The Man Who Was Left Behind (15 page)

I thanked the driver, paid him, and tried to make him understand that he was to wait. But it was too difficult, and both men waved hands at me, telling me to forget whatever was bothering me and go inside.

There were one or two bare lightbulbs in the hallway, and several turnings. I tripped over a stepladder as we came around a corner. The next corridor had just been painted cream-colour and there was paint-spotted canvas down on the floor. I couldn’t smell paint, but it must have been in the air, because though normally I like the smell of paint, I wanted to throw up again.

“The physician,” the doorkeeper said, opened a door for me, and continued on down the hall. A thin, neat man with a goatee walked towards me, shook my hand, and took me into the room. He sat me down on a chair and himself on another. I pointed to my head and told him that the nose was destroyed.

“Ici?”
he said, and before I knew what he had in mind,
grabbed my nose in his fingers. I fell backwards in the chair and screamed.

The next I saw of him, he was washing his hands in a basin across the room, a different room, and I was lying on a couch, with a sort of mask across my face and over my nose.

He gave me a bottle of pills and spent about ten minutes filling out forms, and I paid him on the spot and asked how long the splints and bandages had to stay on. Then he wrote an extremely beautiful letter of explanation which, apparently, I would be able to present to a doctor in Athens. It looked just like the left-hand side of the Loeb Classics and I was fascinated by the speed with which it was done. He put it in an envelope, which I was to keep, and then he gave me change and settled the costs. It seemed quite reasonable.

Going back in the taxi to the hotel I couldn’t believe it was the same night. I didn’t take the trouble to look at my watch. No time shown on it could match my impression of how late it was. To look at it would have given me the feeling of being cheated by reality, which I had had when I looked in the wardrobe mirror and did not see my head gaping open in front of me.

The desk clerk and his bouncer friend were full of admiration for my changed appearance. I tried to look happy about it, too, and said thank you to them, and made my way up the stairs.

The first flight was all right. The second flight was like the ascent of the Matterhorn. My eyes were beginning to get shell-shock from looking at so many palm trees and so many Persian patterns on the rug. But coming into the lighted, empty room was the worst of all.

I took off my jacket, and remembering by the weight of it that the icon was still in the pocket, took it out and unwrapped it and stood it up against the window on the
ledge, like a wayside crucifix where an accident has taken place. So much for a patron saint, I thought. Then I went into the bathroom and got something to clean up the floor. It hurt to bend down.

I slept on top of the bed in my shirt and pants, not even bothering to take off my socks. I slept and woke and slept and woke again.

One month to see if the pieces could be put back together again. And then if not, back to the court. “The expense!” she had said. But what did it matter? If it was going to be final, everything would be ruined anyhow. And afterwards the lawyers, and the price of two households, and when would either of us afford a vacation again?

This is the end of the line, I thought. I remembered Butterworth and thought how little he knew of what was in store for him, for both of them if things worked out. They hadn’t come to the stage of having children, worrying about money, schools, false friends, being thirty with nothing to show for it except the feeling that you would soon be forty. And then you’re forty and still nothing to show for it. But that hadn’t happened to me either yet, not quite. Would it happen to them? Eleven years falling into the machinery and being caught in it with all the wheels going around and tearing you to pieces, and then one day instead of being rescued, the factory suddenly closes down. There you still are, caught in a monster machine, but all motion has gone out of it.

In the morning she knocked at the door. “Are you there?” she called.

No, I’m somewhere else.

She knocked again.

I answered, “Yes.” The sound went clanging through my head, the voice totally different. She opened the door.

“It’s still all dark in here,” she said. Then she noticed
that I was lying on top of the bed with my clothes still on. She came closer.

“What’s happened? What’s that thing on your face?”

“You broke my nose,” I said.

“I what?”

“Last night. You pushed me away and sort of lashed at me with your arm. I fell right into that stone thing. The edge of the shelf there, under the window.”

