Jim Metzner
IT SMELLS LIKE WHAT IT is, a hospital room cleaned with some serious chemistry.
A window with a bit of a view, a rolling cabinet with a box of tissues, pitcher of water, paper cups and a vase holding some daffodils. A gaze pans to the main attraction, Sophia Marquez, lying on a bed center stage. The woman I married twenty years ago, inspiring poems about bringing candles of love into the cavern of a lonely life.
She’s thin and frail. Wavy black hair streaked with grey splaying out across the pillow. Her complexion is smooth; the florescent light of the room sucks the vitality out of her skin, as it does for all life forms, even the daffodils. In her fifties, she’s still beautiful, even with her eyes closed.
First time I ever saw Sophia was on China Beach in San Francisco, alone on a blanket twenty yards away, reading a book. Jung, as I recall. At some point she stood up, did a yoga-stretch thing and I noticed her figure—thin arms and legs, narrow waist, generous breasts, long black hair tied in a bun. I thought about going over to her and starting a conversation, but I knew nothing about Jung and her presence wasn’t inviting. When I looked up, she was gone. Another one bites the dust.
Her eyes open now, blink, and regard me.
“Did you take out the garbage?”
I let out something between a snort and a laugh.
“I think the nurse must have.”
“Nurse?”
“You’re in a hospital.”
“Yes,” she says, glancing around the room.
“There was an accident,” I say.
“I talked to a doctor.”
“Doctor Flenz, yeah. Listen, you want anything? Some water?”
“Yes.”
I pour her a cup.
“Fine,” I say.
Sophia props herself up a little higher on her pillow.
“Where’s Sammy?”
“In school. Tess is working at a hairdresser’s in town.”
“Working? How could she—?”
“You like the flowers?” I ask, scrambling to cover.
“Yes. They’re pretty.”
“And the garbage, you want me to, uh, take it out?”
“Please.”
I pick up the empty wastebasket and walk out of the room, hoping I’ve dodged a bullet.
Memories. More like burrs than bullets. The events that get attached to your timeline.
Leaving China Beach, I decided on impulse to drive to a movie theater and catch an early show. Settling in with a bag of popcorn in a back row, I noticed the woman I’d just seen lying on a beach blanket walk in and take a seat. The coincidence of running into her again seemed to be a sign from above, if not an outright excuse to enter the fray. I went over and said something exceedingly clever along the lines of, “Didn’t I just see you at China Beach?” Her response, a somewhat frosty grunt, left me muttering a few lame pleasantries and heading back to my seat, the dust bitten again.
A few minutes later, she stood up and left; the theater filled and someone took her seat. After the film started, she returned and moved to the front row. I could have just let it lie. Glutton for punishment, I headed down the aisle.
“Saw what happened,” I whispered. “There’s a free seat in the back if you don’t want to sit here craning your neck.” She hesitated for a moment and then came to sit next to me.
That was twenty years ago.
Halfway down the hall I see the head nurse. She’s busy with her rounds, but she walks over to me, fussing with her clipboard.
“How is your—?” she begins.
“I really need to speak to the doctor.”
“You’re in luck. He’s due on this floor this afternoon. I’ll get word to him. Can you stay?”
“If he can find a minute.”
“I’ll tell him.” And she heads down the hallway.
There’s a stainless steel fountain; I lean over it hesitating, not wanting to partake in the waters of death. Hospitals have always seemed like that. Put whatever spin on it you like; people die here. That unstated fact hangs in the air; you smell it in the chemicals and breathe it in with the air conditioning.
I try never to be friends with a doctor because it’s a lie. You can see it in their eyes. They’d rather be playing golf. One of the first things they’re taught in med school is to leave their emotions behind. Otherwise they’d go nuts with all this death. Can’t blame them. Doesn’t mean I’m going to play along.
An old man wearing a hospital gown pushes an aluminum walker down the hospital corridor moving at a glacial pace, his brown slippers shuffling slowly on the linoleum.
My thoughts ricochet back to that night. After the film it seemed only natural to ask Sophia to go for a cup of coffee.
We strolled from the theater and found a bistro, a little hole in the wall with live Brazilian music. When we walked in, the band was playing a samba. I asked her to dance; she said yes. I was smitten.
