Cursum Perficio
Stella was a tall old woman, with long white hair that she refused to crop. She wore it up, however, held in place with a pearly blue clip. Her eyes were blue; her dresses were always white; and her music boxes all played Enya.
One of Stella's Special Things was music boxes. She owned thirty-five, and they cluttered up her tables and bureaus, her mantle and her dresser. The dark carved one over the fireplace played Storms in Africa and the little golden one in the middle of the dining room table played China Roses. Stella was very fond of her music boxes.
She lived alone in a small house on the edge of a large city because she believed it was safer. No one in her right mind would live in the city with children making noise in the streets and vandals spray-painting house fronts and people rioting just outside, and Stella was better off far away from the busyness of it.
Alexander was also tall, but he was only twenty-six, and sandy-haired. It was his duty to visit Stella for two hours daily and make sure she was not dead. He was fond of Enya, too, but only because he'd been hearing it so long, and he liked to pick up the music boxes and turn them over and open them up. Alexander adored things he could touch.
He was also insane.
Stella had asked him once if he preferred 'mildly eccentric', but he told her no, it was best to say insane. One should not pretend he was something else in order to produce a favourable impression. Alexander was like that.
He lived In Town (they always referred to the city that way) in an apartment complex with other people who were insane. They were all supposed to have some sort of occupation that was simple but time-consuming, so that they could practise being like other people. Alexander's occupation was Stella.
On Mondays he came over at lunch and brought macaroni and cheese in a plastic container. Stella did not really like the plastic. In her little house full of wood and metal, where even the icebox was made of stainless steel rather than plastic, it had no place; but one didn't say that to Alexander. He wouldn't understand. So they ate macaroni and cheese in chipped china bowls and talked about Stella's family. Stella's family didn't live with her any longer, but she smiled and told Alexander that they were planning on coming back someday to take her to live with them. Alexander always said he would miss her.
On Tuesdays he came for tea and brought a cake. As Stella said, that was a treat for both of them. Alexander would pick it out--a different kind every week, because they liked to experiment. Stella made coffee and tea with milk, and the fancy sort of sandwiches eaten at fancy teas, and they sat around the little table on the little side porch and look at the river.
On Wednesday he brought a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and they would work on it all week long. He was good at fitting shapes and she was good at matching colours and together they usually finished in time.
On Thursday he brought her fresh flowers. There was a florist In Town, Alexander said, who didn't mind selling to a person who was insane. And the flowers were lovely; there were pink roses, purple columbine, red geranium and bee balm, yellow and orange zinnias, blue chicory Alexander found on the side of the road, purple butterfly bush and some white roses, phlox and bleeding heart, Baby's Breath and asters and Sweet William and lilies and iris and dahlias and peonies and azalea and hollyhocks, even though they weren't all supposed to be in season together. Alexander said the florist had everything in the world. So on Thursday, Stella showed him how to arrange flowers in all the vases she owned. Vases were part of her collection of Special Things.
On Friday, he brought her books. She told him a thousand times that she liked mysteries best, but he brought picture books and romance novels, as well as mysteries, thrillers, biographies, essays, short story collections, plays, fantasies and science fiction. He brought children's books and classics and anthologies. On Friday, they sorted through all the books and chose the ones Stella would read out of the ones Alexander would take back to the library.
On Saturday, he took her out of her little house for her walk. Alexander was not allowed to drive a car, so they took the bus. On Saturday, in the daily newspaper, there was always an article about the Walk of the Week. That was why they chose Saturday to walk. The walks were short and pleasant, so as not to tire Stella, and on the way back, they got off near a restaurant and ate an early supper there. Somehow, she never looked out of place walking, even though she went in her fancy white dresses, but at the restaurant, she always seemed wrong.
On Sunday, Alexander came early in the morning and walked with her to her stone church. She was not supposed to walk that far, but Alexander never stopped her. She wouldn't understand. During the morning services, he watched the priest with curious eyes, recited along to the prayers, and sang the hymns, then ate fruit and cookies during the Time of Fellowship as though he were Christian too. After that, he walked Stella home, and she slept in the afternoon when he had left.
