I sit and lay my hand upon her left cheek, feeling the lax paralysis that tells of the ruin wrought by the stroke. Then I slide my hand to her right, and I can feel her face respond even before I see it. She makes a sound, a burbling moan deep in her throat. I see her frustration.

?I hear you, Jackie,? I whisper. I feel her respond, see the shifting in her face.

?Dennis, give me some time with her. Why don?t you go get something to eat? I?ll sit with her. I?ll make sure they call you if anything changes. And take this,? I hand him my cell phone, ?If it rings, just answer it and tell them who you are?they are expecting that it might be you.?

He protests only slightly, and then bends over his wife to lay his lips upon hers. He whispers to her, words of love and care and hope, straightening finally before slowly walking out.

It is a game of hit and miss, but I am very good at it, and she is determined to play. She is still my friend, still the astoundingly critical creature that so set her apart from her peers. Between us we work out the language of gesture and tension and half-articulate sounds, until between us it is almost as a spoken conversation.

I know I?m dying. I can feel it. I?m not afraid.

?I know. I?m here for Dennis. I?ll take care of things until the children arrive.?

So sad? to leave him like this. Not fair.

?No, it?s not fair. It?s never fair to anyone. I?m going to miss you so very much.?

It?s good? good to know you?ll remember me?

Tears run their course down my face as we share what memories, condolences, and sorrows we can in this way. This is too familiar by far. I cannot stop thinking of my Jeremy, so long ago yet so terribly close. She sees my tears, and she understands.

Want to wait? see the children? so tired?

?It?s alright. They?ll understand. You can let go, if you have to??

Dennis?

?I?ll fetch him.?

I step out of the room into the lounge and call my cell phone from the courtesy phone. Dennis answers and I tell him Jacqueline wants to see him. He arrives within moments and he hands me my phone before going in. The two of them do not need me to translate?they have thirty-five years of shared lives to bind them. I sit in the lounge, waiting until I feel I can go in again.

My phone beeps quietly. The number is not displayed. ?This is Genevieve,? I answer, ?May I ask who is calling?? It is their youngest son, calling from Germany. My people found him. ?Yes, you have the right number. You don?t know me, but I?m a friend of your parents. Has anyone told you what?s happened??

?Only that my mother is in the hospital.?

There is nothing for it but to be blunt. ?I?m sorry to tell you that she?s had a stroke, followed by a heart attack. It really doesn?t look promising at all. Please, let me get your father.?

This is how it goes for the next several hours. My phone rings, and it is some member of the family. They were contacted by one of my lawyers, and told to get in touch. Somebody is being quite resourceful at my law firm?I intend to find out who it is and see that he is commended. Their son John is on a private jet, returning from Belize where he had been working on some government contract. Patricia is stuck in Sydney and cannot catch a flight for another two hours?she is most of a day away even after I arrange to have her met in Los Angeles and flown here directly.

11-November-2004

Dawn breaks as the children begin to arrive.

She is fading now, almost a full day after my arrival. I watch as the gathered children and their spouses are joined by aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews: the numbers swell impressively. I take satisfaction that at least this small thing I could do for them. Most of them look oddly at me, unsure who I am; the name is unfamiliar to them, and understandably so. Some secrets remain secret, even in times like these. I wish I could see her again, but this is their time. I am loath to intrude. I have said my goodbye.

11-November-2004 (later)

Jacqueline Victoria Novak passes away at 11:01 PM, surrounded by her husband, daughter and sons. She is sixty years old. I wait until the family has left the room. Then Dennis comes to me, and together we pay one last visit to her side. Her face is peaceful. Truth be told, she looks better now than she did when I first saw her, even with death?s pallor upon her. The pain and grief are gone from her.

Suddenly I am aware of overwhelming anxiety from Dennis. He radiates it?his face, the stance of his body, the way he is breathing. He is exhausted, and everything is crashing in on him. He turns, and I feel his hands settle on my upper arms, his grip strong, almost manic. Startled, I try to pull away, but his grip tightens, painfully so.

?Why?? he gasps, his voice trembling with grief and anger, ?Why couldn?t you save her? Why did she have to die? Why?!?

Shocked and hurt, I simply stare at him.

