The Convalescent Read online

  “What of grace, Brother Lignarius,” they said.

  He looked at the monks and their soupbowls. “Credo,” he said coldly, then stood up from his place at the table and left.

  That day, in the darkness of the pit, Wiborada grabbed the monk’s gigantic head between her hands and stared at him with wonder. A thread of spit dangled from her lower lip. “God cannot save you,” she said.

  The monks gasped. “God saves us all, Little Sister,” one protested.

  Wiborada eyed him coolly. “An invading horde of men approaches from the east. You must move the monks and the treasury, but most importantly the library. All of this will be destroyed if you do not.”

  “And how does the lady know this?”

  “I’ve seen it,” she said, and pointed to the wall. “God moved the wall and showed me. It’s a blessing.”

  The monk looked at the stones, at the moss which had grown undisturbed for decades, and was amused. If God would choose anyone to proffer a vision to, it would likely be himself, he thought, certainly not anyone else at the monastery, and certainly not a female. He laughed all the way up the stairs, across the gardens, and well into the night. Under his bedsheets, he tickled himself with the idea that he lived in the same place as a woman who thought she saw invaders coming through the walls of a monastery. No barbarians would ever invade God’s house. They wouldn’t, he snickered, have the gall. He took his nighttime tea and slept in peace. Only a week later, when the early Hungarians came as Wiborada said they would, burning houses, stealing gold and jewels, destroying the entire neighborhood of Lake Constance and moving, positively brimming with gall, to the front door of the monastery—only then, in fear and astonishment, did he believe her. A long log swung and the front door burst open.

  All of the monks ran out the back entrance, crying like frightened children: “De sagittis Hungarorum libera nos, Domine!”

  “That day,” writes Anonymus, “the monastery at St. Gallen was abandoned to the invaders except for a large and friendly, but not terribly bright monk, who plunked down in the middle of the courtyard and refused to leave because he had not yet been given his monthly allowance of shoe leather, and the anchoress Wiborada, who remained in her pit, listening as the invaders approached.”

  The Hungarians thundered into the pit. They were expecting to find barrels of wine, and were more than surprised to find a woman there, hunched in a corner amongst towering piles of books. The leader of the invaders, a short man with a mustache which broomed over his lips, stepped forward. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Of course Wiborada could not understand him. “Please,” she begged. “Kill me if you want to, but leave the library intact.”

  Árpád sighed. “Can anyone understand this woman?”

  Wiborada glowered at Árpád. “Paganismo transnatauerunt,” she said, her chin quivering. “Transient pagans.” She grabbed a book and held it tightly to her chest.

  Árpád looked around. “Can anyone tell me if her life is worth a hundred books?”

  “I’d say fifty,” the men said. “Fifty-five.”

  “Forty!”

  “A dozen!”

  “Nulla!”

  Then it was everyone chanting, “No books! No books! No books!”

  The Hungarians banged their swords and axes on the floor.

  Árpád sighed. He was never happy when the men got carried away. “Leave the books,” he said. “Get the wine.”

  “Bor!” they shouted happily.

  Árpád followed them upstairs to check on the bread supply in the pantry of the monastery’s kitchen. In the courtyard, he came upon the large, sickly-looking monk, sitting with his legs folded on the flat stones. The monk was moving his large arms randomly about, appearing to shoot at imaginary targets with imaginary arrows. Other Hungarians quickly gathered around him, holding their swords high above his head. “Why do you not flee?” they cried.

  The Giant turned his invisible bow upon them, held it, and then released his fingers. “I can be of use,” he said.

  The Hungarians looked at each other. They demanded to know how this monk, way out here in the remote regions of Swabia, knew how to speak their language. So as they sat around the long wooden table that afternoon, Szeretlek, in a spattering of consonants, confessed that he was not actually from the monastery; that he came from a small camp of tribes somewhere further east.

  Árpád was amused. The man clearly had come from Carpathia. “What else?” he asked, pouring himself some wine.

  Szeretlek shrugged. “I’m in love,” he said.