I saw her the next day, and the day after that, the Fourth of July. We went on a picnic, ate lobsters, climbed up on a roof to watch fireworks. I asked if I could be her guy. The rest went down like a row of dominos. Moved in together, went camping, travelled to Japan, got married in a redwood grove, landed in upstate New York. Whenever I’d leave for the city, she’d wave good-bye at the window, flash her breasts. I’d pretend to be shocked. Found out we couldn’t have kids, so we adopted Sammy and Tess.
Wastebasket in hand, I’m back in the room, trying to remember some of the doctor’s suggestions. Get her talking.
“Hottest summer we’ve had in years,” I say.
“They’ve got the air conditioning on all the time here,” Sophia says. “When can I go home?”
“We’ll ask the doctor.”
“The place is a mess, I’m sure. Are you watering the garden?”
“Anything for the garden,” I say. “What do you call that vine with the star flowers, Cla - Clitoris?”
“Clematis. Ooh, you’re bad.”
“That’s true.”
“I miss you,” she says. “You think there’s any way we can—”
“You mean here in the hospital? I, I hardly—”
Sophia giggles. “You look funny when you’re flustered. Reminds me of Jerry Lewis.”
“The French still think he’s a genius.”
She touches my hand. “Can we just lock the door or something?”
“You can’t lock the doors here. Maybe—”
A nurse enters the room carrying a tray, saving the day.
“How are we doing?” she asks, and I suppress a wiseass response. What is it about nurses that makes you want to give them a hard time, joke around, or entertain some carnal fantasy? For the moment, it’s none of the above. She’s all business, making sure Sophia takes a pill in the paper cup and downs it with something that resembles orange juice.
“Visiting hours end in half an hour.”
“Just waiting for a word with Doctor Flenz,” I say.
Before leaving, the nurse checks Sophia’s pulse and blood pressure. The whole procedure is vaguely theatrical—the pump, the stethoscope, the starched white costume.
I remember being in Japan with Sophia, watching a Kabuki performance. The faces of the actors were painted, and one woman, a beautiful geisha, wore a mask. At a certain moment in the play, she pulled a string on the bottom of her mask and in an instant was transformed. For me, that image became Sophia. When I told the Kabuki story as a generic anecdote to a friend, she asked, “The woman in question, who could that be?” And the phrase, The Woman in Question, stayed with me, like the title of a film Sophia was living in. Now, it feels like I’m cast in the movie without a script, just waiting for that string to get tugged again.
Last week I received a surreal telephone call from Doctor Flenz saying the sleeper had awakened. It was up to me to bring Sophia back from the abyss.
“You look tired,” I say. “Want me to wait outside?”
“No. There was something I wanted to ask you, but I can’t remember.”
“What do you remember?”
“Mostly stuff about you and the kids. Having dinner.”
“Which dinner?”
“We’re having an argument. Sammy wants to take his plate into the living room to watch television and you want us to all eat together.”
“Sounds familiar,” I say. “Best guess. How long ago you think that was?”
“I don’t know. Last week?” she says.
“You’ve been in a coma for six months.”
“Six months?! Feels like it just happened last week. The dinner, I mean.” Sophia takes a few shallow breaths.
“That’s hard to believe.”
She tries to say something else, but nothing comes. Her eyes go from me to the flowers and the window.
“I’m scared, Will.” She reaches out to me, and I hug her, reflexively. I can’t help but hug her. When I lean back, her eyes are red and teary.
“I’m going to let you rest now,” I say, “until the doctor gets here.”
Out in the hallway the guy with the walker is heading in the opposite direction and I wonder if he’s doing laps. In twenty years, that could be me. A blue smocked orderly pushes a cot with a woman breathing oxygen through a tube clipped to her nose. She wheels by, her gaze vacant. Maybe she’s lost in her own memories. Maybe there’s nobody home to think at all. I wend my way to an alcove, read Travel and Leisure for an hour and return to the room.
Sophia is propped up on her pillow, a hint of color returning to her cheeks.
“You’re looking good,” I say, leaning over to kiss her forehead.
“You call that a kiss?” she says, and pulls me close, our lips touching, her tongue exploring my mouth.
I can’t quite believe I’m kissing the woman in question. After a minute, I pull away gently.
“Your hair is starting to turn grey,” she says.
“Yeah, it started right after the accident.”
“Makes you look a lot older.”
“Well, a lot can happen in six months.”
“I suppose,” she says, not sounding convinced.
“I’m hungry,” she says.
“I can see that.”
“So . . . six months being a long time,” Sophia says with a sly smile, “means we have some catching up to do.”
