My Turn

Looking in the mirror on a hot night makes me so uncomfortable that I feel I must avert my eyes to the nearest distraction—a fly landing on the windowsill, maybe, or a droplet of sweat falling onto my hand. My brother tells me not to leave the window open on these very hot nights, as it tempts the many bugs and wildlife drawn in by our horses. But it is the most effective way to cool down a stuffy room, so says the many pamphlets I have read about home care. How many things I’ve learned in various attempts to prove him wrong, I think to myself, tickling the edges of the dresser. Though he is often too stubborn to listen to reason. I should know better by now than to continue these vain efforts.

I open the window to his bedroom sometimes at night, when I come in to lay with him—when I have a dream that perturbs me, or the sounds of the manor render me too nervous to sleep. In present days he cannot object, his cracked lips scarcely able to mold themselves around a protest, panting uneasily until Rosanna comes in and takes some laudanum out of the jade box hidden in his bedside. He used to take it in liquor, which I very much disliked—the doctor said the synthesis of these elements may overwhelm his system and, of course, I did my research to corroborate this—but like me, he throws tantrums until he has things his way. She raises the dropper to his mouth now, and he suckles from it desperately, the noises piercing me with a queasiness, a churning in my stomach. Queasy like seeing red eyes in the mirror, purple lids, bundles of dark hair pasted onto damp skin on a hot night. I avert my eyes; I look out the window to the garden below, imagining its daytime beauty through shadowed shapes. Immersing myself in a memory of the afternoon, strolling arm in arm with my eldest niece, trying to ignore her father in the bedroom upstairs. Coming inside to help her with a French lesson, playing her favorite Chopin Nocturnes as she sits on the piano bench beside me. Both of us secretly hoping he’ll hear them, as if the music will beckon him—healthy and fit, strolling down the stairs to greet us with his usual lighthearted tenderness.

Rosanna finishes doling out the medicine, and his lucidity peaks. Just a few minutes of conversation may transpire, as he is now slightly unburdened by the pain of his body consuming itself.

“How is Augustin?” he says. A wave of vindication floats by at the sound of my name, knowing his concern for me surpasses even his affliction.

“He’s…ah, alright, far as I know,” Rosanna says with a shrug. “He’s right here, he’s just finished with the hydropathy. Yeah?” I nod sheepishly, uninterested in engaging.

“Good.” A pause. “Is he still asking…?”

She looks over at me, then back at him, and we all pause. The governess’s round, youthful features are illuminated so vividly in our newly electrified home, light bouncing off her sun-colored hair. But my brother can keep her—she does not like me much, anyway. I return to the moment, where neither of them can bring themselves to say my request aloud. Again, I fantasize about being the most powerful person in the room, knowing I could easily utter the words if queried.

“He is,” she responds. “I keep telling him it’s not what you want.” My brother exhales, and she kneels a bit to reach him. With a pudgy hand, Rosanna shifts a matted curl from his forehead to behind his ear, letting a finger slide down the jaw of his chattering teeth. I could never wear my hair so long as he does, I think to myself. The summer weather is far too insufferable for those of us who feel the heat. Crossing my arms, I consider instructing them to keep their passions to private moments, but I hold my tongue.
“You will not listen, will you?” As he dignifies me, butchering English words in an accent too exhausted to be masked, I approach his bedside. “I told you, I do not like to see you hurting yourself like this. We shall find another way. Did you open the window? I told you. Not do that.”

“You are the only one in this house who is cold,” I reply.

“Mořic, I’m sorry, darling. I have to go put the children to bed.” Rosanna interrupts before an argument can ensue. “I’ll be back in an hour, perhaps. Yeah?” He furrows his brows and looks up at her, watching her hoist her heavy-set frame out of the room. Now it is my turn.

“How is the pain today?” I ask, pivoting the conversation to our mother tongue. Removing my dressing gown, I toss the soggy thing over a chair, pursuing temperature regulation through my shirtsleeves.

“Bad,” he replies. “So bad today. It’s getting worse.”

“It will.”

“How are you feeling? Has the melancholy eased?” I respond only with a look. Though his comments displease me, his voice gives me life. Hearing him speak—imagining always that it may be the last time, that soon he will become too overcome by his affliction. “Do not stare at me, Auggie, it makes me think you are still ill. Answer me when I talk to you.”

“Please let me help you.”

“You are being so difficult, just let me rest,” he snaps.

“Why do you continue to refuse us? You think sacrificing yourself serves some moral purpose? There is no heaven for you, no matter how much you martyr yourself with us. So why suffer?”
“I will have no disrespect. Enough, get out.”

“You are in no position to tell me, ‘enough.’” Arms against my chest again, my form regresses, into a pout. How difficult it is to assert myself against his forty-two years when I only have twenty-eight sheltered ones of my own, I tell myself. “I am not doing anything wrong. We do not want you to be in pain anymore. I am not sure why this is such a great offense to you.” Pausing, I watch his face warp commensurately with his discomfort. “And if one of us does not do it, you shall lay there like this forever. Until one of us does it. And I am so tired of delaying the inevitable. Rosey cannot; she did it last time. So I will.”

