"Noah's Compass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tyler Anne)2He knew it was a hospital room because of the medical apparatus crowded around his bed-the IV pole and the tubes and the blinking, chirping monitor-and because of the bed itself, which was cranked to a half-sitting position and had that uniquely uncomfortable, slick, hard hospital mattress. The ceiling could only be a hospital ceiling, with its white acoustic tiles pocked and cratered like the moon, and nowhere else would you find the same sterile taupe metal furniture. He knew his head was bandaged even before he reached up a hand to touch it, because the gauze covered his ears and turned the chirping of the monitor into a distant peep. But not until he reached did he realize that his hand was bandaged also. A wide strip of adhesive tape encircled his left palm, and in fact his palm stung sharply across the padded part now that he thought about it. Exactly where his head was injured, though, he couldn’t tell. It ached uniformly all over, a relentless, dull throbbing that seemed connected to his vision, because looking at the blinking lights of the monitor made it worse. He knew from the square of pearly white sky framed by the plate-glass window that it must be daytime. But which day? And what hour of the day? Any second now an explanation would occur to him. There had to be one. He had fallen down some stairs or he’d been in a car wreck. But when he searched his mind for his last available memory (which took a distressingly long moment), all he could find was the image of going to sleep in his new apartment. His new apartment’s address was 102C Windy Pines Court; what a relief to be able to produce that. His new phone number was… oh, Lord. He couldn’t recall. But that was understandable, wasn’t it? The number had been assigned to him only a week ago. The exchange was 882. Or maybe 822. Or 828. He gave up the search for his phone number and returned to the image of falling asleep. He tried to invent a next act. So: in the morning he had awakened, let’s say. He might have wondered where he was for an instant, but then he’d oriented himself, gotten out of bed, headed toward his new bathroom… It didn’t work. He drew a blank. All he could remember was lying on his back in the dark, appreciating his sheets. A nurse came in, or maybe an aide; hard to tell, these days. She was young and plump and freckled, and she wore baby-blue pants and a white smock printed with teddy bears. She punched a button on the monitor and it stopped chirping. Then she leaned over his face, too close. “Oh!” she said. “You’re awake.” “What happened?” he asked her. “I’ll tell them at the desk,” she said. She went off again. He could see now that a tube ran from the IV pole to his right arm. He sensed that he had a catheter, too. He was fastened down like Gulliver, trapped by cords and wires. A flutter of panic started rising in his chest, but he subdued it by gazing steadily out the open door, where a blond wooden handrail followed the corridor wall in a predictable and calming way. Surgery. Maybe he’d had surgery. Anesthesia could do this to you-wipe out any sense that time had passed while you were unconscious. He remembered that from his tonsillectomy, fifty-odd years ago. But he had awakened from the tonsillectomy with a clear recall of going under, and of the hours leading up to it. It had been nothing like this. Another nurse, or some such person, entered so swiftly that she set up a breeze. This was an older woman but her smock was equally ambiguous, patterned all over with smiley faces. “Mmhmm.” “What’s wrong with me?” “Concussion,” she said. She slipped the penlight back in her pocket and turned to check the monitor. “You got a little bump on the noggin.” “I don’t remember anything about it,” he told her. “Well, there you are, then. That’s what concussion does to people.” “I mean I don’t remember being in a situation where I could “Did you maybe fall out of bed?” she asked him. “Fall out of bed! At my age?” “Well, I don’t know. I just came on duty. Let’s ask your daughter.” “I have a daughter here? Which one?” “Dark hair? A little bit curly? I think she went to the cafeteria. But I’ll try and track her down for you.” She checked something at the side of the bed-his catheter bag, he supposed-and then left. It was absurdly comforting to know that a daughter was here. The very word was comforting: Even if she He closed his eyes and fell off a cliff, into a sleep that felt like drowning in feathers. When he woke up, a bearded man was prying open his eyelids. “I’m Dr. Wood,” the bearded man told Liam. “The hospitalist.” Hospitalist? “Mr. Pennywell, do you know where you are?” “I have no idea where I am,” Liam said. “What day is