  “With whom?”

  “A woman,” said Szeretlek.

  The men roared.

  Árpád held up his hands. “What sort of woman?”

  Szeretlek looked patiently around the table. “She has very large thighs,” he said.

  The men lost it. But Árpád’s ears perked up. “Large thighs?” he said.

  “Like loaves of fresh bread.”

  Árpád paused. “Tell me about your tribe,” he said. “Who are your people?”

  The large man lifted his large face. He looked the Grand Prince in the eyes. The look, Árpád felt, was unsettling.

  “I am a member of the Fekete-Szem Hentes,” he said.

  Then Árpád recognized the man’s face, his body. The Giant looked different: his body was thinner, more brittle, and something horrid had happened to his face and skin. Suddenly, Árpád very clearly remembered how the same gigantic arms and legs had entwined themselves around the legs of his beloved Lili under the burlap. It had been nearly five years since he had spoken about the Fekete-Szem, but the image of the creatures packed into the tent still flooded his brain. Each time he closed his eyes they were there, staring at him, licking their teeth, shaking nits from their hair, blinking their enormous, frightening eyes. And that woman! The táltos! Despite the fact that he had given them Lili, a proper Hungarian, to stay and watch over them, Árpád felt that he still had not satisfied the old witch. He felt that she had somehow cursed him. Ever since the day he stumbled into that tent, Árpád had awoken in the middle of the hot night, gasping for breath, thousands of those black eyes blinking back at him in the darkness, her words “We are the weakest among you” running full speed through his brain. How the image of these creatures persisted, like a second, insatiable conscience! He was stunned he had not recognized the Giant earlier, but it hardly seemed possible that Szeretlek could have survived Exile. And yet here he was, displaying one of his enormous leg-wrestling thighs to other members of the cavalry, who were ooh-ing and ahh-ing admiringly.

  “Can we bring him with us?” the men begged. “Please?”

  “We have enough oxen,” said Árpád.

  “But he’ll be of use,” the men said. “Get a load of these legs!”

  They slapped Szeretlek’s thighs and beamed.

  Árpád threw his helmet across the table. “Fine,” he snapped.

  Fueled by the prospect of a homecoming with Lili, Szeretlek ran off to collect his belongings. Árpád reached over the table and grabbed bowls of food from his men. But they were empty. The Hungarians had eaten everything. There was no soup, no fruit. No fresh bread. He grabbed a large gray piece of ját, the size of a small skull. “Is this all that’s left?” he said. The men looked at each other.

  “That’s it!” he shouted. “Everyone up! We’re leaving! Get your horses.”

  In a flurry, the men began assembling their belongings and leaping upon their horses. When Árpád realized that Szeretlek had no horse to ride, he threw a fist in the air with fresh enthusiasm, jumped on top of the table, and cried out, “Hooy Hooy!”

  “Hooy Hooy!” the Hungarians howled.

  In the mere seconds they were famous for, the Magyars signaled everyone together with bugles and fire beacons. They quickly gathered their plunder, threw themselves over their saddles, and began galloping east across the Swiss plains, leaving one person, the one who would save them from their deaths, behind.

 
XXV

  ANGEL, DANCING ON THE FINGERTIPS OF GOD

  Adrian enters the Waiting Area with her clipboard. “Pfliegman,” she says. “There’s been a cancellation. You’re up.”

  The Sick or Diseased children stop banging blocks as I limp past Mrs. Himmel’s desk and into the narrow corridor that leads to Dr. Monica’s office. I am going where they’re going. Perhaps they’re curious to see why I’m going. Perhaps they’re curious to see if I’ll return.

  They quickly go back to the banging.

  Adrian sits me down on the examining table, hands me my gown, and wordlessly closes the door, leaving me to the intense privacy of Dr. Monica’s office sans Dr. Monica. Some improvements have been made: white curtains now hang down each side of the window like an open robe, a brand new humidifier purrs next to the door, two small chairs with painted daisies are in one corner, the examining table is in another, Dr. Monica’s swivel chair is in the third, and in the fourth all of the stuffed animals have been piled into one big amalgam of fun.

