27 August, 1924 17 страница

'Now we move ahead a couple of months. The Field Hospital was desperately understaffed, the more so that Vendouris was dead, and two other doctors and I slept three hours out of every twelve, taking shifts on a camp bed in a little tent a few yards from the larger tent which was our operating theater. Which is to say that we breathed war, drank war and slept war every day. Our work was packing wounds, closing aspirating chest wounds, and controlling hemorrhages on soldiers brought in from the battlefields and trenches by the Norton-Harjes and Red Cross ambulances. When we had taken off a leg or put a Thomas splint on a fracture, the wounded were sent off to hospitals for more extensive treatment. The loss of the truck I had been on meant not only the absence of another doctor but also of three months' worth of morphia and other supplies due for the hospital — so most of our operations were done with little or no anesthetic. Often we worked under torches just like those you see in the woods out there, moving with the comings and going of the war in Les Islettes, Cheppy and Verennes. The troops we worked with were mainly men from New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, boys of nineteen and twenty who'd wake up on the table and reach for their groins with the first movement of consciousness, just to make sure everything was there. It had not been a week before all of the medical staff and many of the troops knew about what happened to Vendouris. The other doctors, a tall red-headed Georgian named Withers and a smart, haggard, bald New Yorker named Leach, seemed to approve of what I had done, and so did most of the troops.

'But they gave me a nickname. Can you guess? They called me the Collector. That act of mercy toward a fatally injured man set me apart, even in conditions as cramped and abnormal as prevailed in Field Hospital 84. Sometimes when I walked into the mess, I could hear men whispering the name. And once when I was operating on a poor little rifleman from the Pennsylvania detachment, trying to put his stomach back in place, he opened his eyes — two orderlies were holding him down — and looked at me and gasped, 'The Col. . . ' and died.

'Leach told me, 'Don't worry about it. If I'm ever in that spot, I hope you'll do me the same favor Most of the boys are so addled by war they no longer think right. '

'There was another reason for the name. For a time I made quite a bit of money playing cards with the line officers and other doctors. I assure you, I did not cheat. I just knew much more about the behavior of cards than they. But after a time I was no longer welcome in the games — I suppose I had won about a quarter of the regiment's money, most of it from Withers, who was a rich man. Withers had come to dislike and distrust me: after initially taking my side in the Vendouris business, he had begun to think that there was something fishy in it. By the time they had got around to bringing in the bodies, there was no money in Vendouris' pockets. And of course, being what he was, Withers distrusted all Northerners on principle. He hated Negroes the same way. And it is true that the work and the hours and the almost constant shelling had affected me too. I had lost forty pounds. When I was not on duty, I drank to put myself to sleep. And while I was still welcomed in card games, I played feverishly, recklessly — often I took large sums from Withers on the strength of a bluff.

'But after three or four months of those terrible conditions, I gave in to the strain. I began to imagine that I was poor William Vendouris. My destiny, which had seemed mysteriously near on the day I walked toward the front, had vanished with an equal mysteriousness. Unless Vendouris was my destiny. One day I saw him lying on a stretcher just taken from one of the Norton-Harjes ambulances — grinning in pain with his perfect teeth, holding in his purple guts with both hands. He looked toward me and said, 'My soul, Collector, my soul. ' I staggered, and Leach saw me do it and took over my job.

'The next day it was clear to me: I was Vendouris. I had simply been given the wrong papers. I explained this to Leach and to Withers, and they sat me down and got the colonel. I explained to him too that my name was not Nightingale but Vendouris, and that Nightingale had been killed on his first day in France. When I looked into the mirror, I saw William Vendouris' face. When I dressed, I put on Vendouris' clothes. I asked the colonel if he could get me the address back home of my wife and family, because the war had driven it out of my mind.

'The colonel arranged for me to be sent to the Neurological Hospital at Tours, and after a week there I was evacuated to Base Hospital 117 at La Fauche, where I wasted my time with carpentry and woodcarving — they could have sent me home or sent me back to work, and they sent me back to work. To Ste. Nazaire.

