The Convalescent Read online

  “I want you outside now.”

  I look around quickly, but Adrian and Dr. Monica are nowhere in sight. I look to the mothers, but their faces are buried in women’s magazines. The Sick or Diseased children are the only ones who notice. They watch me gather my writing tablet. They lift their pale faces.

  “Get your coat,” Himmel says.

  I remove my coat from the rack and follow Mrs. Himmel’s finger outside Dr. Monica’s office. She points me to a circular picnic table parked on the front lawn.

  “Wait here,” she says. “Adrian will come and get you if there’s a cancellation. If no one comes to get you by five o’clock, you can assume you can just go home.”

  The door closes behind her with a deliberate click.

  I climb up on top of the picnic table and stare across the street. Directly across the street from Dr. Monica’s office is the Big M supermarket. The place used to be a mini-mall, but now the supermarket takes up the entire complex. Inside, there’s the Big M hair salon, the Big M coffeeshop, the Big M car mechanic. At the entrance to the parking lot, a three-dimensional box laconically spins: ENTER, EXIT, ENTER, EXIT, ENTER—

  Above it all is a glowing red M.

  Sitting here, evicted to a picnic table outside a pediatrician’s office on this wet and frigid April afternoon, clouds splayed across the sky like spilt milk, I imagine climbing off the picnic table and crossing the intersection and walking into the coffeeshop and sitting down to have a cup of coffee like any normal, civilized person. But civilized people have something to offer each other, and all I have to offer is my unsightly visage. My swinging cheeks. My dirt, my peeling skin, my sickness. My beard hanging from my chin like a squirrel. And the civilized people would sit tightly, politely, away from me. Because they are Virginians. They’re doing everything right in the world, and I’m mucking it up royally.

  There’s no question about it.

  Wind blows mercilessly through the Disneyland sweatshirt, making my flesh pimple. I pull my coat over my arms. The coat is one of Grandfather Ákos’s coats. There are ten in all, each made from heavy gray Hungarian wool. Each cinched with a row of gold buttons. Inside, the coats are layered with thinner, more refined wools, but behind what appears to be the final layer, behind a zipper, are a dozen or so wide pockets. Pockets made from soft, but extraordinarily durable, Hungarian cloth; pockets evenly distributed throughout the hidden lining, designed so that once filled, a person on the outside could never guess the nature of the ballast; pockets just large enough to fit assorted, prewrapped, loaf-sized cuts of meat.

  A small light-blue silk label is sewn into each collar of the coats: KABáT TOLVAJOK.

  Coat of Thieves.

  Grandfather Ákos never told me about the original function for the pockets, but once mumbled something about how being a Hungarian meant wanting nothing and being prepared for anything. “Or was it the other way around,” he said.

  Three Security Guards appear briefly in front of the glass doors. Herman lumbers fatly around the other two, moving in a winding figure-eight, observing the Virginians who walk past him with wariness and suspicion. He rests one hand on the walkie-talkie attached to his belt like a pistol; with the other, he fiddles with his baseball cap. The guards take one look through the glass doors and then spread out, abandoning their posts.

  I stand up and stretch, then pull on the wooly sleeves. There has always been something about the Big M supermarket that makes me feel hidden. Invisible. It’s something in the high ceilings, the gleaming white walls, the glass refrigerator units filled with colorful, prepackaged foods. It’s in the sweet smells unfurling from the bakery ovens. It’s in the rows of shiny green peppers, shipped all the way from Taiwan. Here, there are so many more interesting, more charming things to look at other than a hairy little man lingering in front of the meat display in a large wool coat, slipping cold, prewrapped packages into the pockets of the lining.

  I lower my stylish woolen cap to cover my face, and then climb off the picnic table and cross the intersection. I hustle quickly through the parking lot, all the way up to the entrance of the supermarket, to where those shiny glass doors swing open.

  METAMORPHOSIS

  XII

  THE CAPTAIN AND THE QUEECONOCOCHEECOOK

  It’s Saturday. People buy roasts on Saturdays. By late afternoon, the line of meat customers nearly reaches the road. Marjorie likes busy days. Her blade sways happily in the April wind by the bus, listening to the gurgle of the Queeconococheecook, feeling good about today. About life in general. The sky is clear for once, and inside, the tape-radio’s playing some upbeat German pop tunes:

  Hier ist ein übermäßiger Klassiker von den sechziger Jahren!

