After about two weeks when I’d been coming to see Joconde, we became such pals that I did the injections for him, with camphor, morphine, ether, the usual things, and he’d hold the lantern for me. "Soon be over!. Soon be over!”. the refrain.
With my trick paw I got the knack of the injections right away, a trick paw’s automatic, the patient feels nothing… a puff..
That’s how I got a start, a little on the sly like that, at the London Freeborn Hospital with Dr. Clodovitz, in my professional career. I learned to say, just like him, immediately, everywhere, "Soon be over!” It became a kind of habit, a sort of quirk.. All kinds of awful things have happened since the Freeborn Hospital! here, there, good, bad, horrible, too, you can be sure of that. You’ll judge for yourself. Without any definite idea.. Simply in the course of things. it’s fine already!. Soon be over!..
w lie spaced each other by two minutes. We were on the lookout along the streets.. Orchard Street, Weberley Commons, Perigham Row.. First Boro and then Rene, the little deserter who had impossible papers, his photo in all the newssheets, and then Elise, the "crazy peddler” who’d jumped bail, with a gang of plain-clothes men after her, since for years she’d been handling harmless little opium pellets all through Maida Vale and the West End, without getting into trouble, and then she suddenly went in for hashish without telling anyone, because of the war. That’s what the Yard didn’t excuse, variations of habit!..
It was bound to end in trouble. They were watching us, unluckily. Even at the hospital with Clodo, where after all I was very quiet, where I was useful as a kind of nurse lending a hand when there were too many people, it started smelling fishy.. Joconde had done us harm.. She’d been telling things about her personal worries and her troubles at the Leicester that were just plain crazy.. Since she spoke a bit of English and the place was lousy with blabbering chambermaids, it took on real proportions.. loafers who hadn’t a damned thing to do but screw things up even more… it became risky and dangerous.. They spoke of kicking us out, pure and simple, and Clodovitz first of all… a foreign doctor, an extra, just good enough for the night shift. The Management had their eye on him… He was in bad odor but since they didn’t pay him much, even for the backbreaking work, awakened ten, fifteen times a night, they weren’t at all sure of finding another intern so utterly devoted, neither troublesome nor a drinker, just a little queer in his ways.. The management hesitated about giving him his week’s notice.. Just about hesitated.. Fired would have been a catastrophe… He had such queer papers, such suspicious stamps on them that they weren’t fit to be shown.. Diplomas that were even more weird!.. but the way the fellow had got there, happened to be in London, was still the biggest mystery!. Ah! a dead duck if they bounced him. He’d be washed up! For some time they’d been picking up "aliens,” as they called them, every day, who were less doubtful than he…
Clodovitz knew all about it.. he’d mention it to me occasionally, he didn’t think it was funny..
Cascade had promised to come soon to see what was happening.. After three or four days, not a sign.. Suddenly someone phoned. that he was on his way!. tell him to shake a leg… we had a thing or two to tell him..
The date was for six o’clock at the Dingby Cruise, the old lunchbar in the middle of the docks, a little to the west of the hospital, right on the edge of the river..You could get there by the bank or the maze of alleys all around that led to it from Commercial Road, from between the "Stores,” the high warehouses. That was really the prudent way of coming and going..
So there we were. We were waiting for him. The boss of La Vaillance had also come to see us. But he didn’t talk much, he was wary, he kept his distance, a scalded cat.
"I want to speak to Cascade!”. He wanted to talk only to Cascade! Stubborn, disagreeable.. Cascade hadn’t arrived. It was a rush hour, the tables were filling up, the change of shifts, the bunch from the cranes, from the holds, naturally they made a lot of noise, mainly because of their brogans, the place was all made of wood, all crosspieces and daub, it resounded. The slot machine and the dice added to the din… in short, a general racket all around..
Ah! chug! chug! there’s a car! It’s Monsieur, after all!.
"Hello, men! ”… he calls out.
"Hello Monsyoor! ”… they answer.
It wasn’t any too soon.
"How’s it going, Brainstorm?”
He’s talking to me.
"Does it still hurt?”
He points to my head.
"Still does! Still does! Monsieur Cascade!”
It bothers him that I’m having trouble with my head, he talks to me about it every time.
Anyway, Clodo starts explaining to him, that we’ve made him come, etc.. etc.. to tell him about Joconde!. that she’s not behaving herself at the hospital.. that she’s shooting her mouth off..
"And how’s her ass coming along?”
"That part’s all right! ”
"When the ass is all right, everything’s all right!”. he answers.
That’s the only effect it has on him..
"And what about Angele?” we ask.
"She went up to Edinburgh! She’s on business, boys! Placing Biglot’s two girls!”
"Biglot’s?”
"Yes! Biglot’s! That’s right! ”
We can’t get over it..
"A man who’ll be forty soon! He’s beating it, too! The sap! yeah! yeah! He’s off for the infantry, Ladies and Gentlemen, the infantry! Yessiree! Ah! I don’t want to think about it any more! But what about Joconde? Some class, huh? I didn’t lie to you, did I? Estocadero! And Pfft! What a spurt! Youd’ve thought she was a quarterback! Whtt! What zip! Lightning! Eh?.. Lightning! ”
"Don’t you want to go and see her?” we suggested gently.
"Ah! Hell no! She can croak! ”
That’s how he answered. He’d had enough! Fed up!.
He didn’t want to get mixed up in that again!
A bit selfish!
"Listen, boys, I know what I’m going to do!”
He was off again on his pet subject.
"I’m going to buy me a trombone! I’m going to get into the parade, too! I’ll drop in to see you around noon!. You’ll see me, pals! You’ll see me! I’ll play my music all by myself! For those who don’t want to leave! I’ll be the anti-recruiting guy! Get that! I’m going to start a society! The 'I-ain’t-having-any-Boys’! If this continues, guys, I’m going to learn English!.. I want to find out what they’re batting about, the hokum they’re filling ’em with! since it’s driving ’em all crazy!.. it must be terrific! I’d like to listen to their line! Men are just plain morons, eh?… I know ’em all right! ”
Ah! he sat there gaga!
It was really pretty amazing!
Over his glass, deep in thought. thick stout..
Prospero Jim, the boss of the Dingby, comes up, he talks… he sees things Cascade’s way.. the crime of the newspapers!.. always the papers!.. He never reads them either!
.. and the movies!..
"Say, did you see the newsreels? Trenches in one place! Boches in another! Look at my helmet! Oh boy, am I brave! Am I dead! It’s a joke! Me telling you! Mmph! Bah! For their mugs! Bull-shit!”
It made them both mad just to think about that crap!
They were getting upset just talking about it!
"I love you! I love you!” Cascade said, in imitation!.. "You’re right! They’re infants!.. yokels spoiled by good cream! stuffed with butter! Too much yum-yum!”
I listened to them jabber… It still wasn’t any of my business… I could have stuck my word in! I was keeping my mouth shut!.. When it comes to experience, every man for himself! I’d been to school! I had a bellyful of dearly acquired knowledge!.. and especially in my ear! A tiny bit of hardware left! but it added up in whistling!.. so that I couldn’t sleep!.. and enough migraines to make me bark, the way they tore at me like pincers, revulsed my eyes by force… so that I’d squint for hours. In short, real terrors. Ah! no! I had mine!.. I thought of my father and mother peaceful in their shop, in the Passage du Verododat, having a good time being pitied by all the neighbors because their son had been so badly wounded, whimpering… I thought of all I’d seen from one hospital to the other. Dunkerque. Le Val.. Villemomble. Drancy. and also me, myself. How they get the injured on the operating table. whisk ’em up again!