until that tingle went away. He could –
Morris’s eyes widened.
For a long time he lay perfectly still, Lydia forgotten, Denker forgotten, Patin
forgotten, everything forgotten except that tingly feeling in his feet Yes, both feet, but it was stronger in the right one. When you felt that tingle, you said My foot went to sleep.’
But what you really meant, of course, was My foot is waking up.
Morris fumbled for the call-button. He pressed it again and again until the nurse
came.
The nurse tried to dismiss it – she had had hopeful patients before. His doctor wasn’t
in the building, and the nurse didn’t want to call him at home. Dr Kemmelman had a vast
reputation for evil temper … especially when he was called at home. Morris wouldn’t let
her dismiss it He was a mild man, but now he was prepared to make more than a fuss; he
was prepared to make an uproar if that’s what it took. The Braves had taken two. Lydia
had sprained her hip. But good things came in threes, everyone knew that
At last the nurse came back with an intern, a young man named Dr Timpnell whose
hair looked as if it had last been cut by a Lawn Boy with very dull blades. Dr Timpnell pulled a Swiss Army knife from the pocket of his white pants, folded out the Phillips
screwdriver attachment, and ran it from the toes of Morris’s right foot down to the heel.
The foot did not curl, but his toes twitched – it was an obvious twitch, too definite to miss.
Morris burst into tears.
Timpnell, looking rather dazed, sat beside him on the bed and patted his hand.
This sort of thing happens from time to time,’ he said (possibly from his wealth of
practical experience, which stretched back perhaps as far as six months). ‘No doctor
predicts it, but it does happen. And apparently it’s happened to you.’
Morris nodded through his tears.
‘Obviously, you’re not totally paralyzed.’ Timpnell was still patting his hand. ‘But I
wouldn’t try to predict if your recovery will be slight, partial, or total. I doubt if Dr
Kemmelman will, either. I suspect you’ll have to undergo a lot of physical therapy, and
not all of it will be pleasant. But it will be more pleasant than … you know.’
‘Yes,’ Morris said through his tears. ‘I know. Thank God!’ He remembered telling
Lydia there was no God and felt his face fill up with hot blood.
‘I’ll see that Dr Kemmelman is informed,’ Timpnell said, giving Morris’s hand a final
pat and rising.
‘Could you call my wife?’ Morris asked. Because, doom-crying and hand-wringing
aside, he felt something for her. Maybe it was even love, an emotion which seemed to have little to do with sometimes feeling like you could wring a person’s neck.
‘Yes, I’ll see that it’s done. Nurse, would you -?’
‘Of course, doctor,’ the nurse said, and Timpnell could barely stifle his grin.
“Thank you,’ Morris said, wiping his eyes with a Kleenex from the box on the
nightstand. Thank you very much.’
Timpnell went out. At some point during the discussion, Mr Denker had awakened.
Morris considered apologizing for all the noise, or perhaps for his tears, and then
decided no apology was necessary.
‘You are to be congratulated, I take it,’ Mr Denker said.
‘Well see,’ Morris said, but like Timpnell, he was barely able to stifle his grin. ‘We’ll
see.’
Things have a way of working out,’ Denker replied vaguely, and then turned on the TV
with the remote control device. It was now quarter to six, and they watched the last of
Hee-Haw. It was followed by the evening news. Unemployment was worse. Inflation was
not so bad. The hostages were still hostages. A new Gallup poll showed that, if the
election were to be held right then, there were four Republican candidates who could
beat Jimmy Carter. And there had been racial incidents following the murder of a black
child in Atlanta (it would be another six months before a grisly pattern of murder began
to emerge in the Atlanta murders) – ‘A night of violence’, the newscaster called it. Closer to home, an unidentified man had been found in an orchard near Highway 46, stabbed
and bludgeoned.
Lydia called just before 6.30. Dr Kemmelman had called her and, based on the young
intern’s report, he had been cautiously optimistic. Lydia was cautiously joyous. She
vowed to come in the following day even if it killed her. Morris told her he loved her.