'It was in Ste. Nazaire that my destiny and I finally came face to face. And it was my destiny that sent me there, for the day after I left, Field Hospital 84 got a direct hit from a German shell, and Dr. Leach and all the men there but one were killed on the spot. Only Withers, who was in the camp bed jn the separate tent and who hated me, survived. And he was a part of my destiny too. '

'I was quartered in a factory taken over by the army, ' Collins said, and Tom looked up to see that the air was darkening. The sun was a red ball above the trees on the other side of the lake. His watch said it was just past ten-thirty. It's a trick, he told himself. Relax and enjoy it.

'Of course there was not much left to show what it had been before the war — I think the Germans had used it before we did. The lines had been dismantled and rows of cots for the enlisted men filled three-fourths of the enormous floor. Officers like myself had little cubicles with doors you could lock. On the factory's second floor were some staff offices — medical personnel also had the use of a large gaslit basement filled with sprung couches and exhausted chairs. The hospital was across the street from the factory, and at most hours of day or night you could find unshaven young doctors asleep on the couches, breathing in clouds of third-hand pipe smoke. The idea was, I guess, that I had suffered a temporary lapse and could come to my senses away from the front, in a more or less medical atmosphere. And if I did not — well, as long as I was steady enough to operate jn a week, it did not matter what I thought my name was. We were short of doctors, and nobody ever suggested sending me home. 'The orderly who showed me to my cubicle called me Lieutenant Nightingale, and I said, 'That is an error. My name is Lieutenant William Vendouris. Please try to remember that, Private. ' He gave me a rather frightened look and faded out the door.

'I slept for about two days straight, and woke up starved. I straightened my uniform, laced up my puttees, and went across the street to the hospital canteen.

'Black attendants were dishing up the food and pouring coffee, and I got in line, thinking that now things were going to work out. Then I heard a drawling Southern voice coming from one of the tables, saying, 'Waaall, the Collector's here. The coin collector. ' I turned around. Dr. Withers was staring at me, exuding hatred from every bristling orange hair on his head. He too had been transferred to Ste. Nazaire. He leaned across the table and began to whisper to the doctor eating with him. It suddenly seemed that everyone in the canteen was looking at me. I put down my tray and left. Out on the street I bought a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine and went back to my cubicle. Later I went out for more wine. I felt absolutely flat and useless. I knew Withers would be spreading terrible stories about me. I wanted to get back to work in order to prove myself, but my orders did not begin for another five days. Until then, I did not exist except as a name — the wrong name — on a cubicle door.

'Drink is a sacrament, you know. Any drink is a sacrament, and alcohol loosens the ropes tying down the god within. I reread some pages of Le Dogme et Rituel, and saw more in them than I ever had before. Then I ripped off a long piece of paper, lettered 'Vendouris' on it and tacked it over 'Lt. Nightingale' on my door. After that I rooted around in my case for my cards and did lifts and passes and shuffles for a couple of hours. If I did not exist in the Army's eyes, that was the perfect place for magic to flourish — an official limbo. And for five days I drank wine and ate cheese and bread and soaked myself in the practice of magic. It was a rededication — was I not a man risen from the dead? A man with secret power in his fingers? It was perhaps the most intense period of my life, and by the time it was over I knew that medicine was only a byroad for me, and that magic was the highway. I must have read Levi's book three times straight through, turning the pages with Vendouris' fingers, reading the type with Vendouris' eyes.

'On the sixth day I showered and changed my clothes and reported to the hospital. The major in charge of the administration admitted me and looked me over, knowing that I was crazy. He hated to be stuck with a mental case, if that was what I was, but no one had told him that I couldn't doctor with the best man on his staff. He said, 'I understand that you no longer acknowledge the name Charles Nightingale, Lieutenant. ' All he wanted was for me to get out of his office and get to work, where my craziness would not be flaunted in his face. I said, 'That is correct, Major. But to avoid trouble until this matter is corrected, I have no objections if the staff want to address me as Dr. Collector. ' He blinked. 'This is a nickname, ' I explained. Of course by then he had heard it from Withers. 'Call yourself what you like, Lieutenant. Your performance records are excellent. I just don't want any trouble. '

'I could see his aura as I spoke to him. It was dirty, inflamed. He was a coward, an unhealthy man. Not like you two boys. You have wonderful healthy auras. Can you see mine? '

The red sun split into a brilliant haze behind the magician's head: Tom could look at Collins only by squinting. Glowing redness swam about him. 'Yes, ' Del said beside him. Spears of blackness shot through the red.