“What?” she said again. I had been mumbling because it hurt less. She came to the bed and I repeated the story.

“Oh,” she said. “Do you want to come down to breakfast?”

“No, I’ll stay here.”

“I can get room service to bring it up.”

“I don’t want anything. You go on down.”

“All right,” she said. “Did the hotel doctor do that?”

“No, the hospital.”

“What hospital?”

“I don’t know. The city hospital.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Two-thirty in the morning or something.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“What for?” I said. I might have asked, “Would you have answered the door?” but that was her tactic, she always won at that one. My eyes were not seeing very well. From her voice I could tell, though, that she was upset and a bit at a loss with the situation.

“Well,” she said. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Later she came up. She hadn’t taken very long over breakfast. I heard her go through her own room from outside, and after a few minutes she came in to mine and opened one of the shutters. The light made me feel worse, but I was too tired to complain. Then she opened the rest, and opened one of the windows.

“They were worried about you at the desk,” she said.

“Which one was there?”

“King Umberto’s uncle. You know.”

“I guess the night staff must have told him.”

“I didn’t see our honeymooners. Maybe they’ve checked out.”

“Maybe they’re having breakfast in bed.” I hoped so.

“I doubt it,” she said. “Not with his problems.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“If he finds the right man, maybe. At least he could have thought about it before getting married to a normal girl.”

“Have a heart, Jeanie.”

“Oh I do, I do. For her, though. Not for him.”

“For both of them. Poor kids. After all, you and I were lucky that way.”

“Really?” she said softly. “We were lucky, were we?”

“Hell, yes. The first time, I had somebody who knew what was going on. And so did you. Imagine what it would be like if neither one of you knew what the hell was supposed to happen.”

“I think it would be nice that way.”

“Jesus, it would be a nightmare. It would be hell on wheels.”

“I don’t think so at all.”

“Of course you do.”

All at once I wished I had been more of a help to Butterworth. Remembering our talk now, it seemed one of the saddest things I had known. I thought about them both caged up in their room together, each one expecting so much from the other and knowing that a lot was expected in return. They wouldn’t know exactly what you were supposed to feel, or whether what was happening meant it was going all right or all wrong. Then they’d get embarrassed and blame themselves, and blame the other person.
And the next time it’s worse. How long would it go on like that? Would they see a doctor? If it had been two years ago, I might have helped him. Something had changed during our talk, and I knew that he had been relieved, so I’d helped at least that much, but he needed a lot more than what I’d given. Maybe if my reactions hadn’t been in the way, I could have straightened him out. And maybe not. Probably not. When people break down that way it really takes someone else’s lifetime to change it. The thing is so simple that only someone’s patience or understanding or personality handed over as though forever, is enough. If he had lied to her, then of course they could have broken up and found other people. But he hadn’t lied, at least I didn’t think so. It was just ignorance with both of them, and they were both stuck with it.

“I think it would be wonderful like that—both discovering each other for the first time. If you really loved each other it would just come naturally.”

“Just sort of spontaneous combustion?”

“You know what I mean. You don’t have to be so sneery about it.”

“And he said he was brought up strictly, too. Maybe one of those hellfire churches lurking in the background. Telling him he’d go blind if he touched himself, and all that. Stay out once after midnight, and they take your name out of the family Bible.”

“Oh, that’s his trouble—strict, pious upbringing?”

“And being nervous. And a touch of the John Ruskins.”

“What’s that?”

“He’d never seen a girl naked before. Didn’t know about pubic hair. It was sort of a surprise.”

“What?” she said, and suddenly began to laugh. I hadn’t heard her laugh for months.

“You can’t mean it.”

“Well, how would he know? He isn’t the kind to go
flipping through medical dictionaries, and I don’t suppose it was in his school curriculum. No sisters or cousins, I guess, or if he’s got any they’re as buttoned up as he is.”

“But he would have seen pictures.”

