The Iridescence of Old Ladies

When she was 74 years old, Mrs. V. withdrew to Heavenly Rest in suburban Philadelphia, a flat, tidy nursing home of cinderblock design calling to mind a small hosiery mill. Parking is provided. A bed of marigolds, a glassed-in vestibule, gray linoleum, Naugahyde settees, a receptionist in a cerise smock. The air is close, faintly ammoniacal. Guests align the walls in wheelchairs, some drowsy, some in an attitude of listening. The women's hair is thinning; their cheeks pale as candles. Men wear gray wrappers, exposing their knees. I'm issued a pass and directions to Room 147. A nurse's aide meets me in the hall. Most days she's pretty good, she says as we walk to the far end. Quiet like, you know, but now and then she flies off the handle quicker'n you can say Jack Robertson. You can't make out what she's talking about. Not many people come to see her. Her lawyer comes sometimes. Mrs. V. 's furnishings are sparse: a cross on the wall, a maple bureau, a bed draped with a green coverlet, a commode, 2 get-well cards on the window sill, a walker, a flickering television. She was one of my first patientswell born, feisty, loyal. A flirt. She came to me with her most trifling complaintsperhaps, I secretly hoped, as an excuse to chat. Slender, elfin, twice a year at my office door she parked her Ford station wagonone of the old numbers with cedar bulwarksand without a word laid a box of Godiva chocolates and a quart of Wild Turkey on the table. Sometimes she loitered. John, would you take some x-ray photographs of my chest and give me some idea of how long the guarantee has to run? She lived in a Georgian mansion close by the track of a boy's school where she jogged half a mile every day in her turquoise sweat suit, a sight to stop traffic. Every year on January 17th, Benjamin Franklin's birthday, she invited me to tea in her drawing room amid threadbare curtains, begrimed ancestral portraits, and a lithograph of the Empress Josephine. We nibbled lace cookies from the Acorn Club and exchanged views of scandalous Philadelphians. She was a geyser of genealogy. When I said, Where did Mr. So-and-So's money come from? she lit a Chesterfield, sat back, gazed at the ceiling and frowned. A nod of recognition. Oh, yes. It was his third wife but one. I filled my journal with her remarks, cast negligently aside. The only tragedy is not to be loved. I adored the cats of Alhambraso lithe, so tawny. A love affair should subside with grace like the end of rain or descent of a tango. But there are always the dregs. Friends of mine stopped at her home one Halloween for trick-or-treat. It was late. They banged on her door and she appeared in her robe, hair in curlers, her face creamed, wearing a chin strap and mask. She greeted them. Come in, children; do come in. As you see, I'm in costume, too. Once at a banquet, twitted by friends for the size of her diamond solitaire, she took off her glove and pressed her hand into it, remarking to her ring finger, Now that's enough, George; back into the garage. A work in progressa geisha manque. Presently, to her keen embarrassment, she got lost on her walks in Wissahickon Park and forgot engagements. My mind isn't lost, she told me, I've just misplaced it. Her daughters brought her to Heavenly Rest where she sits at her window and waits, unburdened by reason or regret. I take her hand and she frowns, drawing it away. I dangle swatches of information for her approvalthe gowns worn last week at The Assembly, the Mayor's recent speech, the grand opening of My Fair Lady in New York, the silver cup her nephew won at the Sunnybrook golf tournament. Nothing ruffles her indifference. I kiss her and say goodbye, embracing tuberose and elegance locked deep in so dark a vault.