'A month later, I met a remarkable man, whose aura was rainbowlike and seemed to blaze. ' Collins let this picture hang in the air before them a moment, then continued his story.

'There was a great deal of initial suspicion about me, but my behavior in the operating theater gradually put it to rest. It was a slightly more relaxed version of Hospital 84 — most of the time we had morphia, and we did not actually have to tie up the wounds with bootlaces and fishing wire. But it was working nine or ten hours all day in the stink of blood, with the screams of the poor injured devils all about us. I knew that I was stronger than I had ever been in my life; I felt the beginnings of that power which I had always known would be within me, as fixed and steely as the light from a star. On the one morning a week I had off, I went through the bookstores which had survived the shelling and found French translations of the writings of Fludd and Campanella, the famous sixteenth-century magicians, and Mather's translation of The Key of Solomon. Even in the midst of the bloody, harried work of patching up soldiers so they could return to the trenches to be killed, I felt the strength of my other craft. I liked being called Dr. Collector. Eventually only Withers distrusted me — he still imagined that I had stolen his money at the card table, and he refused to work next to me or to eat at the same bench.

'Of course I had eventually begun to remember my own past, including the moment when I had shot Vendouris. To that extent the colonel's therapy had been successful. But I was the Collector: I had collected Vendouris, or he had collected me, and I kept his name on the door of my cubicle. It seemed to me that a portion of his soul had entered mine, and was a part of that which gave me strength.

'And the day after I remembered putting my merciful buliet into my dying fellow doctor and felt my repressed personality returning to me, I was sewing up a private named Tayler from Fall Ridge, Arkansas, after removing a bullet from his lung. To work on the lungs, you cut the ribs away from the breastbone and peel them back like a door to the chest cavity. I had the bullet out, along with a third of Tayler's lung, which had become nearly gangrenous with infection. I thought he had a fair chance for survival — these days, it would be a very good chance. It was in no way an exceptional operation, in fact I think it was my third like it of the week. But Tayler died while I was suturing him up. I felt his life stopping: as though I'd heard the sudden cessation of an unobtrusive noise, heard the absence of a sound. Then, though I had paid no attention to his aura before, since I never did when I was operating, I saw his go black and murky. Just then a great white bird flapped up out of his chest: a great white bird like the one I had seen in the field of dead men. It flew up without making a sound; the others looked but did not see. The owl sailed out through the closed window, and I knew it was going toward the man who had aimed the bullet at little Tayler.

'The day after that, I healed a man with my fingers alone.

'He was a black man, an American Negro named Washford. Negroes served in the 92nd Division, under their own officers; they were rigidly segregated. In the normal course of things, the only ones we saw were working as valets or kitchen help or orderlies in the hospital. They had their own meeting places, their own girls, their own social life, which was closed off to the rest of us. Well, Washford had caught a round in his ribs, and the bullet had traveled around inside him for a while, generally messing up his giblets.

'When the attendant wheeled him in, Withers had just finished with his last patient, and the man took Washford to his table. Withers turned away without looking, bathed his hands in the sink, and then came back to the table. He froze. 'I won't work on this man, ' he said. 'I am not a veterinarian. ' He was from Georgia, remember, and this was 1917 — it does not excuse him, but it helps to explain him. His nurses looked at me, and the other doctors momentarily stopped their work. Washford was in danger of bleeding to death through his bandages while we decided how to handle Withers' defection. 'I'll exchange patients with you, ' I finally said, and Withers stepped away from his table and came toward mine.