“Haven’t you noticed? It’s always covered up in the pictures.”

“No, paintings and statues.”

“Go on.”

“You’re right. I never thought about it. Only the men. I wonder why.”

“Because it’s so sinful and exciting.”

“Maybe because——”

“Like you in your nightgown,” I said.

She stopped talking. It almost seemed as though she had stopped breathing. I wished I hadn’t said anything. Her self-consciousness and my head; the whole room was full of pain.

“I’ll be all right here if you want to go down to the beach or something,” I said.

“Yes, I might do that. I’m sorry about your nose, Don. How do you feel?”

“Like the man in the iron mask.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to ask them to send you up some breakfast?”

“Well, some coffee, maybe.”

“All right.”

She went through the bathroom and into her own room. I closed my eyes, and heard her soon afterwards locking her door out in the hall and tiptoeing past mine on her way to the stairs.

About half an hour later a boy came up with a tray for me. I fumbled in my pockets for change and then couldn’t decide which was the right coin. I shrugged and held out my hands for him to choose one. He took one only, and I
thought that out of politeness he hadn’t taken much. I made him choose a second coin.

It was terrible to sit up. It was almost as bad lying down. It even hurt to swallow. I went into the bathroom and took two of the doctor’s pills. When I got back into my room I thought I heard my wife opening her door. Then the bathroom door opened and three doors slammed, one after the other. From the neck up I died and died and died.

It was the maid, come to clean out the rooms. She gave a little gasp when she saw me, and I moved to the table and chair and explained in what sounded like French, not to mind me.

She remade the bed, quickly dusted the top of the dresser and the front of the drawers, ran a cloth over the wardrobe mirror, and went back into the bathroom to do a more thorough job in there.

The pills started to work. I began to float. I finished the coffee and lay down on the bed and looked through the window at the sky.

I slept. When I woke up, I heard someone walking quietly down the hallway as if trying not to make too much noise. Then I heard the key at my wife’s door. I sat up, and realised that I felt better.

Then the bathroom door on the far side closed like a gunshot. I heard her in the bathroom, swearing, and shutting a window. Then she came through into my room, closing the door gently behind her.

“How do you feel?” she said. She had some postcards and a book in her hand. She was looking worried.

“All right.”

“Your eyes look terrible.”

“I know. It must have been the impact when I hit. It forced the blood up. Did you go down to the beach?”

“For a while. I walked around the town a bit. Do you really feel all right?”

“Yes. I took some pills. They made me feel wonderful for about an hour. It’s probably something pretty strong.” I thought it might be morphine. I had never been given morphine before. I’d thought it had gone out with the First World War. But from the effect it had, my money was on morphine if that was what it was. I wondered what would happen if I took the whole bottle full. Perhaps I’d float straight out the window. Out and away, like that white schooner coming in to the harbour.

She looked at her watch.

“Do you want to come down for lunch?”

“All right,” I said, and got up. “The light hurts my eyes. I think I’ll wear my sunglasses.” I got out the glasses and tried them on, standing in front of the mirror. They wouldn’t sit straight because of the mask.

“Do you have any adhesive tape in that emergency kit?” I asked. “And for Christ’s sake watch out for the door.”

She came back with the tape and I managed to stick the glasses on.

“Now I look like Claude Rains in that movie,” I said. “Maybe underneath I’ve disappeared.”

“Oh please, Don,” she said. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t know. How could I know?”

“Let’s go.”

“Let me get my postcards. I need some stamps.”

There were three other tables occupied in the dining-room. I shook my head as the waiter started to lead on to the table we usually had, and explained that we didn’t want to sit in the light. He gave us a table nearer the door and about twelve feet away from an old gentleman with a large pepper-and-salt moustache, who looked as though he’d been left over from the British Raj. We had flowers on the table again. Every day there were fresh ones and every table, even the empty ones, had them. It really was a marvellous hotel.

“Wine?” I said.