What Lot's Wife Saw

by Ioanna Bourazopoulou

  I entered the amputees’ ward and leafed through the register. In the amputees’ ward one is always met by deathly silence – they comprise the most critical group of patients. What’s worse for them is not the leg that’s gone but the imposed inactivity which, in the Colony of lost homelands, cannot be endured. The patient might remain bedridden for months retaining, unfortunately, full awareness. That gives him all the time in the world to brood, and this inevitably leads to depression. Then nostalgia sets in. It’s like the unswattable fly that continuously buzzes around your head and drives you mad. Sleeping pills and tranquillisers are distributed by the bucketful.

  One glance around was enough to diagnose their crazed looks behind the bloody gauzes and bandages that swaddled their heads. I bent over the nurse’s ear and asked him to double the dosage of tranquilliser in their drips. He whispered back that he’d already done so this morning on Dr Sanchez’s orders and two hours ago he’d tripled it following Dr Miskin’s recommendation.

  “Then quadruple it,” I said. He looked at me with alarm. I lifted his name card and read: Gerard Grousset.

  “How long have you been in the Colony, Grousset?”

  “Three months.”

  Inexperienced nurses shouldn’t be put on the amputees’ ward – how many times must I repeat myself!

  “Do you have the night shift on this ward?”

  “Yes, Director.”

  “I suggest that you quickly forget everything that you’ve learnt in Nursing School if you want us to find you alive in the morning. Can you see all those looks around you?”

  Grousset cast a bemused gaze at the residents of the ward but couldn’t see what he was meant to. His mind, shaped by the pharmacology textbook, stopped short of being receptive to the latent signals broadcast by the crazed eyes and the deathly silence.

  “If we quadruple the dose, they’ll die, sir,” he said uneasily.

  I’d neither the time nor the inclination to explain to the foolish Grousset that nostalgia is a carnivore that devours people from the inside. The patients are in a fever pitch of overexcitement, the external sign of which is the deathly silence. Not only would the increase fail to kill them, it was doubtful whether it would be effective. The most insidious ailment in the Colony, and for which we’ve no cure, only chemical suppression, is called “death wish”. It can spread through a ward like wildfire and when we draw back the curtains in the morning we’re greeted by a roomful of corpses. Grousset wasn’t in physical danger from an attack, but his life hung on a thread within his brain that could be snapped by the contagious suicidal fury around him. He lacked the detachment to see that and he felt sorry for them, which was the first step on the slippery slope to despair. I ordered him to quadruple the dose immediately and if their eyes didn’t return to normal, to quintuple it. He could sextuple it without seeking permission. If he so much as grimaced in protest he’d find himself divested of his white gown and holding a sand shovel instead of a thermometer.

  Trembling from my nerves, I went through the hallway and into the toilets. I locked the door behind me and convulsed into uncontrollable sobs. I needed to kill Grousset, to mercilessly torture him as his life ebbed, to crush his stupid face with my fists and to make him swallow, one by one, the pages of the pharmacology textbook. Those cow eyes of fledgling nurses, whose blood salt content hasn’t yet risen from the fumes, drive me completely insane. I put two tranquillisers on my tongue and swirled them in my mouth for faster effect. It still took a quarter of an hour before the last sob escaped my lips and I could draw a normal breath. I couldn’t recognise myself.

  Still unsettled, I washed my face in the washbasin. I’d had it today with the amputees’ wards, the Intensive Care and the surgical wards. From now on I’d restrict myself to the First Aid Station, to the minor incidents, a cut finger, an upset stomach, a moderate fever. I’ve had it with death in this violet hell; no doctor can endure losing nine out of ten patients. We’re made to feel that something’s awry when one slips through our fingers alive.

