This Footstool Earth. John Zeugner
‘argumentative to the end. So, here’s my advice—don’t deal with her at all. Seek out one of the Japanese assistants and say the following, I mean this, precisely. Say it just as I’m telling you now. Put Daisy in the assistant’s arms and say quietly but with absolute conviction and authority, ‘In my dream last night Daisy said to me that it was time and I should ease her into the next phase. She said that to me, and now you must help me. I put Daisy entirely in your hands and I need your help easing her out of this painful life. I’m so sorry, so very sorry, but you must prepare Daisy for exit from this life, and bring her back to me so I can hold her as she eases out of her misery.’ Emphasize how much you will be indebted to the assistant for this favor, and, if necessary, say that Madame has authorized it. That may not be necessary. I suspect the assistant will believe that, and act on it with visible relief.’ As I listened to him, his phrase, visible relief, flooded into me. ‘And how do you know all this, Nigel?’ ‘Mom told me before she left—she said, ‘your father won’t be able to snuff Daisy. You’ll have to show him, instruct him, each step of the way. He’ll need that, and you can do it. It’s natural for you and me, but not for him.’”
“Self-serving,” B says.
“Oh, doubtless so,” A answers, “but in fact Nigel was absolutely correct. I knew Madame Vincouvier was a late riser and came to her cat clinic in the later morning, but the assistants were there from 7:30. So I brought my swollen, bloated, moaning Daisy in by eight o’clock, and I spoke with Ms. Tomoko just as Nigel had instructed me. I said ‘gomen’ a number of times, and flashed my most humbling ‘ onegai shimasu’ again and again. We all understand, don’t we that in Japan apology precedes everything else. But here was an interesting case where apology apparently collided with authoritarian hierarchy. They were scared to act without Madame’s steady imprimatur. But Nigel knew, and I came to understand, the fundamental compassion of underlings would eventually triumph over remembered directives. The situation at hand would cloud over the rulings from all authority. Japan lives that every moment. Here I was with the pathetic and wonderfully moaning kitty. Who would not be turned toward helping? They carried poor Daisy directly to the young junior vet inspecting a tightly collared Dachshund at the far end of the reception room. . He felt Daisy’s bloated stomach, pinched a few places, and listened as the technicians rattled off the saga of previous treatments. And quickly the fellow got up from his haunch position, carried Daisy to a back room and in a trice reappeared with her right forepaw swathed in purple adhesive tape, holding an inserted IV tube. The technician behind him carried a large, ominous looking syringe, full, I presumed, of death. ‘Follow me’ the young vet said in a strangely un-Asian accent and I thought perhaps he’s a dark New Zealander or perhaps someone from Guam or Samoa. I followed him, and we went into a room with three club-like booths upholstered in a green Naugahyde. He slid into the first booth and put Daisy at the center of the table. I slid into the other side. Two attendants stood like waiters at the end of the table. ‘I will inject. You may pet her and watch her. Look at her eyes, if you like. It will be over very quickly.’ There was no time for me to say much of anything, arrange much of anything. I was thinking perhaps a towel under her would have been more comfortable, but in truth she seemed groggy and foggy, although she did turn her head toward me, plopped on her very inflated side. She licked momentarily toward her nose, blinked. He bent her leg to an angle more receptive for his syringe. He was moaning softly— apparently what he imagined were comforting tones. Were these Buddhist tones to accompany voyage to some next phase, next arena for re-appearance? Daisy as something else. I tried to think what else, but I imagined nothing for her. Could it be animals had no animus for transformation? It seemed I had read that some place. His moaning got louder, and I did stare into Daisy’s eyes, which already no longer seemed clear or focused. But it did seem she acknowledged me. He eased whatever was in the syringe into her IV tube, and within a second Daisy made the first sound I had heard her make on this last day. She gave out a miniscule sigh, a little tiny unimaginable rasp that momentarily filled the booth, the room, the very air we were breathing, and then, stone glare of eyes gone eerily clear and coldly marble. I continued to pet her side until he said, firmly, resolutely. ‘She’s gone.’” I thought but didn’t say, I’ve been with her for over 20 years.
B says, “And disposal?”
Before that inquiry could be answered the side door to Trattoria Serena opens and, most remarkably, a tall woman with a great shock of curly grey hair enters the tiny restaurant. “Madame Vincouvier,” A says in evident amazement. His voice is hushed and strangely reverent, even for a moment guilty, or so C imagines.
Madame Vincouvier recognizes A and comes over to his table. “You disappoint me often but never more so with your disgusting going behind my back to do what? To kill an innocent healthy creature who depended on you for life and sustenance over, what? Over twenty years, or so you told me— as if I cared. I never dreamed you were such a monster, such a grotesque version of humanity, such a dreg! And I see normal human commerce has not changed an iota for you. Here you are among so called friends, enjoying a rich repast while the ashes of your charge doubtless are littering up some children’s park in Ueno. It boggles the mind. How little we pay to the basic building block of all good life—the extension of existence. The very force that unites us you trample on so casually, so brutally, so sickeningly. I’ve heard very wonderful things about this place—so aptly named. But I could never eat here, not now certainly with you here and imbibing its fellow-feeling without a tidbit of affection for your ‘beloved’ Daisy.”
B interrupts, “I think that’s quite enough. Quite enough. We all live a sham life here and it’s silly the little huffs we generate to validate our continuing existence in this unfortunate milky milieu—I mean public kindness toward us. I know where your resentment comes from, and I share it. Share it. But I’m ashamed to say so. So, break off the crummy tirade. He’s suffered quite enough.”
Madame Vincouvier seems non-plussed by B’s outburst and cocks her head to get a better view of him, then straightens her orange scarf. After such adjustment she says quietly, “Better you than Daisy,” and leaves Trattoria Serena.
“Okay, then,” B continues, “Tell us now about Lewis’s death.”
2.
Madam de Vincouvier’s front room was perfumed heavily, the scent of lilac in an excess that did not quite shut out the fumes of cat urine, dog dandruff, or the salivation of creatures housed more elegantly elsewhere in Tokyo. How improbable, C often reflected as he sheepishly came through the genkan that a French woman in black bombazine would be the most cherished veterinarian in Kanto. How extraordinarily Japanese that she would have, beyond her ministrations to animals, a human service at once hyper closeted and liberating, relieving, gushing pain and ultimate deliverance. How he panted for her savage, severe touch.
“Is the room ready?” C asked between rushed, short breaths.
“In a moment. We must be patient. There should be an excess of light, a painful brightness, should there not?”
“Of course. Hot white light,” C responded. “It’s the beginning of banishing decrepitude.”
“Such flowery English. Perhaps not appropriate. Perhaps irritating.”
“I apologize.”
“Not yet accepted,” she gently laughed. “Let’s have some tea and again remember Daisy. I wasn’t here when A, how do you say it, ‘put her down.’ That wasn’t thoughtful of him, was it? No, it wasn’t. ‘Put her down,’ maybe I should do that to you? Would you like it? Why couldn’t you have waited till I came in at normal office hours? Why did you hide it from me?”
“I didn’t! He wanted to spare you. We knew you had affection for her, because of your long treatment of her.”
“Liar! You know of course I had to fire the technician—a really gifted practitioner. How could I have tolerated such insubordination?”
“He said you would have approved. We didn’t want him to lose his job.”
“You didn’t seem to think about the consequences of your selfishness, and yet you’ve lived how very long in this country where every action is measured in consequence