Candy (10 page)

“Where is the ceiling?”

Uncle Jack looked up at the ceiling.

“Is it up?” Krankeit prompted.

“I’m gonna say up.”

“Where is the floor?”

“It’s down there.”

“Is it up or down?”

Uncle Jack was silent for a few seconds, and then he said, “I’m gonna give up.”

Krankeit pursed his lips reflectively as he framed the proper reply to bring the patient back into a more responsive syndrome, but before he could speak, the door sprang open and a chubby little man, followed by two women, entered the room.

Candy stood up from her chair in astonishment—it was Aunt Ida and her husband Luther, and with them, gaily waving a bunch of tulips, was Livia herself!

“Greetings, Gates!” Livia screamed merrily, laying the flowers on Uncle Jack’s chest and friskily pinching his cheek. “We’ve come to cheer up our little sick boy!”

Ida and Luther, obviously wishing to disassociate themselves from this riotous entrance, hung back decorously at first, then stepped forward.

“Everything all right, Sidney?” asked Luther. “Not too bad?”

Aunt Ida, pale and gaunt, and grimly dressed in black, stared silently at her brother, her eyes glistening lugubriously.

Uncle Jack smiled sweetly in greeting. Not a bit of resistance from
him
if people wanted to call him “Sidney” or “Daddy,” or anything else. And since in their minds he
was
“Sidney” and “Daddy,” and since the real Sidney Christian was in a lost state similar to his own and in no condition to dispute the title, “Uncle Jack”
became
“Sidney” and “Daddy,” and that was the end of it.

Livia had turned to wave hello to Candy, and now, for the first time, noticed the silent Krankeit. “Ah!” she said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

A dark flush of annoyance clouded Krankeit’s features. Ignoring Livia’s brashness, he glanced quickly at his watch. “I have a consultation now,” he informed Candy in a low voice. “I’ll try and stop back here when I’m finished.” Then, with a last look at Uncle Jack, he murmured, “Pity . . . We didn’t even get to sounds and colors.”

“Who’s that Hebe doctor?” Livia said loudly before Krankeit was well out the door.

“Good Grief, Aunt Livia!” Candy flared. “Can’t you ever . . .
keep still?”

“Keep still?” Livia asked in genuine puzzlement.

“Candy’s right,” said Luther. “That was a tactless remark, and he couldn’t possibly not have heard it. Couldn’t you have waited till he was out of the room?”

“Oh my God!” Livia snorted in exasperation. “You’ve got to watch every damn little word with you people. Do you think that’s going to help cheer up Sid, if we all sit around like that mopey Hebe doctor and don’t say anything?”

Aunt Ida, who was arranging the tulips in a vase, sighed and exchanged looks of patient resignation with Candy and her husband—since Jack’s disappearance, Livia had become worse than ever. . . .

“Poor old Sid,” Livia went on. “Nothing to do but lie in bed and look at the four walls. He must be bored stiff.” She was fumbling with a Pan American Airways satchel which she’d brought. “Well, we’ll see if we can’t cheer him up a little bit.”

The others looked on in disapproval at the telltale sound of bottles clinking together in the satchel, but Uncle Jack, who had been supine in his bed, sat up with interest. “I could
do
with a drop of bourbon,” he observed earnestly.

“Not bourbon, old boy,” Livia corrected, extracting two bottles from her satchel and winking lewdly, “Schnapps! Steinhagen from the Tyrol! It’ll juice you to the gills!”

“Now Livia, that’s a darn silly idea to have brought that here,” said Luther, puffing anxiously.

“Nonsense!” Livia snapped. “Just the thing for a hangover. Matter of fact, we could
all
probably stand a quick one. How about it. Ida? Neat or on the rocks? How about it, Can? Think you can scare up some ice cubes in this mausoleum?”

Candy was so angry she could have wept. “This—this is
incredible,”
she said with a tiny stamp of rage.

“Oh really!” said Uncle Jack, sounding very lucid and urbane. “I don’t see how a quick one could possibly do me any harm.” He accompanied this remark with a look of calm severity—not to be gainsaid—in Candy’s direction.

Aunt Livia had brought glasses too, and now set about improvising a bar on a large hospital wheeling-table. “There’s a good girl, Can,” she urged. “Ice cubes! And with all due dispatch! Remember, there’s a brave little sick boy waiting for you to get back with the serum. So hurry! Mush! Mush!”

Candy flounced out of the room and cracked the door shut behind her.

