The Rabbit Girls(2)
‘A few sips now. A bit more.’
The nurses encouraged her to shave him when he was in hospital, but it felt too intimate an act, so his beard continues to grow as water drips from it into the towel.
Miriam empties the catheter bag into a kidney-shaped bowl and carries it out, conscious of the step between bedroom and bathroom. The fluid swooshes as a smell that is acid to both the nose and the stomach rises around her; she tries not to heave. Once flushed away and the tray disposed of, she sits on the side of the bath, waiting for the water to warm. It falls over her fingers and she resists the urge to wash her hands while she waits.
Collecting the water in a bowl, she moves back into the bedroom. In the bed, she sets about undressing and bathing him. She does not speak through this process.
Not once.
She washes, dries using a soft, white towel, and places the cream for pressure sores on the affected areas. The mattress shifts as airflow changes to support his body as it moves.
Taking his left arm, Miriam pushes it through the sleeve of the clean pyjama shirt. As she turns his wrist she notices his watch has stopped. Tapping on the face does not yield movement. His old watch, gold hands and gold face with black numbers, dissolved into tiny outlines over time.
Turning his wrist over she places it on the bed, trying to find the clasp. Its wide gold strap has no links to unfasten. Bending closer she runs her fingers along its rim.
Engaged as she is in the watch, her fingertips caressing for a hook, she doesn’t notice his breathing change. She doesn’t notice the shift of movement. She doesn’t notice his other arm move.
She doesn’t notice any of these things until an icy hand grabs at her wrist.
She looks to his face, his head still slack. His eyes still closed.
Until they are not.
His grip tightens and transports Miriam to a younger, brighter version of herself. Late teens at the zoo with friends. A big group of blurred faces, forgotten names. A colourful image of tie-dye, eye shadow and feathers.
The ‘petting area’ was a small enclosure with a shin-high wooden fence. The air was hot and thick with the sawdust that covered the floor. She was pushed forward to face an enormous bird of prey. She looked to her friends who had ‘volunteered’ her and felt claustrophobic. The gloves provided did nothing to disguise the solid bird on her arm with its leather-like feet and sharp claws. The bird’s eyes moved this way and that. Everyone was watching her. People started to move across her vision, creating a kaleidoscope. But the bird held on, even tightening its grip as everything went dark.
Miriam tries to use her free hand to loosen his, but knocks the bowl to the ground and the suds splash up in a wave. Having grown comfortable looking at his eyelids, his open eyes are too white and too deep. She wants to look away. Anywhere else. But his gaze holds her, he is staring through her.
‘What is it?’ she asks gently, although his grip is tight. He pulls on her wrist. Again, her body moves closer as he pulls himself up the bed higher until they are level.
‘What’s the matter?’
His breath has a rancid, sweet smell, like decaying fruit. She tries to pull herself away, yet it spirals on her cheek. She feels her pulse quicken in the trapped hand then thrum as the circulation slows. Her eyes are still locked into his when his look changes and he focuses on her. His features soften.
‘It’s okay. I’m here.’ Her voice splinters as it rushes out.
‘Frieda,’ he says like the whisper of a fallen leaf. ‘Frieda.’
His voice reminds her that this is Dad, the man who sang her to sleep, read stories and smoothed her hair. Dad, the man to whom she has not spoken for ten years.
She clears her throat. ‘Dad, it’s Miriam,’ she says gently.
A millisecond of recognition and she places her free hand on top of his, which still grips on hard. He coughs and the sound vibrates around the room.
‘Dad?’
‘Frieda!’ he calls like a long, low foghorn over a crowd. ‘Frieda!’
His body won’t cooperate as he tries to move out of the bed. He struggles, scrabbles, plucks at the fabric, unable to get free. An act so futile, she cannot look away. He calls out ‘Frieda’ once more before slowing. Deflated. Eyes closed. His right hand now lies over his left wrist, holding the watch.
She waits for his inhale.
Exhale.
Pause.
Inhale.
And she exhales shakily. Not moving for some time, just watching his chest rise and fall, a rhythm to suffer by. His face relaxes and saliva dribbles from the side of his mouth. She wipes it away with a cloth.
HENRYK
‘Dad,’ she calls. I can hear a woman’s voice as soft as lilac.
But I am lost . . .
Lost in the past.
Lost with Frieda . . .
It was 1942 and she had been in my class almost six months. She rarely spoke, never smiled, but listened with an intensity that would make any professor feel exuberant, any professor, that is, not teaching within a Nazi regime.
Instead, her acute awareness of the subjects I taught, the texts we studied, made me more and more nervous.
She was attractive in the same way everyone in the class was. Male and female. Fair and strong. But she commanded my attention, and I was desperate to know what she was thinking. What did she think about the texts? So far, I had yet to hear a single word from her mouth.