Teaching the Dog to Read Read online

  When neither Tony said anything and looked baffled by what he had said, Fischman continued with noticeable exasperation at their confusion “Reincarnation? Past lives? Come on boys, you can’t be that dense.”

  Still the Tonys remained silent.

  Fischman rolled his eyes, put the cigar out on the floor and slid both hands into his pockets. “When were you born?”

  “March 7.”

  “What year?”

  “1973.”

  “Exactly. Well, on March 6, 1973 I was driving a brand new Porsche I had picked up at the factory in Stuttgart along the Dalmatian Coast with my fiancée Alice—”

  “Alice, did you say?” Tony Day didn’t like hearing that name of his dream woman coming from this Len Fischman.

  “Yes Tony, Alice. We were supposed to get married in Dubrovnik the next week. We had spent a fine Spring afternoon drinking way too much of a tasty regional wine called Grk and were driving back to our hotel when a large orange truck coming towards us blew a tire and drove right into us. Boys, the next day you were born. Now do you capite?”

  “I’m you, reincarnated?” Tony Day asked incredulously.

  “That is correct. And that is why you have been dreaming about a lovely woman named Alice.”

  “Why are you here?” Tony Night asked. Tony Day was too stunned to say anything.

  “To accompany you over to the other side. It’s a nice system— Whoever preceded you comes back to guide you.” Fischman smirked at the joke he was about to make. “Anyway, you’d have a hard time understanding Gorbog if he came for you.”

  Both Tonys remembered the strange name—it was written on the box that held the can opener in Tony Night’s dream.

  “Who is Gorbog?”

  “The great granddaddy of us all, brother—the first in our blood line. 27,000 years ago Gorbog was born in what is now Russia. You’ll meet him eventually. By then, after you’ve acclimated, you’ll understand him. He’s actually quite chatty. ”

  “But I don’t want to die. I’m not ready.” Tony Day wailed.

  “Me neither,” Tony Night agreed, shooting a hurt look over at Tony Day for not having said ‘we’ don’t want to die.

  “Boys, I didn’t either; I was about to get married. But it’s out of your hands.” Fischman pointed to the body lying on the bed. “Once the motor conks out, that’s the end of you.”

  “Is it going to happen soon?”

  “I dunno. That’s always up to your body. I’m just here to introduce myself. Normally I wouldn’t show up until after you died, but because you guys traded places they sent me across a little earlier than usual.”

  “Across?”

  Fischman looked from side to side as if to make sure no one could hear what he was about to say to the Tonys. “I’m not supposed to tell you this till it’s over, but the Afterlife? It’s over there. Two steps away.” He hooked a thumb out to the side like a hitchhiker trying to catch a ride. “You wanna take a little look at your new home?”

  “No!” both Tonys shouted.

  Fischman held up both hands, palms out in surrender. “Okay, okay I was only trying to make it easier for you when the time comes. It’s really nice over there, believe me. I didn’t even want to come over here now and leave it.”

  “No!” The Tonys said again, even more adamantly.

  The door crept slowly open and Lena Schabort entered.

  Eyebrows raised, Len Fischman checked her out from top to bottom and gave an exaggerated approving nod. When she saw the body of Anthony Areal on the bed, she quickly covered her mouth with both hands and began to weep. Lena tried to muffle the noise with her hands by pressing harder against her mouth but that only made new louder sounds. She stood there unmoving, paralyzed by what she was seeing.

  Tony Night got up from his chair and was going to go to her, but Fischman shook his head. “You’re in a coma. She can’t see either of you. Only the Tony she knew, and that’s old dead weight over there.”

  When she was able to calm down a little and gather herself, Lena walked to the side of the bed and looked down at her new love. Hesitantly, she touched his right hand with her index finger but for seconds, as if afraid even one touch might worsen his condition. Then she did something else that made all three men in the room catch their breath.