''I don't care if you kill that one, Collector, ' he said. 'But you'll be disappointed — he has no pockets. '

'I ignored him and went to Washford and pulled away the soaked bandages. The nurse put the ether pad over his nose and mouth. I cut into him and began to look around. I removed the bullet and began repairing the damage. Then I felt a change come over my whole body: I felt as light as if I had taken the ether. My mind began to buzz. My hands tingled. I trembled, knowing what I could do, and the nurse saw my hands shake and looked at me as if she thought I was drunk. My drinking was well known, but really all of us drank all the time. But it was not alcohol, it was the smack of knowledge hitting me like a truck: I could heal him. I put down the instruments and ran my fingers along the torn blood vessels. Radiance — invisible radiance — streamed from me. The mess the bullet had caused as it plunged from lung to liver to spleen closed itself — all of that torn flesh and damaged tissue; it grew pink and restored, virginal, as you might call it. The nurse backed away, making little noises under her mask. I was on fire. My mind was leaping. I jerked out the retractors and ran my first two fingers over the incision and zipped him up, welded his skin together in a smooth pinkish-brown line. Withers' nurse ripped off her mask and ran out of the theater.

''Take him out, ' I said to the astonished attendant, who had been half-dozing at the back of the room: he had seen the nurse run out, but nothing of the operation. Washford went one way, I went another — I was floating. I came out into the big tiled hallway outside the theater. The nurse saw me and backed away. I started to laugh, and realized I was still wearing my mask. I removed it and sat on a bench. 'Don't be afraid, ' I said to the nurse.

''Holy mother of Jesus, ' she said. She was Irish.

'That miraculous power was ebbing from me. I held my hands up before my face. They looked skinned, in the tight surgical gloves.

''Holy mother of Jesus, ' the nurse repeated. Her face was turning from white to lobster pink.

''Forget about it, ' I said. 'Forget what you saw. '

'She scampered back inside the theater. I still could not comprehend what had just happened to me. It was as though I had been raised up to a great eminence and been shown all the things of this world and been told: 'You may have what you like. ' For a second I felt my blood pressure charge upward, and my head swam.

'Then everything gradually returned to normal. I could stand. I went back inside the theater, where Withers was just finishing with the boy on my table. He looked at me in disgust, finished his sutures, and returned to his own table. I did five more operations that day, and never felt the approach of that power which had healed Washford. '

The magician looked up. 'Night. ' Tom, surprised, saw the lamps burning in the woods; lights on the beach pushed his shadow toward the lake. 'Time to go to bed. Tomorrow I will tell you about my meeting with Speckle John and what happened after the war. '

'Bedtime? ' Del said. 'What happened to. . . ? '

Both boys simultaneously saw the crushed sandwich wrappers, the paper plates laden with crumbs.

'Oh, yes, you have eaten, ' Collins said. His face was serene and tired.

'We've only been here. . . ' Tom looked at his watch, which said eleven o'clock. 'An hour. '

'You have been here all day. I will see you here tomorrow at the same time. ' He stood up, and they dazedly imitated him. 'But know this. William Vendouris, whose name I had taken for a time, put a hurtin' on me. Without Vendouris, perhaps I would have remained an amateur magician, locked out and away from everything I wished most to find. '

Tom and Del climbed the rickety steps by themselves. Their minds and bodies told them it was late morning, but the world said it was night: the thick foliage on the bank melted together into a single vibrant breathing mass. They reached the top and stood in the pale, yellowish electrical light, looking down. Coleman Collins was standing on the beach, looking out at the lake.

'Did you know he used to be a doctor? ' Tom asked.

