The Last Samaritan

One...  two… three… four… and breathe.

The doc said it would help to count out the pain. She lied. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t go away.

I didn’t say this to the doc. She looked pleased when I agreed to the count. I agreed to be free of her sympathy-laced manners. If only her sympathy could have erased my pain, I would not be staring at the grey stone steps before me as hurtling shadows check round the hindrance of my body.

“Dearest, should you be here?”

A softly spoken voice breaks through my failing determination.

Here, meaning out and about, heartlessly getting in the way of those people living their lives, then yes.

Still, I smile at the friendly voice. I smile at my very own Samaritan.  The hurtling shadows resolve into slowing figures, no doubt, amused by the picture we present. Who did they see first? A hunched shivering form in grey coat or the sensible pumps topped with a white posh coat.  And why shouldn't the lady help me? Isn’t she in possession of her heart? I, on the other hand, I am more than dead.

Two… and then the next step, my cane taps and slides.

The Samaritan is just about my height, me bent over that is. We breathe heavily up the grey granite and reach the glass double doors with twin sighs to our three-legged race. A doorman snaps to attention and mumbles before belatedly offering his large, gloved hands. How did he not see us? Correction, not see the posh coat, for surely that’s his job, to see the touristy old ladies that keep our fair city in the black.  

Perhaps on a different day, he would have rushed down the steps, perhaps my shade is spreading.

I’ve lost count of my pain and turn aside to my partner, my conquering aid against the grey granite. She's well togged out, coiffed hair and buttoned gloves. My very own suburban belle to the rescue except for the lavender of course, why must some ladies wear lavender?

She beams at me once we cross into the hallowed foyer with green marbled floor and silvered glass constructs. The repeating short hiss of pistons mark out the serving staff from those who have chosen this location as their resting place.

Satisfaction edges my Samaritan’s smile. She's the one who helped, not the one who needed help. I give in and offer the smile of a grateful supplicant.

Why not? I needed her help in conquering those grey stoned steps.

Quick, silent and sharp, my pain revisits, I was at four at the last count, or was I?

            “Now, young lady,” says my friendly person, “which room are you in?”

She has her breath back while mine is still meandering its way through what’s left of my lungs. I look up to reply but the doorman is hovering, a distracting spectre in my line of sight. But then the pain slashes at me as if to punish my daring to look up. It’s not playing fair, that was not in the count. I blink back tears and rue. I never used to be this afraid, this puny. I watch as the spectre of the neatly uniformed doorman resolves into a moth, batting about, getting in the way.

            “I'm here for the conference” I say, a croaking voice through bruised lips lending me countenance.  

The uniform steps back. He looks satisfied that I'm not claiming some dubious relationship with his beloved edifice.  How often does that happen? Do women randomly show up here, bruiting about feigned relationships? Do they still offer to show someone a good time? Do they arrive with bruised breath, carrying booted marks on their bodies, bent so low as to hide their broken faces, lying through sore jaws that they have rooms here? This hotel must be something else, if that's the case. Perhaps I have unwittingly stumbled onto a heavenly rest place for the discarded or wait, maybe I fell and cracked my head on the stone steps instead.  

            “But you should be in bed, resting,” the old lady says with brutal candour. She leans in and confides in sotto voice. “You don't look all that well”. The statement jars, so blunt, yet in a velvety soft drawl.  My Samaritan has a conscience, perhaps she thinks she should have called for an ambulance instead of lending a buttoned glove.

I want to say something, offer a payment, thanks for the help, here’s a story to share with the grandkids. But I know that I don't have the time, so I tell her the truth instead.
             “They took something very important,” I say. “They have taken my ….”.

She cocks her head and leans in. It seems I’ve intrigued my nosy Samaritan.
Interest splashes across her face, wearied porcelain, deep lines with a scarlet slash and lavender of course, horrid horrendous lavender. 

“What did they take, dearest?”  She asks, keeping her voice low. No hovering figure of a doorman gets in on this one, it’s hers alone. Perhaps she knows that his alarm bells would sing loud and clear should he hear.   

I look round for my answer. Seeing it, I point. It's a tricky job. My left hand quivers as I lift it, before collapsing like the proverbial house, while my right remains welded to the cane. Falling is disagreeable and inconvenient.

 “What did they take?” she asks again.

She watches slowly; it can only be slow. My left hand rises again, seeking, shaking, pointing, accusing. She follows its trajectory.

