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CHAPTER ONE
PARSIFAL IS DEAD. That is the end of the story.
The technician and the nurse rushed in from their glass
booth. Where there had been a perfect silence a minute before
there was now tremendous activity, the straining sounds of two
men unexpectedly thrown into hard work. The technician
stepped between Parsifal and Sabine, and she had no choice but
to let go of Parsifal's hand. When they counted to three and then
lifted Parsifal's body from the metal tongue of the MRI machine
and onto the gurney, his head fell back, his mouth snapping open
with no reflexes to protect it. Sabine saw all of his beautiful
teeth, the two gold crowns on the back molars shining brightly in
the overhead fluorescent light. The heavy green sheet that they
had given him for warmth got stuck in the guardrail lock. The
nurse struggled with it for a second and then threw up his hands,
as if to say they didn't have time
for this, when in fact they had all the time in the world. Parsifal
was dead and would be dead whether help was found in half a
minute or in an hour or a day. They rushed him around the
corner and down the hall without a word to Sabine. The only
sound was the quick squeak of rubber wheels and rubber soles
against the linoleum.
Sabine stood there, her back against the massive MRI
machine, her arms wrapped around her chest, waiting. It was, in
a way, the end of Sabine.
After a while the neuroradiologist came into the room and
told her, in a manner that was respectful and direct, the one thing
she already knew: Her husband was dead. He did not pluck at
his lab coat or stare at the floor the way so many doctors had
done when they had spoken to Parsifal and Sabine about Phan.
He told her it had been an aneurism, a thinning in a blood vessel
of his brain. He told her it had probably been there Parsifal's
whole life and was not in any way related to his AIDS. Like a
patient with advanced lymphoma who is driven off the freeway
by a careless teenager changing lanes, the thing that had been
scheduled to kill Parsifal had been denied, and Sabine lost the
years she was promised he still had. The doctor did not say it
was a blessing, but Sabine could almost see the word on his lips.
Compared to the illness Parsifal had, this death had been so
quick it was nearly kind. "Your husband," the doctor explained,
"never suffered."
Sabine squeezed the silver dollar Parsifal had given her until
she felt the metal edge cut painfully into her palm. Wasn't
suffering exactly the thing she had been afraid of? That he would
go like Phan, lingering in so many different kinds of pain, his body
failing him in unimaginable ways--hadn't she hoped for
something better for Parsifal? If he couldn't have held on to his
life, then couldn't he at least have had some ease in his death?
That was what had happened. Parsifal's
death had been easy. Having come to find there was no comfort
in getting what she wanted, what she wanted now was
something else entirely. She wanted him back. Sick or well. She
wanted him back.
"The headache this morning," the doctor told her, "would
have been brought on by a leak." His beard was not well
trimmed and his glasses were smudged, as if set in place by
greasy fingers. He had the paleness of so many
neuroradiologists.
Sabine said she'd like to see the film.
The doctor nodded and returned a minute later holding a
large paper envelope stamped DO NOT BEND. She followed him into
what looked to be a closet and he put eight large sheets of gray
film on the lightboard. Each had fifteen separate pictures,
Parsifal's brain sliced in every conceivable direction. In the dark,
narrow room Sabine studied the information, her face painted in
a bluish white light. She stared at the shape of Parsifal's head, at
the deep, curving trenches of his brain. In some pictures things
were recognizable, the strong line of his jaw, the sockets of his
eyes. But most of the pictures were patterns, aerial views of an
explosion taken at night. Again and again she saw the shadow,
the dark, connected mass the size of a pinto bean. Even she
could see where this was going.
The doctor tapped the obvious with the tip of his pencil.
"There," he said. He faced the light when he spoke, and the
pictures of Parsifal's brain reflected in his glasses. "In some
people they stay that way forever. In others they just give out."
Sabine asked for a moment alone and the doctor nodded and
backed out of the room. When these pictures were taken, just
slightly over an hour before, Parsifal had been alive. She raised
her hand to the film and traced her finger around the
top line of his skull. The beautiful head she had held. The night
Phan died, Sabine had thought the tragedy was knowing that
Parsifal would die, too, that there was only a limited amount of
time. But now Sabine knew the tragedy was living, that there
would be years and years to be alone. She pulled down the films
and put them back in the envelope, tucked the envelope under
her arm, and tried to remember where the elevators were.