it, then?” “I don’t know that either,” Liam said. “I just woke up! You’re asking impossible questions.” Xanthe said, “Dad, Liam grimaced. “He’s not “Dad-” Liam said, “Look here, Dr. Wood, I should be asking the questions. I’m completely in the dark! I went to bed last night-or some night; I wake up in a hospital room! What happened?” Dr. Wood glanced at Xanthe. It was possible that he didn’t know himself what had happened-or had already forgotten, in the crush of his other patients. At any rate, Xanthe was the one who finally answered. “You were injured by an intruder,” she told Liam. “An intruder?” “He must have gotten in through the patio door, which, incidentally, you left unlocked for any passing Tom, Dick, or Harry to waltz through as the whim overtook him.” “An intruder was in my “I guess you struggled or shouted or something, because the neighbors heard a commotion, but by the time the police came the man had fled.” “I was there for this? I was conscious? I was fighting off an attack?” He felt a deep chill down the back of his neck, and it wasn’t from the air conditioning. “They need to keep you here a while for observation,” Xanthe told him. “That’s why they’ve been waking you so often to ask you questions.” It was news to Liam that he had been awakened often, but he didn’t want to admit to yet another failure of memory. “Have they caught the man?” he asked her. “Not yet.” “He’s still out there?” Before she could answer, Dr. Wood said, “Sit up for me, please, Mr. Pennywell.” Then he led Liam through a series of exercises that made him feel foolish. Raise this arm; raise that arm; touch his own nose; follow Dr. Wood’s finger with his eyes. Xanthe stood to one side, narrowly watchful, as the soles of his bare feet were scraped with a pointed object. During the whole process, Dr. Wood remained expressionless. “How am I?” Liam was forced to ask finally. Dr. Wood said, “We’ll need to keep you here another night just to be on the safe side. But if all goes well, we can release you tomorrow.” “Tomorrow!” Xanthe said. “Are you serious? Look at him! He’s weak as a kitten! He looks like death warmed over!” “Oh, that will change,” the doctor said offhandedly. He told Liam, “Nothing to eat today but liquids, I’m afraid, in case we have to take you very suddenly to the OR.” Then he nodded in Xanthe’s direction and left the room. “Typical,” Xanthe muttered when he’d gone. “First he says they’re booting you out and then in the same breath he says you may need emergency brain surgery.” She spun away with a flounce of her skirt. Liam feared for a moment that she was leaving too, but she was only going over to the corner for a green vinyl chair. She dragged it closer to his bed and plunked herself down in it. “I hope you’re satisfied,” she told Liam. “Well, not completely,” he said drily. “I knew you shouldn’t have moved to that place. Didn’t I tell you when you signed the lease? A sixty-year-old man in a rinky-dink starter apartment directly across from a shopping mall! And then to leave your door wide open! What did you expect?” He hadn’t left his door wide open. And he hadn’t meant to leave it unlocked. He hadn’t known it “A sixty-year-old man,” Xanthe said, “who can still move all his belongings in the very smallest size U-Haul.” “Next smallest,” he murmured. “Whose so-called car is a Geo Prizm. A used Geo Prizm. And who, when he gets hit on the head, nobody knows where his people are.” “How “The police called. They’ll be in to question you later, they said. They got my number from your address book; I was the only entry with the same last name as yours. I had to hear it over the phone! At two o’clock in the morning! If you don’t think He was accustomed to Xanthe’s rants. They were sort of a hobby of hers. Funny: she was so completely different from her mother, his first wife-a waifish, fragile musician with a veil of transparent hair. Millie had taken too many pills when Xanthe was not yet two. It was his second wife who’d ended up raising Xanthe, and his second wife whom she resembled-brown haired and sturdy and normal-looking, pleasantly unexceptional-looking. He wondered sometimes if genetic traits could be altered by osmosis. “And here’s the worst of it,” Xanthe was saying. “You invite a known drug addict into your home and give him total access.” “Excuse me?” he said. He was startled. Had there been some whole other episode he had lost to his amnesia? “Damian O’Donovan. What were you thinking?” “Damian… “Kitty’s drug-addict, slacker boyfriend whom none of us trust for an instant. Mom won’t even let them be alone in the house together.” “Well, of course she won’t,” Liam said. “They’re seventeen years old. But Damian’s not a drug addict.” “Dad. How can these things slip your mind? He was suspended last year for smoking pot backstage in the school auditorium.” “That doesn’t make him an addict.” “He was suspended for a week! But you: you’re such a patsy. You choose to forget all about it. You say, ‘Oh, here, Damian, let me show you where I live. Let me point out my flimsy patio door that I plan to leave unlocked.’ In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he unlocked that door himself while he was there, just so he could get back in and mug you.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Liam said. “He’s a perfectly harmless kid. A little… vacant, maybe, but he would never-” “I don’t want to say you had it coming,” Xanthe said, “but mark my words, Dad: ‘Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.’ Harry Truman.” “The past,” Liam said reflexively. “What?” “‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ And it’s George Santayana.” Xanthe gazed at him stonily, her eyes the same opaque dark brown as her stepmother’s. “I’m going to find someplace where my cell phone works and let the others know how you’re doing,” she said. Even though she could be a bit wearing, he was sorry to see her leave. His head was pounding so hard that it made a sound inside his ears like approaching footsteps. His injured palm was stinging, and something seemed to be wrong with his neck. A twisty pain ran down the left side. He had fought with someone? Physically struggled? Let’s try this again: he had gone to bed in his new bedroom. He had felt grateful for his firm mattress, his resilient pillow, his tightly tucked top sheet. He had looked out the window and seen the stars sprinkled above the pine boughs. Then what? Then what? Then what? His lost memory was like a physical object just beyond his grasp. He could feel the strain in his head. It made the throbbing even worse. Okay, just let it go. It would come to him in good time. He closed his eyes and slid toward sleep, almost all the way but not quite. Part of him was listening for Xanthe. What was she telling her sisters? It would be nice if she were saying, “Such a scare; we almost lost him. I’ve been out of my mind with worry.” Although more likely it was “Can you believe what he’s done But it wasn’t his fault! he wanted to say. For once, he wasn’t to blame! He knew his daughters thought he was hopeless. They said he didn’t pay attention. They claimed he was obtuse. They rolled their eyes at each other when he made the most innocent remark. They called him Mr. Magoo. At St. Dyfrig once, invited to view a poem on the English department’s computer, he had clicked on How to listen and been disappointed to find mere technical instructions for playing the audio version. What he had been hoping for was advice on how to listen to poetry-and, by extension, how to listen, He was hopeless. His daughters were right. He reached for sleep as if it were a blanket that he could hide underneath, and finally he managed to catch hold of it. When he opened his eyes, a policeman was standing at his bedside-a muscular young man in full uniform. “Mr. Pennywell?” he was saying. He already had his ID card in hand, not that one was needed. Nobody would mistake him for anything but a cop. His white shirt was so crisp that it hurt to look at it, and the weight of his gun and his radio and his massive black leather belt would have sunk him like a stone if he had fallen into any water. “Like to ask a few questions,” he said. Liam struggled to sit up, and something like a brick slammed into his left temple. He groaned and eased himself back against his pillow. The policeman, oblivious, was tucking away his ID. (If he had given his name, he must have done so before Liam woke up.) He took a small notebook from his breast pocket, along with a ballpoint pen, and said, “I understand you left your back door unlocked.” “That’s what they tell me.” “Pardon?” “That’s what they tell me, I said!” He had thought he was speaking quite loudly, but it was hard to know for sure inside all that gauze. “And when did you retire?” the man asked, writing something down. “I’m not exactly calling it retirement yet.” “Pardon?” “I’m not exactly calling it retirement yet! I’ll have to see how my money holds out.” “When did you go to “Oh.” Liam reflected for a moment. “Wasn’t that last night?” The policeman consulted his notebook. “Last night, yes,” he said. “Saturday, June tenth.” “You called it ‘the night of the incident.’” “Right,” the man said, looking puzzled. “It was your wording, you see, that caused me to wonder.” “Caused you to wonder what, Mr. Pennywell?” “I meant…” Liam gave up. “I don’t know when I went to bed,” he said. “Early, though.” “Early. Say eight?” “Eight!” Liam was scandalized. The policeman made another notation. “Eight o’clock. And