  I entered the First Aid Station and immediately felt all the fuss and groans that signify good health wash over me like a balm. Patients come here more to grouse and be heard rather than be treated. The majority of those that spend time here are administrative personnel and shop assistants. Salt miners tend towards orthopaedic wards, salt workers crowd into the dermatological ward and dock workers crop up everywhere. You won’t find cyclists in the Infirmary, either because their health is iron-clad or because, from what I hear, they cure themselves with home-spun remedies, they apply salves and poultices of their own design, the effectiveness of which escapes me but keeps them out of my wards.

  I noticed a nurse next to me incompetently bandaging an elbow so I turned to help. I explained that the elbow has a lot of motion and we must take this into account when applying bandages. “Give me that gauze. Let me show you.” As I was adjusting the gauze, I felt the patient’s hostile stare but I didn’t pay it any attention.

  The nurse followed my demonstration with drooping eyelids and explained himself by saying that his shift had ended long ago but his replacement was already very late so he’d had to remain on the ward. I get furious when a nurse is late for his shift and I promised this sleepdeprived substitute that his errant colleague was in for some severe discipline.

  “Should he have requisitioned a berlinga, perhaps, to get here on time, Director?” the patient said, dripping venom.

  I focused on his face and recognised the Treasurer of the Bank whom I’d roughly hauled off the berlinga and thrown onto the street in mad pursuit of the Black Ship’s ghost. The shock made the gauze slip through my fingers and, bending down to retrieve it, I accidentally brushed his injured elbow.

  “Careful!” shouted the banker, wincing. “You caused this injury, Doctor, and I expect you at least to have the decency to treat it properly.”

  His words caused an immediate reaction in the ward; the doctors who were in the adjoining examination stalls turned with evident interest in our direction. I turned red with shame. When the Treasurer saw my cringing discomfort, he turned up the volume so that he could be certain that he could be heard in the next wards as well.

  “I think I’m entitled to an apology for your unacceptable behaviour this afternoon, Director! I never expected a man of your position to throw people out of berlingas!”

  I leant over him so that my response wouldn’t reach the straining ears in neighbouring beds. “For your information, I was on a mission. I mean I was following orders, there was a very good reason why …”

  “Is that so? You haven’t yet shown me the requisition document so I refuse to believe you!” he shouted.

  I shoved the gauze into the nurse’s hand to finish the bandaging and rushed out of the ward.

  “You must honour your medal, not take advantage of it, Dr Fabrizio. You should be an example to the rest of us!” the Treasurer’s triumphant bellows hounded my retreat.

  I decided to lie low for a while in the doctor’s dining area, where there are no patients or visitors, and I didn’t intend to emerge before making sure that the banker had left the Infirmary. As I walked in, a group of doctors gathered around one of the tables fell suddenly silent. I could feel their eyes probing me. I filled a cup with coffee and sat quite close to them, trying to decipher their cryptic looks. I asked how the patients in recovery room 54 were doing. No one answered and I wondered whether my question was so transparently forced that they couldn’t be bothered to reply. Finally Gynaecologist Ventura muttered that he wasn’t as worried about room 54 as he was about the Palace staff who’d suddenly found themselves without a job and had collectively decided to pretend to be ill so that they’d collect sick leave allowance. “They’ve filled two wards without medical reason.”

  “But the Palace staff haven’t been fired, what kind of nonsense is this?” I laughed.

  “Are you being serious, Dr Fabrizio?”

  By this time I’d monopolised the attention of the w
hole dining area. I was being skewered by very penetrating stares. I regretted my flippant answer that implied that I knew more than they. The gynaecologist had thrown me a baited hook and I’d snapped it up like a fool.

  “I mean, I don’t believe that they’ve been fired. They’ve just been temporarily removed from their posts. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Are you being serious, Dr Fabrizio?”

  My collar had suddenly become a few sizes too small. I felt as though I was under a searing interrogation lamp. I explained that the Governor had demanded total silence in the building because he’d something extremely important to finish and the noisy staff were distracting him.

  “His work must be tremendously important,” commented Dr Miskin, “since on Friday he’d kept the servants locked in the basement until the afternoon, when his wife sent them packing.”

