Klara

He was an honorable man so he readily understood
that it should fall on me to tell my mother that she had breast cancer
and that she must prepare for immediate surgery
and that this surgery was unlikely to save her life.
I felt the tears flowing down my face and was ashamed at my weakness.

Though I had only seventeen years I found the words to thank him.
I bowed to him as I left his office and went into the waiting room after wiping my eyes.
I managed to smile at my dear mother and as we walked into the street
I gave her my arm as I had done for years,
though now she seemed heavier than in my youth.

It was a cold day in January and we walked through the door.
It was cold inside but not so frigid as the street had been.
It was always cold inside.
We spent what little we could afford on fuel and stole the rest of the heat
from the walls of our neighbors or the sun.
I led her to the sofa and closed the door and turned the lock
and I heard the metallic thump of the bolt or my heart.
I walked to her and sat down and said,

“Mother, give me your hands. Let me hold them. Mother you are dying. The doctor says that it is breast cancer and that it is very advanced. We have arranged a surgery in three days time. Most of the tissue must be removed but there is a chance that you will live. He says that you cannot possibly survive without the surgery and that even with it the chances are small.”

She closed her grey blue eyes as if she were praying and she swayed a little
and as I reached out to support her, her eyelids flew open suddenly.
She looked at me with pity and said,

“My boy, I am so sorry. God calls for us all but it is cruel that you should have to tell me these things. Still, you are the head of the family now, and it was your duty. We will have the surgery and God’s will shall be done. I will pray to Saint Peregrine. I beg that you go to the church and ask the priest to pray for my soul.”

How could a soul made of steel be in danger of hellfire?
I walked the cobblestones with bitterness and rage as my companions.
I wanted to scream and smash my fists into the windows of buildings
but when I came upon the church I quietly opened the doors
and stepped forward until I was standing beneath the altar.
I delivered my dreadful message to the priest
when he arrived in his nightcap with wine still in his eyes
and then made my way back home.

She was asleep in her bed, piled high with thin blankets.
Near her bed, hanging on the wall, was a watercolor I had painted when I was a boy.

She had put it on the wall then too and when my father asked why, she told him
that I was going to grow up to be a great artist,
so he sneered at her and bloodied her lip with the back of his hand
and then beat me with his wide belt for being vain and lazy.

She always believed in me and told me that I must honor my father
but that did not mean that I must always believe him.
After his death she took my watercolor out of some secret place
and put it on the wall again.

The surgery was as successful as it could have been but it was too late.

The cancer had already invaded
other parts of her body. She became so weak that she could not climb the stairs,
even with my arm to aid her, so we took what little money we had and moved our residence
outside of the city. She was brave and pious and accepted her fate readily but I did not.
I made my way through the city streets and came to his office. I took my hat off and went inside.

The woman who handled the doctor’s appointments looked at me with expectation
but I was resolved to wait silently and I sat in a chair with my hat in my hands.
He was too kind a man to smile at me. Instead he nodded and brought me into his study.
I had never seen it before. The fireplace was comfortably warm and he had many books.
He was said to be a wealthy man but his desk was simple and without ornamentation.
He asked if I would sit so I sank into one of the chairs in front of his desk.
He sat beside me and asked why I had come.

All through my journey to his door I convinced myself I would be stoic and emotionless,
simply ask him for a consultation and inform him of the facts,
and to inquire if there existed some way to alleviate the pain that flooded over her.

I do not remember what I said but I know that I shamed myself again and cried.
The doctor said all hope was not lost,
that an experimental chemical treatment could perhaps slow the progression of the disease.
He warned that it was not certain to make anything better and that the pain would be unearthly.
A long moment later, he mentioned in a whisper that the treatments were quite expensive.
I told him that I would give him all I owned and even the clothes I wore,
my future inheritance, and any other thing he could ask for if he would only try to save her.

From that day on he came to our apartment, early in the morning or late at night,
even on the day which his religion holds sacred he came to us.
He arrived when he could and soaked bandages in the chemical
and pressed them into her wounds and though she was brave and strong
she sometimes screamed and cried.

We moved her bed to the kitchen, since it was the warmest room.
He came every day without fail and continued the treatments though
her condition constantly deteriorated. He was always optimistic when speaking with her.
Only when I walked with him outside did he tell the truth.
He put his wide-brimmed hat atop his head and told me that I should prepare for the worst.

Her throat became paralyzed and she could not eat.
She was terribly thin even before she lost her speech
but soon it seemed that she was made of only bones.
Her breath rattled while she slept.
She would wake as if from a dream with a mad fury in her eyes
and try to raise her body up.
In her eyes you could see that she was desperately trying to speak.
Her every muscle shook weakly as she made these attempts,
her skin was paper with water flowing through it.

She could not form a word or hold a pen but I knew she would want a Christmas tree.
I took my axe and walked miles deep into the forest and found a proper tree.
I hacked it into ribbons then found another tree and mutilated it in the same way.
The third tree I chopped down properly and I drug it to our ground floor apartment
and my sisters and I decorated it while she slept.

Days later she died with the shadow of the tree looming over us
and I sat beside her and sketched her face as I had known it. Before it was so very thin.

The doctor came, I know not why. Perhaps my sisters sent for him.
He signed the death certificate and we laid her body to rest beside my father
the next day. My sisters and the others walked away but I stood by the grave.
Sometimes I believe I still stand beside it.

A few days after her burial I approached the doctor and told him
that I wished to settle my family’s financial obligations.
He named a sum that was impossibly minute:
less than a man would spend on potatoes in a month.
I stared at the floor, composed myself, then took his hand and told him
that my gratitude to him would endure forever.