how soon after that would you guess you fell asleep?” he asked. “I would never go to bed at eight!” “You just said-” “I said ‘early,’ but I didn’t mean that early.” “Well, when, then?” “Nine, maybe,” Liam told him. “Or, I don’t know. What: you want me to make something up? I don’t know what time! I’m completely at a loss here, don’t you see? I don’t remember a thing!” The policeman crossed out his last notation. He closed his notebook in an ostentatiously patient and deliberate way and slid it into his pocket. “Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll check with you in a few days. Oftentimes a thing like this comes back to folks by and by.” “Let’s hope so,” Liam said. “Pardon?” “Let’s hope it comes back!” The policeman made a sort of gesture, half wave and half salute, and left. Let’s hope so, dear Lord in heaven. Even if it were some violent, upsetting scene (well, of course it would be violent and upsetting), he needed to retrieve it. He thought of those slapstick comedies where a character is beaned and conks out and forgets his own name; then he’s somehow beaned again and magically he remembers. Although even the thought of another blow to his head caused Liam to wince. Too late, he realized that he should have asked the policeman some questions of his own. Had any of his belongings been stolen? Damaged? What state was his apartment in? Maybe Xanthe would know. He turned cautiously onto his side so that he was facing the doorway, watching for her return. Where But the next steps he heard were the squeegee soles of a tall skinny aide with a tray. “Supper,” she told him. “What time is it?” he asked. (The sky outside his window was still bright.) She threw a glance at a giant wall clock that he somehow hadn’t noticed before. Five twenty-five, she did not bother saying. She set his tray on a wheeled table and rolled it toward him. Jell-O, a steel pot dangling a tea-bag tab, and a plastic cup of apple juice. She left without another word. Inch by inch he hauled himself up and reached for the juice. It was sealed with a tight foil lid that turned out to be beyond him. Pulling it completely off took more strength than he could muster just now, and the harder he tried the more mess he made, because he had to squeeze the cup with his bandaged hand and the plastic kept squashing inward and spilling. Finally he lay back, exhausted. He wasn’t hungry, anyhow. The distressing thing about losing a memory, he thought, was that it felt like losing control. Something had happened, something significant, and he couldn’t say how he’d comported himself. He didn’t know if he had been calm, or terrified, or angry. He didn’t know if he’d acted cowardly or heroic. And here he’d always taken such pride in his total recall! He could quote entire passages from the Stoics-in the original Greek, if need be. Although remembering a personal event, he supposed, was somewhat different. He had never been the type who dwelt on bygones. He believed in moving on. (He used to tell his daughters, any time they threw one of those tiresome blame-the-parents fits, that people who are true adults do not keep rehashing their childhoods.) Still, this was the first time he had experienced an actual gap. A hole, it felt like. A hole in his mind, full of empty blue rushing air. He had lain down in his new bedroom. He had felt grateful for his firm mattress and his bouncy foam-rubber pillow. His tucked-in top sheet, the open window, the stars beyond the pines… By morning, the ache in his head had grown more localized. It was specific to his left temple. He believed he could detect a goose egg there, not from the contour of it, since his bandage was so thick, but from the way a certain spot leapt into full-blown pain before the surrounding area when he pressed tentatively with his fingers. There was still no sign of Xanthe. Had she come and gone again while he was sleeping? A stream of other people passed through, though. A woman took his vital signs; another brought him breakfast. (Toast and eggs and cornflakes; he must have graduated to solids.) A third woman freed him of his IV tube and his catheter, after which he tottered into the bathroom on his own. In the mirror, he looked like a derelict. The white gauze helmet gave his skin a yellowish cast, and he had a stubble of gray whiskers on his cheeks and bags under his eyes. Of course his scalp wound was impossible to see, but once he was safely in bed again he set to work unwinding the adhesive tape from his hand. Underneath he found blood-spotted gauze. Under that, two inches of coarse black stitches curved across his swollen and discolored palm. He was sorry now that he’d looked. He replaced the tape as best he could and lay back and stared at the ceiling. If