“You don’t say? So he made it after all, did he? Good man. Good man indeed. Where’s he now — in London?”
“London and Glasgow, sir, traveling on business. He wrote and told me bombs were dropping like ripe pears in autumn, sir.”
“There, you see, he’s not bored,” he threw the remark at Menjou. “And what are we to do with you, lover boy?” he shook his head reproachfully at Hermaphrodite, the entire suite laughing ingratiatingly at his joke (except the Major: he was still serious). “Do you find this place tedious, too?”
“Yeth indeed, thuh,” replied Herma with conviction, “it’th bowwing aww wight. Ethpethially in the evening … nothing to do, we jutht thit awound twiddwing our thumth. …”
“Twiddling your thumbs, eh? … Now, Nurse …”
“Sir?” She was putting Herself totally at his disposal.
“… why are they all bored here?” Everyone burst out laughing. She blushed. The Major was frowning. “I mean to say, why don’t you get this Don Juan here some lady friend or other before he dies of boredom?”
Hermaphrodite guffawed merrily. He even exclaimed “Nithe.”
“Shut up, you bloody Judas!” thundered the Colonel at him, his goatee quivering with a suppressed smile. “To disgrace such a father! If I were him, I’d …”
“… cathtwate me!” cracked Herma, with a see-if-I-care tone.
“Teach me, would you?” snapped the Colonel in a fit of pique, but he would clearly have preferred to laugh; he was going to tell Herma’s father all about it … “Yes, that’s it exactly, I’d geld you like a boar, give you something to remember me by.”
“Thank you, thuh!” Herma snapped resolutely.
But the Colonel ignored him. The fellow had gone too far, it was clear to all (nobody was laughing anymore), his authority was being challenged … He approached Little Guy.
“What about you, young man? Are you all right?”
“Quite all right, sir, thank you.”
“Mama still bringing those cheese pastries?” he asked with avuncular bonhomie. “It’s the pastries you like, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, sir, I do …” Little Guy was expecting Mama today and felt uneasy at the mention of her.
“There, there, liking pastry is nothing to be shy about,” the Colonel stroked his head, “I like a nice piece of fresh baked cheese pastry myself. What about this one?” he gestured at Melkior with his goatee. Melkior was looking at him with respect and awe, as if he had just … like Mitar said.
“He’s new, Colonel.”
“I can see that for myself,” the Colonel was already losing patience, “but what is he doing here? What unit is he from?”
“Transport Training Course,” replied the Major patiently.
“Draftee?” said the Colonel as if disgusted by the question.
“Yes.” The Major was restrained and cold.
“So what?” asked the Colonel in a pronouncedly superior-officer tone.
The insult flashed across the Major’s face for a moment: a dark cloud flitted over his intelligent calm.
“Seriously enlarged hila,” he said in his unruffled way. “The X-ray view of the left lung shows what may be a focus with typical fibrous staining and a shaded area. …”
“Any jerk shows enlarged hila!” the Colonel interrupted him rudely.
She fluttered her eyelids in embarrassment. The Four snickered under their covers.
“The patient is a fully mature young man …”
“The patient is fully eligible for a court martial! Why, this is tantamount to desertion!” The Colonel was looking at Melkior with loathing (and he looked at the Colonel … as instructed by Mitar).
“Additionally … would you uncover yourself, please,” said the Major to Melkior, “we have here a case of serious asthenia. Would you observe, sir, the rib cage, the arms, the shoulders …”
“Sir, the army does have some men who are not like Hercules!” the Colonel raised his voice in rebuke. “In my book, a finger on the trigger is all a soldier needs! That is how I see it.”
“If you please, Colonel, here’s the patient’s chart.” She handed him Melkior’s record. “Nurse, has he been x-rayed?”
“Yes, Major,” she lied readily, her gaze slithering over Melkior (he kissed that expanse of air above him), “but the film has not yet been developed; it will be in twenty minutes.”