  Bending over the still body, she stretched her arms out and without touching Tony, put her hands near either side of his face, as if cradling it. Leaning forward, she lowered her forehead until it almost touched his. She stayed in that reverent position for a long time.

  Both Tony Day and Len Fischman eventually looked at Tony Night with great sympathy and a little jealousy in their eyes. It was so plain this woman was crazy about the Tony Areal she knew and her grief was palpable. It was clear that when he died she would be crushed.

  To make matters worse, outside on the street a cacophony of auto horns went by and from their cheerful, uneven rhythm it sounded like either a wedding party celebrating, or some sports team had won a game and this was a spontaneous victory parade announcing to the world the good news.

  When Lena finally drew her hands back and lifted her head, she sat down in one of the chairs next to Tony’s bed.

  “You don’t have to see this if you don’t want.”

  “What?” Tony Night had been so absorbed watching Lena’s every move that he’d barely heard Fischman speak.

  “You don’t have to watch this. You’re in a coma. Both of you can go back into it. I don’t know what’s going on in his head now, but probably nothing. His brain is probably blank and biding its time till the body’s clock runs down. You don’t have to see this if you don’t want. I wouldn’t.”

  The Tonys looked at each other but neither had an answer.

  “If it makes your decision any easier, you can come out again whenever you want. So long as the body is still alive, you—”

  “—can come out again. Yeah, we heard you,” Tony Day cut in. He looked at Night who absolutely bereft, kept staring at Lena. Day knew it was his call and looking at Fischman, barely nodded his assent. All three men disappeared.

  A few moments after they were gone Lena took a cell phone out of her purse and called a number on the phone’s speed dial. The whole time she waited for it to connect, she stared at Tony and kept wiping her eyes with her free hand.

  Her head snapped up when the other person answered. She said only “I need your help,” then paused and sucked in her lower lip while listening to the answer. She nodded assertively at something that was said. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure. I wouldn’t ask for your help if I wasn’t sure. He is the one but there’s a problem now. Only you can help me.” She listened and kept nodding at what she heard.

  A minute later she disconnected the phone without saying anything more. Dropping it back into her purse she reached in for something else: a pad of paper and a black roller ball pen. She put the purse on the floor next to her chair, the pad and pen in her lap. She looked at Tony. She wasn’t ready to begin yet and needed to see him before she did. Twice Lena picked up the pad only to put it down again. She dropped her chin to her chest and closed her eyes. An idea came and she smiled for the first time since hearing the bad news about him earlier at work. Picking up her purse she rummaged around inside it until she found the can opener he’d left on her desk what seemed like a long time ago. Taking hold of both sides of the tool, she opened and closed them several times. Once she held it up as if to show him what she was doing—open closed open closed… As if he could see. If only he could see now.

  “I love this thing so much, Tony. You have no idea what it means to me.”

  She put the opener back in her purse, zipped it closed, took a deep breath and picking up the pen and pad, began to draw.

  One look at her work was all that was needed to tell Lena Schabort was a terrible artist. She drew a head as round as a balloon that looked like something a young child would draw. She put ears on this ‘head’ that looked like handles on a teacup rather than human e
ars. The eyes she drew were ridiculous, as was the nose and mouth. Again, when she finished the sketch it resembled something a six or seven year old might draw in kindergarten with a thick crayon.

  A nurse came into the room, checked the chart at the foot of the bed and the glowing yellow numbers on the complicated looking machine Tony was connected to via multiple wires. Lena asked if there had been any change in his condition since he was admitted. The nurse gave a small tight smile and said she didn’t think so, but Lena should ask the doctor when she made her rounds in the next half hour. Lena thanked her and said she would.

  After the nurse left Lena tore the sketch out of the notebook, dropped it into her purse and began another. By the time the doctor arrived almost an hour later, she had completed seven and was working on an eighth. The difference between her first drawing and the latest one was astounding. If the first looked like the work of an untalented child, the eighth looked like the highly polished and professional product of a very good street portrait artist. Anyone who knew Tony and saw this drawing would have immediately said it was him to a tee. What’s more, it was a portrait that caught something ineffable and strikingly intimate about him despite the fact it was a simple black and white drawing.