his attacker had knocked him out while he slept, the knot on his head would have been his only injury. It was clear, then, that he must have been awake. Either that, or he had awakened as soon as he heard a noise. He must have raised a hand to protect himself. The woman who’d brought his breakfast tray returned for it and tut-tutted. “Now, how you going to get your strength back, not eating more than this?” she asked him. “I did drink the coffee.” “Right; Encouraged, he said, “I wonder if I could have a phone in my room.” “You don’t have no phone?” “No, and I need to call my daughter.” “I’ll tell them at the desk,” she said. But the next woman who entered carried a compartmented box of medical supplies. “I’m Dr. Rodriguez,” she told him. “I’m going to change your dressings before we send you home.” “Well, but my daughter’s not here,” he said. “Your daughter.” “How will I get home on my own?” “You won’t. You’re not allowed. Somebody has to drive you. And somebody has to keep an eye on you for the next forty-eight hours.” She set her supplies on his table and selected a pair of scissors sealed in cellophane. Liam doubted that she was past thirty. Her glowing olive skin lacked the slightest wrinkle, and her hair was inky black. Maybe you needed to be older to realize that it wasn’t always easy to find someone who would stick around for forty-eight hours at a stretch. He closed his eyes while she snipped at the gauze around his head, and then he felt a coolness and lightness as she pried it away. “Hmm,” she said, once it was off. She peered closely, pursing her lips. “What’s it look like?” She slid a drawer from beneath his table. For a moment he thought she was leaving his question unanswered, but it turned out she wanted to show him his reflection in a little pop-up mirror. He saw first a flash of his neck (old!) and then the side of his head, his short gray hair shaved away to reveal a purple swelling on his scalp and a shallow V of black threads dotted with dried blood. “Fairly clean edges,” the doctor said, folding away the mirror. “That’s good.” She unwrapped a square of gauze and stuck it in place with adhesive tape-no more helmet. “Your primary-care physician can take the stitches out. We’ll give you written instructions when you leave. Now let me see your hand.” He held it up, and she unwound the tape without much interest and applied a fresh strip. “I’ll write a prescription for pain pills too,” she said, “just in case you need them.” She dumped the old dressings, the paper wrappers, and even the scissors into a red plastic bin. The scissors clattered so loudly that they hurt his head. Such wastefulness! Not even recycled! But he had more important things to discuss. “Is it all right to go home in a taxi?” he asked. “Absolutely not. Somebody should be with you. Do you not have anybody? Should we be getting in touch with the social worker?” For a minute he thought she was referring to Xanthe, who happened to be a social worker herself. When he realized his mistake, he flushed and said, “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.” “Well, good luck,” she told him. She picked up her box of supplies and walked out. As soon as she was gone, he pressed the call button on his bed rail. “Yes?” a voice crackled from some invisible spot. “Could I have a telephone, please?” “I’ll ask.” He sank back on his pillow and closed his eyes. How could he have ended up so alone? Two failed marriages (for he had to count Millie’s death as a failure), three daughters who led their own lives, and a sister he seldom spoke to. The merest handful of friends-more like acquaintances, really. A promising youth that had somehow trailed off in a series of low-paying jobs far beneath his qualifications. Why, that last job had used about ten percent of his brain! And he should have stood up for himself when they fired him. He should have pointed out that if they really needed to reduce the two fifth-grade classes to one, he ought to be the teacher they kept. He was way, way senior to Brian Medley. Brian was hired just two years ago! But instead he’d tried to put a good face on it. He’d tried to make Mr. Fairborn feel less guilty for letting him go. “Certainly,” he had said. “I understand completely.” And he had packed up his desk drawers when no one else was around to feel discomfited by the sight. Why make a scene? he had asked when Bundy voiced his outrage. “No sense clinging to resentments,” he’d said. He must not even have clothes to go home in. Not day clothes, at least; just pajamas. He was naked and alone and unprotected and unloved. Well, this was just a mood he was in, created by current circumstances. He knew it wouldn’t last. Before they could bring him a telephone-if they ever planned