The Convalescent (25 page)

“Go get yourself a drink,” she says.

He darts over to the water fountain and slurps the water. He plays with the knob for second, then returns to his mother. “It didn’t work,” he says. “I’m still too hot.”

She ignores him.

Brian draws in a deep breath and holds it until his face goes purple. Then he bursts, spitting into her face.

“Please don’t do that, dear,” she says.

The boy starts whacking his mother on the knees with little fists. “I want to play the drums,” he says.

His mother turns a page of her magazine. “Mm-hmm.”

He stares at her, furious that he received no reaction, and then begins stomping around the room, naming all of the musical instruments he wants to play. “I want to play the guitar!” he says. “I want to play the trumpet and the clarinet and the saxophone! I want to play the
trombone!
”

Wearily, she tells him to shush.

Suddenly a girl sitting across the room, perhaps motivated by the boldness of the boy, climbs up onto her chair, grabs one of Mrs. Himmel’s unframed barnyard paintings off the wall, and bonks her own mother on the head with it. “Bonk!” she shrieks, and flies off her chair to bonk some other people. The mother, clearly Bad, does nothing. In fact, she looks relieved the girl’s attention is elsewhere for a while. The girl bonks three other kids lying flat on their backs. The heat has them beat. Listless, they let her bonk them.

One of the mothers finally stands up. “Excuse me, Mrs. Himmel,” she says. “Would you mind turning the heat down just a smidge? It’s awfully warm in here.”

Mrs. Himmel nods. “Of course,” she says, and waddles over to the thermostat. Behind her desk, the sugar packets from the shelf beckon. The itch on my back digs in sharp, and underneath all these bandages my skin feels raw. Suffocated. Sweat slides down the center of my back aggravating the itch. I reach around to try and scratch it, and Mrs. Himmel catches me fidgeting. She smiles a little at my discomfort, and then, consciously or not, cranks it up a notch. Another cloud of heat puffs out of the radiators. The Sick or Diseased Children moan and roll onto their sides.

I unwrap three Evermores and close my eyes, and start chewing ferociously. When I open them, the little bonking girl is standing right in front of me.

“Why are you wearing that coat?” she says. “Aren’t you hot?”

“Cynthia,” her mother says, and gives her a scolding look.

But Cynthia is unfazed. She remains standing in front of me, clutching her painting. She wants to bonk me with it. “What’s that picture?” she asks.

I show her the picture of the soldier.

“That’s stupid,” she says. “Draw me something, now.”

I draw her a quick picture.

“What is it?”

It’s a trombone.

“That’s a penis,” says the girl.

Her mother looks up. All the mothers look up. They lower their women’s magazines and sit up in their chairs. They are transformed from Good Mothers and Bad Mothers into a pack of Mother Bears. Claws extended, nostrils flared. The girl hesitates for a moment, holding the picture of an idyllic farmhouse above my head.

“Cynthia, no!” cries her mother.

Cynthia bonks me. “Bonk!” she says.

In one spontaneous, exaggerated movement, her mother drops the magazine, darts from her chair, and grabs her child. They back away slowly.

Confused, Cynthia bursts into tears.

Mrs. Himmel rises from behind her desk like the sun over a battlefield. She hurries over to me, her eyes shiny as bullets. She grabs a corner of my writing tablet. “
Give it to me
,
you little creep
,” she seethes.

The mothers stand grouped behind her. I surprise myself and growl a little—Mrs. Himmel steps back, but does not let go of the tablet.

“It’s a
penis
,” says Cynthia, sobbing.

Mrs. Himmel finally yanks it from me and looks at the picture. “Lord in Heaven,” she says, and runs into the back room to show Adrian.

A moment later, Adrian appears, filling the doorjamb. She pushes her sleeves to her elbows. I’ve never seen her look at me this way before; her eyes have shrunk into half-moons. Her back seems to arch up all on its own. “Mr. Pfliegman,” she says.

The Sick or Diseased children all sit up and look at me with excited faces. I’m a scoundrel, and I’ve been discovered. “
Fleeg-man
,” they say. They whisper it like it’s a swear word.
Fleeg-man
.

“Get out!” yells Mrs. Himmel. “Now!”

I want to leave—I know that I should leave—but I can’t; I need my writing tablet. I gesture for it, waving my bandages as if to say, “Please, just give it to me. If I get the tablet then I’ll leave.”

But Mrs. Himmel holds it tight. “You’re not getting
this
back, Mister,” she says, and steps behind Adrian. “This is evidence!”

Helpless, I look around for a pen and paper, but there’s nothing. Children’s building logs. The withering ficus plant.
Highlights
. I try to show them what I drew—it’s not a penis, see, it’s a trombone—I hold my hands to my throat and rub quickly—I try to get the words out but they just won’t go. I look frantically for Oliver, he might come to my defense, but he’s still in the back, so I stand up and pretend to play the trombone to show them what I mean. I stand up and start moving my hands and blowing.

“Good God,” Cynthia’s mother says.

“That’s enough of that,” says Adrian, and she moves in a big red flash. She pins me to the floor of the Waiting Area and twists my body beneath her weight. “I don’t care if you’re sick or wrapped in bandages or not, Mr. Pfliegman. I don’t know or care
what
you are.” She puts one foot on my spine and then lifts me up. “Out you go,” she says.

Mrs. Himmel holds the door open. I’m deposited, coat and all, out on the lawn. Rain hits at once. Cars driving in and out of the Big M parking lot slow down to watch as from the dripping grass, the Invisible Man reaches one arm toward the picnic table.

Adrian slams the door and locks it. Mrs. Himmel watches from a window. “Get away from that picnic table!” she shouts. “This time you’re not coming back!” She folds her arms. I stare up at her with pleading eyes, but she’s not buying it. “You’re-not-coming-back,” she mouths, and casts a look upon her face that only belongs to a person who has satisfied a prejudice.