  Even Mrs. Kipner’s in a good mood. I perch the tin can on an arm of my lawnchair and drop in a fat slice of tomato, all brown and glistening with sugars. It lands on the shiny part of his back. Tomato juice runs luxuriously over his face, like water from a warm bath. He whirrs contentedly.

  The Virginians all chat comfortably while waiting to buy their meat. Mister Bis is here today, in line with the others. A woman tells a funny story about losing her keys and a baked ham and everyone laughs. A man is buying meat for a church barbecue. He invites everyone in line to the barbecue, and walks along the line of people and gives them his flyer. He does not give me a flyer. Which is fine. I have no interest in flyers.

  Dr. Monica says I need to put myself in social situations, but is selling meat out of a bus not social? This moment, my customers all in a row, is my main social engagement with the outside world. My convivial soirée. The whole world is busy and alive and I, if just for this fleeting moment, am alive in it—

  I hand a lamb roast to a Virginian in a pressed suit.

  “Well!” he says, laughing, marveling at the girth. He pays for the meat, then reaches into a bag and produces a loaf of dark, thick bread. “You look hungry,” the man says.

  Even if I could possibly consume it, the bread is old, and has already hardened.

  “How magnanimous of you,” I want to say.

  Then the sport utility vehicle turns the corner onto Back Lick Road. It’s the same one as before. Black. Shiny. It moves toward the field like a tank. An arrow of sunlight hits the window, illuminating the three of them inside: the dark suits. The curve of their massive chins. Another large square sign fills the backseat:

  PROPERTY OF SUBDIVISIONS LLC COME TO PARADISE

  The car lingers for a moment, purring at the edge of my field, but when they see that I’ve got company, the Subdivisionists don’t stop to hammer the new sign; instead, they drive past us, speeding quickly around the bend. Mister Bis comes up behind me and watches them leave. He clucks his tongue.

  “Chickenshits,” he says.

  We sell out by noon. Everything goes. All the chops, shanks, loins. Mister Bis buys his half of it. “People need their carnitine,” he says, helping me dole out three steaks to a woman holding a baby.

  “What’s that?” the woman says.

  “It is the protein in meat,” says Mister Bis. “If you eat your carnitine, you’re good as gold. That’s why those vegetarians have terrible posture and go shuffling around in their goddamn clogs all day. Not enough carnitine. They can barely keep themselves upright.”

  “Carnitine,” says the woman, and nods her head.

  “Carnitine,” says Mister Bis.

  At the end of the day, Richie arrives in Mister Bis’s truck to pick him up. He honks the horn. Mister Bis ignores him, and gathers a bundle of wax papers that have been blown across the grass. Richie, impatient, honks again. This time he leans on it. An assembly of birds scatters from the trees.

  “Get over here!” shouts Mister Bis.

  In a sulk, Richie slides out the door of the truck and walks over to the meat bus, kicking at the grass as he comes. “What,” he says.

  “Help clean up.”

  Richie sneezes a dry, exaggerated sneeze. “I can’t,” he says and sniffles. “I have allergies. T
he stupid grass gives me allergies.”

  “I’ll give you allergies, Anil,” says Mister Bis, and throws him a handful of tongues.

  Richie jumps aside.

  Mister Bis and I fill up his boxes with chops, roasts, steaks. Assorted cutlets. It takes a while, but eventually we get it all loaded up in the back of his truck. The grocer slams the door and wipes his hands. “I honestly do not know how you do it, Mister Pfliegman,” he says. “I do not know how you manage to do it all on your own. But I would be out of business without you.” He gives me a warm look. Then he opens the door of the truck to leave. “Where’s Richie?”

  We turn around.

  Richie has braced himself by the side of the bus, and is furiously tugging at Marjorie with all of his strength.

  I make a run for it. I haul my bad leg across the field and throw myself upon the boy pharmacist.

