Johann sighed and reached out her hand. “Since you must.”
Hedrick took her hand, bent over it; Dr. Rosenthal said lazily, “Aren’t you going to scrub first, Doctor?”
Hedrick said, “You go to hell, Rosy!” and kissed her hand. It seemed to Johann that Dr. Hedrick stretched it at least twice as long as Dr. Rosenthal’s earlier effort She felt goose pimples on her arm and a most curious feeling at her middle—yes, she decided, if one had to be a woman, this was a custom to be encouraged.
(Going to lay him, boss?) (Eunice!) (Oh, piffle, Boss. We’re Siamese twins now and should be honest with each other. You wanted to lay me for years. But couldn’t. You knew you wanted to, I knew it too; we just never talked about it. Now you still can’t. But you can lay him if you want to. . . and it’s the best way to say ‘Thank you.’ But watch it, dearie. Do it here, not where you might get caught. He has a jealous wife; he has all the signs.) (Eunice, I’m not going to discuss such a ridiculous idea! I’m surprised at you. You, a nice girl—and married yourself.) (Wups, dearie! I’m not married. ‘Until death do us part’ is the limit . . . and I’m a ghost. ‘Minds me, though—my husband—erase and correct; my widower, Joe Branca. Got to talk about him, too. Doc’s turning to go. So wet your lips and smile, if you have it even faintly on your mind. And you have.)
Miss Smith wet her lips and smiled. “Adios, Doctor, not good-bye. Hurry back. When you can.” (You’re learning, dearie, you’re learning.)
Dr. Garcia said, “Miss Smith—”
“Oh. Yes, Doctor?”
“If you’re ready, I’ll get nurses in and we’ll unharness you and several other things. You can have a general anesthetic if you wish. I suggest locals, with a chin screen to keep you from seeing how I’m bungling it. With something you want to read projected, and some music.”
“Music would be nice. But I won’t read, I’m too interested. Locals, then. Or nothing, pain doesn’t upset me.”
“But it upsets me, so we’ll use local anesthesia.”
For an hour and more she listened to a tape of evergreens, from classic rock she had never grown used to clear back to folk music popular before Johann Schmidt was born. Mostly she enjoyed lazily the sensuous pleasure of feeling her body being touched and handled and manipulated. Not only was it wonderful to have a body after days of complete paralysis from the neck down (plus fear of being forever a basket case, a fear Johann had never fully admitted) but also, most important, this body felt everything so sensitively—just to be touched was pleasure.
Not much like that old wreck you discarded! For the past ten, fifteen years that body’s sole virtue had been that it still ran. It reminded her of a fifth-hand Model-T Ford that he and four other young cake-eaters had bought for seventy dollars in Baltimore and had driven half across the continent—no lights, no brakes (the reverse had to serve), no driving licenses (unheard of), no instruments, no nothing. But the tough and ugly little touring car had chugged along on three cylinders (not always the same three) at an (estimated) top speed of twenty-five miles an hour. They had stopped now and then to throw water on the spokes to keep them from falling out.
Somewhere on a dirt road in Missouri it had coughed and quit, and smell had traced the trouble to the wiring.
Yonny had fixed it—wrapped the burned insulation with toilet paper, tied it with string…cranked the heap and it had started at once and chugged along as before.
She wondered where the sturdy old junkpile had wound up? And what had become of her male body? Johann’s will had left it to a medical school—but since Johann hadn’t died, quite, that will did not control. Had they pickled it? Or swept it out with the trash? Must ask.
Several times she felt pulling sensations that should have hurt but did not and once a sharp pain which she ignored. There were odors, sour-sweet and nauseating; she thought of suggesting that the air system be turned up, then decided to mind her own business. Presently the odors were gone and she became aware that she was being given a bed bath; then sheets and pad were being changed.