to-his ex-wife arrived. Cheery and purposeful, hugging a paper grocery bag from which his favorite blue shirt poked forth, she breezed in already talking. “My goodness, what it takes to track a person down in this place! The switchboard said one room, the reception desk said another…” Liam felt so relieved he was speechless. He stared round-eyed from his bed, clinging to the sight of her. She was a medium sort of woman, medium in every way. Medium-length curly brown hair finely threaded with gray, medium-weight figure, and that lipstick-only makeup style that’s meant not to draw attention to itself. Her clothes always looked slightly unkempt-the belt of her shirtwaist dress, today, rode inches above her waistline-but she would have gone unremarked in almost any gathering. He used to have trouble recalling her face when they were dating. This had seemed a plus, he remembered. Enough of those lovely, poetic, ethereal women who haunted a person’s dreams! “It’s good to see you, Barbara,” he told her finally. Then he had to clear his throat. “How are you feeling?” “I’m okay.” “Awful experience,” she said blithely. “I can’t imagine what the world is coming to.” She sat down on the green vinyl chair and started rummaging through her bag, producing first the blue shirt and then a pair of over-the-calf black silk socks, not what he would have chosen to wear with the khakis she drew out next. “If you can’t sleep safely in your own bed-” Liam cleared his throat again. He said, “I don’t think it was Damian, though.” “Damian?” “Xanthe believes Damian was the one who clobbered me.” Barbara waved a hand and then bent to set his black dress shoes on the floor beside the bed. “I’m sure I brought underpants,” she murmured, peering into the bag. “Ah. Here they are. Well, you know Xanthe. She thinks pot’s the first step to perdition.” Barbara used to smoke a bit of pot herself, Liam recalled. She could surprise you sometimes. For all her medium looks and her stodgy school-librarian job, she’d had a fondness for rock music and she used to dance to it like a woman possessed, pumping the air with her soft white fists and sending her bobby pins flying in every direction. This was back in the days when they were still together, before she gave up on him and filed for divorce. Strange how distinctly, though, that image all at once presented itself. Maybe it was a side effect of the concussion. “Do you still like Crack the Sky?” Liam asked her. “What?” she said. “Oh, mercy, I haven’t listened to Crack the Sky in ages! I’m sixty-two years old. Put your clothes on, will you? Heaven only knows when they’ll spring you, but you might as well be ready once they do.” From the way she held out his underpants, stretching the waistband invitingly and cocking both her pinkies, it seemed she might be expecting him to step into them then and there. But he took them from her and gathered the rest of his clothes and padded off to the bathroom, clutching his hospital gown shut behind him with his free hand. “After we get you settled at home,” she called from her chair, “the girls and I will keep in touch by telephone to see that you’re okay.” “Just by telephone?” he asked. “Well, and Kitty’s going to come spend the night with you as soon as she gets off work. She’s found herself a summer job filing charts in our dentist’s office.” “Your dentist’s open on Sunday?” “It’s Monday.” “Oh.” “We’ll phone and ask if you know your name, just to make sure you’re “That could happen to anyone! I just lost track, is all.” He had to sit on the toilet lid to put his socks on; his balance seemed a bit off. And bending down made his head throb. “They told us you should be under constant observation, but this is the best we can manage,” he heard through the slit in the door. “Xanthe works such impossible hours, and Louise of course has Jonah.” She didn’t say why “Forty-eight hours is the amount of time they told us,” she said. She bent for a shoe and, without being asked, fitted it onto his foot and tugged the laces snug and tied them. He felt well-tended and submissive, like a child. She said, “I did call your sister. Has she been in touch?” “This room doesn’t have a phone.” “Well, she’ll probably call once you’re home. I told her you’d be discharged today. She wants you to get a burglar alarm as soon as possible.” He nodded, not bothering to argue, and raised his other foot. Then there was a period of limbo while they waited for his paperwork. Barbara took a crossword puzzle from her grocery bag, and Liam lay back on the bed, shoes and all, and stared at the ceiling. The few times he’d been hospitalized before, he could hardly wait to leave, he remembered. He’d pressed his call button repeatedly and kept sending whoever was with him out to