Scarcely knowing where she was going or what she was going to do, she wandered blindly through the immaculate hospital halls. . . . In her mind, of course, was the desire to find Krankeit, but she soon became lost in the labyrinthine passages and stairways, and had no idea where to seek him.

Rounding a corner she faced yet another long corridor. Had she already traversed it? It was identical with the others and she felt the confused beginning sting of tears in her eyes as she started down it. Abruptly, a door on her left opened; a massive red arm reached out, seized her, and drew her into the room. . . .

She was in a kind of dimly lit, oversized closet full of brooms, mops and pails. . . . She stood there, petrified with fright, hardly daring to look at the person who had pulled her so fiercely into this sinister place.

Audrey, the squat, evil-tempered scrubwoman, leaned back against the door and eyed Candy impassively.

“You should excuse me,” she said suddenly, “from yenking your arm so brutal.”

Candy’s arm
did
hurt, and she rubbed the spot ruefully, but she was vastly relieved that the terrifying little woman was merely
talking
to her—she had feared, at first, that her very life might be in danger.

“I wanted to have a chat with you,” Audrey disclosed.

“Certainly,” Candy agreed nervously.

“Just this: LEAVE MINE BOY ALONE!”

“Leave who? I’m afraid I don’t—”

“Please!” cut in the stumpy scrubwoman. “I saw you with mine
Irving!
Lookin’ at him—”

Candy regarded the powerful gray-haired woman with astonishment.

“—like salami wouldn’t melt in your mouth!”

“Irving is your—your ‘boy’?”

“Leave him alone! LEAVE MINE BOY ALONE!”

“Do—do you mean that you are Mrs. Krankeit—Dr. Krankeit’s
mother?”

“Yes. I am Irving’s mother, but Mrs. Krankeit I am not. ‘Krankeit’ is a name that Irving made up because he didn’t like our real name.”

“Made it up? But why, what is your real name?”

“Semite,” the squat little woman gravely replied. “Mrs. Silvia Semite.”

Candy understood. She could guess at the untold hell the name “Irving Semite” must have caused Krankeit as a lad in his student days. But good grief, what a person’s name was wasn’t the
important
thing! She would make him see that. She would show him, when the time came, that she would be proud to become “Candy Semite.”

“Irving changed his name because he’s so sensitive,” the scrubwoman pointed out proudly.

“But I don’t understand. Why are you—” Candy stopped, staring at Mrs. Semite’s soiled workclothes in utter bewilderment.

“You mean this?” and Irving’s mother waved contemptuously at the mops and pails.

“Well . . . yes.”

“It’s so that I can be here, close to mine boy.”

“But . . . but . . .” Candy looked about hopelessly at the brooms and dripping brushes.

“Irving, my son, is a genius,” Mrs. Semite reminded Candy. “I want to be near him, to
see
him—every day. In his office I can’t stay, I know—it ‘embarrasses’ him, and to the patients it looks funny to have his mother always standing there. All right, I understand that.”

“And so you’ve taken on this job in order—in order to be near your son?”

“Exzectly. And no one should know I’m his mother . . . but to you I tell it, because I want you should leave Irving alone. You’re not a nize girl for him!”

Candy looked away self-consciously and steeled herself for what was coming. No doubt Irving’s mother had also heard the story about her and was going to revile her now as Dr. Dunlap had done.

But the older woman had become silent. She was standing with her ear to the wall and seemed to be intently listening to something. . . .

In another instant she sped to a shelf stacked with bars of soap and packages of detergent. Scurrying like a mother squirrel, she moved these objects aside, and presently uncovered a part of the wall where there was a small sliding panel. She cautioned Candy to silence, holding her finger to her lips, then slid the panel open and put her face to the aperture. After a few seconds she turned back toward Candy with a bemused smile on her face. “There he is!” she whispered ecstatically.

Candy stepped to the opening, which seemed to have been intended for a movie-projector window, and found herself gazing down into a good-sized amphitheater. The vast room was empty save for Dr. Dunlap, who was sitting under a strong light in the very center, and Krankeit himself, standing high in the uppermost tier of seats and barely discernible in the shadows.

Dr. Dunlap had a device of some sort clamped to his head: there were electrodes taped to his temples, and wires from them led to a screen coated with some fluorescent material, which stood a few feet before him. On the screen danced a jagged pattern of lines—wave lengths of the electrical impulses of his brain, apparently—and the distinguished-looking doctor, leaning forward slightly, stared wide-eyed at them as if hypnotized.

“Can you give me an ‘all-clear?’” called Krankeit tersely, a small megaphone raised to his mouth.

“All clear!” replied Dunlap, tight-lipped.

