wretched soap won’t lather at all.
It’s the water. It’s as hard as nails.”
He said, “None of the soap is very good now and, of course, with hard water it’s hopeless.” As he
said it he remembered
something. He remembered the baths which he used to take at school in Brighton, in the long
stone-floored bathroom which
had four baths in a room. He remembered how the water was so soft that you had to take a
shower afterwards to get all the
soap off your body, and he remembered how the foam used to float on the surface of the water,
so that you could not see your
legs underneath. He remembered that sometimes they were given calcium tablets because the
school doctor used to say that
soft water was bad for the teeth.
“In Brighton,” he said, “the water isn’t . . .”
He did not finish the sentence. Something had occurred to him; something so fantastic and
absurd that for a moment he felt like
telling the nurse about it and having a good laugh.
She looked up. “The water isn’t what?” she said.
“Nothing,” he answered. “I was dreaming.
She rinsed the flannel in the basin, wiped the soap off his leg, and dried him with a towel.
BEWARE OF THE DOG
9
“It’s nice to be washed,” he said. “I feel better.” He was feeling his face with his hands. “I need a
shave.”
“We’ll do that tomorrow,” she said. “Perhaps you can do it yourself then.”
That night he could not sleep. He lay awake thinking of the Junkers 88’s and of the hardness of
the water. He could think of
nothing else. They were JU-88’s, he said to himself. I know they were. And yet it is not possible,
because they would not be
flying around so low over here in broad daylight. I know that it is true, and yet I know that it is
impossible. Perhaps I am ill.
Perhaps I am behaving like a fool and do not know what I am doing or saying. Perhaps I am
delirious. For a long time he lay
awake thinking these things, and once he sat up in bed and said aloud, “I will prove that I am not
crazy. I will make a little
speech about something complicated and intellectual. I will talk about what to do with Germany
after the war.” But before he
had time to begin, he was asleep.
He woke just as the first light of day was showing through the slit in the curtains over the
window. The room was still dark, but
he could tell that it was already beginning to get light outside. He lay looking at the grey light
which was showing through the slit
in the curtain, and as he lay there he remembered the day before. He remembered the Junkers
88’s and the hardness of the
water; he remembered the large pleasant nurse and the kind doctor, and now the small grain of
doubt took root in his mind and
it began to grow.
He looked around the room. The nurse had taken the roses out the night before, and there was
nothing except the table with a
packet of cigarettes, a box of matches and an ash tray. Otherwise, it was bare. It was no longer
warm or friendly. It was not
even comfortable. It was cold and empty and very quiet.
Slowly the grain of doubt grew, and with it came fear, a light, dancing fear that warned but did
not frighten; the kind of fear that
one gets not because one is afraid, but because one feels that there is something wrong. Quickly
the doubt and the fear grew so
that he became restless and angry, and when he touched his forehead with his hand, he found that
it was damp with sweat. He
knew then that he must do something; that he must find some way of proving to himself that he
was either right or wrong, and he
looked up and saw again the window and the green curtains. From where he lay, that window
was right in front of him, but it
BEWARE OF THE DOG