City of Lost Dreams

TWENTY-FIVE

Pollina woke up coughing.

She could hear Boris by the side of the bed. At her own apartment in Paris Street, she had instructed Jose to move her mattress to the floor, because her bed was too high for Boris to get on and off easily. And Boris was too heavy for her to lift. She would have joined him on the floor here in one of the palace’s guest bedrooms, but in strange places Boris liked to sleep separately from her, in order to guard the door.

Her coughing worried him. He whined and paced if it went on too long.

Sometimes the coughing went on for a very long time. This bout was not bad, although her chest hurt. Her chest hurt all the time now, even when she wasn’t coughing, and she was tired all the time. She was not sleeping well, because of her dreams, and so she was always tired. Her dreams were very bad.

Moving to the palace was a relief. Here, she could just walk thirty-five paces down the hall and then down a flight of ten stairs, step-step-step, half-turn, twelve stairs, step-step, right turn, then forty-four paces to the music room. She could do all that and still have energy to play. To compose. Max was helping her with the libretto for her opera about the Golden Fleece, reading her things he’d found about Ferdinand and Philippine. It made a perfect story for the opera. Ferdinand was curious and intelligent and in love, and Pols thought he sounded a lot like Max.

Pollina felt for her Braille clock, although she knew that it was evening. Time to get up for a little while, play a bit before going back to bed. Her brain registered the difference between day and night nonvisually; her body operated on the same circadian entrainment as sighted people. Her retinohypothalamic tract functioned. The same was true, Sarah had told her, for mole rats, who were also blind, and whose bodies also followed circadian entrainment. Blind rats had body clocks, too.

Sarah knew interesting things like that.

There had been a rat again, in her dream. And clocks. She had been dreaming of the rat for several days. She had read once that Helen Keller had described the dreams she’d had before acquiring language as being pure sensation, and the sensation was only fear. Later on, the dreams had shifted into narratives. Helen had described a recurring dream of a wolf biting her, an image Helen believed she had learned and adapted from the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

“When you dream,” Jose had asked Pollina once, “how does it . . . what do you . . .”

“Are you asking if I see in my dreams?” she had snapped. “I don’t see when I’m awake. How could I see in my dreams?”

“So what you dream?” Jose had asked. “Answer with not so much of the bitchiness, please.”

“Sound,” Pollina had explained. “It’s sound and sensation, but mostly sound.”

But this dream had been totally silent. And Sarah was in it.

Yes, she would get up and practice a little. She had not been able to practice very much earlier, because she had been so tired, and her chest hurt so much, and also she had had to go with Oksana to the hospital for more tests.

There was something wrong with chromosome 20 in her DNA. It should have been coding for a certain kind of protein that would cause bacteria to adhere to it and therefore be flushed out of her bloodstream. It was not doing this. And so the bacteria were proliferating, and that was why she kept getting infections, like pneumonia. They were going to start her on a new drug the next day. Oksana seemed hopeful about it.

But what if the defect in chromosome 20 had something to do with her blindness? There was a certain rare form of blindness that was being cured through gene therapy. Pols did not have this form, but more than 160 genes were linked to blindness. So really anything could happen with these drugs. And if the two symptoms were linked, then along with taking away the infections and the pain, they would take away the blindness.

And she knew she would lose the music if that happened. It was a greater fear than death.

If she was dying, she would accept it.

“If she doesn’t improve, then we could be heading toward organ failure,” she had heard. “We will have to watch how she reacts to this new treatment very closely. It is a risk, but we’re really running out of options. If we don’t try, then realistically she has maybe two months. Maybe.”

They had not told her. But she had heard.

Different types of listening employed different parts of your brain. Sarah had explained this. The most complicated process was one neuroscientists called a “top-down” response. This was when you were actively listening to something. When you really concentrated on sound, signals were sent a special way in the brain. They moved through the dorsal pathway in the cortex, and the brain suppressed other sounds, like a set of headphones, so that you could concentrate.

She had heard Oksana. She had heard her doctors.