  I admit that part of me does not want to have impure thoughts about Dr. Monica. But I cannot help myself. It’s like Pfliegmans were born to suffer such urges. Lovely Lily, I think. Exquisite Flower! I could take you. I could take you right here, our bodies splayed across the children’s examining table. It could happen—My Darling, I would beg, won’t you let me sniff your soft chin? May I, if for only just a moment, squeeze the fat of your calves? Is not lust, after all, the fertile and exacting seed of love?

  Adrian pokes her head in. “Everything okay?” she says.

  “Get out!” I want to scream. “You’re ruining the moment!”

  “Undress, Rovar,” she says, and closes the door.

  I undress. I go to the closet and hang up my coat. My trousers fall to the floor in a pile, heavy from the caked-on dirt and the weight of my belt buckle. At home in the bus, I often let the clothes stay where they are, in the accordion shape into which they fall from my body, but not here— Here, I fold the trousers and sweatshirt neatly, and place them on the floor next to a small white chair. The boots remain on my feet, the tongues hanging out the front as though panting. I hold the paper gown over my head.

  It floats on.

  Dr. Monica knocks briefly and enters the room, my manila folder embraced tightly to her bosom. Pieces of blond hair are everywhere. They decorate her face. Her cheeks, pink and round, perfectly complement the red dress, which hangs over her in U-shaped drapes. Her body is an altar. The dress, la nappe d’autel.

  New curtains? I write.

  Dr. Monica beams, admiring her windows. “It makes a difference, I think,” she says.

  I look down. Usually Dr. Monica wears puffy white sneakers, but not today; today she flaunts these red, open-toed heels. There is no rational reason why the extra space is afforded the toes; it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with comfort. The red shoes are a tease; a deliberate act of vanity. And suddenly my Darling is removing her tiny white hat and letting all that hair go. She’s unbuttoning her white doctor’s coat and pulling low the neckline of this unbelievable dress. She climbs on top of me, straddling the examining table, and her thighs emerge from underneath the dress like two pale hams. She flips her hair over one shoulder and presses herself into me, biting the outer orbit of my ear, and me, all the while, grabbing her by the buttocks, quietly kneading—

  It looks nice, I write.

  “Thank you,” she says, opening my folder. She brushes a leaf of hair from her face.

  Where are you going tonight?

  Dr. Monica looks at her watch. “Mr. Pfliegman,” she says. “You’re not being completely forthcoming with me.”

  Aren’t I?

  “What are you doing here? You don’t have a temperature, and you look fine to me.”

  Do I?

  Dr. Monica sighs, and tosses my folder on the counter by the sink. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pfliegman, but I can’t stay for this. It’s been a difficult day, and I really do have somewhere to be.”

  I slide down from the examining table, turn around, and part the examining gown for her. I show her my back.

  “That’s not good,” she says.

  I climb back up on the table. NO, I write.

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Dr. Monica stands up and snaps on the rubber gloves. She begins prodding. She places her hands flat on my back and examines the skin at the shoulders, rubbing all the way down each of my arms. The full breadth of my torso. She whistles. “So this has never happened before?” she says. “Nothing happened to instigate it?”

  I shake my head.

  She sits down in front of me, my folder poised on her lap. “Mr. Pfliegman,” she says, “Why do you have to stay in that bus? Can’t you at least move back into your old house? The farmhouse? Isn’t that an option?”

  No, I write. That is not an option.

  “Why not?” she says.

  The animals are there, I write.

  “What animals? The animals you butcher?”

  No.

  “Then what animals?”

  It’s better not to discuss things like this.

  “I completely disagree,” she says. Her eyes flutter. “I think things like this are exactly what we should be discussing. Your parents, for example. Where did they—”

  Give me something, I write.

  “What do you want?” she says. “A drug? No drugs.”

  I shake my head. Sugar.

  “Definitely no sugar,” she says. “Water.”

