herself. I would try to arrange her securely in bed, butbecause she no longer had much control over her muscles, she would inevitably start slipping again after a few minutes. These shifts of position were an agony to her, and even the weight of her own body pressing on the floor made her feel as though she were being burned alive. But pain was only part of the problem. The breakdown of muscle and bone finally reached her throat, and when that happened Isabel started losing the power of speech. A disintegrating body is one thing, but when the voice goes too, it feels as if the person is no longer there. It began with a certain sloppiness of articulation—her words slurred around the edges, the consonants getting softer and less distinct, gradually beginning to sound like vowels. I did not pay much attention to this at first. There were many more urgent things to think about, and at that point it was still possible to understand her with only a small effort. But then it continued to get worse, and I found myself straining to make sense of what she was trying to say, always managing to catch it in the end somehow, but with more and more difficulty as the days wore on. Then, one morning, I realized that she wasn’t talking anymore. She was gurgling and groaning, trying to say something to me but only managing to produce an incoherent sputter, an awful noise that sounded like chaos itself. Spittle was dribbling down from the corners of her mouth, and the noise kept pouring out of her, a dirge of unimaginable confusion and pain. Isabel cried when she heard herself that morning and saw the uncomprehending look on my face, and I don’t think I have ever felt sorrier for anyone than I did for her then. Bit by bit, the whole world had slipped away from her, and now there was almost nothing left.
But it was not quite the end. For about ten days, Isabelstill had enough strength to write out messages for me with a pencil. I went to a Resurrection Agent one afternoon and bought a large notebook with a blue cover. All the pages were blank, and this made it expensive, since good notebooks are extremely hard to find in the city. But it definitely seemed worth it to me, no matter what the price. The agent was a man I had done business with before—Mr. Gambino, the hunchback on China Street—and I remember haggling with him tooth and nail, the two of us going at each other for almost half an hour. I couldn’t get him to lower the price of the notebook, but in the end he threw in six pencils and a little plastic sharpener at no extra cost.
Strangely enough, I am writing in that same blue notebook now. Isabel never managed to use very much of it, no more than five or six pages, and after she died I could not bring myself to throw it out. I took it along with me on my travels, and since then I have always kept it with me—the blue notebook, the six yellow pencils, and the green sharpener. If I had not found these things in my bag the other day, I don’t think I would have started writing to you. But there was the notebook with all those blank pages in it, and suddenly I felt an overwhelming urge to pick up one of the pencils and begin this letter. By now it is the one thing that matters to me: to have my say at last, to get it all down on these pages before it is too late. I tremble when I think how closely everything is connected. If Isabel had not lost her voice, none of these words would exist. Because she had no more words, these other words have come out of me. I want you to remember that. If not for Isabel, there would be nothing now. I never would have begun.
In the end, what did her in was the same thing that had taken away her voice. Her throat finally stopped workingaltogether, and because of that she could no longer swallow. From then on, solid food was out of the question, but eventually even water became impossible for her to get down. I was reduced to putting a few drops of moisture on her lips to prevent her mouth from
But it was not quite the end. For about ten days, Isabelstill had enough strength to write out messages for me with a pencil. I went to a Resurrection Agent one afternoon and bought a large notebook with a blue cover. All the pages were blank, and this made it expensive, since good notebooks are extremely hard to find in the city. But it definitely seemed worth it to me, no matter what the price. The agent was a man I had done business with before—Mr. Gambino, the hunchback on China Street—and I remember haggling with him tooth and nail, the two of us going at each other for almost half an hour. I couldn’t get him to lower the price of the notebook, but in the end he threw in six pencils and a little plastic sharpener at no extra cost.
Strangely enough, I am writing in that same blue notebook now. Isabel never managed to use very much of it, no more than five or six pages, and after she died I could not bring myself to throw it out. I took it along with me on my travels, and since then I have always kept it with me—the blue notebook, the six yellow pencils, and the green sharpener. If I had not found these things in my bag the other day, I don’t think I would have started writing to you. But there was the notebook with all those blank pages in it, and suddenly I felt an overwhelming urge to pick up one of the pencils and begin this letter. By now it is the one thing that matters to me: to have my say at last, to get it all down on these pages before it is too late. I tremble when I think how closely everything is connected. If Isabel had not lost her voice, none of these words would exist. Because she had no more words, these other words have come out of me. I want you to remember that. If not for Isabel, there would be nothing now. I never would have begun.
In the end, what did her in was the same thing that had taken away her voice. Her throat finally stopped workingaltogether, and because of that she could no longer swallow. From then on, solid food was out of the question, but eventually even water became impossible for her to get down. I was reduced to putting a few drops of moisture on her lips to prevent her mouth from
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