  The emergency room doctor entered Anthony Areal’s room with the pompous, l’etat c’est moi-drama of a famous opera star making her first appearance on stage to a richly-deserved ovation at the beginning of a performance. Doctor Mukherjee was good at her job but nowhere near as good as she thought she was. Privately the nurses called her “Dr. Legend” as in ‘she’s a legend in her own mind.’

  When she saw the woman sitting by the side of the patient’s bed drawing, the doctor did an instant assessment of her (face, hair, clothes, purse…) and then mentally chose which of her professional personas to present—firm but pleasant with a soupcon of professional know-it-all arrogance thrown in. “I’m Doctor Mukherjee,” she said in an assertive voice while looking at the clipboard she carried, as if searching for some detail there. “And you are?”

  “Lena Schabort. I’m his fiancée.”

  “I see.” The doctor slid a pair of thick blue eyeglasses out of her left breast pocket and put them on. Taking the chart off the hook at the foot of the patient’s bed, she examined the information there while carefully keeping her face blank. Then she looked at the numbers on the machine next to the bed and wrote several things on the chart. After a while it was only pretense because she was really only waiting for Lena to bombard her with questions which was what loved ones of the critically ill almost always did. Was there hope? Would they survive? Could anything more be done? Can they hear us? Do they know we’re here? Dr. Rani Mukherjee had heard all these questions so many times over the years in voices that ranged from the petrified to the outraged. As a result she had developed a litany of automatic, highly technical responses that in most cases calmed but did not specifically encourage the questioners. She did not believe in creating false hope.

  From the information on this man’s chart, things did not look good for him and she was prepared to say exactly that if his fiancée wanted to know the truth. If the woman asked if he would recover, the doctor would say something along the lines of it’s too soon to tell—What’s happened to him is extremely serious and though he’s stable for now, there’s little else we can do until—

  “Doctor?”

  Here it comes.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you her?”

  Certainly not expecting this, the doctor paused and frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Are you her?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  Instead of clarifying the question, Lena held up her latest drawing of Tony. Doctor Mukherjee looked at it, saw it was done with great skill and was obviously of the patient, but beyond that she had no idea what this woman was talking about. Was she acting this oddly out of grief? Or perhaps she had gone quietly mad because of her fiancée’s dire condition. Or maybe was she a plain old weirdo.

  To the doctor’s growing dismay, Lena repeated the gnomic question and added another “Are you her? Is this drawing enough?”

  On new unsure ground now the doctor asked carefully “Would you like something to calm you down? We can arrange for—”

  Lena said no and put the drawing back in her lap. “I’m fine. I thought you were someone else. Sorry if I confused you.”

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t like something—”

  “No Doctor, really—I’m good.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “None? No concerns about—”

  Lena looked disinterested, as if the conversation was already over and she was being nice answering the question. “Nope, I’m fine. I’ll sit here and keep him company.”

  Now it was the doctor who spoke uncertainly “All right. But if you do want anything, the nurse’s station is down the hall.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Dr. Mukherjee was glad to get out of there but on her way down the hall she stopped one of the duty nurses and told her to keep an eye on the woman in 17 because she might be a little…off. The nurse said she would and the doctor continued on her rounds.

  Two hours later Lena went down to the snack bar in the hospital lobby for an egg salad sandwich and bottle of mineral water. Opening the door to Tony’s room again with food in hand, she was jolted to see a heavyset man sitting in her chair by the side of the bed. His large head was covered with the transparent reddish fuzz of a short crew cut, small ears, big mouth and wide nose… On first glance he reminded her of a professional wrestler or night club bouncer. Thick hands folded peacefully in his lap, his eyes were closed when she first entered. They opened when she cleared her throat and they were surprisingly gentle looking. He wore a crisp looking cobalt blue work shirt with the name dave in black letters on a white patch over his left breast.