the nurses’ station to see what the holdup was. But now he was grateful for the delay. At least here, he wasn’t alone. He felt lazy and content, and the sound of Barbara’s pencil whispering across the paper almost put him to sleep. Imagine he was a man who lived in the hospital permanently. He’d been born here and he had somehow never left. His meals, his clothes, his activities-all taken care of. No wonder, therefore, he had forgotten how he had arrived! He had been here all along; this was the sum of his world. There was nothing more to remember. Eventually, though, a nurse came with his prescriptions and instructions. She perched on the very edge of his bed, giving off a smell of mouthwash, and went over the doctor’s orders line by line. “You can’t be alone for the next two days, and you can’t drive your car for a week,” she said. “A week!” “Longer than that if you experience the slightest sense of vertigo.” “You’re being unreasonable,” Liam told her. “And it’s crucial to complete the full course of antibiotics. There is nothing on earth more septic than the bite of another human being.” “A what?” he said. “A bite?” “The bite on your hand.” “I was A sickish zoom hit the bottom of his stomach, as if an elevator had dropped. Even Barbara looked taken aback. “Well, not on purpose, maybe,” the nurse said. “But from the shape of the wound, they think you must have flailed out and made contact with the other guy’s teeth.” She gave him a smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. “So it is very, very important to take these pills for the full ten days,” she said. “Not nine days, not eight days…” Liam lay back and covered his eyes with his good hand. On purpose or not, there was something so… intimate about a stranger’s biting him. After that they had the usual endless wait for a wheelchair, and Barbara used the time to go off to the hospital pharmacy and get his prescriptions filled. Liam picked up her crossword puzzle and studied it while she was gone. It was nearly eleven a.m.-Barbara long back from the pharmacy and deep in a novel-before an orderly arrived with a wheelchair and they were free to go. Shifting from the bed to the wheelchair made Liam realize that he didn’t have his wallet. He missed the pressure of that slight bulge in his rear pocket when he sat. “How did they admit me?” he asked Barbara. “What do you mean?” she said. She was trotting down the hall behind him, keeping pace with the orderly. “I mean, without my insurance card and ID.” “Oh, Xanthe gave them the information once she got here. I have your insurance card now in my purse; don’t let me forget to return it.” He pictured how it must have been-his flaccid, unaware form heaved onto a stretcher, loaded into an ambulance, trundled through the emergency room. It was the most unsettling sensation. “Depending on the kindness of strangers,” he said. “Excuse me?” “Nothing.” But as soon as they were alone-as soon as she’d brought her car around and the orderly had settled him inside it-he told her, “I hate, hate, hate not remembering how this happened.” “It’s probably just as well,” she said. She was fumbling in her pocketbook, and she sounded distracted. He waited until she’d paid at the parking booth before he spoke again. “It is “You don’t have any recollection whatsoever? Like, hearing a suspicious noise? Seeing somebody in the doorway?” “Nothing.” “Maybe it will come back to you when you get into bed tonight.” “Ah,” he said. He thought about it. “Yes, that makes sense.” “You know how sometimes you dream about someone, and you forget you dreamed at all but then you happen to see that person and this sort of inkling will flit across your mind…” “Yes, it’s possible,” Liam said. They stopped for a traffic light, and he suddenly felt impatient to be home. He would lie down on his bed immediately and see if the memory wafted up from his pillow the way his past dreams often did. Probably nothing would come until dark, but it wouldn’t hurt to try earlier. “If it were me, though,” Barbara said, “I’d be happier not knowing.” “You say that now. I bet you wouldn’t feel that way if it really happened.” “And how about your nerves? Do you really think you’ll be able to sleep comfortably in that apartment again?” “Of course,” he said. She sent him such a long doubtful glance that the car behind them honked; the light had changed to green. “I’d be terrified, myself,” she said as she stepped on the gas. “Well, I “There’s a thingamajig, I believe. We’ll look.” This implied that she would be coming in with him, and he was happy to hear it. It wasn’t fear of another break-in he felt so much as distrust of his own capabilities. He had lost his self-confidence. He wasn’t sure anymore that he was fully in charge. Intruders