  “Really, I’d no idea …”

  “Oh, didn’t you, Doctor? I heard that you and the other medal wearers were shut in the Palace all of Friday and that you left at night wearing only your underwear.”

  “Not underwear, it was rags,” Cardiologist Sanchez corrected him.

  My perspiration was freezing my forehead. That night as we’d fled the Palace, we weren’t thinking that the Colony has eyes and ears everywhere and the goings-on in the Palace was the most popular topic of colonists’ conversations and that anything particularly juicy travelled from end to end at the speed of light, magnified by hyperbole, reinforced by the addition of imaginary, but delectable details. What other form of entertainment does this society have to offer but gossip? I bolted the rest of my coffee, looked at my watch and made the excuse that I hadn’t finished my rounds.

  Gastroenterologist Lupo arched an eyebrow. “I’m treating the Saltworks General Manager who has a problem with his gall bladder. His villa, as you know, is opposite the Palace. He told me that for the second day running the Governor’s shutters have remained shut. He was most intrigued.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  I explored my avenues of escape but four of the doctors were strategically placed and the imposing bulk of Gynaecologist Ventura had invaded my space.

  “Dr Fabrizio, you must realise that our concern is justified and above board. If anything has happened to Governor Bera, I think that we’ve a right to know.”

  “Why would you think a thing like that?”

  “Yesterday morning, we were expecting his butler to collect the Governor’s pills. He didn’t show up today either. Has Bera stopped taking his pills?”

  “Indeed not, I’m going to take them there.”

  If possible, the five physicians encroached even further, shutting out the light and depleting the air of oxygen.

  “You’re a surgeon, by training, if I’m not mistaken,” said Pulmonologist Mochtachiev. I was always curious why the Governor should’ve chosen a surgeon as his personal physician. Be that as it may, if the pill is causing your exalted patient any suspicious side effects, I do hope that you’re conscientious enough to refer him to colleagues of more appropriate specialities.”

  “There’s no question of side effects, you’re jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

  “One mustn’t take risks where health’s involved, Doctor,” said Gynaecologist Ventura, and Cardiologist Sanchez added, “And especially where the health of the first citizen of the Colony is concerned, one shouldn’t allow vanity to interfere with professionalism.”

  “Dr Sanchez, you are presuming and I’ll not tolerate this!” I cut him off indignantly.

  “I’m merely repeating your own words, Director, just to show how well I’ve taken them to heart,” smarmed Sanchez with a shallow bow.

  I managed to escape the ring of doctors and strode into the hallway. For a moment I’d forgotten that the First Aid Station was at its end. It was forcibly brought back into my awareness when I heard the highpitched voice of the Treasurer rewarding the rapt attention of all the occupants of the Station with the gory details.

  “… Just like that! Like a sack of potatoes they tossed me off the berlinga! What noble upbringing they all displayed! The Governor should definitely hear of their disgraceful shenanigans, but that sly Secretary buries all the incriminating paperwork!”

  Some snide comment was aired about Secretary Siccouane and the room rocked with laughter. The voice of Pathologist Fernandez rose above the guffaws.

  “… Last night they came to blows in the Opera restaurant.”

  “Who was it brawling? The Priest and the Doctor?”

  “Who else?”

  There was an excited chattering that followed this and Regina’s name was mentioned twice before a new roar of helpless laughter drowned out any possibility of further eavesdropping.

  I hurriedly unbuttoned my gown and headed for the exit. Spying the Head Nurse, I told him to assign Gerard Grousset to double shifts performing all the enemas, and to the night shift for the next four Saturdays, and, by the way, to get him to sweep my office too, but even that failed to lift my mood. The night was nowhere near as dark as I would have liked. My eyelids began getting caked with sand that stuck onto my tears and blinded me.