  “Lena?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Dave. Do you have the drawings?”

  Startled because she had been expecting a woman, Lena hesitated. “You’re here for them? I thought—”

  “I know what you’re thinking, but I am the one. Can I see them please?”

  “Yes, of course.” She opened her purse and took out the now twelve portraits of Tony Areal she had drawn. She walked over to Dave and handed them to him. He studied each carefully for a long time, returning to several again and again. Others he barely glanced at. Surprisingly those were her later drawings that displayed the talent and finesse of a real professional artist. But Dave didn’t appear interested in a finished product.

  Lena stood by nervously, not knowing what to think or do. Finally he took so long reviewing them that she sat down in the chair on the other side of the bed and began eating her sandwich.

  In time he brought the sheaf of sketches to his chest and shook his head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. It’s not there yet.” He patted his chest with the papers. “One or two of them come close, but none captures exactly how you feel about him. Without that, we can’t do anything. You’ll have to keep at it.” His voice was kind and even a little mournful but clearly not to be challenged. The answer was no and that ended the discussion.

  The two of them sat in silence for a while.

  “Are you going to finish that sandwich?”

  She looked at it in her hand. “Uh no—would you like it?”

  “I would. It looks good.”

  She walked the rest of her sandwich over to the other side of the bed and handed it to Dave. In exchange, he gave her the drawings. She went back to her chair and looked at them while he slowly and with obvious relish ate what was left of her egg salad.

  Raising her head from the failed drawings, Lena had to know. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” Dave took an ironed white handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped the corners of his mouth.

  “What did I do wrong here? Ho
w do I get it right?” Lena heard the strain in her voice, almost a whine, and didn’t like it. To her it was a sign of weakness when she needed to be strong and sharp. But she also knew this was her one big chance and if she blew it, there wouldn’t be another. Ever.

  “There’s no you in any of those drawings, Lena.” Dave ate the last bit of sandwich, chewed a long time and swallowed. “You’re trying so hard to draw him exactly that you’re forgetting you’re creating the picture. You must find a way to include your feelings and vision into the work for it to be complete. You really love this man? I don’t see that here. Love, desire, all the things that attract you to him… None of it’s here—only a few nice portraits.

  “So far what you’ve done is rendered with a camera’s eye some man—some guy. Like you drew a bunch of pictures of a stranger you passed on the street. In all of them except a few sections of the early ones where you were drawing like the girl you once were, it feels like you’re consciously trying to erase any trace of yourself from the work. Don’t do that, Lena—do the opposite.”

  Dave stood up, brushed a few bread crumbs off the front of his shirt and made for the door. But once there he stopped abruptly, walked back to her and asked for the drawings. Timidly she held them out. He shuffled through the pile until he came to the last, most accomplished one she’d done. Taking a fluorescent orange SHARPIE felt tip marker out of a pocket, he uncapped it and wrote something across the middle of the drawing, ruining it. Capping the marker, he handed the papers back to her and said “Show me that.” Then he left the room. On the drawing he had written inside a large orange heart

  LENA LOVES TONY. WHY?

  When Dr. Mukherjee entered the room again several hours later it was because she had been called there by one of the duty nurses. These women had seen pretty much everything in their years working on the emergency ward but still now and then something extraordinary happened there that had them all buzzing. This time while walking quickly together down the hall to room 17, the nurse would say only that the doctor had to see this to believe it. Mukherjee didn’t like that kind of unprofessional blurry talk, but kept her mouth shut. She knew she was unpopular among the nursing staff. As a result, they were always looking for things to add to their “Dr. Legend the Loser” list. Yes, Mukherjee knew all about her nickname and that list because she had her spies. Oh yes, she most certainly had her spies. But the doctor chose to ignore both for now and get on with her duties.