Right To Die

14

LOUIS DOLEMAN LIVED IN WEST ROXBURY, THE SOUTHWEST corner of Boston's Suffolk County. Predominantly white, West Rox is a mixture of magnificent homes on wide parkways and smallish ranches on narrow streets. From Reverend Givens's church, I took Washington Street to Belgrade Ave, then fiddled around for eight or ten blocks until I found Doleman's address just off Centre Street. It was a dwarf red-brick ranch among many stunted cousins. From the curb it appeared oddly kept. The lawn, despite the season, was maintained, but the hedges, huddled against latent snow the sun never touched, were untrimmed. The brickwork looked recently repointed, but the concrete stoop was crumbling.

All the window shades were drawn. I pushed the bell next to the front door, heard no chimes, and was about to knock when I heard what sounded like an inner door open and close. Then the front door opened, and Louis Doleman peered out at me.

Standing in front of a closed inner door, he wore heavy glasses and the same cardigan sweater. Liver-spotted skin hung loosely from the neck cords. His short gray hair seemed curiously soft, like the acrylic fur on a stuffed animal. In his right hand, a book, the index finger keeping his place in Our Right to Die by Maisy Andrus.

"Mr. Doleman, my name's John Cuddy." I showed him my identification. "I wonder if I could talk with you."

"Sure." He turned his head to look at the inner door. The soft hair radiated from a whorl on the top of his skull.

Doleman turned again to me. "Just step inside here so my spacelock'll work."

Spacelock. I thought, Scotty, beam me up.

"Got to have the spacelock, otherwise Marpessa here would be on her way back to Brazil."

Doleman was sitting in an old print chair, a faded towel protecting the upholstery a bit late in its life. He placed the book on a TV tray to his right, next to some cellophaned cupcakes that should have been labeled less by expiration date and more by half-life.

However, they weren't the main attraction. A bird like a giant parrot perched on his left shoulder. Most of its feathers were shocking blue or canary yellow, but the curved beak was black and the face was white, with long, squiggly lines under the eyes, like a child practicing with makeup.

I said, "Marpessa."

"Marpessa, right. Named her after this Brazilian actress I heard of. Only Brazilian actress I ever heard of, tell you the truth. Marpessa is a macaw. To keep them from flying off, most folks clip the primary feathers on the wing there. All but the last one, cosmetic purposes, you see. You do that, alternating wings each time the feathers grow back, you can let them out in the yard or whatever, because they can't fly. Be like a helio-copter with a bum tail rotor, just spiral down to the ground. But I couldn't bring myself to do that to her, seems like mutilation to me. So I just make sure to keep her in the house with the spacelock. Put that up myself."

To be polite, I turned in my chair to admire the patchwork job Doleman had done in framing a second, inner door at the entrance to form his spacelock.

Turning back, I said, "Sensible. Mr. Doleman – "

"Be crazy to have her outside anyway. With a bum wing, she'd be a sitting duck for cats, dogs, what have you. Used to hunt every chance I'd get, deer in the fall, waterfowl in the spring. Never would take a stationary bird, but I can't say that about a lot of fellows I met. No sense of sport in them. The hell good is it to hunt, you don't do it for the sport?"

"Not much."

"You bet not much. Marpessa here is friendly as a spaniel pup.

Comes when she's called, doesn't crap the furniture or rug, just does this little sideways dance, lets me know it's time for her to go."

I could hardly wait.

" 'Course, she's got her dark side too. Costs an arm and a leg this far north to keep her warm enough. And she gets real jealous if there are any kids… around…"

Doleman seemed to stall, like a motor that was doing fine until someone shifted to drive. His lips moved convulsively, as though he were practicing puckering.

"Mr. Doleman?"

He revived. "She'll talk your ear off too. Even think she understands some of it. She'll hang upside down from a rope I got in the kitchen there, and she'll say, 'Look, look,' like a little kid…"

Again the stalling effect.

I repeated his name.

This time Doleman barely came out of the daydream. "What was it you wanted?"

"I'm doing some work on the debate at the Rabb the other night."

"The Rabb?"

"The library. When you asked that professor a question?"

"Oh." Doleman lowered his head, shaking it. Marpessa transferred all her weight to the left foot, using her beak to pick at the claws on the right one. In a clearer tone of voice he said, "Well, go ahead."

"I got the impression from what you said to Professor Andrus that you felt she was involved in your daughter's death."

"Not involved. Responsible. There's a difference? Now he was more the man I'd seen rise from his seat at the debate. Staunch, certain.

"Mr. Doleman, can you tell me what happened?"

"I can. You have time to hear it?"

"Yes."

Doleman moved his hands as though lathering them with soap. "Heidi was my daughter. Wasn't the name I would have picked out for her, but she was an orphan, war orphan out of Germany. The wife and I couldn't have children ourselves, so we jumped at the chance to raise her."

As Doleman talked, I did some arithmetic. "What happened to your daughter?"

"Once we got her over here – stateside, I mean – she was fine.

Oh, some nightmares sure, and she couldn't abide loud noises, probably reminded her of the bombs. And she was shy around strangers, just like Marpessa here." Doleman ruffled the bird's feathers, and Marpessa pecked him lightly on the left cheek. "But she did just great in school, lost most of the accent, went on to be a secretary downtown."

"When was this, Mr. Doleman?"

"When was what?"

"When she became a secretary."

