The Thanatos Syndrome

come. Her hand is on my arm. It is like the touch of a friend at a funeral.
    â€œIt’s this.” It must have been in her pocket. She hands it to me, a slip of paper. Her eyes are in shadow. “You’ll hate my guts but I had no choice.”
    â€œWhat’s this?”
    I hold it up to the slit of light from her office. “A lab slip?”
    She’s silent.
    I read aloud. “A Schoen-Beck test? On who?”
    She’s silent.
    â€œOn Ely Culbertson? Come on. What’s this? A joke?”
    â€œSchoen-Beck is for Herpes IV antibodies.” She could be talking to the lab. “That’s the new one. Genito-urinary and neural.”
    â€œI know, I know. So what?”
    â€œThe name is Ellie Culbertson, Tom.”
    â€œHe’s dead.’
    â€œEllie, Tom. Not Ely.”
    â€œI see. So what?”
    â€œThat’s what Van Dorn calls Ellen, isn’t it, as a compliment to her bridge playing. You’ve told me yourself. She’s his Ellie Culbertson.”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œDear,” she says, taking my arm. “People don’t use their real names for this test.”
    â€œTrue, but you still don’t know who this is.”
    â€œHoney, George Cutrer told me.” Her voice is sorrowful.
    â€œWho in the fuck is he to know?”
    â€œHoney, he’s chief of ob-gyn. And he has to tell me. I’m the epidemiologist, remember?”
    â€œWho else did he tell?”
    â€œNo one. I swear.”
    â€œLet’s see the date. Where’s the date?” I can’t seem to read the date.
    She’s beside me, reading past my shoulder in the slit of light.
    â€œThe date was six weeks ago.”
    â€œHow do you know it wasn’t me?”
    She has another slip. She’s the good intern. “Here. Six months ago she was negative. Six months ago you were in prison in Alabama. Six weeks ago she’s positive. Six weeks ago you were still in prison in Alabama. Now, unless they allow conjugal visits in federal prisons—”
    â€œThat was uncalled for.”
    â€œYou’re right. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
    â€œGood night.”
    She plucks my sleeve.
    â€œDo you hold it against me?”
    â€œNo.” I don’t.
    â€œI feel rotten. But you see that I had to tell you. I’m sorry. I know you feel rotten too.”
    â€œI don’t.” I don’t. I don’t feel anything. “Good night.”
    â€œIf there is anything at all you need. Anything.”
    â€œThanks. I think I’ll have a drink and go to bed.”
    â€œI’ll get you one. You go on upstairs. I’ll bring you one.”
    I remember where it’s always been kept. In the sideboard in the dining room.
    â€œThanks.”
    She folds my hand on the capsules. “I’ll get you a drink to chase them.”
    I don’t move.
    â€œTom—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou see, I had no way of knowing whether you and Ellen— that is, since you got back—and I don’t intend to ask.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œI think I’ll go on up. You remember where—”
    â€œYes, in the sideboard. I remember.”
    â€œOne more thing, Tom.” She’s half turned away.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI’ve taken two too.”
    â€œTwo too,” I repeat.
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with me, Tom. Do you understand?”
    â€œYes,” I say, not understanding.
    â€œAre you all right?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œSo I’ll say good night.”
    â€œAll right.”
    She gives me a kiss on the mouth, eyes open, searching mine.

3. I HAVE A FEW drinks standing at the sideboard in the dim dark of the dining room. There is a single gleam from the hall chandelier on the polished table. It’s been twenty years since I stood here. Yet I remember exactly where the decanter is, an expensive silver-and-crystal affair, and the child’s silver cup Uncle Rylan used for a jigger, and that he filled it, the decanter, with a cheap bourbon named Two Natural. It’s the same bourbon and twenty years haven’t helped it. Several times I fill the cup, keeping a thumb at the rim to feel the cup fill. I stand in the dark.
    Uncle Rylan would stand at the sideboard making a toddy for Miss Bett, first stirring sugar into three fingers of water. The silver spoon made a tinkling sound against the crystal. The stirring went on much longer than was required to