She's a slow reader but it gives me time to collect myself. Steps are not the only thing I find difficult.  My curious Samaritan looks at me strangely and then back at the sign. Light glistens and blinds with the swing of the diamonds clutching onto her pale pink ears. Patrician, I named you, see, I’m still good for something.

My Samaritan looks at me, and I see in her undimmed eyes, the cogs still moving. Then the curtains draw back, my smart friend gets it. Two for two, no pain can keep us down.

“Oh, you, dear, dear girl,” she says and then she starts to ask the question, but even brutal candour knows when to hold back.  She knows why I’m here. Where else could I be.

The doorman’s shadow spreads, almost catching at my feet but he is not the only spectre in this place. A concierge approaches, wary that we sully his green marble with our lassitude. It doesn't matter as my posh lady stares everyone down.  Patrician meets paid subservience which made her possible or is it the other way around? And thus, we turn and toddle and shift, in time with tapping cane, a slow waltz, a step and then pain, closer to my goal.

I don't understand, is the statement she doesn't make but it’s written all over her, straining through the muscles inside her neck, hidden by the kindly sagging flesh. It is well I want to say to my good Samaritan.  

Still the question gathers in her quivering arm, “But they are going to help aren't they”, she asks, marking herself out as one of the sisterhood of the early order.

I shake my head. There’s nothing else to fall loose, I left it all in a steel bowl at the hospital, clutching scarlet stains and drowned in sharp scents. A policewoman at the green cotton door haggling with the nurse over whose right it is to ask if I’m alright. They had not been expecting me to wake up. Their voices dripping with familiarity even as they clashed in professional competence.

We thread the narrow path, through the foyer to a door-lady, neither bearded nor scarred. She doesn't try to stop us, in stark contrast to the earlier spectres. It must be that she sees that as women, we must have the desire to be here. She waves us by, whispering how we haven't missed much.

Ha! I want to say, were I able to raise my cane and point to the sky. But instead, my lady Samaritan closely ushers me into the sanctified darkness, with a projected light, the single star hovering over a stage.  A banner hangs over the hush of weighted indignation and simmering anger swirls like a hovering fog. My eyes lock onto the centrepiece. There, with violet lights, sanctified, a metal brazen maid, made alive to wreak vengeance for broken hearts. Her pistons menace, scarlet irises flash and the women gasp in reply.

Yet caked bitterness rises in me as my worthy assistant stops. My Samaritan has abandoned me. Her mind caught, she knows this story. Like the nurse and the policewoman, like the scattered knowing glances from passers-by, they know this story. I know this story. If I was not here, would I be here, cheering under the same banner? Eyes glazed but focused on the maiden. Would I breathe in the same anticipation with a beating heart?  But I want the lady to understand that no one asked me. He didn’t ask me when his casual rage dropped me in the barrens, when his fists drummed up a wild rhythm. When he tore me apart, did he think that maybe I would be up for it.

They did not ask on the surgery floor as they cut inside of me. When did I become that square green, a public space for others to stamp their claim and raise their flags? My breath catches as pain makes itself louder than the rage inside. I’ve pushed longer than the doc suggested but bitterness is my power.  I whisper into the hush, “they took what was mine. They did not ask”.  

The lady crutch nods, but I can tell she doesn't understand. Her eyes are glued to the spectacle beneath the banner. Perhaps I should count myself lucky that my victimhood is attested, that no one could have argued that I asked for it. Instead, they believe me grateful to have my story as their herald, my heart as their centrepiece.

I let my Samaritan go.  I whisper my thanks as my cane taps blindly onward into the dimly lit room. The light hubbub pierces the deafening rush in my ears. There are women all around me and my sisters on the stage, glowing with justification, next to their silvered avenger. Indignation is their power.

Four…, breathe and I tap again forward but pain steals into my momentum, eclipsing even the rage. There is a hand on my arm, the Samaritan returns.

Five…, breathe… breathe…. There is no response to my frail command. Air lodges deep within my chest, lost in the space with plastic remains.

“They are here to help us. You should let them help” she says. The rest of her words dissolve in the acidity in my veins, bubbling out of my eyes as I sight my image on the stage. Not me, but the woman I once was, now parading atop this new ‘Maria’ of justice.  My sisters, my defenders, you have used my name, taken my heart, but you did not ask. I remain violated.

The room wakes with applause as the actors arrive. The Samaritan lets go as she joins in. I don’t blame her. Legs that survived the granite, that stood defiant against a hospital bed, have done enough. Perhaps now I will become their fallen soldier, they can entomb me with their flag, and their maiden will arise, leaving me behind.