Yet it’s plenty warm in here. Just as it was the times late last night I came in to see how you were doing, and you only slept with a single or double sheet. Though good sheets,” rubbing the top one between his fingers, “—thick, but smooth, but not thick enough if the temperature here was the same as in the lounge. To keep you warm, I mean — the sheets. I just thought of something. If I was going to buy cotton sheets, which is the only kind I like — the synthetic kind is so itchy — and which can be very expensive in the department stores, I’d buy them at a hospital linen supply place if they’d sell them to me, right? Because it might be they only sell to hospitals and places like that. Probably a reasonable price, and good quality, because they have to go though so many washings. Every day, and I guess certain high standards that hospitals insist the manufacturer keep. But you feeling OK? Should I come closer so I don’t have to talk too loud — maybe that’s disturbing you, my voice — and where you can still hear?” Her breath will be bad. She can also stink of urine and shit and other things, but that he can take. “I’ll come closer.” Does. Her eyes move with him. “Good. You’re on to me. Your eyes. So you can hear me if you can see me, I’d think. Can you? — Is there anything you want? A nurse? Water? Have they been in to see you yet? This morning, I mean. Want me to mop your brow? Are you hearing me, Vera? I hate to harp on it, and if it’s any effort to answer, please don’t. But can you nod? Can you shake your head? Remember — nodding is to say yes? Shaking your head is for no? — I guess even if you were trying to nod and shake, you couldn’t tell me with a nod or shake. Let me put it simpler. Even I didn’t quite get what I just said. Nah, let’s forget it. I’ll give you a break for once with my trying to explain things. I don’t know why, but I sure can get tongue-tied. And then sometimes, bam, I’m articulate, but very articulate, talking the way I always want to. But how about blinking your eyes? Can you blink them when you want to? Like now, for instance. No? Want to try? Two blinks for yes and one for no — that sort of business? You know, so we can set up some sort of system where you can tell me what you want or need, including the end of my stupid chatter, right? Let me take care of your brow first. I’ll be right back. I’m going to your bathroom to get some wet paper. OK? OK?” He gets paper towels in her bathroom, wets several sheets, dabs her forehead and cheeks with them. “Does this hurt or in any way feel uncomfortable? I hope not. Does it feel better? What about this?” and he pats her lips with the wet paper. “Your lips are getting dry. We don’t want them cracked. Then we’ll have to take care of them, sores, discomfort — you know. It’s this tube with the air in it, I think. And the hair hanging over your head’s wet. From sweat, probably. I’m going to tamp it dry.” Pats her hair and face with a dry paper towel, sits beside her. There’s a smell, doesn’t know what of, but not bad. Doesn’t want to sniff deeper, if she is watching him. “Let’s forget all the questions from now on. It’s getting so where even I can’t stand the sound of my voice anymore.” He smiles. “Can’t get a laugh out of you, right? Well, you’ve always been a serious type. Dad always said that about me, but it was really you. I wish I could be like that. A thinker. Deep,” and he jabs his temple. “It’s good, maybe the best way. You think about things. You just don’t let everything pass, as I tend to do. But mind if I take your hand? If you mind, try tapping my hand with your finger or rubbing it or pull your hand away. I swear, I won’t mind. Even pinch me. I could use some waking up, and not just from sleep.” He takes her hand. It’s cold and the palm’s wet. He dries it with a paper towel, gets up and dries the other palm, her eyes always on his, and sits and bends his head down and shuts his eyes. He’s about to cry. Tries not to, biting the insides of his cheeks, but he cries. He says with his eyes shut and head down “I hope you’re not watching this. I’m sorry, if you are, but you know I don’t like seeing you like this, so that’s why. How I wish you were all better. I’d give anything to help you get well in a flash, and you will get well, though in time.” She pulls her hand away. “Well look at that. You see your hand? You pulled it. That proves you’re getting well. Tugged it right out of mine. Were you able to all this time? And blinking and tapping too, I bet. I’m sure you were, but you were just holding back. Stubborn, aren’t you, or something.” She closes her eyes, her lips move. “No no, don’t try to speak. Not with those tubes in you. The nose.” Her lips continue to move. Spit comes out. “Oh, gee.” He wipes it with a paper towel. “No, too rough, the paper.” Wipes it with his handkerchief. “I swear, no germs. It’s clean, I haven’t even used it. This handkerchief, I’m talking about.” Her eyes open and he dangles the handkerchief in front of her. “Wait. Those lemon-flavored swabs. I just remembered. There’s a drawer full of them.” He pulls out the drawer by her bed. They’re there, a whole box full. “None here. I’ll go to the nurse’s station to get them. For your lips. They’re still too dry. I’ll be right back.” He leaves the room and cries outside. Goes to the station and says “I know there are lip swabs in her drawer, but to get out of the room I told her—” “Who is ‘her?” the nurse says. “My sister, Vera Tetch, 4–26, down this hall.” He gets swabs and goes back. The door’s shut while he’d left it partly open. He knocks. A nurse comes to the door and says “Give me five minutes.” “Is she all right?” “Sure, just cleaning up. Make it ten.” His parents are out. His oldest brother’s in the army, the other’s working as a movie usher. At seven o’clock he says to her “Don’t forget. Mom said for you to be in bed by eight and lights out by eight-thirty