He shouts at me, and I wince, ?With everything you?ve done, and everything you know? why couldn?t you help her? Why?!?

His face is twisted with rage and grief, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks as he demands an answer he has to know I cannot give.

?Daddy!?

His daughter Patricia rushes into the room, and Dennis relaxes his grip on me, letting me pull away as his daughter forces us apart. He stares at me with a look that cuts me like a knife: sheer uncomprehending hatred. She looks at me as if to ask what has happened, but I am already backing out of the room. Others are coming, and I force my way past them, then begin to run, even as I hear him crying out.

?Zsalli! I?m sorry!?

I want to stop, to go back and tell him I understand, that it is still right between us, but that would be a lie. I do not understand. I cannot ever truly understand.

I ache to rage against this, but the cold sanity of reason cannot be broken, not even by horror and exhaustion. I am a destroyer of lives, perverse and poisonous to those I love most. His children are with him. I brought them here. Perhaps that will be enough to tip the balance in my favor should I ever be brought to account for my sins.

?[End Journal entry]?

Chapter 9

I?m not a huge drinker, but when I decide to do it, I don?t do it half-way and this just seemed like a made-for-sour mash kind of moment. I let the bartender set them up and I knocked them down at a deliberate pace while I tried to sort out what I knew from what I?d been shown.

This had to be a scam, it just had to be, but why me? I turned it over and over in my head and I just couldn?t see what the point was. Sure, I?d gotten some nods for some of my articles, but I didn?t have the ear of anyone with money or influence, and wouldn?t be able to deliver any major news headlines for her. What could she possibly expect to gain from this, from me?

I had turned the little cell phone off, which I figured might be rude, but I needed to think. So I was startled when someone I didn?t expect to see at all interrupted me after barely an hour.

?Drinking alone is a very bad habit, young man.?

Dennis Novak settled onto the barstool next to me. He casually ordered Southern Comfort on ice and just looked at me.

?Yeah, I got other bad habits too,? I finally said, looking at the bottom of my glass. ?So, what, she called you??

?Yes, but I hadn?t gone far. Amazing, these cell phones. I went most of my life without even the idea of one, and now I don?t know how I?d live without it.?

I grunted noncommittally. ?How?d you find me??

?Oh, she knew where your hotel was, and I figured I might find you right in here. I did much the same thing thirty-odd years ago.? He paused then and sipped at his drink for a minute, then swirled the ice cubes in his glass. ?It?s still hard to accept, even after all this time.?

?I?m a professional skeptic. I?m having a hard time thinking this isn?t a scam.?

?Well, I?m probably more a New Age child than are you, but I had the same problem. Say, why don?t we take a booth?? I looked at the bartender and motioned for another Jack Daniels, then nodded to Dennis. Once we settled into a booth, he asked me, ?Why is it that you?re willing to believe she?s deluded, yet when confronted with evidence she?s not, you decide it must be a lie??

?Come on, Doctor Novak. This is crazy! She can?t be what she says she is.?

?Call me Dennis, please.? He cocked his head. ?But she is what she is. You said you saw the pictures.?

?Give me a decent computer and I can show you pictures with me sitting between Stalin and Hitler.?

He spread his hands and said, ?Ask to examine them, then. They?re home pictures, taken with our old Kodak?s. Pick a lab. She?ll gladly pay for the tests. She needs you to believe.?

?Why??

He frowned. ?Well, because she does.?

?Tell me something then: when did you really believe it? What made you sit down and throw your common sense out the window??

?Oh,? he sighed, sitting back as he blew that word slowly out through pursed lips, ?I?ve always sort of believed in the paranormal, but that is still a little hard to answer.?

?I got time,? I said. He nodded.

?Alright. I met her when I was fourteen. My father introduced her as somebody he?d met during the war. She had that streak of grey hair, but he always complimented her on how well she?d aged. I guess she grays it on purpose sometimes.? He looked into space for a moment, and chuckled ironically to himself. ?Some problem to have, isn?t it? Well, anyway, my parents had divorced two years earlier, because Dad hadn?t been faithful. Now here was dad, with this pretty new girlfriend that he said he?d met during the war? Well, I really didn?t like her very much at first. It felt like the nail in the coffin of any chance my folks would get back together.?