“…told Rosey not to do it,” he tries to say, becoming overwrought. I take the opportunity to capitalize on his deterioration—untucking my shirt, lifting it quickly, throwing it to the ground. Using my hands to wipe my collarbone, to stop the perspiration from dripping down my chest—scars on my arms, my torso, my wrists all sliding around, creating friction on the parts of my body they don’t usually touch. So slimy and sticky, I think for a moment that they may slither off of me, onto the ground, next to the white cotton fabric that just covered them. The many places I’ve hurt myself before, thinking of him hurting someone else to survive. The many places I’ve hurt myself before to return him from the brink of death.

“Stop it, Augustin.”

“No.”

He attempts to respond, but the words fail before they begin, fading into his agony. The laudanum’s effects are withering. He retreats into himself. I go into the dresser, into his personal effects. Pushing aside his daughters’ hair ribbons and letters and trinkets he acquired during his travels. My hands find our father’s dagger, and I unsheathe it, turning to face him. With the last of his strength, he musters one more declaration. I let it wash over us. I let the moment rest.

And I guide the knife to swipe just between my ribs and naval on the right side—the left was last time, so right this time—a pinching sensation as I look down to see the blood coming out of me. It stings. Stepping towards him, I raise my eyes to meet his. I have never seen him have so much love for me, to want me so close. After so long, one must remember that this is the illness, that the yearning he has in this moment is nothing more than the natural inclination of the undead—the craving they have to be united with those in life. But I see his eyes, and I feel sick with him—an illness within me—one that wants to be joined with him as fiercely as he wants to be joined with me. One that brings compression to my wound, brings an ache to it I cannot place, one that pulsates from far beneath the flesh. He closes his eyes and turns his cheek to me, afraid of what I offer him. And I approach.

Grabbing the bedpost, I hoist myself onto the mattress, grasping the headboard, beside him on my knees. Dangling my injury in front of him as he tries to squirm away, refusing me. Dewdrops of heat streaming from my neck, between my chest, through the divot that segments the center of my stomach. Watching as it gathers in the slit, diluting, mixing to form a translucent pink slurry that falls from the opening onto his cheek. I shift my weight forward, so the next drop lands on his lips. His mouth pursed, it begins to contort; eyes squeezing, brows flexed. And he opens himself up to me, relaxing, unclenching, as the bead slides onto his tongue. He winces, swallowing. And he huffs, preparing to speak.

“Closer,” he whispers. “Careful.”

I lower myself, pressing the gash to his mouth. He drinks of me, and I experience a release—a coldness so refreshing in this sweltering evening air. Every hair stands on end, descending and ascending from the laceration’s place. The sensation resembles an itch, sending a current over my skin that grows to penetrate every muscle. There is a pressure on the incision, but no pain. It never hurts. I could not explain why.

My hands slip under my own weight, and his palms find my sides, clutching me, aware that I am increasingly tired. In his newfound strength, he flips me onto my back, and I can finally go limp—arms over my head, tacky moisture no longer burdening my forehead, my chest, my stomach—how rapidly the scorching heat of life can seep into another. Breathing quietly, shallowly; we cannot hear each other. I must remember that indulging the urge to gasp for air makes him exceedingly uncomfortable, just as his horrible squelching and guttural hums of relief do for me. As I become more comatose, the strength of his tongue behind my dermis deepens. He has lost himself in the urge; I nearly feel it in my organs. The involuntary spasming begins now, and the pulse that was once so potent in my core, pounding as if were trying to escape into him through me, is faint. My mouth opens as his once did, expectantly, eagerly. His chest vibrates against my thigh, and just as he cannot contain his urge to groan, sinking his teeth into the bottom of the wound, I cannot contain my desperate need to inhale with force. Mořic shoots up, releasing me, standing abruptly. Covering him, dripping down his face, his neck, drenching his shirt. I want to ask him if he is well again—I try to speak, only to be met with the same hindrances he faced earlier in his feebleness. Sounds escape me as I gasp for air; depleted, unable to be filled, try as I might. He leaves, throwing the door open and pounding down the hallway. Come back, I want to say. Just a little more.

I hear him scream for Rosanna before dashing back into his chambers, snatching up my shivering body in his arms, pressing on the wound with my shirtsleeves. Voices echo into the room from the doorway, and he tells me that he loves me—he tells me that he is sorry. He tells me not to die. I will not die, I want to tell him. You always worry, but we are always fine. And within a few minutes, the bleeding has stopped. He cradles me; full, vibrant, and strong. Endlessly unhappy. But my melancholy is gone; the sensation is euphoric.

In a few hours, he will join his girls for breakfast. They will marvel at his recovery, wailing and celebrating, presuming the spell has ended. Only the oldest will know our sacrifice, visiting me in the late morning hours when my ecstasy has been replaced with a pain only those who have been close to death may know. Mořic will go about the work he neglected in his sickness, channeling his anxieties into a frantic pace. Causing me tremendous irritation by dropping in too often with endless queries about my physical and mental wellness. In a few days, I will feel myself again, and we will go on living—being spoiled by him in his guilt—receiving gifts, going on trips if my health allows, climbing into his bed late at night when I feel so very unstable. In a few weeks, when has starved himself as a penance for depleting me, he will be too bedridden to sate his hunger on his own. But then I will be at his bedside, nursing him with laudanum, wetting a warm cloth, peeling thick coils of black hair from his clammy brow. And then it will be Rosanna’s turn.