  “Hey!” he cries. “It’s a weed! It’s just a weed!”

  I focus on his left hand, trying to pry Marjorie out from his insubordinate adolescent fingers, but Richie is considerably bigger than I am. He easily bends his legs around my legs until he gets a good grip on the bad one. He turns it.

  “Algh!” I yell.

  Then a man walks out from around the back of the bus. Stunned, I stop wrestling and stare at him. He’s wearing nothing but a tight Speedo. He has glistening pectorals, a trim, two-inch mustache. Around his neck hangs a shiny whistle, and he’s got a funny round helmet on his head that looks like he’s about to battle kindergarteners. He looks exactly like the Captain from The Complete Book of Water Polo, With Pictures. As if cued, the Captain brings forth a yellow water polo ball from around his back. He begins expertly tossing it back and forth between his palms. His leg muscles twitch excitedly. “Take him away from the two-meter area!” he cries.

  I give him an incredulous look.

  “Go for the goal!”

  Sensing that I’ve let up, Richie seizes the clear advantage. “Take that!” he cries, and elbows me deep in the gut.

  “Push him out to four to six meters!” the Captain shouts, and tweets his whistle. “Get and hold one side!”

  Half-bent, I climb up one side of Richie’s body to his shoulder, and then, with my barnacle teeth, chomp down. Richie howls and grabs his shoulder. He begins whacking me on the head with his knuckles, then grabs my stylish woolen cap in his hands. He flings it across the field—

  “Foul!” cries the Captain, jumping up and down. He blows the whistle, hard. “Use the legs!” he shouts. “Focus on the legs! Eggbeater, Eggbeater!”

  I concentrate on my legs. I hook my good leg around Richie’s knee, and am fairly surprised as it turns, sending him sideways to the ground.

  The Captain is so excited he takes off his helmet. “Attaboy, Pfliegman!” he shouts, and gives me a thumbs-up. Richie wiggles under my grip, but I don’t let go until Mister Bis throws an arm in and divides us. I look for the Captain, but he’s gone. Back into the slice of air he came from.

  Mister Bis gives me a light shake. “Are you all right, Mister Pfliegman?”

  Richie spits on the ground. “No, he’s not all right,” he says, and spits again. He pulls the collar away from his neck to show his father his fresh wound. “He bit me on the shoulder! I probably need a goddamned tetanus shot!”

  I hobble over to the front of the bus, looking around all sides.

  “Go back to the truck,” says Mister Bis.

  Richie sniffles and wipes his nose on his shirt. “But I was bit!” he insists.

  “I said go back to the truck!”

  Richie rubs his shoulder and shouts at me: “Who goes around biting people? What are you, anyway? Some kind of vampire?”

  “Get back in the truck, Teenager!” says Mister Bis. “Right now!”

  “Fine!” Richie yells. He runs all the way back to the truck and jumps into the driver’s seat. He turns on the radio.

  Rock music blasts across the field.

  Mister Bis picks up my cap and approaches the bus. “Are you all right, Mister Pfliegman? Do you feel all right? What are you looking for?”

  I beckon Mister Bis into the bus and point out the windows to the wide hanging arms of the pine tree, the muddy path leading down to the embankment of the Queeconococheecook. The Captain is meandering down the grassy side of the river, tossing the yellow ball between his palms—he slides into the water, disappearing into the froth and foam.

  “What?” says Mister Bis. “What am I looking at?”

  I go to my bookshelf and pick up The Complete Book of Water Polo, With Pictures to show him what I’m talking about—I point at the Captain on the cover—but Mister Bis doesn’t look at the book. Although he has visited the field many times before, he’s never actually been inside. He looks at the rusted pots, the barely used sink. The diamond-shaped crack in the ceiling. He spots a tin can perched on the windowledge and picks it up—a large brown beetle spins his antennae—he quickly puts it down again. He folds his arms over his chest. “Rovar,” he says. “I think you should come and stay with me and Missus Bis for a while. I would have to clear it by her of course, and it would not be a permanent situation, but there is a cot and a few other things, and you’d certainly be comfortable. It’s freezing in here. You shouldn’t be living outside like this, next to a river. It’s not safe.”