were the least of his worries. Barbara parked in the proper lot without his directing her. Obviously she had grown familiar with his apartment. And she had his keys in her purse-his worn calfskin key case with his car key and his door key. She took them out as she was waiting for him to inch forth from the passenger seat. (Standing up too fast made his head go spacey.) “Want an arm?” she asked him, but he said, “I’m all right.” And he was, once he’d waited for the amoebas to clear from his vision. The pine needles gave off a nice toasty scent in the sunshine, but the foyer smelled as cold and basement-like as ever. Barbara unlocked his front door and then stood back to let him go first. “Now, the girls and I did clean up a little,” she said. “Did it need it?” “Well, somewhat.” He wasn’t sure what she meant when he first entered, because the living room looked just the way he’d left it: more or less in order if you didn’t count the few unpacked cartons lined up along one wall. He moved down the hall past the den, Barbara close on his heels, and saw nothing different there, either. But when he reached the bedroom, he found a runner of brown wrapping paper on the carpet leading toward the bed. And the bed was fitted with linens that he had never seen before-an anemic light-blue blanket, slightly pilled, and sheets sprinkled with flowers. He had avoided patterned sheets ever since a childhood fever in which the polka dots on his sheets had swarmed like insects. “We rented one of those carpet shampooers from the supermarket,” Barbara said. “But the carpet’s not completely dry yet; you’ll have to walk on the paper a while. And your sheets and blanket were, well, I’m sorry; we put them in the trash. I didn’t know where you kept your extras.” “Oh,” he said. “I see.” He stood there in a daze, looking slowly from bed to window to closet. Everything seemed benign and ordinary and somehow not quite his own. But maybe that was because it “Was anything taken?” he asked. “We don’t think so, but you’re the only one who’ll be able to say for sure. The police are going to come back and interview you later. We did see that the drawer was yanked out in that table between the armchairs, and there wasn’t anything in it but we didn’t know if that meant something was missing or you just hadn’t filled it yet.” “No, it was empty,” he said. He walked into the room, his shoes scuffing across the brown paper, and sat on the edge of the bed and continued gazing around him. Barbara watched from the doorway. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “Yes, fine.” “Really the police made more mess than the burglar, I think. And the ambulance people.” “Well, it was nice of you to clean up,” he said. His lips moved woodenly, as if they too were not quite his own. “Louise was the one who rented the carpet shampooer; Louise and Dougall. You might want to offer to pay them back; you know they’re not rolling in money.” “Yes, certainly,” Liam said. “Are you sure you’re all right, Liam?” “Of course.” “I’d be happy to get you something before I go.” She was going? “A cup of coffee, or tea,” she said. “Or maybe a bowl of soup.” “No, thanks,” he said. The thought of food made him want to gag. “Okay, then. I’ll put your insurance card here on the bureau. Don’t forget to take your pills.” “I’ll remember.” She hesitated. Then she said, “Well, so, Kitty should be here around six. And meanwhile you have my number in case anything goes wrong.” “Thank you, Barbara.” She left. He sat motionless until he heard the front door shut, and then he lifted his feet onto the bed and lay back. His pillowcase smelled of some unfamiliar detergent. And the pillow inside was unfamiliar as well-filled with feathers or goose down, something that sank in and stayed there. He knew that he should be thankful to Barbara for even this much. It wasn’t as if she were responsible for him any longer. But hadn’t she promised to check the lock on the patio door? Outside his window he saw pine boughs, almost black even in daylight, and a sky as blue as bottle glass. No stars, of course. Nothing connected with that night. He must get up. He had things to do. He would fix himself a nice lunch and force himself to eat it. He would find out which box his linens were in and set them out on the daybed for Kitty. Maybe finish his unpacking, too. Break down the last of the cartons for the recycling bin. But he went on lying there, looking not at the window now but at the bedroom door, and summoning up the image of a hulking figure emerging from darkness. Or a small, slight, sneaky figure. Or maybe two figures; why only one? Nothing came. His mind was a blank. He had heard that expression a thousand times, |
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