I nodded at that. Divorce can be hell on the kids, so I could see where he might have had problems with her.

?The fact that she was very nice, and pretty, actually made it worse. I was spending summers with my father and that first summer with her there was about the toughest I remember. I was determined to hate her. Fortunately she just let me. The next year it was as if the first summer never happened.?

?How long was she with your father??

?I guess they?d just had a short fling during the war?? he sighed. ?Damned old man, mom was home with me and pregnant with my sister. Ah, but that?s old news. It wasn?t her that caused the breakup; anyway, it had been a short thing. At any rate, Zsallia and my dad, I guess they ran into each other by coincidence later on in San Francisco, and got more serious. They dated about three years total after that. That second summer, I got to know her really well, and she encouraged my reading. Dad used to want me to be into sports, but she got him to leave me be. He always listened to her.? He smiled with a look of fond remembrance.

?So late in ?56, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. She stayed with him until he died in 1957. After his funeral I didn?t see her again until 1967 when she walked into my European History class.?

?That must have been a shock,? I said with a laugh, lifting my glass and polishing it off.

?Actually, no. I saw her when she walked in, even in that huge lecture hall. Couldn?t miss that hair. But I just thought ?wow, she reminds me of Claire.? It wasn?t until later, after class when she approached me and spoke to me that I really did a double take on it. But she didn?t seem to know me, and her demeanor was so different, and I just chalked it up to memory playing tricks, maybe a distant cousin. It was easy; there was a huge difference between that demure, very sophisticated woman my father had dated, and this wide-eyed, outgoing, opinionated? bohemian.?

?She was a hippie,? I laughed. I had no idea why I found that so funny.

?Yes, exactly. Things were normal for a week or two, and then Jackie got involved.? He stopped, then by way of explanation said, ?She was my fianc?e at the time.?

I nodded. ?I saw the photos.?

?Right. Well, Jackie and I were just engaged, and I guess she was a little jealous. Zsallia?well, she was calling herself Heather at the time, and ?Heather? was making a point of dropping by my office to chat about class work now and then. She was a kind of bubbly airhead and she used to drill me on obscure points of history. In fact,? he stopped, and laughed. ?She was pretty mad at me the second week of class, wanted to know if I was sure there was never any Robin Hood who wooed any Maid Marian. She seemed pretty put out by that.?

I laughed. ?What? Did she know them or something??

?No, not at all, though I did ask her that later on, when I came to accept the truth about her. But at the time I just thought she was a kind of flaky and na?ve girl, so when she asked me questions like that I liked setting her straight. I didn?t know the half of it, but it turns out that my class was the first time she?d ever taken an interest in academic history. Until then, I guess everything she knew from history mostly came from folk songs and poems and such, which is the way most people used to get their information. In fact,? he stopped, and laughed again. ?Oh, Lord, I had forgotten, I remember when we were first arguing about it, she actually stopped and said, ?I suppose you?re right. Besides, Marian was rather the slut anyway, wasn?t she???

We both laughed.

?It was doubly funny coming out of her, once you got to know her. She was a real wild child. But you know the funny thing is,? he said, wiping his eyes, ?it?s easy to laugh, but she?s actually not ignorant at all. She just has weird quirks in her knowledge like that. At the same time, she?s got incredible insights? well, I guess they?re memories? of what life was like in the lower classes in bygone eras. Plus she has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of old French and English folk tunes.? He chuckled again. ?She likes singing them, especially the bawdy ones. But anyway, she?s so good with them, she wound up helping me some with my doctoral thesis. There was a real give and take relationship between us during those first couple of years, even though she dropped out. She used to play a guitar and sing some of those songs for me. Some of them are known by historians, but the others, well, I?m not sure anyone knows them anymore but her. Lovely voice she?s got, too?? his voice trialed off, and he looked a bit sad.

?Guitar, folk songs, sounds like it fit her image real well,? I offered.

?Oh yeah man, after she dropped out, sometimes we?d go visit her where she was living in Haight-Ashbury. We?d go to this little coffee shop and sometimes on open mike night, if it wasn?t too crowded, she?d get up on stage. She wasn?t exactly Joni Mitchell, but she had enthusiasm. She didn?t do it too often, though, since crowds made her a little nervous, but those are some good memories.?