"Oh. Just after they shot Jack Kennedy. She had to start back a couple of grades in school, on account of having no schooling, much less any English, back in the old country. But she was a good girl, no trouble with boys or anything. Then – "

He stopped again, but I didn't prompt him.

"Then the wife – Florence – had the heart attack. It just come on her one night, no warning at all. Heidi was a godsend, taking care of the house for me while I finished up at the MTA – I was a motorman, Arborway line mostly. They call it the MBTA now, but not me. After I retired, Heidi and me were going to sell this place, move somewheres warm, but we never got around to it."

"How old was Heidi when your wife died, Mr. Doleman?"

"How old?"

"Yes."

"Oh, out of her teens for sure. Hard to say. See, she didn't give us any trouble like most kids do. so you didn't pay that much attention to how old she was. She always seemed older. what she'd been through in the war and all."

"What year did your wife pass away?"

"Year?"

"Year."

"Watergate. Was Watergate on the TV when we got back from the funeral."

So call it seventy-three or so. To have been a war orphan, his Heidi had to have been in her early thirties by then. Not much of a life for her, but then, maybe a lot better than she remembered from childhood.

"What happened to your daughter after your wife died?"

"Oh, she – like I said, she took care of the house and all. Was just the two of us, but it was a good life. Good as could be without Florence. But then Heidi…"

Doleman squirmed in his seat. Marpessa became agitated and flapped her wings, making the cry I'd heard over the telephone and thundering, in that small, quiet room, over to a windowsill near the inner door of the spacelock.

Doleman gave no indication that he noticed the bird. "Heidi took sick. Doctors said they didn't know what, but they did. They just didn't want to tell me. Didn't want me to know what they told Heidi. She was a brave girl, none braver. She never wanted me to worry. But you could just see it in her. The way she didn't have any get-up-and-go. Didn't want to eat, losing weight." Doleman rested his forehead in an upturned palm. "Was the leukemia."

I said gently, "And when was that, Mr. Doleman?"

"Started a year ago, a year ago this month. They took her to the hospital, then she'd be home, then in again. The MTA and the folks at her job, they took care of most of the bills. The doctors said there wasn't anything to be done. But they was wrong!"

Doleman seemed to come back to life, fill himself with a past energy. "Heidi was a strong girl. She'd survived before, in Germany, when everybody around her was dying. Strong and brave. She could have beaten it, weren't for her."

The way Doleman pronounced the last word, there was no question who he meant.

"She wrote this!" He stabbed the book with his index finger so hard I was afraid he'd jammed the knuckle. "This piece of deviltry. Of despair. Don't fight, she says in here. Don't resist the Reaper. And don't just give in. Help him along. Take your own life because it belongs to you, not to anybody else, like your family who loves you and depends on you. Oh, no. It's okay to be selfish, see? It's okay to give up."

"Your daughter read the professor's book."

"She did. I didn't know a thing about it. Can you believe that? Me, her own father, Heidi never told me. Just let on how she was a burden, how it was hard for her to do things anymore. But not a word, not one word about suiciding herself."

I thought back to Beth. The conversations we had, the idea just below the surface. I had the feeling Heidi told her father as best she could, but that he just hadn't been listening.

"One morning in August I got up, didn't smell the coffee. Heidi always brewed the coffee, strong enough to knock you over. Well, I got up that day and didn't smell it. Didn't know what was wrong at first, because it was something that wasn't there instead of something that shouldn't have been there, like a noise. Then I realized I couldn't hear her either. I went to her door, knocked like I always did since she was old enough to… old enough anyway, and I didn't hear her and I knocked louder. Still nothing, so I opened it. And there she was, in her bed, covers up over a nightgown I never saw before. Her hands were folded on top of her chest, and her mouth was open a little, nothing coming out. I touched…"

Doleman's Adam's apple rode hard at his collar. "I touched her hands and I knew… knew she was gone. Then I saw the little pill thing next to her, vial or whatever you call it, clear so you could tell it was empty. Sleeping pills. And the book. The goddamn book with her note sticking out of it. The note said, 'Papa, please forgive me. Please read this and maybe you'll understand. I'm sure I'm going to be with Mama, and we'll look after you always. Heidi.' "

I changed positions in my chair, Marpessa making a clucking noise behind me.

Doleman fixed me with his eyes. "Well, mister, I started reading this book. Chapter a night, every night. Still read it. Still trying to figure out what the devil's bitch could have said to make a fine girl like Heidi turn her back on her family and take her life like that. But I can't. And that bitch can't either. Never answered my letters, never even answered my question at the library the other night."

"How old was Heidi when she died?"

"How old?"

"Yes."

"Just forty-eight."

"Mr. Doleman, I'm sorry."

"Sorry'? Don't be sorry. I've gotten even."

I felt a little queasy. "Even?"

"You betcha. Marpessa there. I've got me somebody now that bitch can't take away. " Doleman stabbed the book again. "Marpessa can talk but she can't read, see? Great company, and better than a watchdog at knowing when there are people coming round. Why, I was to say the magic word, she'd fly in your face right now, rip your eyes out."

I was trying not to take that seriously when he said, "Macaws, they live to be eighty, a hundred years old. Marpessa'll be here long after I'm gone, mister." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I'll never have another thing in this house that I'll outlive, see?"

I thanked Doleman for his time and moved slowly to the inner door. As I opened it, Marpessa looked at me sideways and squawked, "Bye – bye."