And on Monday, he would come again for lunch, bringing macaroni and cheese to be eaten in chipped china while they talked about Stella's family.
The routine hardly ever changed.
Then, one Saturday, Alexander didn't come on time. Stella walked through the house, opening all her music boxes and wondering. It was eleven-fifteen, and he was an hour late... Alexander always came on time. Where was he? Glowering, she sat by the fireplace and held her favourite music box in her lap. It was a little cherry-wood one, carved to look like a rabbit, and it played Book of Days. She stroked its back and watched the time get even later.
At last she heard Alexander's knocking on the door.
"Alexander," she cried in her old voice as she pulled open the door. "Alexander, why didn't you come?"
He hugged her tightly and whimpered softly, and Stella realised at once that it was supposed to be more her hugging him than the other way around. So she did.
"Alexander, what's wrong?"
He shook his head against her shoulder.
"Alexander, do stop being stupid and just tell me. Has someone hurt you? Has someone died?"
"Pretty," Alexander whispered. "Pretty is dead. She was dead this morning when I went to feed her. She was in her basket."
Pretty, Stella remembered, was his little golden-coloured dog, who had wavy, silky fur and big eyes. Alexander owned Pretty since before he began coming to visit Stella. So, really, she must have been quite old. "Dogs die, Alexander."
"But Pretty was twenty years old..."
"Then she lived a long time."
"But I thought--"
"Hush. Dogs die."
"But I shall be lonely."
"You might get a new one. You could adopt a dog. Isn't there an animal shelter In Town?"
"I miss Pretty."
"You will be difficult," Stella said softly. "Do you want to talk about it while we walk, Alexander, or would you rather not walk to-day?"
"I don't want to."
So Alexander lay on the sofa with the rabbit music box in his arms, listening to Book of Days while Stella made biscotti for him to take home.
On Sunday, he came to walk with her to the stone church, but he was subdued, and he didn't sing or pray along. After the services, he captured most of the grapes and sat in the window eating them slowly.
When he was gone, Stella walked out by herself to the bus stop and went into the city. Coming back, her arms were full of cardboard box, and a boy on the bus tried to trip her in the aisle. Stella eyed him disdainfully and drew herself up. Her long, white hair was unclipped to-day and fell about her shoulders majestically.
"Don't," she said, "do that again."
The boy laughed.
On Monday Alexander came as usual, with a plastic container full of macaroni and cheese, and found Stella sitting on the sofa with a smallish golden-furred dog beside her.
"You didn't get it for me, did you?" he asked, frowning, and Stella replied, "Of course not. He's for me."
"Oh. Good."
But when they ate their macaroni and cheese on the porch, Alexander fondled the dog's ears the whole time.
Stella smirked privately. She had been quite sure he would. The dog had a kind of wrinkliness, but his fur was smooth and silky and golden. His ears perked up straight and were tufted at the tips, and his tongue was purple. His eyes were large and brown and his tail was long, shaggy, and crinkled where the woman at the shelter said a car backed over it. He was curious to look at and--the reason Stella had adopted him--he would be wonderful for Alexander to touch because of all the different sorts of feels, from his ears to his crinkly tail. Just like her music boxes.
On Tuesday, Alexander came in carrying a big mint chocolate chip ice cream cake and begged her to let him take the dog home. Stella had been sure he'd ask; she hadn't even named the dog.
"Of course, Alexander."
"I'll call him Stella," Alexander said loyally, but she protested.
"Oh, do call him something more fitting, Alexander. There are men's names and women's names, and Stella is not for him. Perhaps Sebastian," she suggested.
"Sebastian," Alexander agreed at last, and knelt on the floor to pet his new dog adoringly.
On Wednesday, he brought a new puzzle, and things were as they should be again.
But on Thursday, when he came with the flowers, Stella was collapsed in a heap on the floor of the kitchen with a broken blue china music box beside her. Alexander panicked. Stella didn't own a telephone and he hardly knew how to use one anyway. He carried her to the bus stop, breathless and terrified, leaving the flowers scattered all over the wood floor and alone in the house.
