A Dying Wife

The strangest part was that he had gradually gotten used to it all: the visits to the hospital, the silent Irina tangled up in plastic tubes, the white sheets, the nurses, the smell of bleach in the hallways, where men and women padded around in green pajamas. Krustev had sat by his wife's bed and talked to her in his mind, that way the words weren't left hanging in the startling absence of an answer. He had talked to her about Elena, about the dog, about the house, sometimes about business, a few times he had tried to clear up how exactly, imperceptibly and secretly, like the rotting of a seemingly sound fruit, their relationship had gone cold. Her coma couldn't turn back time, he still knew that he no longer loved Irina the way they had loved each other in their wild and sunny younger years, but now, when she inhabited the space between life and death, when she was so far from him that he couldn't reach her with words or touch, he suddenly felt close to her again, or rather he felt close to her in a new way, almost as if she were a sister. Irina was now the only person who didn't want anything from him. And even though he had secretly hoped for a miracle up to the very end, sometimes he caught himself fearing that possible moment when Irina would flutter her eyelids, heavy from sleep, the long sleep of the sea, when he thought about the undertow that was sweeping her along, Krustev shuddered and suddenly imagined how, if he put his ear to his wife's body, he would hear the sea roaring inside her, as inside a shell. She really was a shell, the form of a living creature, emptied of her soft, slimy, and slithering substance, at once alluring and repellent. And he would talk to that shell, sensing how everything around him withdrew and he was left alone with her in the white silence of the hospital room, as if time had stopped. But before Christmas, Elena had come back from the States again, pale, thin, with circles under her eyes, she had burst into tears when she saw her mother and the thread was broken, the whole quiet harmony that Krustev had built up day after day fell apart. At that moment he felt hatred for his daughter, that intruder from out of nowhere, a part of both of them, who had cunningty leapt into the world and come between them. Then he told himself that he was probably going crazy, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this young woman was a stranger to him, now much more than ever, and the shell in the hospital bed could not fill up the chasm between them, on the contrary, it opened it all the wider. And after that, shortly after New Year's, which he and his daughter had spent at home, staring at the television, almost without speaking, Irina had died. As if during that whole time she had been hesitating and had finally made a decision. Sepsis, the head doctor said, poisoning of the blood, her liver couldn't hold out, I was also hoping until the last, I'm sorry. And he really did seem sorry, perhaps he, too, had gotten used to the empty body and its plastic tubes, perhaps he had even clung to the possibility of her coming out of the coma so as to reaffirm his belief in the power of his work and his science, except that Irina had died and Krustev suddenly felt his whole life withdrawing, his senses, his memories, as if he were once again in the silent white room, only now there was nothing inside it, nothing at all, so much so that he couldn't even be sure whether he himself was there. Now, when he thought back on those days, he would tell himself that he had been on the edge. He didn't remember the funeral. He remembered how he had shut himself up at home and had sunk into the TV watching sports channels from morning until night, he had taken his blanket out to the sofa in the living room, where he had also spent the nights, lulled to sleep by the figures running back and forth across the screen, Elena had hovered around him, they only spoke about everyday household things, she had made clumsy attempts at cooking and Krustev had gulped down her dishes without even noticing whether they were any good or not. And so several days passed, then she suddenly appeared at the start of some soccer game, sat down next to him and said Barcelona's going to win, Krustev suddenly sprang out of his apathy and looked at her amazed, she had never been interested in soccer and he could've sworn she didn't even know how many players were on a team, but now here she was talking about corner kicks, offsides, and poor performance in the Champions League, she was talking about things that sounded strange to him, as if coming from some world beyond, he perhaps wouldn't have even noticed that volleyball had been replaced with soccer, she mentioned the players' names, reacted more quickly than the commentator, kept track of who had gotten yellow cards, and when the game indeed ended with a win for Barcelona, Krustev said, yes, Barcelona won, moved his crackling joints, gingerly got up off the sofa, took a bottle of scotch from the bar, poured two glasses, set them abruptly on the table and said, so now tell me what's going on with you..