One Heart for Ten
for Lillian Nećakov
M
otorcycle accident in the mountains. Rider’s backpack filled with library books. A student, then. A librarian on his way to a cottage by a lake. A soldier. A weekend drinking beer, reading about the French Revolution. A personal interest. A getaway for consolation.
When the paramedics came, the books had scattered, splayed open across the road, fallen over the railing and into the valley. Montaigne. The Estates General. The First Republic. Robespierre. The tipped-over motorcycle and the young man, bones broken, breathing weak, eyes like wounded butterflies. A decision by his mother to donate his heart after hospital arrival. In accordance with his wishes and driver’s license.
There was one heart but ten chests, empty like bells. In order to simplify the process of sharing, ten lived on a single street. Five on one side, five on the other. Each received the heart for one day. Early morning the heart delivered to the next in line. The following day, the heart delivered to the next recipient. And so on until it began again, traveling down one side of the street and then up the other until the heart, like the circulation of blood in the body, had completed a great circle.
If the one with the heart attached their port to the port of one without a heart, then blood could circulate through two as if they were a single system. All of the ten could attach themselves together and share the single heart, though they felt weak, sleepy, slow moving.
While waiting, each would rest attached to a humming machine. There was only one way they could rise together. Ports had been installed in each. If the one with the heart attached their port to the port of one without a heart, then blood could circulate through two as if they were a single system. All of the ten could attach themselves together and share the single heart, though they felt weak, sleepy, slow moving. It was essential that they breathed together, breathed deeply, oxidizing the blood that flowed through them all as if through a great river system. The Mississippi. The Amazon and the Yangtze and of course, the Nile.
Here we note the heart was not the heart of the young motorcyclist. Ten invented the story: they did not know where the heart came from. No one, not even the surgeons, knew. A nurse had discovered it at the front doors of the hospital, and, not considering the possibility that it was a bomb or other incendiary device, carried it inside.
What’s that?
Found at the door.
She lifted the lid. At the last moment, she conceived the idea that an animal may have been housed inside. Hence lifting only slightly, looking inside with caution.
Can’t tell, she said. What it is. Then the lid opened fully.
An actual beating heart.
It only had hours.
Call the surgical team.
She slammed the lid shut.
Four surgeons still in scrubs rushed in.
ASAP, one of the surgeons said, picking up the heart and running.
The surgeons regarded the heart as if it were an alien.
Human?
I think.
Electrodes, sensors, tissue samples. An MRI.
Viable.
A phone call.
From where?
Abandoned.
Media reports?
No.
Ours?
Don’t know.
I know someone.
And so the heart was repacked and they called a doctor with experienced in several wars.
Contact ten soldiers, she said.
How many hearts?
One.
Calls were made. Money transferred. By nightfall, ten were ready.
Sex when circulation is shared?
Intense.
Dreams?
Intimate.
Connection?
Like ventricles.
Some of us did research but soon lost interest.
We never got used to not knowing.
We made up the story of the motorcyclist.
For many months ten lived in codependent harmony then one kept the heart. Instead of passing it on at daybreak, he waited until 9:00 a.m., then 11:00, then 3:00 in the afternoon. Didn’t bring it back until the next day. Then the next. There was little ten could do. They could not leave their machines. They phoned. They texted. They contacted superiors.
Then a plan. Nothing was said to the recalcitrant one but they joined ports and walked. Then nine pulled away and separated ports—the hoarder not currently in possession of the heart fell to the ground. The blood in his body no longer moving, not oxidizing and he died. Then nine kicked until his body’s bones broke and his skin purpled. They had no plan but all the years of fear.
Nine returned in silence, walked house by house, each attaching to their own machine. Except Yosef, his chest filled with heart.
He went to town, to the gym, a bar, did coke in a stall. Tumbled home just before it was time to pass on the heart. Clothes torn, eyes red, heart furiously pumping.
Something needs to be done.
Increased heart attack risk.
Thicker heart walls
Reduced blood flow.
Tissue damage.
Eight made plans. Ten days passed then Janice’s turn to give the heart to Yosef. She put a stone in his chest, gave the heart to next-in-line Bonnie. Yosef didn’t notice he’d been given a stone. Took a shower, brushed his moustache, combed his hair, wore his flashiest shirt, his iridescent shoes, drove to town. Jägerbombs. Coke. Two women in a motel room, one a librarian from the university who specialized in Aramaic. Then he drove into the desert, parked, lay on his back. Howled and howled until he lost his voice sometime around midday. When found six weeks later, all that was left was the stone, a dried-out belt buckle.
Janice had the heart.
Where did you go?
Quilting.
At church?
With my sister.
You made?
Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Janice slept under the gush of Vincent’s stars. Nightbirds, crickets. Cool wind off the ocean. Slept soundly. Seven in other beds. Did not know this would be a special night. A night without stars in the real sky. A night of change. When one sleeps, one knows only dreams or else sleeps without dreams, Janice said.
Mother of the imagined motorcyclist crept into Janice’s house, white crepe-soled shoes of her nursing job tap tap across the floor, her hobbyist X-Acto knife cutting the rear door screen. The sky filled with gibbous moon, the mother’s shadow seeped over the kitchen linoleum. down the hall to Janice’s bedroom. Big heart machine humming, though not active.
Janice on her back, mouth open, sighing contently.
Van Gogh’s town behind the turns of the foreground cedars.
Vincent’s village of deep blue sleep.
Mother unbuttoning Janice’s nightgown, undoing the clasps on Janice’s chest skin, holding the heart like a baby. A few deft moves then Janice connected to the machine and then mother prancing across the yard, into a red Pinto. The kitteny engine purr. Gone.
Morning.
Where is the heart?
Did you take it?
No.
Anyone?
No.
Eight in their beds joined to humming machines. Bonnie had planned to go to Rosa’s. Bonnie and Rosa: the passionate beating of their shared intimate heart. The following day, Joe would have taken the heart to a check-up, then, a bite at his favourite diner. Xin Zhang to head office for papers.
But the mother had taken her son’s heart. In the backyard, in the sun, the heart wrapped against her chest. Her heart and her son’s heart knowing the other’s beating. She sang, felt the calming of her heart, her son’s heart. A mother’s contented sighs. A son’s.
They had imagined a young man on a motorcycle, healing. Forgiving the world.
From then, eight had no hearts, spoke only to the world through WhatsApp, their telephones, the internet. They had imagined a young man on a motorcycle, healing. Forgiving the world. Imagined his mother installing the heart in the empty sieve of his ribs. Had there been a breakthrough in medical science, in revivification—maybe it was AI or quantum computing or a bequest from a billionaire?—because the boy had been returned to his bike, his backpack filled with new books about the French Revolution, riding to points unknown, even to him. Because of a special dispensation granted to librarians and soldiers, the books were not due for months. Eight followed his riding, his route through the world, spoke of him often. Never left their beds. It was war.