Over the next few days, he was continually being questioned by people he didn't understand. Alexander never understood. He was frightened by the meaningless talking and the white hospital and people who asked over and over if he was next of kin.
It was Polly who finally sorted everything out. She was the manager of the building Alexander lived in, and she understood the questions and the terms.
When Stella finally left the hospital, they sent a nurse with her. The nurse was to look after her, and make sure she was all right and taking the medications that also were sent home with her. Alexander was jealous. He sat on the sofa with the rabbit music box and frowned at the nurse, always right there to take care of Stella.
"I took care of her before," he informed the nurse quietly, when she looked in his direction.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Alexander."
"I'm Anna."
Names are souls, he thought. Someone said so. You're not supposed to tell anyone your soul. "My name's really Brian," he said.
Anna blinked. "Oh."
By this time, it had been over a week since the frightening Thursday. Stella was supposed to have her books to-day, and Alexander had brought them. They were waiting on the kitchen table; all the stacks and stacks of them. He frowned further. "Does she want her books?"
"She's sleeping."
"She's supposed to have her books."
"She can't, not right now. You can bring them to-morrow."
"Stella never reads on Saturday," said Alexander scornfully. "On Saturday, she walks."
"Well, she can't."
"What?"
"She isn't permitted to walk for a while."
"But she won't understand..." he whispered furiously. Now he wasn't just jealous and frightened. He was angry, and it made him feel dizzy and full of heat.
"I'm afraid she'll have to, Brian," Anna said. "She can't--"
And suddenly, Alexander hit her. "Stella won't understand!" he screamed.
"Alexander!" he heard Stella's old voice calling sharply, and he stumbled into her room and sat with his back against her bed, whimpering as he stared wildly through the door to where Anna stood, staring back. Her cheek was red where he'd hit her and he could see she was afraid. "Alexander!" One of Stella's wrinkly hands tightened in his hair. "Go back now and apologise. You had no right to hit her."
Alexander shivered. "I--"
"Right now. Stand up and tell her you're sorry and fetch her some ice."
Just as suddenly as he had become it, Alexander wasn't angry any longer. He stood shakily and went to the icebox, then returned with ice wrapped in a dishtowel, and said softly, "I'm sorry, Anna."
"Thanks," she said, not looking at him, and took the ice.
"Now, Alexander, please bring me my books. Anna will help us sort them."
"But--"
"Anna will help us sort them," Stella repeated firmly.
"No, that's okay, Ms.--"
"Alexander will not hurt you again, Anna."
"I won't," said Alexander earnestly as he carefully walked past to get the books. Despite his care, however, he saw Anna step away when he went by, and he sighed unhappily. He was sorry. He was even a little afraid to pick up the books now that he knew what his hands could do.
"Is his name Brian or Alexander?" Anna whispered to Stella while he was out the room.
"Alexander."
"He's nuts."
"He prefers 'insane', Anna."
The book-sorting that day was quiet and quick.
On Saturday, Alexander sat in a little chair by Stella's bedside and for once he told her about his family. Alexander's family hadn't seen him for a long time, but he smiled and told Stella that they were planning on coming back someday to take him to live with them. Stella said she would miss him.
On Sunday, he borrowed someone's radio and brought it so she could listen to church music since she couldn't go. Stella understood. She wanted to know how Sebastian was. He was fine, Alexander told her.
Anna just watched. Alexander realised now that she was a nice person, but she would never be part of the routine. He could not keep her away and she could not stay. That made her all right, and on Monday he let her share the macaroni and cheese, since Stella wasn't supposed to eat it.
On Tuesday, he brought a Boston Cream Cake, but Stella couldn't eat that either. In fact, Anna explained to him, Stella probably wouldn't be able to eat that for a long time, if not forever. So on his own, Alexander changed the routine. Tuesday would be music day. He went right out again and came back with a small object wrapped in tissue paper.
It was a music box. A yellow china cat that played Only Time. Stella wound it up and made a soft noise of appreciation.
Alexander smiled.
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