?So, um, how did you come to decide she wasn?t just a flaky bohemian??

?Ah. Yeah. Well before all that, during those first few weeks in ?67, she kept coming around, drilling me, asking me these off-the-wall questions, and I took a bit of a shine to her. Strictly platonic of course. I was still working on my dissertation, and Jackie was finishing her Master?s program, and we were planning to get married after graduation. Then word got around about a pretty red-headed coed hanging around me, so Jackie naturally decided she needed to make her presence felt,? He laughed, a little ruefully. ?It was a pretty tense couple of minutes, let me tell you. I never really understood how it worked out that they became such good friends. Two more dissimilar women you?ve never met.

?But Jackie was fascinated with her. At first I thought it was just curiosity about the lifestyle, but it was more than that. A lot more. Jackie was a very perceptive woman and she saw things that made her curious. Then one day I mentioned how Heather looked a bit like my dad?s old girlfriend. She asked if I had any pictures, so we dug out the photo albums. We were both a bit surprised at how close the resemblance really was. Jackie didn?t say anything, but I could see her wheels turning. To be honest I had been wondering a little about Heather?s background myself, but I figured her life was her own, and she?d said she was from Boston.

?Three weeks later I got back to my apartment after classes and found the two of them together, waiting at the kitchen table, laughing over a bottle of scotch. Jackie got serious and told me to sit down and poured me a drink. Then Zsalli told me she was my dad?s girlfriend Claire, and apologized for lying to me.?

He stopped talking and stared at his drink for a minute before deliberately lifting and draining his glass. He set it back down and fixed his gaze on me. His eyes were just a bit hollow, as if he were remembering something traumatic.

?She told me everything about those three summers she spent with my father and me. She told me about how she and my father met in 1943 just before he shipped out for the South Pacific, and apologized for that. Then she told me how old she was.?

?And you just believed her??

?Hell no,? he forced out with a laugh. ?But then she did this thing, I don?t know quite how to describe it. She didn?t change really, but her posture changed, her voice shifted a little, and it was like everything about her changed. Like she was suddenly a different person in the same body. She leaned over and she gripped my hand just like she used to, called me ?Denny,? just like she used to, and I just knew it had to be her.? He paused. ?Honest to God, she?s the best actress, and the best goddamned liar, I?ve ever met,? he said, with a mixture of awe and admiration.

?So I left and got rip-roaring drunk. I was angry, confused, and I told myself the whole thing was a lie, but by the time I sobered up in the morning, I knew I believed her. She just knew too much, and when her demeanor changed like that? well, I believed she was my dad?s girl Claire, anyway. And the more time went on, the more I believed the rest of what she said. But also, Jackie believed, and that by itself was pretty much the clincher for me. You could never put anything over on Jackie.?

I?m a pretty good judge of people myself, and even with four double Jacks burning in my gut, I knew he believed every word he was telling me.

?And Jackie believed her,? he repeated. Like that meant everything.

?Damn.? That was all I could think to say. I?d wanted him to be unbelievable, but he just wasn?t.

?But you said she?s a good liar, a good actor?.? I said, halfheartedly.

?Yeah. She?s good boy. Seems to do it without thinking, and always slick and smooth. But honestly,? he said, choosing his words carefully, ?when she lets her guard down, you know it. I guess she just needs friends she can be real with sometimes. I suppose that?s why she revealed herself to us. And she?s never broken a promise to us, not once.?

I just kind of stared at his chest. ?Damn.? I repeated.

?Hard to get your head around, I know. Try this. She?s in that hospital because of me.?

The waitress arrived then and we ordered fresh drinks. After she carried off our empty glasses I asked him to explain. He told me of his wife?s sudden stroke, and how Zsallia had flown in from Pennsylvania on the spot, and helped gather his family from literally all over the world. He told me what happened after she died, and how he?d acted toward her.

?I?ve never been so ashamed in all my life,? he finished.

?So, today is the first time you?ve seen her since??

