Ray Bradbury. The Visit

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                The Visit
                2008

     She had called and there was to be a visit.

     At  first  the young man had been reluctant, had said no, no thanks, he was
sorry, he understood, but no.

     But  then  when  he heard her silence on the other end of the telephone, no
sound  at all, but the kind of grief which keeps to itself, he had waited a long
while  and  then  said,  yes,  all right, come over, but, please, don't stay too
long. This is a strange situation and I don't know how to handle it.

     Nor  did  she.  Going  to  the young man's apartment, she wondered what she
would  say  and  how  she  would  react, and what he would say. She was terribly
afraid of doing something so emotional that he would have to push her out of the
apartment and slam the door.

     For  she  didn't  know  this  young man at all. He was a total and complete
stranger.  They had never met and only yesterday she had found his name at last,
after a desperate search through friends at a local hospital. And now, before it
was  too  late,  she  simply  had to visit a totally unknown person for the most
peculiar  reasons  in  all  her  life  or,  for that matter, in the lives of all
mothers in the world since civilization began.

     "Please wait."

     She  gave  the  cabdriver  a  twenty-dollar  bill to ensure his being there
should  she  come out sooner than she expected, and stood at the entrance to the
apartment  building  for a long moment before she took a deep breath, opened the
door, went in, and took the elevator up to the third floor.

     She  shut  her  eyes  outside  his  door,  and took another deep breath and
knocked.  There  was  no  answer. With sudden panic, she knocked very hard. This
time, at last, the door opened.

     The young man, somewhere between twenty and twenty-four, looked timidly out
at her and said, "You're Mrs. Hadley?"

     "You  don't  look  like  him  at all," she heard herself say. "I mean—" She
caught herself and flushed and almost turned to go away.

     "You didn't really expect me to, did you?"

     He  opened  the door wider and stepped aside. There was coffee waiting on a
small table in the center of the apartment.

     "No, no, silly. I didn't know what I was saying."

     "Sit  down,  please.  I'm  William Robinson. Bill to you, I guess. Black or
white?"

     "Black." And she watched him pour.

     "How did you find me?" he said, handing the cup over.

     She  took  it  with trembling fingers. "I know some people at the hospital.
They did some checking."

     "They shouldn't have."

     "Yes, I know. But I kept at them. You see, I'm going away to live in France
for a year, maybe more. This was my last chance to visit my—I mean—"

     She lapsed into silence and stared into the coffee cup.

     "So  they  put two and two together, even though the files were supposed to
be locked?" he said quietly.

     "Yes,"  she said. "It all came together. The night my son died was the same
night  you  were  brought into the hospital for a heart transplant. It had to be
you. There was no other operation like that that night or that week. I knew that
when  you left the hospital, my son, his heart anyway"—she had difficulty saying
it—"went with you." She put down the coffee cup.

     "I don't know why I'm here," she said.

     "Yes, you do," he said.

     "Not  really,  I don't. It's all so strange and sad and terrible and at the
same time, I don't know, God's gift. Does that make any sense?"

     "To me it does. I'm alive because of the gift."

     Now  it  was  his  turn  to  fall  silent, pour himself coffee, stir it and
drink.

     "When you leave here," said the young man, "where will you go?"

     "Go?" said the woman uncertainly.

     "I  mean—" The young man winced with his own lack of ease. The words simply
would not come. "I mean, have you other visits to make? Are there other—"

     "I see." The woman nodded several times, took hold of herself with a motion
of  her body, looking at her hands in her lap, and at last shrugged. "Yes, there
are  others. My son, his vision was given to someone in Oregon. There is someone
else in Tucson—"

     "You  don't  have  to  continue,"  said  the  young  man. "I shouldn't have
asked."

     "No,  no. It is all so strange, so ridiculous. It is all so new. Just a few
years  ago,  nothing  like  this could have happened. Now we're in a new time. I
don't know whether to laugh or cry. Sometimes I start one and then do the other.
I  wake  up confused. I often wonder if he is confused. But that's even sillier.
He is nowhere."

     "He  is  somewhere," said the young man. "He is here. And I'm alive because
he is here at this very moment."

     The woman's eyes grew very bright, but no tears fell.

     "Yes. Thank you for that."

     "No, I thank him, and you for allowing me to live."

     The  woman  jumped up suddenly, as if propelled by an emotion stronger than
she knew. She looked around for the perfectly obvious door and seemed not to see
it.

     "Where are you going?"

     "I—" she said.

     "You just got here!"

     "This  is  stupid!"  she  cried.  "Embarrassing.  I'm putting too much of a
burden  on  you,  on  myself. I'm going now before it all gets so ludicrous I go
mad—"

     "Stay," said the young man.

     Obedient to the command, she almost sat down.

     "Finish your coffee."

     She remained standing, but picked up her coffee cup with shaking hands. The
soft  rattle  of  the cup was the only sound for a time as she slaked the coffee
with  some  unquenchable  thirst.  Then  she put the empty cup down and said: "I
really must go. I feel faint. I feel I might fall down. I am so embarrassed with
myself,  with  coming  here.  God  bless you, young man, and may you have a long
life."

     She started toward the door, but he stood in her way.

     "Do what you came to do," he said.

     "What, what?"

     "You know. You know very well. I won't mind it. Do it."

     "I—"

     "Go  on,"  he  said  gently,  and  shut  his  eyes,  his hands at his side,
waiting.

     She stared into his face and then at his chest, where under his shirt there
seemed the gentlest stirring.

     "Now," he said quietly.

     She almost moved.

     "Now," he said, for a final time.

     She  took one step forward. She turned her head and quietly moved her right
ear  down  and  then  again down, inch by inch, until it touched the young man's
chest.

     She  might have cried out, but did not. She might have exclaimed something,
but  did not. Her eyes were also shut now and she was listening. Her lips moved,
saying  something,  perhaps  a  name, over and over, almost to the rhythm of the
pulse she heard under the shirt, under the flesh, within the body of the patient
young man.

     The heart was beating there.

     She listened.

     The heart beat with a steady and regular sound.

     She  listened  for  a  long while. Her breath slowly drained out of her, as
color came into her cheeks.

     She listened.

     The heart beat.

     Then  she raised her head, looked at the young man's face for a final time,
and  very  swiftly touched her lips to his cheek, turned, and hurried across the
room,  with  no  thanks,  for none was needed. At the door she did not even turn
around but opened it and went out and closed the door softly.

     The  young  man  waited  for a long moment. His right hand came up and slid
across  his  shirt,  across his chest to feel what lay underneath. His eyes were
still shut and his face emotionless.

     Then  he turned and sat down without looking where he sat and picked up his
coffee cup to finish his coffee.

     The  strong  pulse,  the  great  vibration  of  the  life within his chest,
traveled  along  his  arm  and  into  the cup and caused it to pulse in a steady
rhythm,  unending,  as he placed it against his lips, and drank the coffee as if
it  were  a  medicine, a gift, that would refill the cup again and again through
more days than he could possibly guess or see. He drained the cup.

     Only then did he open his eyes and see that the room was empty.