was trying to draw his chin down on to his chest. The new lips took
firm hold on the existing muscles and David gained control of them so he
could form his words again and speak clearly.
The last area of raw flesh was closed beneath the patchwork of skin
grafts, flesh grafts and stitches. David was no longer a high-infection
risk and he was moved from a sterile environment. Once again he saw
human faces, not merely eyes peering over white surgical masks. The
faces were friendly, cheerful faces. Men and women proud of their
achievement in saving him from death and refreshing his ravaged head.
You'll be allowed visitors now, and I expect you'll welcome that, said
the consultant. He was a distinguished-looking young surgeon who had
left a highly paid post at a Swiss Clinic to head this burns and plastic
surgery unit.
I don't think I will be having any visitors, David had lost contact with
the reality of the outside world during the nine months in the burns
unit.
Oh, yes, you will, the surgeon told him. We've had regular inquiries on
your progress from a number of people. Isn't that correct, sister?
"That's right, doctor. You can let them know that he is allowed
visitors now. The consultant and his group began to move on.
Doctor, David called him back. I want a look at a mirror, and they were
all silent, immediately embarrassed. This request of his had been
denied many times over the last months.
Damn it, David became angry. You can't protect me from it for ever. The
consultant gestured for the others to leave and they filed out of the
ward, while he came back to David's bed.
All right, David, he agreed gently. We'll find you a mirror, though we
don't have much use for them around here! For the first time in the
many months he had known him, David glimpsed the depths of his
compassion, and he wondered at it. That a man who lived constantly
amongst great pain and terrible disfigurement could still be moved by
it.
You must understand that how you are now is not how you will always be.
All I have been able to do, so far, is heal your exposed flesh and make
you functional again. You are once more a viable human being. You have
not experienced the loss of any of your faculties but I will not pretend
that you are beautiful. However, there remains much that I can still do
to change that.
Your ears, for example, can be reconstructed with the material I have
reserved for that purpose, He indicated the stump of the pedicel that
still hung from David's forearm - There is much fine work stiH to be
done about the nose and mouth and eyes. He paced slowly the length of
the ward and looked out into the sunlight for a moment before turning
back again and coming forward to face David.
But let me be truthful with you. There are limitations to what I can
do. The muscles of expression, those delicate little muscles around the
eyes and mouth have been destroyed. I cannot replace those. The hair
follicles of your lashes and brows and scalp have been burned away.
You will be able to wear a wig, but David turned to his bedside locker
and took from the drawer his wallet. He opened it and drew out a
photograph. it was the one which Hannah had taken so long ago of Debra
and David sitting at the rock-pool in the oasis of Em Gedi and smiling
at each other. He handed it to the surgeon.
Is that what you looked like, David? I never knew. The regret showed
like a quick shadow in his eyes. Can you make me look like that again?
The surgeon studied the photograph a moment longer, the young god's face
with the dark mop of hair and the clean pure lines of the profile. No,
he said. I could not even come close That's all I wanted to know. David
took the photograph back from him.
You say I'm functional now. Let's leave it at that, shall we? You
don't want further cosmetic surgery?
We can still do a lot Doctor, I've lived under the knife for nine
months.
I've had the taste of antibiotics and anaesthetic in my mouth, and the
stink of it in my nostrils for all that time. Now all I want is a
little escape from pain, a little peace and the taste of clean air.
Very well, the surgeon agreed readily. It is not important that we do
it now. You could come back at any time in the future. He walked to
the door of the ward. Come on. Let's go find a mirror. There was one
in the nurses room beyond the double doors at the end of the passage.
The room itself was empty and the mirror was set into the wall above the
wash basin.
The surgeon stood in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. He lit a
cigarette and watched as David crossed towards the mirror and then
halted abruptly as he saw his own image.
He wore the blue hospital dressing-gown over his pyjamas. He was tall
and finely proportioned. His shoulders were wide, his hips narrow, and
he had the same lithe and beautiful man's body.
However, the head that topped it was something from a nightmare.
Involuntarily he gasped out aloud and the gash of a mouth parted in
sympathy. It was a tight lipless mouth, like that of a cobra,
white-rimmed and harsh.
Drawn by the awful fascination of the horror, David drew closer to the
mirror. The thick mane of his dark hair had concealed the peculiar
elongation of his skull.
He had never realized that it jutted out behind like that, for now the
hair was gone and the bald curve was covered with meshed skin, thickened
and raised.
The skin and flesh of his face was a patchwork, joined by seams of scar
tissue drawn tightly over his cheekbones, giving him a vaguely Asiatic
appearance, but the eyes were round and startled, with clumsy lids and
puffed dead-looking flesh beneath.
His nose was a shapeless blob, out of balance with his other coarsened
features and his ears were gnarled excrescences, seemingly fastened
haphazardly to the sides of his head. The whole of it was bland and
bald and boiled-looking.
The gash of a mouth twisted briefly in a horrid rictus, and then
regained its frozen shape. I can't smile, said David.
No, agreed the surgeon. You will have no control of your expressions.
That was the truly horrifying aspect of it. It was not the twisted and
tortured flesh, with the scarring and stitch marks still so evident, it
was the expressionlessness of this mask. The frozen features seemed
long dead, incapable of human warmth or feeling.
Yeah! But you should have seen the other guy! David said softly, and
the surgeon chuckled without mirth.
We'll have those last few stitches behind your ears out tomorrow, I
shall remove what remains of the pedicel from your arm, and then you can
be discharged.
Come back to us when you are ready. David ran his hand gingerly over
the bald patterned skull.
I'm going to save a fortune in haircuts and razor blades, he said, and
the surgeon turned quickly away and walked down the passage, leaving
David to get to know his new head.
The clothes that they had found for him were cheap and ill-fitting,
slacks and open-neck shirt, a light jacket and sandals, and he asked for
some head covering, anything to conceal the weird new shape of his
scalp.
One of the nurses found him a cloth cap, and then told him that a
visitor was waiting for him in the hospital superintendent's department.