Free The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman Page B

to avoid her fate, Death scoops him up instead. Then and there. No explanations, just a single final act. A life for a life.
    Is this the way the story ends? Not in Andersen’s tales surely, where right and might win out, but this is Grimm.
    There is a single, simple rule to the game played between the doctor and Death, one the doctor-hero has ignored: When it comes to death, heads or tails matters not. There is no escape in the end.
    It’s a sad tale, one that defies logic and thumbs its nose at any reasonable man’s attempt to impose order on the natural world. That my brother, of all people, would choose this obscure, dark story to read and reread was in itself a puzzle. I thought about the way he’d called to me when I’d stood out on the porch, watching our mother drive away. Turn around, that’s what he’d wanted me to do. If I had, would Death have passed us by?
    Just when I thought my brother was determined to avoid me — I’d hardly seen him since my strike — he and Nina invited me to their house for a party. I’d been so taken aback when Ned called that I’d said yes when in fact I’d meant no . I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a party outside of events at the library in New Jersey, and I’d arranged all of them. I’d come to realize that I was comfortable speaking only to people who’d experienced disaster, at least in a secondhand way, like my physical therapist, Peggy, whom I occasionally met for coffee. And of course Renny, not that he was a friend, not even close. Now I’d gone and committed myself to a party of mathematicians and scientists.
    It turned out to be an annual event, filled with professors and graduate students from both Nina’s and Ned’s departments. Getting there was a trial for me; I took one wrong turn after another on those curlicue roads that cut through the campus and all looked alike. I realized then, I hadn’t once been invited over to my brother’s house since my arrival in Florida, and I thought this strange. I wondered if my sister-in-law held something against me. Or maybe it was Ned.
    The house my brother and Nina owned was modern, glass and stucco, set on a cul-de-sac on the far side of the Orlon campus — faculty housing of the highest quality. No wonder some of the best minds chose to teach at Orlon; life here was pleasant, a fact that rubbed me the wrong way. I could feel the numbness in my fingertips, the clicking in my head when I pulled up to park. In times of stress, my symptoms intensified. I got out of my car and walked up the neat path. Nice lawn. Nice flowers. I was thinking about Lazarus Jones. I shouldn’t have been, but after a week I was still burning. I could see happy graduate students through the bay window of Nina and Ned’s house. I felt as though I had arrived from an alternate universe. Call it New Jersey, call it desperation, call it whatever you like.
    I went immediately to the bar set up in the den. I poured a large glass of red wine for myself, probably the good stuff. It looked like mud to me. While I was getting myself a drink, and then another, I could tell how devoted my brother’s students were to him; I overheard one say that Ned would be the head of the department when Dr. Miller, the current chair, retired. Several voiced their disappointment that Ned would be taking the next semester off from teaching, something I didn’t know, in order to concentrate on his research.
    Nina’s students were more reserved, until they started in on the wine; then they were wild. They had a slew of drinking games with mathematical rules I couldn’t understand. They also seemed devoted, only more quietly so; I could see into the kitchen, where they had gathered around Nina as she dished out bouillabaisse, homemade, I was told, which shocked me. I had assumed someone as theoretical and removed as Nina wouldn’t know how to cook. But, of course, cuisine was probably just another equation to her: clams to tomato sauce, basil