“That one,” Stephen says. “Put that one up.”
After the orderly hangs the print and leaves, Josie asks Stephen why he chose that particular painting.
“I like Van Gogh,” he says dreamily as he tries to detect a rhythm in the surges of abdominal pain. But he is not nauseated, just gaseous.
“Any particular reason why you like Van Gogh?” asks Josie. “He’s my favorite artist too.”
“I didn’t say he was my favorite,” Stephen says, and Josie pouts, an expression that does not fit her prematurely lined face. Stephen closes his eyes, glimpses the cold country, and says, “I like the painting because it’s so bright that it’s almost frightening. And the road going through the field”—he opens his eyes—“doesn’t go anywhere. It just ends in the field. And the crows are flying around like vultures.”
“Most people see it as just a pretty picture,” Josie says.
“What’s it called?”
“Wheat Field with Blackbirds.”
“Sensible. My stomach hurts, Josie. Help me turn over on my side.” Josie helps him onto his left side, plumps up his pillows, and inserts a short tube into his rectum to relieve the gas. “I also like the painting with the large stars that all look out of focus,” Stephen says. “What’s it called?”
“Starry Night.”
“That’s scary too,” Stephen says. Josie takes his blood pressure, makes a notation on his chart, then sits down beside him and holds his hand. “I remember something,” he says. “Something just—” He jumps as he remembers, and pain shoots through his distended stomach. Josie shushes him, checks the intravenous needle, and asks him what he remembers.
But the memory of the dream recedes as the pain grows sharper. “I hurt all the fucking time, Josie,” he says, changing position. Josie removes the rectal tube before he is on his back.
“Don’t use such language, I don’t like to hear it. I know you have a lot of pain,” she says, her voice softening.
“Time for a shot.”
“No, honey, not for some time. You’ll just have to bear it.”
Stephen remembers his dream again. He is afraid of it. His breath is short and his heart feels as if it is beating in his throat, but he recounts the entire dream to Josie.
He does not notice that her face has lost its color.
“It is only a dream, Stephen. Probably something you studied in history.”
“But it was so real, not like a dream at all.”
“That’s enough!” Josie says.
“I’m sorry I upset you. Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, fighting the pain, squeezing Josie’s hand tightly. “Didn’t you tell me that you were in the Second World War?”
Josie is composed once again. “Yes, I did, but I’m surprised you remembered. You were very sick. I was a nurse overseas, spent most of the war in England. But I was one of the first women to go into any of the concentration camps.”
Stephen drifts with the pain; he appears to be asleep.
“You must have studied very hard,” Josie whispers to him. Her hand is shaking just a bit.
It is twelve o’clock and his room is death-quiet. The sharp shadows seem to be the hardest objects in the room. The fluorescents burn steadily in the hall outside.
Stephen looks out into the hallway, but he can see only the far white wall. He waits for his night nurse to appear: it is time for his injection. A young nurse passes by his doorway. Stephen imagines that she is a cardboard ship sailing through the corridors.
He presses his buzzer, which is attached by a clip to his pillow. The night nurse will take her time, he tells himself. He remembers arguing with her. Angrily, he presses the buzzer again.
Across the hall, a man begins to scream, and there is a shuffle of nurses into his room. The screaming turns into begging and whining. Although Stephen has never seen the man in the opposite room, he has come to hate him. Like Stephen, he has something wrong with his stomach; but he cannot suffer well. He can only beg and cry, try to make deals with the nurses, doctors, God, and angels. Stephen cannot muster any pity for this man.
The night nurse finally comes into the room, says, “You have to try to get along without this,” and gives him an injection of Demerol.
“Why does the man across the hall scream so?” Stephen asks, but the nurse is already edging out of the room.
“Because he’s in pain.”
“So am I,” Stephen says in a loud voice. “But I can keep it to myself.”
“Then, stop buzzing me constantly for an injection. That man across the hall has had half of his stomach removed. He’s got something to scream about.”
So have I, Stephen thinks; but the nurse disappears before he can tell her. He tries to imagine what the man across the hall looks like. He thinks of him as being bald and small, an ancient baby. Stephen tries to feel sorry for the man, but his incessant whining disgusts him.
The drug takes effect; the screams recede as he hurtles through the dark corridors of a dream. The cold country is dark, for Stephen cannot persuade his night nurse to bring him some ice. Once again, he sees two entrances. As the world melts behind him, he steps into the coalblack doorway.
In the darkness he hears an alarm, a bone-jarring clangor.
He could smell the combined stink of men pressed closely together. They were all lying upon two badly constructed wooden shelves. The floor was dirt; the smell of urine never left the barrack.
“Wake up,” said a man Stephen knew as Viktor. “If the guard finds you in bed, you’ll be beaten again.”
Stephen moaned, still wrapped in dreams. “Wake up, wake up,” he mumbled to himself. He would have a few more minutes before the guard arrived with the dogs. At the very thought of dogs, Stephen felt revulsion. He had once been bitten in the face by a large dog.
He opened his eyes, yet he was still half asleep, exhausted. You are in a death camp, he said to himself. You must wake up. You must fight by waking up. Or you will die in your sleep. Shaking uncontrollably, he said, “Do you want to end up in the oven, perhaps you will be lucky today and live.”
As he lowered his legs to the floor, he felt the sores open on the soles of his feet. He wondered who would die today and shrugged. It was his third week in the camp. Impossibly, against all odds, he had survived. Most of those he had known in the train had either died or become Musselmanner. If it were not for Viktor, he, too, would have become a Musselmann. He had a breakdown and wanted to die. He babbled in English. But Viktor talked him out of death, shared his portion of food with him, and taught him the new rules of life.
“Like everyone else who survives, I count myself first, second, and third—then I try to do what I can for someone else,” Viktor had said.
“I will survive,” Stephen repeated to himself as the guards opened the door, stepped into the room, and began to shout. Their dogs growled and snapped, but heeled beside them. The guards looked sleepy; one did not wear a cap, and his red hair was tousled.
Perhaps he spent the night with one of the whores, Stephen thought. Perhaps today would not be so bad….
And so begins the morning rituaclass="underline" Josie enters Stephen’s room at a quarter to eight, fusses with the chart attached to the footboard of his bed, pads about aimlessly, and finally goes to the bathroom. She returns, her stiff uniform making swishing sounds. Stephen can feel her standing over the bed and staring at him. But he does not open his eyes. He waits a beat.
She turns away, then drops the bedpan. Yesterday it was the metal ashtray; day before that, she bumped into the bedstand.
“Good morning, darling, it’s a beautiful day,” she says, then walks across the room to the windows. She parts the faded orange drapes and opens the blinds. “How do you feel today?”