Larry, Doris, and Seth took the first two nights of the vigil in turn, but by the third Irina understood that the family was at the end of their tether and offered to sit with Alma, who had not spoken since Kirsten’s visit and lay dozing, panting lightly like a weary dog, freeing herself from life. It’s not easy either to live or to die, thought Irina. The doctor assured her that Alma was not in pain; she was sedated to the hilt.
At a certain time of night, the sounds on the hospital floor died away. In Alma’s room a peaceful twilight reigned, but the corridors were always lit with powerful lights, and there was the reflection from the blue computer screens in the nurses’ hub. The murmur of the air-conditioning, Alma’s painful breathing, and the occasional sound of footsteps or discreet voices on the far side of the door were the only noises reaching Irina. She had been given a blanket and a cushion to make herself as comfortable as possible, but it was stuffy and she found it impossible to sleep on the chair. She sat on the floor propped against the wall and thought of Alma, who three days earlier was still a passionate woman who had rushed to meet her lover and was now on her deathbed. During a brief moment awake before she once more lapsed into a drug--induced stupor of hallucinations, Alma asked her to put some lipstick on her because Ichimei would be coming. Irina felt a terrible sense of grief, a wave of love for this wonderful old woman, the tenderness of a granddaughter, daughter, sister, friend, while the tears poured down her cheeks, soaking her neck and blouse. She longed for Alma to be gone once and for all to put an end to her suffering, but also wanted her never to leave, wishing that thanks to divine intervention all her displaced organs and broken bones could be mended, that she would be restored to life and they could go back to Lark House and continue living as before. She would devote more time to her, be more at her side, entice her secrets from their hiding place, find a new cat just like Neko, and arrange things so that she could have fresh gardenias every week, without telling her who was sending them.
Images of those she had lost teemed forth, augmenting Irina’s sorrow: her grandparents, now the color of earth; Jacques Devine and his topaz scarab; the old people who had died at Lark House over the three years she had worked there; Neko with the kink in his tail and his contented purr; even her mother, Radmila, whom she had forgiven but had heard nothing of for many years. She wished Seth were beside her at that moment, to present him to the characters he did not know in this cast and to be able to rest, clutching his hand. She fell asleep immersed in nostalgia and sadness, curled up in her corner. She didn’t hear the nurse enter at regular intervals to check on Alma, adjust the drip and needle, take her temperature and blood pressure, administer sedatives.
In the darkest hour of the night, that mysterious hour when time thins and often the veil between this world and that of the spirits is drawn back, the guest Alma was waiting for arrived at long last. He came in noiselessly, on rubber-soled slippers, so slender that Irina would not have woken but for Alma’s low moan when she sensed him near her. Ichi! He was by the bedside leaning over Alma, but Irina, who could only see him in profile, would have recognized him anywhere, anytime, for she too had been waiting for him. He was just as she had imagined him when she studied his portrait in its silver frame: of average height with strong shoulders, his hair thick and gray, skin almost greenish in the monitor light, his features noble and serene. Ichimei! It seemed as though Alma opened her eyes and repeated his name, but Irina wasn’t sure, and understood they should be left alone for this final farewell. She rose quietly so as not to disturb them and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. She waited in the corridor, pacing up and down to bring the circulation back into her legs; drank two glasses of water from the drinking fountain by the elevator; then took up her post again outside Alma’s door.