40. A Dance

A young student nurse helped me out of bed and into a nearby chair.  Her name was Grace and she wore the old style white uniform still popular among nurses that year, before colorful tops and scrubs became the style.  Grace was attractive, not pretty.  Adorned in pure white she appeared soft and angelic.  A sweet rustling of starched garments could be heard when she moved.  The fledgling nurse had been assigned to give me a foot washing.  I’d always thought the ritual was limited to religious ceremonies.  I was surprised to find myself  slated for the ablution in a hospital.  What could the staff be thinking?  Maybe a checklist for student nurses mandated tasks to be completed before graduation.  Foot washing would be somewhere near the bottom I hoped, and preferably optional.  I sighed and told Grace I’d wait to take a shower, but  she just smiled and brought an enamel pan out from the cabinet under the sink.

I didn’t want a junior nurse washing my feet for extra credit.  I’d never met anyone who’d had a foot washing.  Besides, having been brought up in a family of men, aside from my mother, I was never very comfortable around females, especially as a young man in a religious order.  Being alone with a woman in an elevator made me nervous, because it was hard for me to believe that a girl couldn’t guess what was racing through my mind while I stood near her, and for that I was usually embarrassed.   I had been intimate with a young woman … I think … only once.  That affair happened while in college and we were both totally drunk.    I used to joke that the only girl who ever swooned over me also threw up on me.  Since then I had maintained a distance from women.  After all, I was a normal male and the tipping point of my sexuality occurred somewhere around 18 inches from a woman.  Any closer, except for a quick Hello hug, and my mind turned to procreation.   Wishing to be true my vows,  I always maintained a safe distance from women who crossed my path.  A young female washing my feet did not fit that picture.

Beyond my aversion to the foot washing, I was being generally uncooperative with everyone responsible for my care.  Frankly,  I didn’t want to make any headway in my recovery.  Better to stay in bed and pretend  I wasn’t improving, so the doctors would relent and give me back my Demerol.  My need for the drug wasn’t for the physical pain,  which lessened each day, but to help me deal with a twisting dread building up inside me, wrenching through my gut.   I wanted my drugs, thank you, and Grace could please go away and not fuss over me with her feminine touch that would only make me desirous of her. 

I wanted to be left alone to deal with my fright and anguish, to figure it out and fight it, to master it in a  direct frontal assault.  Something awful that I could feel but not define was watching and waiting.  I was scared, more afraid than any time I had known in my life.  I so much needed to rise like an Iron Man, and I was trying my damnedest to figure out how to command myself to do so.  I didn’t want someone to soothe me.  If anything, I wanted to smash something.  Or hit somebody.  But God, please, not trample across a body and over a face again.

Grace lifted the large pan and placed it in the sink.  When the vessel was filled halfway with warm water, she placed a towel over her arm.  Carrying the foot bath against her body, she came to me and knelt down on the floor at my feet.  She smoothed the apron covering the front of her uniform and laid the towel over my lap.  I felt my face grow warm as it turned a bright shade of red.

This seemed bizarre, a young woman kneeling before me, preparing to wash my feet.  I did not want such an anointing  The intimacy embarrassed me.  It made me feel helpless and weak.

I told her, “You don’t have to do this.”

She looked up at me, not in surprise, but in acknowledgement, and I wondered if the bath might be awkward for both of us.

“It will be all right,” she half whispered.

I looked through the window to the outside, where I would eventually have to return someday.

“It will never be all right,” I said.

She lowered her head and began her work.

Grace pushed the hem of my hospital gown back just above my knees.  She began to place my foot in the water and I tried to help by doing it for her.  She glanced up, her eyes telling me she would take control. I let go and followed, waiting for her touch to signal  when I should help to move my limbs.  I was reminded of being taught to dance many years before.   I didn’t need to know the step.   I just had to wait for a light touch to show me when and where to move.  Grace led us through slowly,  as she tenderly and carefully washed each foot with a washcloth.   When finished, she lifted my feet and moved the pan out of the way, sliding her body closer to me.  Taking the towel from me, she pulled it over her legs and placed my feet into her lap.  That step loosed the emotion welling up in my heart.  I began to cry quietly. 

“You’re doing fine,” she said.
“I’m not doing anything,” I replied.
“There’s no need to,” she said.

As Grace bent down and dried my feet, lightly massaging them with her hands, I felt her breath on my bare knees.  A different chord was touched in me, and I felt an uncomfortable stirring.  Our ritualized intimacy had been crucial to the dance, but could go no further.  The moment was over and Grace stood.  Leaving my feet wrapped in the towel, she turned and carried the foot bath away.

Returning in a moment, she handed me a tissue.  As I wiped my eyes, Grace knelt at the side of the chair and took my hand.

“Thank you,”  I said, without looking at her.

She said nothing,  although for a moment I thought she might.  Then she squeezed my hand and left the room without saying a word.