and asleep by nine.” She says she doesn’t have to. “You’re not the boss.” “Yes I am, at least for now. You heard them tell me to give you the order if you don’t do it by yourself.” “That still doesn’t make you the boss. I’m staying up for as long as I want to till Mommy comes home.” “That’s what you think.” At eight he yells down the hall to her room “It’s eight, Vera. Start getting into your pajamas and don’t forget to wash up and brush your teeth. I forgot that’s what Mom said for me to see you do too. Your hands and your face. And both sides of your hands and don’t forget your neck.” She doesn’t answer him. At eight-thirty he yells down the hall “I hope you’re in bed and all washed and your teeth brushed and in pajamas because your lights have to go out.” Ten minutes later he yells “Your lights aren’t out yet, Vera. Come on, they have to.” At nine he goes into her room. She’s in regular clothes, sitting on her bed, talking to a doll in each hand. “Would you like to have breakfast?” she says to them. “Yes we would,” one says, and the other says in a different voice “No we wouldn’t,” and they both bow several times. He says “Now I asked you.” She turns to him as if she just noticed him there and screams for him to get out of her room. “It’s private. You’re not supposed to be here if I don’t want you to.” “Listen, I promised Mom and Dad. They’re paying me. They’ll come home and find you playing and think I didn’t do my job. We’ll forget the washing and teeth. Now where are your pajamas? Don’t worry, with your look-Til leave before you start putting them on.” “I’m not telling you. Just get out.” He gets a pair out of the dresser, holds them out to her, one doll says to the other “What’s your favorite dessert for supper?” He grabs that doll and puts the pajamas in Vera’s free hand. She throws them and the other doll at his face. “That’s it. You could have taken my eye out with that. The shirt has buttons on it and I even think it scratched my cheek.” “Good.” He unbuckles his belt — just as his oldest brother did, slowly — takes if off and says “If you don’t do what I say I’m going to beat you with this. Now pick up the pajamas and go to the bathroom and put them on.” She suddenly looks scared, he doesn’t know if it’s an act, jumps on her bed, curls up and starts crying. “Then put them on, goddammit, put them on.” She’s now shrieking. He holds the belt over his head. Same thing Jerry used to do with Alex and him. Sometimes beat them with it and sometimes pulling their pants down and beating their behinds with it and sometimes leaving welts, pants down or up. When their dad wasn’t home and their mother complained to him about something they did. They’d be in their room, sent there by then-mother, and they’d hear Jerry in some other part of the apartment yell something like “What! Again!” and then charge to their room in these heavy army boots he always seemed to wear then, and if their door was closed, throw it open so hard it banged against the bookcase behind it and knocked things off the top. Usually by this time they were both huddled together on the bottom bunk of their double-decker bed. And it worked. They did whatever he said, after. Or when he came through the door they’d start pleading they’ll do whatever he wants or never again do whatever it was they’d done and apologize to their mother any number of times he wants them to, but usually it was too late. They could see it in his face. After the beating and they were crying, Jerry would rethread his belt and say something like “Tough shit if it hurts. Just be good and not filthy mouths and I won’t have to do it. Because you think I like to, you two dumb schmucks?” “Now will you, will you?” he shouts and beats the buckle end of the belt on the other side of the bed from her. She’s shrieking. Then he thinks what am I doing? Who do I think I am? I couldn’t hit her with this if I was paid to. “Just go to sleep. Even in your clothes if you want. Or don’t go to sleep or do anything, but I’m out of it. And tell tell tell all you want and what I did, for all I give a crap,” and leaves the room and rethreads his belt. If she told, neither of his parents or anyone else ever said a word to him about it or looked at him in a different way the next few days. They go to the same summer camp together. “Why’s your sister so scarred up?” some kids would ask. One time he overhears a boy say “Last prize is a dance with Vampire Vera at the next social.” He tries to defend her: she’s gone through serious operations; it’s been tough on her since she was a little girl; she’s been tested to have a high IQ but has never had a real chance to use it; the scars are suppose to get smaller and smaller and in a few years almost go away; if they saw pictures of her when she was small they’d know how beautiful she could have been. But he still hears the comments and cracks. Her coordination and eyesight’s bad and she loses her energy fast and she can’t play most of the sports or be part of a lot of the camp activities, or just does them poorly and clumsily. The other kids mostly ignore her. She’s probably made fun of in front of her. Her bunkmates and the girls who swim in the lake with her probably even have trouble looking at her undressed or in a swimsuit or in the shower house and he’s sure she picks this up. He sees some of it in the mess hall. His bunk’s table is on the boys’ side but he sometimes stands up to look over a lot of the other tables to see what she’s doing. Most of the other five or six girls at her table are usually talking excitedly among themselves. She’s usually just eating slowly, or staring at the spoon or fork in her hand or food on her plate or playing with the salt-and-pepper shakers or looking at the roof rafters or the huge wooden scrolls on the support posts with the names of all-around campers and best athletes and such from previous years. She always lags