She was going to die very soon.

The treatment was not going to work.

She hoped that she didn’t die before Boris did. She wouldn’t want him to think it was his fault.

She should work. She was composing an aria for Philippine, in which she warns Ferdinand about the power of the Fleece. It would be horrible, though, to try to play and not be able to, because she could not lift her arms and because her chest hurt too much. She should not be afraid. If God wanted her to play, He would give her the strength. She would ask for His help.

Slippers. Robe. Cane.

Boris got stiffly to his feet. He did not really want to walk anywhere, but he would walk with her wherever she went. He would drag himself, if he had to.

When she turned right, outside her door, she could feel Boris understanding where they were going. His pace picked up a little, in the hallway leading to the music room. Pols could hear Moritz, Max’s dog. Max must be near, then. She heard a series of notes on the piano. C2. E3. D4. The lid was down. Max was playing her piano.

Pollina entered the room and greeted Moritz. She had been told that Moritz “looked” like a wolf. It was funny how some people forgot and told her how things looked. Moritz had triangle ears that stood up, and forefeet that turned out slightly. He had a flat chest, and his back was a little sloped, so his hind legs were very slightly crouching. He had a long tail, and his coat was thick.

He felt very different from Boris. He was much less beautiful. Pollina was sure that Boris was very beautiful because he had a smooth coat, and in her world beautiful things were smooth things.

“I’m thinking about why Ferdinand wants the Fleece,” said Pols.

“What are you up to?” Max asked. “Are you hungry? I can heat something up.” She heard him set down a glass upon her piano.

“That is not a table,” said Pollina, moving toward the instrument.

“Hold up,” Max said. “There is a bottle on the floor, right in front of your left foot. Okay, got it.” He slid over and made room for her on the bench.

“What is in the bottle?” Pols asked. “I would like a small glass, please.”

“You won’t like the taste,” Max laughed. “It’s brandy.”

Max was worried. He was worried about her.

“When someone is ill in old books,” Pols said, “they give them brandy. They say, ‘Get a little of this brandy down,’ or ‘Someone get him a brandy.’”

“I’m not sure you’re sick enough for me to justify giving you brandy,” Max said.

Pollina let that sit in the air for several seconds. Long enough for Max to replay it in his head two or three times. Max knew how sick she was.

“I think Ferdinand wants to protect the Fleece from falling into the hands of people who will misuse it,” said Max. “But I also think he’s curious about its power.”

“But will he use it for good?”

It would not be right to pray to God to spare her life. She could ask for strength, for forgiveness, for courage. She could not ask for His will to be altered. It did seem that He intended her to die very soon. She wondered if in Heaven, she would be blind. But God would not take her music away—surely? No. She would be able to play. And finally see the stars.

She held up her hand and Max put a glass in it, moving her fingers and palm so that she cupped the bowl of the glass.

“Some people say it’s better at room temperature, and some say you should warm the glass first. Like this.” Max moved her hand in small circles. “This is how they do it in old movies. There’s a scene in Rear Window where everyone stands around just waving their brandy glasses. I don’t think anyone ever takes a sip, but it looks cool. Don’t do it too much, or it’ll slop over the sides. Yes, Ferdinand wants to use the Fleece for good. Very much.”

Pollina moved her glass in small circles, and then brought it to her nose.

“It smells nice,” she said. “I like it.” She took a small sip. It burned a little. She tried to imagine the liquid burning through the bacteria that had invaded her lungs. She hoped it was not also burning the tissue around her heart. The bacteria were eating that. They were nibbling at it, like rats.

“If Ferdinand had to choose between the Fleece and Philippine, which would he choose?”

“He would choose Philippine, in a heartbeat,” Max said. “Back to bed for you, Luigi. I’ll bring you a snack.”

She heard Boris and Moritz get to their feet.

She did not want to die. She did not want to die. Please God, don’t let me die. Almighty Father, grant me mercy. Almighty Father, can I not serve you better on this Earth?

She must finish the opera.