And the nurse whispered in a hard bright voice: "I love you, Noah Sidorenko."
He sat up straight, suddenly struck to the heart.
"I love you," she said stubbornly, "and I'll make you get well. It can't hurt you if I tell you I love you. I'm not asking for anything. It's a free gift."
The old man swallowed.
"Don't argue with me, old sport," she said tenderly, and patted his creased cheek. "Now, how about some psycho-drama? Let's do the big one! The slum you lived in, Doctor —remember? The night you were so scared. The accident. Stretch out," she ordered, wheeling him to a couch and helping him onto it. He went along, dazed. She scolded: "No, curl up more. You're four years old, remember? Maria, pull that chair over and be the mother. Ernie, Sam. Let's go out in the hall. We'll be cars speeding along the elevated highway outside the window. And let's make some noise! Honk, honk! Aooga!"
But it hadn't been like that at all, he told himself a few hours later, trying to go to sleep. It had been a big frightening experience in his childhood. Very possibly it was the thing that had caused his later troubles (though he couldn't remember the troubles well enough to be sure). But it was not what they were portraying in psychodrama. They were showing a frightened child, and the old man was stubbornly certain there was more to it than that. But very likely it was lost forever.
It was only natural that at the age of 95 a great many experiences should be lost forever. (Such as meeting a sophomore who asked for an autograph, when you could have had no idea that the sophomore would grow up to be President.)
He thought of the white man, wondered who the white man was, and shifted restlessly in the bed. He could feel his old muscles tensing up.
Curse the fool thing, the old man said to himself, referring to his own body; it has lost the knack of living. But it wasn't the body that was at fault, really. It was the brain. The body was only crepe and brittle sticks, true, but the heart still beat, blood flowed, stomach acids leached the building-blocks they needed from the food he ate. The body worked. But the brain worked against it; it was brain, not body, that tautened his muscles and shortened his breath.
That fantastic girl, the old man thought ruefully, she had said: I love tjou. Well. Let's interpret what she meant, he commanded, it could only have been an expression of the natural affection a nurse has for a patient. Still, it was ridiculous, the old man told himself, striving to catch a free and comfortable breath.
That was the worst thing about the tension. You couldn't breathe. With much effort Noah Sidorenko wedged his elbows under him and raised his chest cage a trifle, not quite off the mattress, but resting lightly on it, relieving some of the pressure his shriveled body exerted. It helped, but it didn't help enough. He thought wistfully of free-fall. Rocket jockies, he dreamed, floated endlessly with no pressure at all; how deeply they must be able to breathe! But, of course, he couldn't live to get there, not through rocket acceleration.
He was wandering, when he wanted most particularly to think clearly.
He turned on one side and pressed the tip of his nose lightly with a finger. Sometimes opening the nostrils wide helped to get a breath. He thought of what the microphones taped to rib and throat must be recording, and grinned faintly. Funny, though, he thought, that Maureen hadn't come in to check on him. The purpose of the microphones was to warn the nurse when he needed attention. Surely he needed attention now.
He listened critically to his thumping heart. Ka-hump, ka-bump, ka-bump. It made a little tune:
The bear went over the mountain
The song was very disturbing to him, though he did not even now know why. Somehow it was connected with that scene in his youth, the crashing cars and the white man. The old man sighed. He had come very close to remembering all of it once. They had put him in silence. "Silence" was an acoustically dead chamber, 20 feet cubed, hung with muffling fabric and strung with spiderwebs of the felt; there was no echo and no sound from outside could come in. It was a conventional tool of study for mental disorders; strapped in a canvas cot, hung in the center of the cube, eyes closed, hearing deadened, a subject began very quickly to seek within himself. Fantasies came, delusions came. And ultimately knowledge came, if the subject could stand it; but three out of five reached hysteria before they reached any worthwhile insight, and the old man was one of the three. He had nearly died . . .
He paused to count the times he had nearly died under therapy of one kind or another, but it was too hard. And besides, he was beginning to think that he was nearly dying again. He pushed himself back on his elbows and fought once more for breath.
This one was very bad.
He slumped back on the bed and reached out for the intercom button. "Maureen," he whispered.
She slept in the room next to him, and though he seldom woke in the night—there was something in the evening cocoa to make sure of that—when it happened that he did, if he called, she was there promptly, sometimes in a pink wrapper, once or twice in lounging pajamas. But not tonight. "Maureen," he whispered to the intercom again, but there was no answer.
The old man, with an effort, rolled onto his side. The movement dislodged one of the taped microphones. He felt it tear his skin and, simultaneously, heard the sharp alarm ping in Maureen's room. But the alarm didn't bring her.
The old man opened his eyes wide and stared at the intercom. "I have to get up," he told it reasonably, "because if I lie here I think I will die."
It was impossible, of course. But what could he lose by trying? He pushed himself to the edge of the bed. The chair was within reach, but very remote to Noah Sidorenko, who had not stood on his own feet in years . . .
And then he was in the chair. Somehow he had made it! He sat erect and gasping, for a moment. The pain was bad, but it was better sitting up. Then his hand found the buttons of the little electric motors.
He spun slowly, navigated the straits between the nurse's desk and the comer of the bed, went out the door, as it opened quietly before him.
Maureen's room was empty. The outer door opened, too.
That was good, he thought; he hadn't been sure it would open; it was never very clear to him whether he was a prisoner or not. It was, after all, a sort of madhouse he was in . . . But it opened.
The hall was empty and silent. He listened for the familiar grunch, grunch of Ernie Atkinson grinding his teeth in his sleep, but even that was stilled tonight. He rolled on. The lift rose silently to meet him.
He let it carry him gently down, and turned inward. The lower hall was blindingly bright. He made his way to Dr. Shugart's office.
He paused. There were voices.
No wonder he hadn't heard Ernie Atkinson's grinding teeth! Here was Atkinson, his voice coming plain as day: "I don't care what you say, we weren't getting through to him. No. The Group and psychodrama aren't working."
And Dr. Shugart's voice: "They have to work." Yes, the old man thought dazedly, it was Shugart's voice all right. But where was the hesitation, the carefully balanced, noncommittal air? It cracked sharp as a whip!
And Maureen's voice: "Do I have to go on building up this emotional involvement with him?"
Shugart crackled: "Is it so distasteful?"
"Oh, no!" (The old man sighed. He found he had stopped breathing until she answered.) "He's an old dear, and I do love him. But I'd like to give him little presents because I want to, not because it's part of his therapy."
Shugart rasped: "It's for his own good. This is one of the finest brains in the world, and it's falling apart. We've tried everything. Radical procedures—silence, psychosurgery, chemotherapy—are too much for him to take. Remember what happened when Dr. Reynolds tried electroshock? So we've got to work with what we've got."