  24

  Letter of Xavier Turia Hermenegildo

  (page 49)

  JUDGE BATEAU

  … The young Governor had asked us all to attend the Sunday service at the Hesperides Metropolis. Was it our guilt-ridden behaviour that had precipitated his decision, or was our next humiliation waiting there? After that fiasco with the Black Ship, I became suspicious of his every word because it was impossible to know what was on that young man’s mind. Secretary Siccouane shouldn’t normally be allowed to attend services at the Metropolis since he didn’t reside in Hesperides and you could be sure that tongues would wag about that. Dr Fabrizio had been noticeably absent for years in the Metropolis, because of his vendetta with Montenegro, and he reserved his pew in a Catholic church on the far side of Hesperides. His unexpected appearance would add fuel to the Colony’s rumour and gossip industries.

  The Metropolis is Orthodox, or rather became Orthodox since it was handed over to Montenegro, because here all temples of worship were built to a single design and they adopt the religion or denomination of the priest that presides. In any case, in the Colony, you don’t choose according to your faith, but according to your rank. The Metropolis, for example, where the Governor comes to worship, is an exclusive club for the upper echelons and in the struggle to obtain a pew reservation the field is open to Moslems, Jews, Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, who socialise there but worship elsewhere. While the deceased Bera was alive, he’d always be found in his gold-trimmed pew come Sunday, ever the good example and representing the Consortium, whose interest in religion was evident since their whole advertising campaign is based on the Old Testament. The Colony was constructed on land with a rich Biblical past and our employers cultivate the connotations as it fires the consumer’s imagination and boosts sales.

  If I leave aside the annoying smell of incense, which incidentally is burned to excess, and the fire and brimstone sermons of Montenegro, which inevitably bring on a headache, I’ve no problem with the Orthodox service even though I’m a Catholic. I follow it from beginning to end, as prescribed by my position, and I always remain for the discussion with the others in the grounds, where deacons offer cool lemonade, alcoholic drinks and sweets, along with the communion host. The ambiance is that of a social reception. There you’ll converse with the elite, comment on the events of the past week, analyse the Colony’s affairs, ask for favours, and grant requests to bypass red tape. In other words, you’ll enjoy the privilege of belonging to that group that lives in the most exclusive district, worships a few pews away from the Governor and hobnobs with those that run things. Sunday’s refreshments in the Metropolis grounds are one of the most attractive institutions that a medal bearer may enjoy. Leisurely enjoyment of each sip of lemonade in Bera’s entourage, plus the bonus of being the object of envy due to the gli
nting Star on our chest, is our privilege.

  I was knotting my tie in front of the mirror on Sunday morning when I heard Eliza, my maid, engaging in an argument with the milkman on the doorstep. She slammed the door and began venting foul language as she came up the stairs. I was totally averse to learning what had happened. I’d no interest in minor incidents that had the potential to escalate, I’d far too much on my plate as it was. I stared at the bedroom door, willing it to stay shut. The door was kicked open. Eliza threw the little net with the milk onto the bed, shrieking that she refused to work for someone who was being ridiculed by all Hesperides. Unruffled, I continued to meticulously tie the knot, partly because I didn’t know which one of my questionable deeds had brought this on. Eliza accused us of indulging in orgies at the Palace and that was why the Governor had evicted the personnel and why the shutters wouldn’t open. It explained why I’d become an insomniac, why I drank too much and was always in a foul mood, always abrupt and rude to her and definitely why I’d end up in Hell.

  I tried to control my anger – if the nights hadn’t been so lonely and my bed so empty I’d have long sent Eliza packing, back to the street cleaners’ quarter where she belonged. I asked her to bring me a clean handkerchief for my jacket pocket. Still in a temper, she opened the drawer, chose one and flung it at me. I picked up my belt and hit her across the face, the buckle drawing blood from her lips. She stood there stunned but didn’t utter a word. I’d never struck her before, nor had she ever considered that I was capable of it. I slotted the belt and buckled it around my waist. “My handkerchief,” I said calmly. Warily, she picked it up, folded it and pushed it carefully into my pocket. I spread my arms so that she might put my jacket on. I could feel her fingers trembling as she straightened it on my shoulders. “You’d do well to go to church,” I said and walked towards the door.