The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [150]
But when Martin arrived at the hospital, Beatrice was completely unresponsive, practically comatose. In a panic, he tried to find someone from her team but could locate only an oncologist unfamiliar with her case.
“Her blood work does look better,” she noted as she examined the charts. “Maybe she’s just tired.”
Martin sat with her until visiting hours ended at nine and then went home. “She was tired,” he numbly repeated to Dante. “It’s just going to take a little longer than we expected.”
IT WAS NOW Friday morning; the phone rang and Martin jumped to answer: it was a doctor, who relayed a new theory that some sort of primary condition—cancer perhaps—had brought on the lipidosis, but they could confirm this only with a liver biopsy, a process that in itself greatly lowered the prognosis for recovery. “So what should we do?” Martin asked.
“I think you should come in if you can, and we’ll talk about it.”
Too anxious to drive and wanting to avoid rush-hour traffic, Martin decided to take the subway. As he walked to the station, the sun hovered cruelly overhead: it made him feel not only scrutinized but slightly paranoid, as if he were being punished for crimes he did not commit or, even worse, crimes which he did commit but for which others were now going to pay the price.
At the hospital, he found Beatrice crumpled and dirty in the corner of her intensive-care unit. Her rib cage heaved in and out with each breath, and her eyes were cloudy and distant. There was no question about what to do. He instructed the team to stop treatment; there would be no biopsy. He asked them to remove the feeding tube and the collar before they brought her out of intensive care and into an examination room so that he could say good-bye.
When she was delivered to him, she was destroyed, worse than drowned, even worse than the day before; her coat was greasy and covered with flecks of dander, her mouth and eyes were coated by thick gobs of something white and unidentifiable; her nose bled from where they had removed the feeding tube, and her skin hung off her ribs and spine. She still had IVs in each of her hind legs, one wrapped in blue gauze and one in red. The pads of her feet felt cold, and he wondered why they had wrapped the IVs so tightly. “Beatrice,” he managed between deep breaths. “You’re covered in snow.”
She tried to stand and managed to totter a step or two before she collapsed against the wall. Her eyes remained open but were dull and motionless, even when Martin showed her a golden bauble with several feathers attached to it he had brought to remind her of home. He told her about everything that had happened during the past week; how hot it was outside, how Dante kept looking for her under the bed, and how none of the games they played were as fun without her. He told her that he hadn’t been able to sleep without her saying good night to him. She raised her head a little as Martin placed a finger under her shivering chin. “I know,” he said, trying to sound less dire, “you don’t want to suffer anymore.”
Martin, awash in helplessness, could think of nothing but to restore some semblance of dignity to the most undignified thing in the world, i.e., death in a modern hospital. He took a small cloth he had brought with him and started with her face. As best as he could, he gently wiped away the thick saliva from her cheeks, the blood that trickled out of her nose, and the gunk from around her eyes; from there he moved down to her neck, chafed from the collar, and then to her shoulders and down her side, where each one of her raspy and labored breaths continued to make her stomach rise and