“All in good time. You feel like eating something?”
“What have they been feeding me for six months? Baby formula? I’m starving, but I haven’t been able to hold down the stuff they’ve been giving me.”
“You have to take it slow. Your body has to relearn how to digest solid food. Nurse told me. Anyway, hospital food sucks. It’s another way they encourage you to get out of here.”
“I don’t need any encouragement,” she says, some of the old fire returning to her eyes. “And don’t start telling me what to do and what not to do. Six months asleep, two minutes awake and already you’re starting, Mister Grey Hair.”
“Somebody’s feeling feisty. Pretty soon they’ll get you up on your feet and you’ll be outta here.”
“How do I look?” she asks.
“You lost weight.”
“I needed to. This wasn’t the diet I had in mind.”
“You look good,” I say. “You really do.”
“You’re lying. The kids would—” She stops with a worried look. “Who’s with the kids now?”
“They’re in school.”
“But you’re here. What about when they get home from school?”
“They can make a snack for themselves. And there’s always Mrs. Goldfarb.”
“We’ve got to have the Goldfarbs over for dinner.”
I nod my head in agreement, even though the Goldfarbs are gone. Sooner or later Sophia will have to face all that, just as she’ll have to face our children.
As if on cue, Sammy and Tess walk into the room with the head nurse behind them, looking concerned. She gives me a helpless glance. It’s a shock. They’re no longer kids, yet I can’t help see them as the culmination of who they have been. Wheeling Tess in her baby carriage at sunset, watching Sammy tackle guys twice his size at a high school football game.
Tess’s beautiful auburn hair is dyed black, her eyebrows sculpted. I smile at her and she gives a barely perceptible nod.
Sammy looks like he’s been working out. His fists are clenched, as though he’s itching to pick a fight. Part of me wants to run over and hug them, while the rest says, bad idea. Whatever plan they hatched had gotten them this far, and now it’s all improvisation. What do you say to your children when you’re feeling pangs of love and remorse for all the ways you could’ve been a better father, reaping a legacy of mistrust?
“Hello,” I manage, trying to sound matter-of-fact but not succeeding.
“What are you doing here?” Tess demands.
“Doctor Flenz asked me to come,” I say.
“I think we should have this conversation outside,” the head nurse interjects.
“No,” Tess says. “We’re her children. You can’t keep us out.”
“Children?” Sophia asks, bewildered.
“It’s me, Tess!”
“My daughter has the same name,” Sophia says. “She looks like you, but she’s much younger.”
Sammy takes a step towards me. “What did you do to her?”
I almost laugh, because for years I’ve wondered what she had done to them.
“We kissed,” I said.
Again, the nurse starts to speak, but Sophia interrupts her.
“Will, what’s going on here?”
If only fate would intervene and bring Dr. Flenz to save us all. In negotiations, they say whoever speaks first loses. All eyes are on me.
I flash back to standing in a courtroom, listening to a judge bring resolution to a year of legal warfare, grateful the ordeal was finally ending. I wonder if Sophia will ever remember that. I know I can’t forget.
“You lost your memory in the accident,” I say, “a big chunk of it, more than you realize.”
Sophia is staring at me intently, incredulous.
“When you came out of the coma, you asked for me. That’s why I’m here. Doctor’s orders. I’m the one you’re supposed to talk to first. Everything I’m saying you would have learned sooner or later. So now it’s sooner. This is Sammy and Tess.”
Sophia’s hand flies up to her mouth. I’m thinking maybe I should stop, let it sink in, but the words pour out unbidden.
“You and I got divorced ten years ago. It was bad, brutal.”
I’m crying again, just as I did in the courtroom. I walk over and commandeer a tissue from the bedside.
“Divorced?” Sophia says, tasting the word. I nod.
“The children love you. They’ve stuck by you. It’s been harder for me. We became enemies. For what it’s worth, I’ve forgiven you.”
In the silence of the room, the clock, which had been ticking all along, becomes audible. Ten seconds of ticks can seem like a long time.
“Nice,” Tess says. “You were always good at giving speeches.”
“Hold it,” Sophia says, “hold it right there.”
Whatever Tess is feeling, she’s keeping a lid on it. Sammy is pacing slowly, like a leopard.
Sophia closes her eyes and speaks softly, as if she’s talking on the phone.
“A bad dream.”
She opens her eyes, takes a sip of water from the cup at her bedside and looks at me.
