Page 96 of Just for a Taste

“Who did?”

It was a stupid question, given our household of three, but perhaps if I was lucky, some inhospitable phantom would materialize, and she could blame it on anyone other than Zeno.

She responded with the look the question warranted.

Doctor Ntumba stepped into her shadow, and the door rattled against its hinges, refusing to close. It remained as ajar as my mouth. She placed her hand on my shoulder, and though her touch was light, it felt immensely heavy on me.

With a swell of rage inside me, I couldn’t bear to look at her. I tightened my fists and held my breath. How cruel of her to allow me to have these terrible thoughts. How wicked of her to make me process this truth. For the first time in my life, I wished I could smack her across the face, and the gravity of this thought startled me. Never had I wanted to physically harm another person, no matter how upset I was.

This must be, I realized, an ounce of what wrath had brought all the scars upon Zeno’s back.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Noor nodded. I was thankful that she did not speak, for it would make my wavering voice even more pathetic in comparison.

“I know all of this is because he’s terrified, and he wants to keep me safe. But once he thinks I am truly safe, will he stop?”

Though I was still unwilling to meet her gaze, Noor continued to bore her eyes into me. I didn’t have to look up to know the look on her face.

She removed her hand to gesture for me to follow and passed me at a slow, ambling pace. Too confused to ask what was going on, I joined her side.

As we walked down the hall, things felt the same as they had long ago: Noor walking with her hands behind her back and her chin up, just like she did during conversations when I first came to the abbey. Like clockwork, she guided me down our usual route, and I could almost smell the chai brewing as we neared the tea room and hear Lucia’s laugh in the distance.

When Noor finally spoke, it was with that conversational tone from bygone times.

“As a child, I had a fascination with many of the street dogs in my neighborhood. Despite having been thrown to the streets and beaten, they desired nothing but companionship. Even if they guarded their treasures ferociously, they were still creatures forged of nothing but utter adoration for their companions. But there was a common disease that plagued them all. Time and time again, I would watch how perfectly reasonable and loving creatures could so quickly deteriorate into irrational shells. What I learned early on, Cora, is that rabid beasts act on nothing but insatiable bloodlust.”

As we continued along the path and into her memories, I let myself slip into my own. I pretended her words were another story on our way to tea, that I still felt strange sleeping in the bed in the abbess’s suite. The room we neared now was one I used to only imagine entering at this time of night. Zeno’s door was tightly closed, locked by a set of keys I had become more and more familiar with.

“What if it’s just Zeno and me here?” I asked as Noor dug through her pockets. “What about once you and everyone else leaves?”

She found it finally: a small, silver key. Even in the dim light, its metal surface radiated as brightly as its significance.

She held it up to her face in a strangely contemplative manner. Then, after a small click and a slight pull, the door gave with ease.

Before we entered, Noor turned to me and spoke, every word dripping with gravity.

“I have seen that when a rabid dog has destroyed everything around it, it begins to bite its own leg. For the last two decades, Zeno has been my only patient, and for the last two decades, I have loved him as furiously as a mother. But I know what he is, Cora. Do you?”

I wish I was silent for longer and been forced to contemplate my answer, but I did not. “Yes. I have for a long time.”

She led me into the room, and we lingered beside his bed. “You know about my . . .” She trailed off for a moment, eyes lowering to the ground. Finally, she looked back up at me. “. . . medical specialty, do you not?”

I held her gaze, studying her eyes for any sort of intention, but could identify nothing but a vague sense of sadness. Regret for her actions, perhaps? Guilt for not having told me about it?

Unable to discern any further information, I replied, “Yes. You specialize in physician-assisted suicide.”

Wordlessly, she led me to Zeno’s bedside drawer, took another key from her pocket, and unlocked it.

For whatever reason, the last things I would have expected the vintage furniture to house were modern medications. Despite my limited scopes of view and knowledge, I recognized a few of the bottles: narcotic-level pain medications, sedatives, and even specially bagged chemotherapy drugs.

Without needing to search for it, Doctor Ntumba pulled out a bottle easily and placed it in my hand. “Then you must know what this is.”

Pentobarbital oral solution, I read on the label. With shaking hands, I opened the bottle and peered in. A thin liquid swirled around the bottle, amber-hued.

How strange it was, I thought,that such an innocuous syrup has the power to end a life. That the drug of choice to allow a man to kill himself was placed in the same kind of bottle with the same type of label as the liquid ibuprofen at my bedside. I returned it to her hand.

“It’s a very bitter syrup, I’ve heard. Unfortunately, an effective dose for euthanasia isone hundred milliliters for this specific concentration.” Doctor Ntumba spoke slowly and deliberately, making sure I was catching each and every word. “Of course, for the sake of euthanasia, it is typically mixed with vodka and sugar to mask the taste. My former patients have stated they couldn’t even tell.”

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