The Japanese Lover(16)
* * *
As time went by, the relationship between Alma and Irina became increasingly like that of aunt and niece. Their routines were so settled that they could spend hours together in the cramped apartment without talking or even glancing each other’s way, both of them caught up in their own activity. They needed each other. Besides sorting through the boxes from Sea Cliff, Irina was also responsible for filing Alma’s papers, taking dictation, going to the shops or the laundry, accompanying Alma on her errands, taking care of her cat, and organizing her minimal social life. Irina considered it a privilege to be able to count on Alma’s trust and support, whereas the older woman was thankful for the young woman’s loyalty. She was flattered by Irina’s interest in her past, and she depended on her for practical matters as well as for maintaining her independence and autonomy. Seth had told Alma that when the time came that she needed more help, she ought to either return to the family home at Sea Cliff or take on someone to assist her full-time in her apartment, since money would be no problem. Alma, who was about to turn eighty-two, planned to live another ten years before she needed that kind of support: she did not want anybody to feel they had the right to decide on her behalf.
“I was terrified of being dependent too, Alma,” Dr. Catherine Hope told her one day. “But I’ve realized it’s not such a big deal. You get used to it, and are grateful for the assistance. I can’t dress or take a shower on my own, I have problems brushing my teeth and cutting the chicken on my plate, but I’ve never been more contented than I am now.”
“Why’s that?” Alma asked her friend.
“Because I have time to spare, and for the first time in my life nobody expects anything of me. I don’t have to prove anything, I’m not rushing everywhere; each day is a gift I enjoy to the fullest.”
* * *
Catherine Hope was still in this world thanks only to her fierce determination and the marvels of modern surgery; she knew what it meant to be incapacitated and to feel constant pain. For her, becoming dependent on others had not come gradually, as is usually the case, but overnight, after an unfortunate accident. While mountain climbing, she had fallen down a crevasse and gotten trapped between two rocks, with her arms, legs, and pelvis smashed. Her rescue was a heroic effort that was reported live on the TV news as it was filmed from the air by helicopter. This showed the dramatic scenes from a distance but was unable to get close to the deep chasm where she was lying, in a state of shock and hemorrhaging. It was only a day and a night later that two mountain rescuers succeeded in climbing down to her, in a daring maneuver that almost cost them their lives, and hoisted her up in a harness. Cathy was taken to a hospital that specialized in war traumas, where they began the task of resetting her numerous broken bones. Two months later, she woke up from her coma and, after asking after her daughter, announced she was glad to be alive. That same day, from India the Dalai Lama had sent her a kata, a white scarf he had blessed. Following fourteen complicated operations and years of brave rehabilitation, Cathy was forced to accept that she would never walk again.
“My first life is over, this is the start of the second one. If you see me depressed or exasperated, don’t pay any attention, because it won’t last,” she told her daughter.
Zen Buddhism and her lifelong habit of meditation gave her a great advantage in this situation, since she could bear being immobile in a way that would have driven any other person as athletic and energetic as her crazy. She was also able calmly to accept the loss of her companion of many years, who was less able to come to terms with the tragedy and left her. She discovered that she could practice medicine as a surgery consultant from a studio equipped with TV cameras hooked up with the operating room, but her ambition was to work with patients face-to-face, as she had always done. When she decided to live at the second level in Lark House, she visited a couple of times to talk to the residents who would be her new family and soon saw that there were more than enough opportunities for her to work as she wished.
Barely a week after her arrival she was already planning a free pain clinic for residents with chronic illnesses, and an office where she could attend to lesser complaints. Lark House had doctors on standby, but Catherine Hope convinced them that she was not competing with them, but would complement their work. Hans Voigt offered her a room for the clinic and suggested to the -trustees that they pay her a salary; however, she preferred to offer her services as a volunteer and not to have to pay the home’s monthly charges. This agreement suited both parties. Cathy, as everyone called her, quickly became the mother who greeted the new arrivals, listened to their secrets, comforted those who were sad, guided the dying, and handed out the marijuana. Half of the residents had medical prescriptions for its use, and Cathy, who doled it out at her clinic, was generous toward those who had neither permits nor enough money to buy it under the counter. It was not uncommon to see a line of clients waiting outside her door to get the grass in many different forms, including delicious biscuits and sweets. Voigt did not intervene—why deprive them of innocuous relief?—and only demanded they refrain from smoking in the corridors or common spaces, because smoking tobacco was forbidden, and it would be unfair if the same did not apply to marijuana. Even so, some of the smoke escaped through the heating or air-conditioning systems, and occasionally even the residents’ pets were as high as kites.