for expressing the truth. Mashallah.”

“Well, that’s not going to be me. Maybe we can find someone,” I suggest, but he’s already moved on to a different subject:

“I wish I knew what happened to the kibbeh that was in my refrigerator.” He utters an Arabic word that I don’t catch…”That means thieves,” he explains, referring to the staff who regularly – thank God – clean out his refrigerator.  “They stole it.”

“I’m sure they didn’t know what it was.”

“Aaach,” he says. “My legs are weak and my conscience is sick.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m afraid I’ll get to the other side and find out it’s true. And that would be terrible.” There’s a long pause. “What’s my son’s conclusion?” he asks.

“I don’t know what he thinks. I think he’s still figuring it out.”

“And what about you?”

“Well, I don’t believe a lot of it. I do believe that the Gospels are right about how we need to live here, right now.”

“Such as?”

“That we should love one another.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

There’s another long pause. “That’s difficult,” he replies.

I don’t answer.

“Will you make me some kibbeh tomorrow?” he asks then.

“I can’t, I’m in Canada. But when I get back I’ll make you some.”

“Good. I’ve been dying for it.”

“Did you want some cheese?”

“Yes, some of the soft Arabic kind.”

“The one with the little black seeds in it?”

“Yes, that would be good.”

“OK, I’ll bring you some.”

“I wish I could just close my eyes tonight and say au revoir. I am really tired of it. And it feels like there is nothing to look forward to.” His voice becomes more cheerful. “Don’t cry over me when I’m gone!” he commands. “It’s not worth it!”

“Well, that’s your opinion!” I say, and he laughs. In the distance I hear the doorbell ring: the night nurses, undoubtedly.

“Look who’s here! Hello, my dears,” he says, turning on the charm. ”Two angels just came in!”

Into the phone, he says, “They are silent. They stand next to the bed, and don’t say anything. Do you think they are Catholic angels?”

“I have no idea. Whatever they are, they’re good to you. Tell them hello for me, and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” he says, sounding energized, and hangs up.