The empire that was Cedars Sinai hospital lapped up the last
blocks of Los Angeles before it became Beverly Hills. Buildings
were connected by overhead tunnels called skyways. Waiting
rooms were categorized by the seriousness of the wait. The halls
were lined with art that was too good for a hospital. Sometimes it
seemed that every wealthy person in Los Angeles had died at
Cedars Sinai, or their loved ones had died there, and what they
had been left with was not bitterness or fear but a desire to have
their name on a plaque over some door. The abundance of
money took away as many outward signs of hospital life as
possible. There were no sickly green walls, no peeling floors or
disinfectant smells. There had been nights when Sabine had
walked those halls so short on sleep that the place became a
giant hotel, the Sahara or Desert Sands in Las Vegas, where she
and Parsifal used to perform their magic act years before. But
tonight, as Sabine went to the nurses' station to call the funeral
home, it wasn't even late; the sky still had the smallest smear of
orange over Beverly Hills. All the people who would one day
come to Cedars to die were only beginning to think about going
to sleep.
Sabine knew what had to be done. She had practice. Phan
had been dead fourteen months and fourteen months was long
enough to forget exactly nothing. But with Phan it had been
different. He had worked towards his death so steadily that they
knew its schedule. After the doctor came to the house for
the last time and told them a day, maybe two, Phan had died the
next morning. With Parsifal, it was only a headache.
"I had a dream about Phan," Parsifal had said that morning.
Sabine brought him coffee and sat down on the edge of his
bed. It had been Phan's bed, Phan's house. Parsifal and Phan
had lived together for five years. Since Phan's death, Parsifal
had had a handful of dreams about Phan which he recounted
faithfully to Sabine, like letters written by a lover in another
country.
"How's Phan?"
Parsifal woke up quickly, clearheaded. He took the cup. "He
was sitting by a pool. He was wearing one of my suits, my pearl
gray suit and a white shirt. He had taken off his tie." He closed
his eyes, searching for details. Phan was in the details. "He was
holding this big pink drink, a mai-tai or something. It had fruit all
over the glass. He looked so rested, absolutely beautiful."
"Was it our pool?"
"Oh no. This was a capital-P Pool--dolphin fountains, gold
tiles."
Sabine nodded. She pictured it herself: blue skies, palm
fronds. "Did he say anything?"
"He said, 'The water's just perfect. I'm thinking about going
for a swim.'" Parsifal could mimic Phan's voice, perfect English
sandwiched between layers of Vietnamese and French. The
sound of Phan's voice made Sabine shiver.
Phan didn't swim. His house had a pool, but pools dominated
the backyards of Southern California. Having one was not the
same as wanting one. Sometimes Phan would roll up his pants
and sit at the shallow end with his feet in the water.
"What do you think it all means?" Parsifal asked.
Sabine ran her hand over the top of his head, bald now from
who knew what combination of things. She put no stock in
dreams. To her they were just a television left on in another
room. "I think it means he's happy."
"Yes," he said, and smiled at her. "That's what I think."
There was a time not so long ago that Parsifal never would
have told his dreams to Sabine, unless it was a ridiculous dream,
like the time he told her he dreamed about going into the living
room and finding Rabbit in the wingback chair, two hundred
pounds and six feet tall, reading the newspaper through
half-glasses. And maybe he hadn't had that dream, maybe he
only said it to be funny. But Phan's death had made him
sentimental, hopeful. He wanted to believe in a dream that told
him death had been good to Phan, that he was not lost but in a
place where Parsifal could find him later. A place with a pool
and a bar.
"What about you?" Parsifal said, covering her hand with his
hand. "Any dreams?"
But Sabine never remembered her dreams, or maybe she
didn't have them. She shook her head and asked how he was
feeling. He said fine, but there was a little bit of a headache
coming on. That had been eight o'clock in the morning. That had
been on this same day.
