'Of course I had eventually begun to remember my own past, including the moment when I had shot Vendouris. To that extent the colonel's therapy had been successful. But I was the Collector: I had collected Vendouris, or he had collected me, and I kept his name on the door of my cubicle. It seemed to me that a portion of his soul had entered mine, and was a part of that which gave me strength.
'And the day after I remembered putting my merciful buliet into my dying fellow doctor and felt my repressed personality returning to me, I was sewing up a private named Tayler from Fall Ridge, Arkansas, after removing a bullet from his lung. To work on the lungs, you cut the ribs away from the breastbone and peel them back like a door to the chest cavity. I had the bullet out, along with a third of Tayler's lung, which had become nearly gangrenous with infection. I thought he had a fair chance for survival — these days, it would be a very good chance. It was in no way an exceptional operation, in fact I think it was my third like it of the week. But Tayler died while I was suturing him up. I felt his life stopping: as though I'd heard the sudden cessation of an unobtrusive noise, heard the absence of a sound. Then, though I had paid no attention to his aura before, since I never did when I was operating, I saw his go black and murky. Just then a great white bird flapped up out of his chest: a great white bird like the one I had seen in the field of dead men. It flew up without making a sound; the others looked but did not see. The owl sailed out through the closed window, and I knew it was going toward the man who had aimed the bullet at little Tayler.
'The day after that, I healed a man with my fingers alone.
'He was a black man, an American Negro named Washford. Negroes served in the 92nd Division, under their own officers; they were rigidly segregated. In the normal course of things, the only ones we saw were working as valets or kitchen help or orderlies in the hospital. They had their own meeting places, their own girls, their own social life, which was closed off to the rest of us. Well, Washford had caught a round in his ribs, and the bullet had traveled around inside him for a while, generally messing up his giblets.
'When the attendant wheeled him in, Withers had just finished with his last patient, and the man took Washford to his table. Withers turned away without looking, bathed his hands in the sink, and then came back to the table. He froze. 'I won't work on this man,' he said. 'I am not a veterinarian.' He was from Georgia, remember, and this was 1917 — it does not excuse him, but it helps to explain him. His nurses looked at me, and the other doctors momentarily stopped their work. Washford was in danger of bleeding to death through his bandages while we decided how to handle Withers' defection. 'I'll exchange patients with you,' I finally said, and Withers stepped away from his table and came toward mine.
''I don't care if you kill that one, Collector,' he said. 'But you'll be disappointed — he has no pockets.'
'I ignored him and went to Washford and pulled away the soaked bandages. The nurse put the ether pad over his nose and mouth. I cut into him and began to look around. I removed the bullet and began repairing the damage. Then I felt a change come over my whole body: I felt as light as if I had taken the ether. My mind began to buzz. My hands tingled. I trembled, knowing what I could do, and the nurse saw my hands shake and looked at me as if she thought I was drunk. My drinking was well known, but really all of us drank all the time. But it was not alcohol, it was the smack of knowledge hitting me like a truck: I could heal him. I put down the instruments and ran my fingers along the torn blood vessels. Radiance — invisible radiance — streamed from me. The mess the bullet had caused as it plunged from lung to liver to spleen closed itself — all of that torn flesh and damaged tissue; it grew pink and restored, virginal, as you might call it. The nurse backed away, making little noises under her mask. I was on fire. My mind was leaping. I jerked out the retractors and ran my first two fingers over the incision and zipped him up, welded his skin together in a smooth pinkish-brown line. Withers' nurse ripped off her mask and ran out of the theater.
''Take him out,' I said to the astonished attendant, who had been half-dozing at the back of the room: he had seen the nurse run out, but nothing of the operation. Washford went one way, I went another — I was floating. I came out into the big tiled hallway outside the theater. The nurse saw me and backed away. I started to laugh, and realized I was still wearing my mask. I removed it and sat on a bench. 'Don't be afraid,' I said to the nurse.
''Holy mother of Jesus,' she said. She was Irish.
'That miraculous power was ebbing from me. I held my hands up before my face. They looked skinned, in the tight surgical gloves.
''Holy mother of Jesus,' the nurse repeated. Her face was turning from white to lobster pink.
''Forget about it,' I said. 'Forget what you saw.'
'She scampered back inside the theater. I still could not comprehend what had just happened to me. It was as though I had been raised up to a great eminence and been shown all the things of this world and been told: 'You may have what you like.' For a second I felt my blood pressure charge upward, and my head swam.
'Then everything gradually returned to normal. I could stand. I went back inside the theater, where Withers was just finishing with the boy on my table. He looked at me in disgust, finished his sutures, and returned to his own table. I did five more operations that day, and never felt the approach of that power which had healed Washford.'
The magician looked up. 'Night.' Tom, surprised, saw the lamps burning in the woods; lights on the beach pushed his shadow toward the lake. 'Time to go to bed. Tomorrow I will tell you about my meeting with Speckle John and what happened after the war.'
'Bedtime?' Del said. 'What happened to . . . ?'
Both boys simultaneously saw the crushed sandwich wrappers, the paper plates laden with crumbs.
'Oh, yes, you have eaten,' Collins said. His face was serene and tired.
'We've only been here . . . ' Tom looked at his watch, which said eleven o'clock. 'An hour.'
'You have been here all day. I will see you here tomorrow at the same time.' He stood up, and they dazedly imitated him. 'But know this. William Vendouris, whose name I had taken for a time, put a hurtin' on me. Without Vendouris, perhaps I would have remained an amateur magician, locked out and away from everything I wished most to find.'
5
Tom and Del climbed the rickety steps by themselves. Their minds and bodies told them it was late morning, but the world said it was night: the thick foliage on the bank melted together into a single vibrant breathing mass. They reached the top and stood in the pale, yellowish electrical light, looking down. Coleman Collins was standing on the beach, looking out at the lake.
'Did you know he used to be a doctor?' Tom asked.
'No. But it explains why he didn't send for one when I broke my leg that time. The whole story explains that.' Del put his hands in his pockets and grinned. 'If I started to heal wrong or anything, he would have fixed me like he did with that colored man.'
'I guess,' Tom said moodily. 'Yeah, I guess so.' He was watching Collins: the magician had extended one arm into the air, as if signaling to someone on the other side of the lake. After a moment the arm went down and Collins began to stroll along the beach in the direction of the boathouse. 'Could we really have been down there all day?'