  Dr. Monica goes over to the sink and runs tap water into a paper cone. She hands it to me. I reach for it, and a sharp pain suddenly enters the left side of my body. It tears its way across my abdomen, and exits on the right. It feels like I’ve been sliced in half. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and I start coughing in dry, fiery bursts. Dr. Monica’s got me firmly by the shoulders. This time it’s not a ploy—the pain holds constant.

  “Mr. Pfliegman? Are you all right?” But I can’t shake the coughing— Dr. Monica takes my hands in her hands. “Write it down,” she says gently.

  Shaking, I pick up my pen.

  “I want you to try and visualize each pain specifically,” she says.

  I give her a quizzical look.

  “It’s what I ask the children,” she explains. “It helps to try and visualize what’s hurting you. Like it’s an enemy that can be conquered. If your pain were a person, for example, what would the person look like?”

  If I could speak, I know what I should say. He would have a small, pointed face. Dark hair and eyes the same color as mine. The same thin, lame muscles. He would be wearing those creamy slacks, the shirt with a long collar and an anachronous paisley print, those shiny Italian shoes— But it isn’t him. The person I imagine has no discernable face. Instead the person I see behind my eyes is a young man with bright blond hair. He wears a short-sleeved blue dress shirt. Fancy black trousers with even cuffs. A black belt neatly cinched around his middle. He keeps one hand in one pocket of his pants, and the other hangs casually to his side, showing off a glittering silver wristwatch. It’s nice out. The wristwatch shines in the sun—I swear that I’ve never met this man before in my life, but when Dr. Monica asks me this question, there he is, standing before me, as still and brutal as my own reflection. How can this be? How can I imagine the worst about someone I’ve never met?

  Dr. Monica looks at me. “Mr. Pfliegman, I want to try something.”

  I thought you had somewhere to be.

  She’s quiet. It is a dangerous line, the line between the Creature and his Pediatrician. There are many, many unspoken rules. Certainly the Creature knows that if he confessed everything to her, if he confessed that his sicknesses are not always as terrible as he makes them out to be; if he confessed that he has spent whole hours gazing at the lines of her rump as though they were sculpted from fine marble; if he confessed that because of this rump, he has in the past helplessly suffered Thoroughly Benevolent But Nonetheless Highly Unsavory Erections
in the company of Sick or Diseased children; if she knew that the car accident which killed Ján and Janka Pfliegman was not an accident at all, but something else entirely, there is no question that she would banish him from her office. If she knew what her hairy little convalescent was recovering into, she would stare at him, open-mouthed, and back away in cold fear. She would refuse to see him at all.

  But the line has not been crossed this afternoon. Dr. Monica, thick-skinned, cracks a smile. “I suppose I do have somewhere to be,” she says. “But it’s not a big deal. We’re just seeing a movie. To be honest, I don’t even like movies. Isn’t that funny?” She sighs, fingering and twisting the cross around her neck. “I’m just not any good at this dating business. Never was.”

  Ange, valsant sur les bouts du doigt de Dieu.

  She slowly pulls on her rubber gloves. “Just relax, Mr. Pfliegman,” she says. “We’re in no rush. There’s no rush at all.” She walks over to the sink and runs the faucet, wetting a sponge, then opens a cabinet and removes a small blue bottle. It’s some kind of lotion. She squeezes an inch of it onto the sponge and says, “This is just a clinical dermatological cream. It might feel a little like clay as it dries, but it’s good for you. It pulls toxins from the body, and will clear away all that dry skin.” She starts moving the sponge over my body. The lotion is light blue, the exact color of the bottle, and odorless. She coats my arms, chest, back, and even my face with it. “This should help loosen things up,” she says. She spreads it all over my cheeks and beard, under my eyeglasses. It feels oily, and it burns.

  “It can burn at first,” Dr. Monica says. “But the burning goes away after a minute.” She deposits the old sponge and produces a fresh one, along with a small stack of fresh handtowels. “When we wash it off, it will pull some of this dead skin away, okay? This stuff can be a little messy sometimes, so we’ve got to use these,” she says, and pats the towels.