SF Notes #10
That evening, at about 7:15, he was given a sleeping pill to go to sleep. He wanted to hold off on the sleeping pill and not take it too early, although we had encouraged him to take it early so that he could sleep, because he had had a terrible day of pain and he was absolutely exhausted by it. I am almost sure he knew that he would die that evening.
When he washed down his sleeping pill with a small glass of water that Patrick, the French nurse, helped him with it, Krishnaji made a joke to the nurse and said, “Ce n’est pas de Bordeaux.” And after taking it, he said to me, “Now what am I supposed to do?” and I replied, “Well, just sleep, sir.” And he said, “All right, if that is what you all want.” It was most peculiar the way he said that, and I felt something terribly ominous. He then turned to me and said, “I have complete security on you, no, in you.” And I said, “Please, sir, just go to sleep, you’re tired.” I didn’t think anything of it; I didn’t think it would be the last thing that he would say to me.
Just then, Mary came in, and I stepped a short distance away, and he said something like, “No, I have never had any security,” or something like that. He was changing the use of the word. He had said goodbye to me, and he had said it so beautifully, and it was so moving. I don’t take it in any conceited way, I hope, but he had reached up and taken hold of my arm, and I can’t put it into words, but it was sweet and kind beyond anything I feel was really merited.
To Mary he was saying, “Goodnight, darling, goodnight, go to sleep, go to bed, goodnight,” and he repeated it many times, and he said it for a long time, and it was absolutely beyond any doubt clear that he was not saying goodnight but goodbye. He shooed us all out of the room as he began to drop off, telling us to go to bed, but it was far too early and there was too much of a sense in the room of something momentous occurring. We stood just in the doorway for a few minutes as he fell asleep, but his eyelids only half-closed, and his eyes rolled back, showing the whites.
I came back into the room and sat on the floor against the wall to Krishnaji’s right. Mary came in and sat next to me. We had our backs to the cupboard doors to the right and left of his bathroom door, and we waited. After about five or perhaps ten minutes, Mary got up and sat next to his bed by his left side. Five minutes after that, I got up and sat by his right side. It didn’t wake him. It was clear that this was no ordinary sleep and that it was very deep. Dr. Parchure was also present, but in my memory he wandered in and out of the room and eventually sat for a long period of time in Krishnaji’s sitting room. He, more than Mary or I, was aware of what was occurring.
Soon after Mary and I got by his side, with his eyes still rolled back and his eyelids half-open, he said softly, “O, quelqu’un.” It was partly a plea, as though he was asking for, “Oh, please, someone”; it was partly a remark, as though he was saying, “Oh, someone is there.” It wasn’t urgent or startled, but it had a very peculiar quality to it. Perhaps he was calling to the French male nurse; perhaps he just had French on his mind because we had so often spoken French over the last several weeks. I have no idea what it meant or why he said that.
From then on, Krishnaji’s breath and his heart rate gradually slowed. Mary remained by his left side, holding his hand for most of the rest of the evening. I didn’t move from his right side and held his right hand.
At about 11:00 p.m., Dr. Deutsch arrived. Together, Dr. Parchure, Dr. Deutsch, the male nurse, Mary, and I watched and waited.
There was a very clear sense that Krishnaji was present, and even when I first picked up his hand shortly after sitting by his side and when it didn’t wake him and it was clear that he was in a coma, he was there, and that presence was not unhappy. In fact, at one point, I had a sense there was laughing, as Krishnaji laughed. But there was nothing on his face, of course, to indicate that—and it could easily be my imagination. But it’s what I sensed at the time.
At some time around 11:30 p.m., Mary had gone into the kitchen with the male nurse. He had extended his shift in order to be with Krishnaji at this difficult time, but as he had had nothing to eat for eight hours, Mary took him into the kitchen to help him get some food. While Mary was there, I thought Krishnaji was going and sent Dr. Parchure quickly to get her. Somehow she didn’t understand the urgency, and she didn’t come, so I asked Dr. Deutsch to get her because I didn’t want to leave Krishnaji alone, and I knew that she would want to be there when he died. Dr. Parchure remained in the kitchen with the male nurse until after Krishnaji died. He was keeping the male nurse away from Krishnaji’s bedside, as he knew what a private occasion Krishnaji wanted his death to be. It was typical of the thoughtfulness and the selflessness that Dr. Parchure had throughout.
Krishnaji was breathing three times a minute and his heart rate was very low. In my confusion I kept mis-multiplying the pulse beats that I was feeling, which were so faint anyway, and I kept on getting it wrong. Dr. Deutsch could not get over how strong Krishnaji’s body was. Normally what happens when the body slows down in a coma is that the heart rate goes up and the blood pressure goes awry in order to make up for the lack of oxygen. But Krishnaji’s pulse stayed steady, and his blood pressure stayed steady. The doctor’s comment at the time was that Krishnaji had the heart of a racehorse.
At around 11:40 p.m., I suddenly realized that Krishnaji was gone. The heart was still going, the body was still breathing, but there was the most dramatic difference in the overall presence. I can’t explain it other than saying that Krishnaji simply was no longer there, and what was there was like a machine or like an animal that was pushing, driving, but that had lost contact with something greater than the mechanical or the animal. It was just the purely physical that was going on. I don’t think I will ever stop seeing that face. It was drawn and ashen gray, and it was driving hard three breaths a minute, then eventually two, then eventually one, and the pulse became slower and fainter.
At 12:10 a.m. I couldn’t feel his pulse anymore, and I put on the doctor’s stethoscope and listened to his heart, and there was nothing. Still, the body took another breath, and I said to the doctor, “What’s that?” and he explained that it was just a reflex and that it often happened. Mary asked me what time he had died. I said it was 12:10 a.m. Mary had a large, luminous clock behind her back, so I am quite sure of all these times. She told me that he had been born at 12:30 a.m. The body took one final breath, and I looked up at the clock, and it was 12:12 a.m.