Tomorrow there would be fever to boot … sick bay … that was the proper military term. The next day there was nothing to show for sick bay. The throat fresh and painless; the pulse ticking shyly and modestly, nearly inaudible; the forehead pale, hunger-spent, cold. There you are: a picture of health! And his animal was already looking forward, with thick-headed relish, to the chicory brew and the black jam on fresh, still-warm black bread.
Oh no you don’t, you greedy brute! And the Body, miserable as a starving dog, gave a piteous whine and nearly dropped with exhaustion to the muddy, unfriendly ground. (Well, look at what I’ve been feeding it these days — not enough to keep a fly alive, admitted Melkior loyally, but launched into a didactic sermon out loud): Here, consider the bodies of ascetics and hermits and whatnot. A jug of water and a crust of stale bread are all they got to sustain them for up to forty days, so what? — they were gaunt yet sturdy and resilient, they could take any climate, hot or cold—and they left their Master alone, no dreaming of Enka and similar filthy stuff, they kept themselves to themselves while the Master was meditating and cultivating his soul. You’ll be the death of me (of yourself, too, in fact!) with your “got to guzzle,” you glutton, you Sancho, you abyss of hunger, you lowly earthbound engine of foolish Pantagruelian life! At least remember our castaways! It’s for your sake that I invented that pedagogical “Telemachiad” (although you’re no Duke of Burgundy but merely a greedy intestine) to show you where your stupid motto eat, drink, and … will get you — there, you see, it will only get you into another intestine, and with you all, damn you, it’s nothing but out of one intestine and into another … and so on to infinity, you bloated guzzlers! Given that I was so fatally placed astride you to ride your arched and uncomfortable back (if only I’d sat astride a turtle!) at least be wise as a donkey, mind how you walk through this life of ours, don’t rush and don’t race, nothing is worth haste, see to it that our travel lasts as long as possible, there’s no Promised Land out there. At the end is the Promised Pit, we’ll tumble into it together, you and I, you and I …
“Hey you!”
“Me?” echoed Melkior like distance, surprised.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Trying to report for sick bay, Sergeant. But there are signs on the door, Do Not Knock and Enter Only if Invited, so I’m waiting, I don’t know how to get in.”
“Come in.” The taciturn irascible clerk, a troop sergeant, sat down at his desk, dunked a rusty pen into an inkwell and held it poised over a sheet of paper. He waited, looking distractedly through the window. “All right, shoot!”
“Shoot what, Sergeant?”
“First name, father’s name, last name … Right. Year of birth? Village? County? District?” and handed Melkior the paper. Melkior was still waiting, standing by the desk, this can’t be all, it’s much too quick and efficient, no shouting, no swearing …
“Well?” bawled the sergeant. “Want me to examine you?”
“Y-yes, Sergeant,” quavered Melkior, happiness making him attempt to click his heels like the soldiers he had seen in the films saluting their superiors, but he missed and his boots responded with a dry, hollow sound.
“OK, OK,” the attempt did manage to bring a thin smile of satisfaction to the sergeant’s strict (but fair!) lips. This is Numbskull influencing me already, thought Melkior about heel-clicking on his way out of the company office.
There was a smell, in the infirmary, of hot, undressed bodies, all of them feverish, sweaty, red. The orderly, a private, gave Melkior a thermometer patched with a strip of plaster and explained that you stuck this in your armpit. I now ought to tap it on the tip (literally, that is) so the mercury will rise above ninety-eight point six, but how? it’s got a hole in its head underneath the strip. All the same, he flicked his index finger from his thumb, knock knock knock and knock, three strong knocks and one weak, then took a cautious peek at the resultant ninety-nine. Was this a reliable enough thread for a Lost One to follow?
The young doctor in the infirmary thought it was. He listened carefully to Melkior’s lungs and heart and stated with amicable satisfaction that he had heard nothing of interest. But he did not hide his concern over such an assertive presence of Melkior’s skeleton: you’re only skin and bones, man, you haven’t got an ounce of flesh on you. He drew two semicircles across Melkior’s chest with his thumbnail; the nail left a red trail. Of course! nodded the doctor, something was matching his expectations one hundred percent. “Here, this is a note for Pulmonary,” and then privately, as if to a younger brother, “you must eat, you must eat a lot. You’re dangerously thin.” This ended the examination.
So danger lurked in the bones. Melkior was gladdened by the Medical Corps care: it was their business to upholster the skeleton with sound patriotic flesh, to make the King happy by producing an army under whose feet the very Fatherland shook.
“You here for the ‘special’?” a sergeant greeted him outside the infirmary.
“C’mon, fall in!” he ordered the seven unwell soldiers in the yard. “By twooos, numbah!”
“One, two, one, two …” the garrison rejects numbered off halfheartedly.
“Double file, right!” clack-clack, responded the boots submissively. “Here, you, new guy, look where your belt is! You’re not according to regs!”
Of course — Numbskull said so! thought Melkior. But I’m not à la Madame Récamier … and he made a surprised face at the sergeant.
“Belt above half-belt, understand?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” said Melkior and hoisted his belt; the half-belt was halfway up his back. “Wouldn’t this be too high, Sergeant, across the chest?”
“Never mind!” yelled the sergeant. “Look who’s complaining — a real scarecrow! Who the hell took you into the army — a blind man? Move to the rear, I don’t want to have to look at you!”
Melkior moved to the rear so that the sergeant didn’t have to look at him, belt across chest (above the half-belt), well now he was according to regs. Forward march, direction gate!
This is town. Melkior was sniffing the streets like a city dog: he felt like trotting to the corner, roving a bit, stopping to examine the posters, perhaps even cocking a leg … with joy. And back there, in the stable, Caesar had by now been served. That, too, was a pleasure: knowing that Caesar had been served for today. Oh illustrious Caesar, I am on my way through town! I am marching down the middle of the road (in the rear, for the sake of the Sergeant) where your less fortunate brethren pull appalling loads; they are whipped and sworn at by drunken carters, their haunches are sweaty and their eyes frightfully sad, but I would rather change places with them than with you. None of them is good enough for a monument — and a monument is a dead horse …
Several passersby had stopped on a corner, watching the soldiers and laughing. One of them pointed a finger at him, Melkior, and instantly they all laughed anew.
The sergeant slowed down his pace, dropping to the rear, and spoke through clenched teeth without looking at him: “You’re putting me to shame, damn your eyes, I don’t know where to hide my damned face! I could kill you here and now, you seditious bastard!”
Numbskull said so, thought Melkior. There was no going back under Nettle’s wing, now: the sergeant had supplied him with all the strength he needed. The specialist checkup was sending him benevolent smiles already: there’s the hospital, hopefully there would be red crosses there, too … white all around and a tinge of illness. The entire tableau was less ambitious now: no need for a terrace at Davos, or glaciers, or pedestrian reading matter. All I need is just to get my head under the sign of the red cross, out of reach of Nettle’s and Caesar’s world.