'No. But it explains why he didn't send for one when I broke my leg that time. The whole story explains that. ' Del put his hands in his pockets and grinned. 'If I started to heal wrong or anything, he would have fixed me like he did with that colored man. '

'I guess, ' Tom said moodily. 'Yeah, I guess so. ' He was watching Collins: the magician had extended one arm into the air, as if signaling to someone on the other side of the lake. After a moment the arm went down and Collins began to stroll along the beach in the direction of the boathouse. 'Could we really have been down there all day? '

Del nodded. 'I was sort of hoping I'd see her today. But the whole day vanished. '

'Well, that's just it, ' Tom said. 'It vanished. It was ten in the morning, about an hour went by, and now it's eleven at night. He stole thirteen hours away from us. '

Del looked at him, uncertain as a puppy.

'What I mean is, what's to stop him from taking a week away from us? Or a month? What does he do, put us to sleep? '

'I don't think so, ' Del said. 'I think everything just sort of speeds up around us. '

'That doesn't make sense. '

'It doesn't make sense to say that you met the Brothers Grimm, either. ' Del's tone was wistful, but his face momentarily turned bitter, 'I should have. '

'Well, I never met Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. '

'Uncle Cole said I had to watch out for your jealousy, ' Del blurted out. 'I mean. . . he just said that once when we were alone. He said that one day it would hit you, and you would want Shadowland for yourself. '

Tom fought down the impulse to tell exactly what Collins had said about his nephew. 'That's crazy. He wants to break up our friendship. '

'No, he doesn't. ' Del was adamant. 'He just said — '

'That I'd be jealous. Okay. ' Tom was reflecting that Collins had after all been right: though it was not Shadowland that made him jealous, but Rose Armstrong. 'Tell you what. Do you really want to meet the Brothers Grimm? '

'Right now? ' Del was suspicious.

'Right now. '

'Are you sure it's all right? '

'I'm not sure of anything. Maybe they're not even there. '

'Where? '

'You'll see. '

Del shrugged. 'Sure. I'd like to, '

'Come on, then. '

Del gave a worried look down at the beach: Collins had disappeared into the boat house. Then he followed Tom through the sliding doors into the living room.

'I guess we really ought to be in bed, ' Del said a little nervously.

'You can go to bed if you want to. ' Then he felt sorry for being so abrupt. 'Are you tired? '

'Not really. '

'Me neither. I think it's eleven-ten in the morning. '

This was said in defiance of all the physical evidence. All Shadowland seemed put to bed, even if the principal occupants were still out of theirs. One lamp burned beside a couch; the carpet showed the tracks of a vacuum cleaner. On the end tables, the ashtrays sparkled. Tom marched through the dim, quiet room, almost hoping to see Elena silently buffing the furniture.

'Upstairs? ' Del asked.

'Nope. ' Tom turned into the hall. One of the recessed lights gave a pumpkin-colored illumination.

'In the Little Theater? '

'Nope. ' Tom stopped where the short hallway intersected the main hall to the theaters.

'Oh, no, ' Del said. 'We can't. '

'I already did. '

'And he saw you? '

'He was waiting for me when I came out. '

'Was he mad? '

'I guess so. But nothing happened. You saw how he was today. Maybe he even forgot it. He was pretty drunk.

He wants us to see them, Del. That's why they're there. ' 'Do they just sit there? Or can you talk to them? ' 'They'll talk your ears off, ' Tom said. 'Come on. I

want to ask them some questions. ' He turned into the

short hallway and pulled open the heavy door.

'Our young visitor again, Jakob, ' said the one with the seasoned, kindly face.

'And behind him, is there not another little Geist? ' 'He has never been curious before, that one. ' 'He has never had his brave brother's help before. ' Both of them laid down their pens and looked inquisitively at Tom, but Tom did nbt move forward. He was aware of Del stretching on tiptoe behind him, trying to see over his shoulder. Instead of the cluttered, cozy workroom in which he had seen them earlier, the two men in the frock coats and elaborate neckwear were surrounded by a more barren and purposeful but equally cluttered room. The walls were earthen, crumbling here and there; nails had been driven into the packed earth, and from the nails hung khaki jackets, peaked hats, and tin helmets. Complicated green-and-white maps hung on a wide board. A clumsy box with a crank and a headpiece sat on a trestle table which also supported rolled maps, bundles of paper tied with shoelaces, more military headgear, a fleece-lined jacket, and a kerosene lamp. Stark wooden chairs surrounded it. In this curious setting, the two men sat at their ornate desks. A soldier's room, was all that Tom could make of this. Staff room?