?Yes. Her lawyer called on me this morning and told me what had happened. I hadn?t heard from her in almost two weeks and I figured I?d never see her again. When he told me she wasn?t mad, would like to see me before she left town but only if I wanted to...? He swallowed, hard, then said, ?Man, if I hadn?t lost control that night?? he stopped then, his gaze dropping. He didn?t drink. Instead he just stared at his glass and said, ?Dammit.?

Suddenly my drink had lost all of its appeal as well. ?Still, she seems to have forgiven you.?

?Oh, of course she did,? he said, smiling ruefully. ?I tell you she?s quirky, but when it comes to knowing people, understanding people, I?ve never met anyone sharper, or who has her ego better in check. I also imagine,? he said, glumly, ?that she?s been party to scenes like that before.?

?She certainly does seem to have her feelings dialed in pretty tight, most of the time.? I grinned. ?Except for that temper of hers.?

He looked up at me when I said that, his face turning very serious again, and said, ?It?s easy to think that. Hell, she wants everyone to think that, but it?s not entirely true. Like the way I saw her today, and talking to her on the phone?.? He stopped, and looked me square in the eye. ?Buddy, I?ve never seen her more frantic, or more out of her wits.?

?Really?? I laughed, ?From watching her, I?d think??

?You?d think wrong. Listen, you?ve got to understand, this girl?s been hiding from the world her whole life, and now all of a sudden, people six ways from Sunday have seen how she?s doing impossible things, and they?ve run all kinds of tests on her that she?d normally never consent to. It?s like a giant spotlight?s been put on her, with megaphones about to blare out to the world that she?s a freak. Even though she won?t admit it, she?s scared to half to death what?s going to happen when people realize she?s not? well, not really human I guess.?

I leaned back. ?I guess I hadn?t thought about it that way.?

?Hell, you know what could happen here. You?re a man of the world. You know how the people who really run the government and the big corporations can be. Especially with that maniac Bush still in charge.? I avoided laughing, but his Berkeley roots were showing. ?Besides,? he went on, ?you?ve got to think in the long run with her. Maybe this doesn?t get out and public now, but rumors get started, and before you know it, a year or two down the road, someone starts snooping over this weirdness here today, and then the men in the dark suits come take her, maybe want to dissect her, God knows what. You know how power works in America.?

?Well, I don?t know that I?m as afraid as you are about that, but? Okay, I get your point.?

?Well she sure as hell gets it. I?ll tell you something else,? he went on. ?She?s very good at people, very good at getting what she wants out of them, but she?s got these? these? blind spots. Like, she doesn?t really understand power. I talked to her attorney for a while today, and he told me how she?s been acting in that hospital. My God. Typical Zsallia, but even worse than usual.?

?Yeah, pretty heavy handed. Why do you think??

?Fear, mostly. That and she was probably almost crazy hungry because they wouldn?t feed her. I guess her appetite goes nuts when she?s injured. But anyway, what you need to understand is, when she deals with individuals she can be very subtle, very careful, and very persuasive, and half the time it?s like she can read your mind, or knows what you?re thinking before you do. But when she deals with large groups or institutions, it?s like the only thing she knows to do is either run and hide, or beat them into submission. I saw it at the university, and I?ve seen it every other time she runs into bureaucracy, lawyers, or anything like that. Hell, back in ?70 she had a run-in with the police in Arizona that she still refuses to talk about. There?s just no subtlety to her in those circumstances, and right now I think that tendency is very, very dangerous to her, because she?s probably attracting more attention and pissing off more people than she needs to. She?s trying to force everyone to shut up and making a spectacle of herself doing it.?

?So what?s she doing asking me to write this book for her? Sounds like exactly something she wouldn?t want.?

?You know I didn?t get that when I talked to the both of you earlier this afternoon,? he said. ?She didn?t want to talk about it, just told me you were writing her life story. I thought she was nuts but she wouldn?t listen, just kept changing the subject. Hell, I thought maybe she was looking to kill herself, I just didn?t know.?

?I thought she couldn?t die,? I said.

?Her exact words: ?I?m immortal, not indestructible?. She?s certain she couldn?t survive things like decapitation, or being thoroughly burned?? he stopped, and his eyes narrowed at me. ?She denies it, but she?s talked about things like that in the past.?