“So all of this, the last two days, the kiss—which I do remember—”
“—was to bring you back,” I say.
“Back to what? Divorced? This is the truth, what you’re saying now?”
“The truth,” I say, glancing towards the kids.
“Yeah, it happened,” Tess says.
“Was it really that bad?” Sophia asks.
“Horrible.” And it was. A legal bloodletting with the smallest issues taken to the mat. At the end of the ordeal the only ones smiling were the attorneys.
The color is gone from Sophia’s face, replaced by a look of total despondency. I can’t imagine what this must be like for her, everything turned upside down in an instant. If only the kids hadn’t shown up when they did. Maybe it’s better that it happens now. The woman in question is moving her lips, either praying or convincing herself of something. Then she seems to rally a bit and unless I’m imagining it, there’s a glint in her eye.
“I suppose I’ll have to speak to a lawyer or look at the papers, whatever you call them,” Sophia says, her hands tightening on the bed sheet.
I hold my breath, not wanting to know what might come next, the wound inside itching to bleed again.
Sophia takes stock of Sammy and Tess.
“Ten years, huh? Unbelievable.” Tears well up in her eyes. “You’ve grown up. Of course you have. What a stupid thing to say. I haven’t grown up, have I? Tell me something.” Her eyes go wide and wild. “Who am I? Can any of you tell me that! Who am I, for Christ’s sake?”
No one answers. I’m numb. Sammy’s scanning the room for someone to blame. Tess reaches into her pocketbook for a Chapstick. The head nurse, resigned to be a designated witness, stands with her arms folded across her clipboard.
Sophia looks abashed. “Sorry,” she says. “Don’t be scared, I’m still your mother. That much we know.” She shivers and pulls the bed sheet up a little higher. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe the doctor can tell me. But you two. So big. You’ll have to catch me up. Come here, I won’t bite.”
They approach warily and Sophia hugs each of them, kissing Tess between her eyes and rubbing Sammy’s crew cut with her knuckles.
“Payment in advance, no—arrears,” she says, her hands on Sammy’s shoulders. “Look, if you really love me like your father says—”
“He’s not my father,” Sammy interrupts.
“If you really love me,” Sophia continues, “then you’re going to have to give me some time. Last time I knew you was a long time ago.” She’s hugging herself now, rubbing her hands up and down her arms like she’s trying to warm up.
“Must sound strange to hear your mother say that, but it’s true, unlike what I’ve been hearing the last couple of days. I don’t know who the two of you are. And God knows, I don’t know who you are, Will. Divorced! Well, if you can lie as good as you’ve been doing, then I guess I can believe anything. Maybe I’ll wake up and it’ll be different.” She shakes her head. “Ten minutes ago, we were lovers! You think I can just turn that off?!” She snaps her fingers. “What about you? Is it really all over?”
I’m thinking she’s the lucky one. No divorce, no battleground, only the good stuff. What would it take to wipe my hard drive like that, forget who Sophia became and fall in love again with the woman I met at the beach? The kids are looking at me expectantly, like this could be some Disney flick where everything turns out right in the end. I’m trying to find a word, one word, that would be true and right. I feel like the guy in the walker. Everything has slowed down. Anything could happen now. Anything.
I take a deep breath and that smell, the hospital smell, is gone. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.
I walk over to the bedside and reach for Sophia’s hand. She squeezes it very lightly. I’m wondering if it’s not the things we say that really matter, but everything else that’s hanging in the air, the possibilities that live amongst us, the questions unanswered.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Sophia says. “When I wake up and this is still real, I’ll let you know.” She closes her eyes and seems to drift into sleep.
Jim Metzner is a sound recordist and radio producer, best known as the host of the Pulse of the Planet radio series and podcast. He’s currently working on a memoir, “Adventures of a Lifelong Listener,” which weaves together sounds and stories to explore the mystery of listening.
Contributor’s Note:
“The Woman in Question”
What’s the impetus behind this story? “The Woman in Question” presents a scenario I wanted to explore: what if a person who had gone through a brutal divorce suffered memory loss? How would that play out for both parties?
Book Publication
Novel
Sacred Mounds is an adventure tale which explores the mystery of the ancient earthworks that once proliferated across the eastern US. The novel is a finalist in the Screencraft Cinematic Book Writing Competition. Its foreword was written by Hutke Fields, principal chief of the Natchez Nation.