'Yes, little one, ' said Wilhelm. 'They let us work here. '

'For our work goes on, ' said Jakob, standing up and beckoning the two boys into the room.

Tom stepped forward and smelled the close loamy odor of earth; the trace of cigars. Del came alongside him. From far off, what could have been miles away, came the booming of big guns.

'And on and on. For the stories' sake. '

'Where are you supposed to be now? ' asked Tom.

'Shadowland, ' both brothers answered. 'It is always Shadowland. '

'I mean, France? Germany? '

'Things are getting dark, ' said Jakob. 'We may have to move again, and take our work and our families with us. But still the stories continue. '

'Even though Europe is dying, brother. '

'The sparrows have given up their voices. '

'Their choice. '

Del was looking at the brothers with a rapt face. 'Are you always here? '

Wilhelm nodded. 'Always. We know you, boy. '

'I want to ask you something, ' Tom said, and the brothers turned their faces, kindly and businesslike, to him. Outside, the shelling continued, far off and resonant.

'That is why you have found us, ' said Jakob.

Tom hesitated. 'Do you know the expression 'put a hurtin' on' something? '

'It is not one of our expressions, but we know it, ' said Jakob. His expression said: Follow this line, boy.

'Okay. Did Del's uncle put a hurtin' on that train? Did he make it crash? '

'Of course, ' said Jakob. 'Aren't you a bright boy? He put a hurtin' on it — he made it crash. For the sake of the story in which you find yourself. '

Tom realized that he was trembling; two shells exploded very near, and dust drifted off the earthen walls.

'I have one more question, ' Tom said.

'Of course you do, child, ' said Jakob. 'You want to know about the Collector. '

'That's right, ' Tom said. 'Is the Collector Skeleton Ridpath? ' He saw the other one, Wilhelm, suppress a smile.

'For the sake of your story, ' said Jakob. 'For the sake of your story, he is. '

'Wait a second, ' Del said. 'I don't understand. The Collector is Skeleton Ridpath? It's just a kind of a toy — kind of a joke — it's been here for years. '

'Anybody can be collected at any time, ' said Wilhelm.

'But it's just a joke, ' Del insisted. 'And I don't believe that my uncle caused that train to wreck. He wouldn't do a thing like that. '

Wilhelm asked, 'Do you know our story 'The Boy Who Could Not Shiver'? It too is a kind of a joke. But it is full of the most frightening things ever encountered. Many frightening things conceal jokes, and many jokes have ice in their hearts. '

Tom suddenly felt afraid. The men were so large, and most of the friendliness had faded from their faces.

'As for your second remark, ' said Jakob, 'do the two of you know the mouse's song to the rabbit? '

They shook their heads.

'Listen. ' The brothers moved together in front of their desks, crouched slightly at the knees, tilted back their heads and sang:

Way way way way down in the dump

I found a tin can and I found a sugar lump.

I ate the one and I kicked the other,

And I had a real good time.

Way way way way down in the dump. . .

The lights suddenly died: a half-second later came the boom of an enormous explosion. Tom felt dirt showering down on his head. The whole room shook, and he momentarily lost his balance. A pair of rough hands shoved at his chest, knocking him back into Del.

He smelled sausage, smoke, sour breath beneath brandy: someone was whispering in his ear. 'Did the mouse put a hurtin' on the sugar lump, boyo? Or did the mouse put a hurtin' on the rabbit? ' The hands pressed him back. Del, stumbling behind him, kicked his shins. Rattling and banging: things were falling off the walls, the hails shredding out of the dirt. The hands, Jakob's or Wilhelm's, continued to push him back. The man's face must have been only inches from Tom's. 'Way way way way down in the dump, I found a little boy. . . and nobody ever saw either one of us again. '

Vacancy felt more than seen opened up before him: he heard a confusion of retreating footsteps.