“There’s no way to know,” Jari said, “probably one to six months. Your emotions might return gradually, or they might come rushing back in a single moment. That moment could be sparked by an event, or it could happen for no reason at all.”
“Or it might never happen,” I said.
He sat down on the side of the bed, solemn. “Or it might never happen.”
“I’d like to keep this between ourselves,” I said. “I can’t tell my wife that I feel nothing for her or our child.”
“I won’t try to tell you how to handle your recovery, but understand that this problem is the result of illness. It’s not your fault, and the support of your family is important while you get through it. Keeping secrets, hiding your symptoms”—he put his hand on my shoulder—“is inevitably a mistake.”
“Maybe. But I just can’t put that on her. It would be cruel.” It struck me that I wanted a cigarette. “Take me outside for a smoke,” I said.
“It’s not a good idea. Just stay in bed. You can smoke your brains out in a few days.”
I discovered the second primary symptom of the surgery’s aftermath. I’d entered into a childlike, binary existence. Want or don’t want. Will or won’t. Take or leave.
“If you don’t take me outside, I’ll wait until you leave, hang all this IV shit on the thingamajig you use to walk with them and go by myself.”
He cocked his head and stared at me for a long moment. I saw it hit him that my hardheaded attitude was because of my surgery, and he spoke to me like a child. “If I take you out for a cigarette, will you stay in bed for the rest of the day?”
“Yes.”
It was a bit of an arduous process, with IV tubes, the mobile carryall and wheelchair, but I got my cigarette.
He put me back to bed and rearranged my medical paraphernalia, told me he would check on me again as soon he could and left.
I lay in bed and pondered the meaning, the worth, of life without emotion. My remorse was gone, but also my passion. If my remorse and sense of failure were gone, what had replaced them? I was emotionless, or nearly so. What would motivate me in life now? Maybe the same things that always motivated me. A desire for balance. Justice. Perhaps now I could even pursue those goals with a feeling of equanimity. For me, duty and love had always been closely related. Something I doubted Kate would understand. I reached one decision. I would take Sweetness under my wing and help him find himself and discover, for good or bad, who he really was, and help him become whatever it was that might be. As I wished my father had done for me. I lay in bed for two days, practiced my fake smile, and contemplated the changes that had come over me.
I thought of Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, who awoke to find that he had become a monstrous insect. Was I a morphed Gregor Samsa, or a surgically enhanced Kari Vaara?
8
I came home on Friday. Despite all the work done to me, I had spent only four days in the hospital. I lay about, ate narcotics and tranquilizers as instructed, watched crappy television shows, played with Anu and the cat. I felt fine but a little tired and napped a lot. I was on a one-month sick leave, to be extended if necessary, but I was free to go back to work in two weeks if I chose. On Saturday I caught up on the news.