?So I?m helping her write her suicide note?? I said, my voice rising in pitch.

?I don?t know. I don?t think so, exactly. But I talked with her on the phone for about a half hour before I finally came looking for you. You know what she told me on the phone? ?Dennis,? she says, ?I?ve come to realize it really is fight or flight. I can either give up everything and go hide in some hole in the middle of the Sonoran desert for the next hundred years and hope everyone forgets me, or I can make a stand. And I have come to realize that I simply don?t want to hide in the dirt anymore. The modern world is going to find me sooner or later. So I?m going to do what damage control I can, for now, try to tell the world my story on my own terms, the whole truth and nothing but, and then just let the cards fall where they may.??

?And she picked me, a name she spotted on some articles, to help her do it,? I said.

He rubbed his face a couple of times with the palms of his hands, then put them flat on the table. ?Yeah.?

I pondered that. What would I do, in her shoes? Finally, I said, ?So what do you think she should be doing??

He just looked at me, pursed his lips, and then let out a long sigh again. ?I told her I didn?t want to lose her, that I wanted her to run, that I?d help hide her. She thanked me, started crying, said she was sorry, but no. Then asked me if I would try to find you.?

Now what do you say to something like that?

?Shit,? was what I said.

He nodded.

There didn?t seem much else to talk about. After a few more minutes, he took his leave of me, giving me his home number and telling me to call him any time. He shook my hand firmly and urged me to do the right thing. Whatever that was.

I sat there for a while, ordering a light beer just to slow down. I felt pretty sober by the time I reached into my pocket, turned the cell phone back on, and dialed her number.

?I?m glad you called,? she said, a little cautiously.

?Yeah.?

?So. I understand you spoke to Dennis.?

?Yeah. Good guy.?

?Yes. He is a very, very good man, and very dear to me.?

I paused. Finally, I said, ?Okay, Zsallia Marieko. I believe you.?

Silence.

?Are you sure you know what you?re doing?? I asked.

?As certain as I ever will be, yes.?

?Well then, I guess we have a lot more ground to cover. Should we meet again tomorrow??

?That would be lovely, but I think it should be short. I expect you?d like to be on your way home early. Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow, and I?m certain your wife and child would like you home before then. You weren?t expecting to be here this long anyway. I?m sending my lawyers home as well, and I?ve had them arrange a ticket for you so you?ll be home at a decent hour. I believe they, and you, have done all that needs to be done here. I intend to slip out myself tomorrow night, or perhaps in the morning. All the senior staff will be at home with their own families by then, so it should cause less of a ruckus that way.?

?Where will you go??

?Well Mitch managed to find one of those electrified wheelchairs, and it should be deliverable wherever I go. I thought perhaps I?d either charter a plane, or catch the first flight out of the state I could find, and find a hotel near whatever airport I land in. The room service bills will be ridiculous, but that doesn?t matter. I intend to wait until I?m whole again before I go back home to Pennsylvania. You and I will be able to chat on the telephone, and I?ll get a computer and an email address so you can send me things.?

?Jesus. Where do you get all your money, anyway??

She laughed. ?Einstein?s greatest discovery was the theory of compound interest. It?s probably a bigger miracle than I am. When you go decades without spending much of any of your money, you tend to get nice surprises when you call your brokers.?

?Damn.? I laughed. Made sense. ?Well, anyway, if you?re just going anywhere at random, why don?t you come to Michigan?? I asked.

She hesitated. ?That?s very kind, but I?m not certain I should impose on you so much more than I already have. Your wife might not appreciate me being so near, either.?

I barked a laugh. ?She?s not jealous, and you?re not my type anyway, Princess. Too crazy.? I heard her chuckle. ?Anyway, I?m perfectly capable of staying away for days at a time if I need to. If you?re going to just pick some random hole anyway, it might as well be somewhere convenient.? I put a smile into my voice and said, ?I might even help you out with a little shopping. As long as you don?t get too uppity with me.?

She gave low laugh and said, ?All right, my friend. Michigan it is. Where would you suggest I stay??

I thought about where Dennis told me she?d lived in the ?60s, and grinned. ?I bet you?d like Ann Arbor. I bet you?d like it a lot.?

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Methuselah's Daughter, A Novel