27. Rotterdam, the Netherlands (three weeks earlier)
1 Recently, Denise had realized she was going to die.
1.1 From nowhere, from a clear blue sky, she felt certain she could not live a year more.
1.2 She went to play as usual, the croupiers greeted her. The same faces and the same rote cries, like the opening credits of a dull-beyond-belief TV show, the gaming employees introduced another day.
1.3 As usual, she lunched alone. It was a workers’ café with plasticized check tablecloths and empty vases on the tables. She looked up from her sandwich, awed and curious:
1.4 she was going to die.
2 Then the pains and vomiting, the nagging greed for air. She could not get clean, she could not eat certain foods anymore. She faltered, close to tears, on the steps.
2.1 In her grueling, super-real insomnias, she traced the pain to her bones and traced her bones to moon, a xenophobic stone, too solitary gladly to wear living flesh: too cold-loving.
2.2 In pain, she fancied these things, and unevenly laughed.
3 She saw a doctor, just, to cross all the t’s. There was a series of hospital wards; chipper nurses explained the machines. In the last act, a specialist sat at the foot of her bed, stumbling over the sad news:
3.1 Her cancer was grave but not inevitably fatal. A range of treatments could be tried. Although complete recovery was rare, her tumor was not too advanced to exclude hope. There was reason for cautious optimism,
3.2 said the old man, and rubbed his veined, alcoholic’s nose. She smiled cordially:
“Oh, I won’t despair. After all, my mother died of cancer.”
He patted her ankle and rose, she put on her old clothes.
3.3 She left the hospital and there was no one who would mourn her left, she had no goodbyes, she could step right out of life – without trifling.
4 The letter from my brother was waiting for her at home.
4.1 “God, whatever you do, just don’t not answer this. I won’t even briefly survive you not answering.”
4.2 “Selling point: I’ve been practicing blackjack for ten years.”