  I smile warmly at Mister Bis’s generosity. This is no everyday gesture, and I am truly appreciative. I pick up my writing tablet.

  Thank you, I write. But no.

  He sniffs, and presses his hands together. “No? Why not?”

  Please don’t be offended. I have no choice in the matter.

  “But it’s the least we can do for you, for everything you do for us—”

  I shake my head.

  “All right,” he says, and puts one hand on my shoulder. He fingers my filthy pink sweatshirt, the woolen cap. My everyday trousers, worn thin.

  “Do you at least have a good coat?” he says. “I can get you a good coat if you need one.”

  Oh, I have one, I write.

  Then Mister Bis notices the pile of unopened letters from the Subdivisionists. He picks one up and opens it: “Due to re-zoning the zoning laws,” he reads, “this acreage is to be subdivided into eight elite, residential properties.”

  Outside, I watch the Captain climb out of the water and trod happily up the embankment in his bare feet, shaking the water from his body. When he reaches the bus, he grabs one of the Indian’s blue towels with the yellow pom poms, drying on the clothesline. He rubs himself with it.

  “This is bad,” Mister Bis says, shaking his head at the letter. “Have you not seen this? They’ve got lawyers involved now.”

  I slowly place the water polo book back on my bookshelf. There is no need for me to read the letters from the Subdivisionists. They always say the same thing. The pages are filled with all sorts of important-sounding words like fiduciary, accrue, and facilitate. I may not practice or appreciate language like cost-effective or fiscal advantage; I may not understand words like accretion or adverse possession; and yes, these may well indeed be modern words for modern times, but it seems that not all that much has changed from early medieval times, when people were most concerned with eating fresh meat, laying claim on land, and killing people right through the heart.

  XIII

  EVOLUTION OF THE PFLIEGMANS:

  THE GREAT LEG-WRESTLING CHAMPION OF TENTH-CENTURY HUNGARY

  I once read that every person should live next to a body of water. That all forms of water represent change. Or the possibility for change. That landlocked people go bonkers. Living next to a river was an imperative for the early Hungarians, though purely for pragmatic reasons: these people of leisure, of vanity, fished and hunted along the many rivers which decorate the Carpathian Basin, and it’s probably for this reason above all others that their civilization evolved so quickly there. By 926 AD, the Magyars had spread out over many thousands of square kilometers, a total combined area considerably larger than the
area of present-day Hungary, which is thirty-five thousand square miles and roughly the same size as the state of Virginia. The original ten tribes had disseminated into hundreds of villages of smaller tribes, across various rivers, but mostly along the Tisza and the Danube, which divide the country into long and narrow thirds. But what is little known about the early Hungarians, even amongst the most fêted historians, is that among the Magyars who inhabited these rivers lived the best leg wrestler the world has ever seen.

  Her name was Lili László.

  Lili László, as the Virginians would call her, or László Lili, as the Hungarians called her, had long blond hair which coiled around her neck like a furry snake, and the largest thighs of any woman in camp. Lili would often challenge men to leg-wrestling matches, and everyone always came to watch. For an emerging, war-torn country, early in the tenth century? Entertainment-wise? It was the best bang for your buck.

  This is the way it worked, as passed down from Ural Mountains to here, where we are now, in 926 AD, this flat, wet, and thankless place called the Carpathian Basin: “Two opponents lay on their backs, facing opposite directions, their arms intertwined,” writes Anonymus. “Their legs lifted and locked into each other. A struggle, for as long as the wrestlers could hold, ensued. The winner turned the knees of his opponent, hauling him over his head.”

  Lili László never leg wrestled for fun; it was always for grain alcohol or for extra portions of food, as Árpád had imposed strict rations in camp. Lili would pass through the food line with her tiny woman’s plate and sigh, looking hungrily at the men’s plates, piled with cold salted deermeat. She would bribe men out of their breakfasts by challenging them to a match and promising to allow them to gurulni her body if she lost.

  She never lost.

  One morning, she awoke to find a semicircle of men in their man-loins standing outside of her tent.

  “You owe us,” one said.