“Ready for your little
standby?”
demanded Krankeit.

“Ready for little
standby!”
snapped Dunlap.

Krankeit leaned over into space, his keen eyes riveted to the patterned screen and the flashing instrument panel, as he lifted the miniature megaphone to his lips again.

“Ready for your little
countdown?”

“Ready for little
countdown!”

Krankeit regarded his wristwatch, stared at the sweeping second-hand.

“8. . . 7. . . stand by for standby. . .6. . . ready for ready . . . 5. . . 4. . .
stand by!
. . . 3. . . 2. . . 1! Ready for your big
standby?”
He was practically shouting now, and both men had the intensity of children at a game of magic.

“Ready for big standby!”

“Ready for your big countdown?”

“Ready for big countdown!”

“Stand by!”
shouted Krankeit, and, as he continued, his voice took on an odd metallic quality as though it were coming through a large public-address system: “100 . . . 99 . . . 98 . . . 97 . . . 96 . . . 95 . . . 94 . . . 93 . . . 92 . . . 91 . . . 90 . . . 89 . . . 88 . . . 87 . . . 86 . . . 85 . . . 84 . . . 83 . . . 82 . . . 81 . . . 80 . . . 79 . . . 78 . . . 77 . . . 76 . . . 75 . . . 74 . . . 73 . . . 72 . . . 71 . . . 70 . . . 69 . . . 68 . . . 67 . . . 66 . . . 65 . . . 64 . . . 63 . . . 62 . . . 61. . . 60 . . . 59 . . . 58 . . . 57 . . . 56 . . . 55 . . . 54 . . . 53 . . . 52 . . . 51 . . . 50 . . . 49 . . . 48 . . . 47 . . . 46 . . . 45 . . . 44 . . . 43 . . . 42 . . . 41 . . . 40 . . . 39 . . . 38 . . . 37 . . . 36 . . . 35 . . . 34 . . . 33 . . . 32 . . . 31 . . . 30 . . . 29 . . . 28 . . . 27 . . . 26 . . . 25 . . . 24 . . . 23 . . . 22 . . . 21 . . . 20 . . . 19 . . . 18 . . . 17 . . . 16 . . . 15 . . . 14 . . . 13 . . . 12 . . . 11 . . . 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5! . . . 4! . . . 3! . . . 2! . . . 1 . . . .

JACK OFF!”

Stationed at her tiny window, Candy looked on incredulously at what took place when Krankeit’s thunderous command had ceased echoing in the amphitheater. After a minute she turned weakly from the wall and said, “I think I’d better leave now, if you don’t mind. I’m afraid I’m getting a bit of a headache.”

“Don’t forget what I told you,” said Krankeit’s mother, eying her pugnaciously.
“Leave Irving alone!”

She wandered again in the maze of white corridors, trying to find her way back to the sickroom. Walking slowly, she considered the outlandish things that had been happening to her—the scene with Dr. Dunlap, the strange meeting with Mrs. Semite, and now, this upsetting incident she’d witnessed in the amphitheater. She’d heard about Krankeit’s unprecedented theories from the nurse, of course, but seeing them put to practice had been something of a shock. She was disturbed, bewildered, and, more than anything else, she was terribly tired. She dabbed her moist forehead with a hanky and wished she could sit down. . . .

A few minutes later a burst of wild laughter, coming from one of the rooms, told her where the others were.

She opened the door and was presented with the spectacle of Uncle Jack and Luther performing a primitive dance together.

“Daddy” had gotten out of bed in his bathrobe and turban of bandages, and he and Luther were grunting and shuffle-stamping about each other in American Indian style. Luther was in his undershirt, and from time to time, would lock his hands behind his neck and do an obscene wiggle like a burlesque dancer. It was the sight of this bald little roly-poly man doing bumps and grinds in his undershirt that was provoking Livia’s hilarious shrieking.

Obviously, they hadn’t waited for Candy to return with the ice cubes to begin their merrymaking.

Seated in a corner, Aunt Ida—insanely calm—was reading a hospital-bound copy of
Popular Mechanics.

When they saw Candy standing in the doorway, the men abruptly ceased their barbaric squirming and changed to a chaste and stately minuet. Uncle Jack bowing sedately and fat little Luther doing a charming curtsy.

“Too much! Too
much!”
Livia howled, falling on the bed helplessly.

Good Grief! Candy thought. They’ve gotten completely hysterical!

The two men soon tired of doing the minuet and reverted to their primitive technique—Luther scuffling around the room on his knees, Uncle Jack war-whooping and stamping his feet.