"Simon Ings - The Wedding Party" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ings Simon)

He sleeps nude, as usual. It is a warm night, so he has pushed the blankets
back and made do with a sheet. I ease it down, past his shoulders, his
flank, his knees. I resist the temptation to touch, to map his body with my
hands, to relent. He has no choice; nor have I.

You can deaden nerves by acupunctureтАФthatтАЩs the principle behind
the blanket IтАЩm laying over him. ItтАЩs faster than gas anesthetics and safer
too. Except that it sounds unnervingly like a fire as it crackles and crinkles,
tucking itself around his sleeping flesh.

Ta-da!

Dawn breaks and IтАЩm detaching the muscles from his right shoulder
blade, rolling the shoul-der girdle opposite to the direction of the cut to get
the angle. ItтАЩs still not light enough that I can douse the lamps I brought
along, though the heat they give off is wicked, and I need still more light to
safely free and divide the neurovascular bun-dle, where it emerges just
beneath the serratus. Once the clavicleтАЩs free itтАЩs just a matterтАФor it should
beтАФof closing the skin flaps over suction drains. Only itтАЩs the same
problem with this arm as the last; in my hurry IтАЩve made the flaps too short.
So I do what I did last time and saw off the acromion process parallel to the
scapula, to make the wound more flat.

By now IтАЩm exhausted and itтАЩs light outside, so I take another catnap,
then I go back in and turn the lights out and open the curtains. ThereтАЩs a
table under the window and I stand there, luxuri-ating in the cool coming in
through the top of the sash, while I work on his arms, first one, then the
otherтАФdisarticulating the elbows.

The bags IтАЩm using are the cleverest, the scylliated insides sucking
round and close over each body part. Pink goo runs across the seam like a
cartoon smile.

In the afternoon I start on his legs and itтАЩs back-breaking workтАФI
forgot how back-breaking. HeтАЩs tall for the tank, and after careful
measure-ment, IтАЩve plumped for pelvectomy. Work this radical is not
without its sublime moments. Once the iliac vessels are out the way you
can see the sacral nerve roots deep within the pelvis. But for the most part
itтАЩs pure butchery, hacking the mus-cles of his back from the wing of the
ilium.

And on with his blanket again. And a catnap for me.

ItтАЩs dark again by the time the pelvis starts to open.

For two days, the drains do their work. For two days, Redson looks up
at me, wide-eyed, his expression no different to the one he wore when we
drove through Ouistreham. Mouthing. Trying to speak.

For two days, I hunt out things to distract him. Music for him to listen