“Then file it here,” said the Major dryly, ceding to the Colonel his place at Melkior’s bed.
The Asclepian’s giving me up, next to approach is the cannibals’ medicine man. Melkior’s gaze sought Mitar, a last-minute appeal for help. Mitar offered help by way of an encouraging smile. But Melkior saw Caesar’s bared teeth, heard horseshoes on the stone floor … The Colonel had stepped closer (his spurs making a ritual jangle). The Medical Corps officer leaned over Melkior showing his large yellowed teeth … He’ll bite into my head first, thought Melkior … But it was a smile, a seemingly benign one, the smile of a saint who comes to children at night and tucks presents into their bed. Meaning he won’t bite, Melkior hoped. A grave case of asthenia. Here, Uncle, just look at those arms and shoulders and rib cage … skin puckering, bones bulging, ribs rattling … Melkior was feeling himself all the while under the covers, thin dry skin stretching in his palm. No, the Colonel’s not going to bite, there’s nothing here but a case of serious asthenia. But he was (just in case) looking at the Colonel with fear as if he had … as Mitar had put it.
“What’re you looking at me like a shitty dog for?” the superior-officer’s voice boomed over him. “An intellectual, eh? Thinking you invented gunpowder all by your lonesome. Let’s have it: did you invent gunpowder? Well? Did you or didn’t you?”
What do I do now, Numbskull? Would barking help? Presumably it works only when there’s electricity involved. When it comes to gunpowder, it’s Mitar’s advice that applies: don’t answer, look at him with respect and fear as if you’ve done that thing in bed; and Melkior went on looking at the Colonel as advised by Mitar: with respect and … and all the rest — he only added a bit of the manner of a dog in that kind of predicament.
“Not answering, eh? Despising me? You’re thinking: what’s this? we’re both men with University degrees, but he still speaks with me in an informal tone! What a dolt of a soldier! That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? What an untutored lout in uniform!”
There was no sound to be heard in the room, not even the squeak of a shoe. There was no ingratiating laughter. The Major was looking at the window, baffled, bright red with shame and, possibly, anger. She never raised her eyes from the charts as if checking something with her pencil. The shaven faces were serious and somehow mournful; the Four, too, were silent in their beds.
The silence was what got the Colonel irritated, fanning the desire to show them all! Introducing certain manners in here, are they?
He bent over the bed, bringing his face quite close to Melkior’s frightened face. Melkior felt the odor of the yellowed teeth, words were spilling all over him but he no longer understood them. He watched the teeth coming closer … look, no fillings, all in a regular row, yellow but healthy … thanks to cheese pastry …
“Now, sir … in case you think I have no manners …” said the Colonel in a low voice from quite an intimate proximity (Melkior could see the close-grown short hairs in his nostrils), “why is it, sir, that you do not wish to serve in the military? What is it that your esteemed mind dislikes? Is it perhaps that you have a different opinion of the way this country is run? Feel free to tell me what it is you object to! We’re hateful, is that it? Rude soldiery, clods, backwoods types? You don’t like my face either, I can tell. Very well — go ahead and slap it!” the Colonel placed his cheek provocatively, at exactly arm’s length, and stood there, waiting. “Well, what’re you waiting for? Why don’t you slap it? Oh, I see — you say my cheek isn’t worthy of your palm. Tarnation! All right, spit on it then!” and, lowering his cheeks all the way down to Melkior’s mouth: “Go on, why aren’t you spitting? I’m waiting!” shouted the Colonel, quite beside himself by now, at Melkior’s calm. Perhaps it was his shout that jerked Melkior out of his lethargy. His head, like that of a dead man come back to life, moved, went up, and before the Colonel could pull back, he hit his cheek with his lips in a flash — and gave it a clearly audible smack. Right. Instead of the Major. Was that a proper acte gratuit, Parampion? No, that was not an acte gratuit, said Parampion. It was much more than that, replied Numbskull.