Tonight he loved everyone -Lydia, Dr Timpnell with his Lawn Boy haircut, Mr Denker,
even the young girl who brought in the supper trays as Morris hung up.
Supper was hamburgers, mashed potatoes, a carrots-and-peas combination, and small
dishes of ice cream for dessert. The candy striper who served it was Felice, a shy blonde
girl of perhaps twenty. She had her own good news – her boyfriend had landed a job as a
computer programmer with IBM and had formally asked her to marry him.
Mr Denker, who exuded a certain courtly charm that all the young ladies responded
to, expressed great pleasure. ‘Really, how wonderful. You must sit down and tell us all
about it. Tell us everything. Omit nothing.’
Felice blushed and smiled and said she couldn’t do that. ‘We’ve still got the rest of B
wing to do and C wing after that. And look, here it is six-thirty!’
‘Then tomorrow night, for sure. We insist – don’t we, Mr Heisel?’
‘Yes indeed,’ Morris murmured, but his mind was a million miles away.
(you must sit down and tell us all about it)
Words spoken in that exact-same bantering tone. He had heard them before; of that
there could be no doubt. But had Denker been the one to speak them? Had he?
(tell us everything)
The voice of an urbane man. A cultured man. But there was a threat in the voice. A
steel hand in. a velvet glove. Yes.
Where?
(tell us everything. Omit nothing.)
(?Patin?)
Morris Heisel looked at his supper. Mr Denker had already fallen to with a will.
The encounter with Felice had left him in the best of spirits – the way he had been after
the young boy with the blond hair came to visit him.
‘A nice girl,’ Denker said, his words muffled by a mouthful of carrots and peas.
‘Oh yes-‘
(you must sit down)
‘- Felice, you mean. She’s
(and tell us all about it.)
‘very sweet.’
(tell us everything. Omit nothing.)
He looked down at his own supper, suddenly remembering how it got to be in the
camps after a while. At first you would have killed for a scrap of meat, no matter how
maggoty or green with decay. But after a while, that crazy hunger went away and your
belly lay inside your middle like a small grey rock. You felt you would never be hungry
again.
Until someone showed you food.
(‘tell us everything, my friend. Omit nothing. You must sit down and tell us
AAALLLLL about it.’)
The main course on Morris’s plastic hospital tray was hamburger. Why should it
suddenly make him think of lamb? Not mutton, not chops – mutton was often stringy,
chops often tough, and a person whose teeth had rotted out like old stumps would
perhaps not be overly tempted by mutton or a chop. No, what he thought of was a
savoury lamb stew, gravy-rich and full of vegetables. Soft, tasty vegetables. Why think of
lamb stew? Why, unless –
The door banged open. It was Lydia, her face rosy with smiles. An aluminium crutch
was propped in her armpit and she was walking like Marshall Dillon’s friend Chester.
‘Morris? she trilled. Trailing her and looking just as tremulously happy was Emma
Rogan from next door.
Mr Denker, startled, dropped his fork. He cursed softly under his breath and picked it
up off the floor with a wince.
‘It’s so WONDERFUL? Lydia was almost baying with excitement. ‘I called Emma and
asked her if we could come tonight instead of tomorrow, I had the crutch already, and I
said, “Em”, I said, “if I can’t bear this agony for Morris, what kind of wife am I to him?”
Those are my very words, aren’t they, Emma?’
Emma Rogan, perhaps remembering that her collie pup had caused at least some of
the problem, nodded eagerly.
‘So I called the hospital,’ Lydia said, shrugging her coat off and settling in for a good
long visit, ‘and they said it was past visiting hours but in my case they would make an exception, except we couldn’t stay too long because we might bother Mr Denker. We
aren’t bothering you, are we, Mr Denker?’
‘No, dear lady,’ Mr Denker said resignedly.
‘Sit down, Emma, take Mr Denker’s chair, he’s not using it. Here, Morris, stop with the
ice cream, you’re slobbering it all over yourself, just like a baby. Never mind, we’ll have