Monty barked a warning and Alula heard a car straining up the hill. Emine! But when she opened her eyes there was a man, sharp pruning shears in his hand. She screamed.
He said “Are you all right? You had a seizure. I’m just moving these things out of the way.” The shears, the hoe. She saw the black man, patting Monty, saying “Good dog, good dog,” and then to the white man, “Careful, there, you’re crushing the glads.” He knew what mattered. Whoever they were—all she knew was they were not Emine—they helped her back to the cabin.
The white man brought her a glass of water. He picked up the card she’d written to give Emine.
Dearest Emine,
Welcome! Your being here fulfills my wildest hopes…
The black man—he obviously loved flowers—picked up and skimmed through her garden journal.
September 4, 6:00 AM, 48 degrees: high 80 degrees deck shade, sunny
Yesterday finished deck drip system and turned on. Setting: every other day, six AM, 10 minutes (everything swamped, changed to 2 minutes then 1), will click in on Monday.
Oct 1: drip hoses and soaker hoses
October 2: Mint: be ruthless
October 20: One salmon bounding and bucking its way up the creek!
November 3. Still picking green beans and tomatoes, some rotten, mold, some gone to the voles. Dahlias were still blooming. Planted 40 tulips. Pulled out the nasties. Still not well. Should call doctor.
Vote by mail!
But she can’t be sure. There might or might not be two men or maybe more in her cabin. I’m back in the hospital, she thought, because this is what doctors look like when you’ve been given too much Percoset. Those faces peering at her growing bigger and bigger and then suddenly shrinking pulled away to a distant horizon. The drugs also caused hallucinations. Like the name Emine, Emine Albaz swirling in yellow letters from their lips.
November 8: Appointment for December 7. Dad says radiation no more to be feared than typhoid!
December: surgery on the 14th.
March 3. Out of here! Dad still sleeping. Got the ore but couldn’t find Geiger counter. ThriftWay for corrugated boxes.
The black one is excited, reading aloud: “Cesium-137...$115; Cobalt-60: $79; Polonium-210: $79; Strontium-90: $79; Thallium-204: $79 Total: $431.00” and he’s asking questions. How about answering some? She asks him “How big is a microcurie anyway?” People don’t call Marie Curie crazy!
“Emine Albaz.” He says her name and that reminds Alula she would have to tell Emine it wasn’t just the uranium. There was mercury too, the little silver balls of it rolling. Look, her father sharing his fascination. She never understood the science or the purpose. The click click click. The gyroscope whirling like a toy top in his workshop. On what? A cord? A piece of string? Her mother’s clothesline? The mercury like...she couldn’t quite remember. Like semen, she thought, when it spilled on her body instead of inside, those gloppy beads of white mercury. Watch what’s in your mind in front of these men! The trail, then, of a garden slug, if you could capture it speeded up, the quicksilver shimmer.
She had given up coffee. Drank hot water in a brown mug so she could pretend. Sold her Zuni turquoise. Stopped buying propane and cooked on the woodstove. But then there were Monty’s vet bills and only enough money for the cesium and cobalt. On the credit card. She might not be around to pay it off anyway. Maybe none of us. 9-11. Now more than ever.
Dear Dr. Almaz,
December 20, 2001 -
Dear Dr. Albaz,
October 2001 mushroom festival Yachats - they say find matsutake mycelium under candy canes.
The hummingbirds beat their wings until your name swells through the vibrations.
Glomus in blender. through window screen, then .0007”. distilled water. no centrifuge - use egg beater? ? soak cardboard in hot water. let mushrooms sleep. agar/spawn/fresh bulk substrate two or three weeks, mother patch.
“Dr. Albaz,” said the white one.
She’d enjoyed writing letters to her and Emine must have enjoyed hearing from her, otherwise it would have been characterized as stalking. Long distance relationships and penpals were really best. Alula wrote to prisoners for a while. They said getting a letter in prison was like Christmas and your birthday rolled into one, but when she realized they might someday get out, she quit. There was a kind of delicious surrender in the acceptance of absence. So much easier than accepting someone’s presence. That had always been...well, if one dwelled too much on disappointment, one became disappointed. That was what she would not accept, would not surrender to.
Writing a letter to Emine was like chocolate. “I had to ration it,” she said. And the anticipation while she waited! After the WBRT they told her she’d have a couple more months. Instead it had been more than two years, and she thinks it was Emine who kept her alive. There was something to wait for, hoping Emine would answer, hoping she’d come.
If Alula could find the words, this is what she would tell Emine: She was not what the inspirational elements of the medical community call a fighter. She liked to grow things, there was research to accomplish, but she wasn’t all that interested in being alive. She would be as she thought a Buddhist would be, seeking only to live and die in harmony with the natural order. She went on tending the garden though she might not live to eat the vegetables or see the flowers come into bloom. It was just too late to change what she did or didn’t do. That’s what she would tell Emine and she would thank her for coming, she would ask her to adopt Monty. Emine, on her way, like the Angel of Death.
It was entirely possible these men with huge faces weren’t real. They were asking questions, questions, questions. They had no idea the words had scampered off to eat her tomatoes and as far as she could tell, no one could stop them.