The Sick or Diseased children all run to the window and start shouting. Oliver has returned from Dr. Monica’s office and presses his palms against the glass. I look at him, and he looks back at me. He blinks. His mother rushes up and tries to pull him away from the window. He cries out in protest.

“The police!” shouts Mrs. Himmel. She stabs her thumb and pinky finger at me. “We’ve called the police!”

I look over at the supermarket in the rain. The enormous M glows red over the wet parking lot. No Security Guards are guarding the entrance, so I jump up and sprint across the street, the tails of the Kabát Tolvajok dragging behind me. I skirt around puddles, all the way up to the front entrance of the supermarket where the wide glass doors swing open.

I duck behind a chubby Virginian in a tracksuit, and follow him past the rows of vegetables, through condiments, and abandon him at the frozen dinner entrees. There is a back entrance to the Big M behind the bakery, where the bakers unload their trucks at night, and right next to the meat section. I make a run for it, but a familiar figure is in the way, blocking the exit. It’s Daughter Elise. She’s leaning over the bakery counter, piling powdered jelly doughnuts into a waxy white bag. She looks over her shoulder, then shoves one of the doughnuts in her mouth.

I glance back to the wide glass doors, but the Security Guards are now gathered there, circling—

“What are you doing?”

Herman Himmel comes up right behind me. Underneath the high ceiling of the supermarket, the bright, fluorescent bulbs, he looks even bigger. He bends forward like a curious bear. “What’s with the bandages?” he asks, and adjusts his baseball cap.

I lightly touch the bandages, but avoid eye contact. Instead I look over at the refrigerated display units, at the long pink rows. A football field of meat.

“Buddy,” he says. “Why aren’t you at the bus?”

But just as he asks it, Herman realizes it is a question he already knows the answer to. “Buddy,” he says again. “I can’t save you.” Slowly, he points a finger towards the ceiling. Three cameras, each with one red eye, are all pointed right at me. Herman gives me a sad, defeated look and grips the sleeve of my coat. He picks up his walkie-talkie. “I’ve got him,” he says.

The other Security Guards throw their walkie-talkies into their holsters and dart from the glass doors. Their billy clubs swing in unison.

“You got him!” they shout.

“The man in the coat!

“Take him to Management!”

Herman holds up a large flat palm. “Wait,” he says. “Just wait.” He looks at his clipboard, and gestures to the other men, who then also look at
their clipboards. “Stay right here,” he says to me, and moves the Security Guards a few paces away. They talk with each other, glancing occasionally at me. It’s possible to dart around them; we’re close to the sliding glass doors, and through them is the
ENTER EXIT
sign, the cars that fill the parking lot. But then I see the Indian running underneath the sign. He’s tearing across the parking lot in the heavy rain, waving his arms. His hair is plastered to his head, but he doesn’t wipe it away. He looks frightened. Behind him, a black sport utility vehicle rolls beneath the sign and into the red glow of the parking lot, wipers thrashing across the windshield. It finds an empty space and parks. Three men in black suits step out. They slam the doors and, protecting themselves with manila folders above their heads, walk quickly toward the entrance of the supermarket. The Indian darts around the men as they approach the glass doors, he tries to punch them—it’s no use. Herman picks up his walkie-talkie from his holster and barks, “We’ve got Disneyland, repeat, we’ve got Disneyland,” but I keep my eyes on the doors. The Indian swings and swings, but keeps missing them. One of the Subdivisionists is holding something familiar in his hand, something square and white which they stole from my bus when they went there today, after leaving Mister Bis’s, after they kicked in the door of the bus. It’s a business card. They found it perched on the windowsill next to an abandoned tin can smelling faintly of tomatoes. The card says
DR. MONICA BOTTOM, PEDIATRICIAN
, and there’s a picture of a blue butterfly above the name. Below the name is her street address and telephone number.

Mrs. Himmel was only too glad to tell them where I’d gone.

In a final, wild effort, the Indian moves behind the Subdivisionists and throws himself on top of them, but his body simply moves through them, as if they were air, as if they were never there at all. They walk up to the glass doors of the Big M, pointing their large chins in all directions. The doors swing open. They spot what they’re searching for and run over, and suddenly Rovar Ákos Pfliegman, the last of all Pfliegmans, finds himself surrounded by enemies, both east and west.

1. The final and perfect stage or form of an insect after it has undergone all its metamorphoses; the “perfect insect.”

2. A subjective image of someone (especially a parent) which a person has subconsciously formed and which continues to influence his attitude and behavior.

—
The Oxford English Dictionary

Dust shimmered in a line along the horizon. Szeretlek the Giant stood on the steps of the monastery watching morosely as his fellow Hungarians rode off without him. He watched until they were out of sight. It felt as though someone was holding him by the throat, tight around his esophagus, even though he hadn’t a clue about esophagi. A large tear slipped down his large face. He closed his eyes and tried to feel Lili’s soft hair against his palm, the mould of her fat back, the smooth wide roll of those spectacular thighs, but he could not. To be abandoned by one’s people was one thing; it was quite another to be abandoned by one’s own mind.

“Stupid!” he cried, knocking his head with the hoof of his palm. “Stupid stupid!”

It was all because he had wanted to be of use. But what use was he now to Lili? To himself? To anyone? Kinga had once told him that a useful man is never lonely, but here, now, after thirty-five years of quiet obeisance, the Giant was more alone than ever.

Szeretlek stared up at the clouds curling above. He shook his fists. “You Miserable Punishing Man in the Sky,” he shouted. “I am of use to no one!”
And then, as though resigning himself to some stronger, more authoritative philosophy, cried out: “I have no useful purpose!”

At that moment, something jabbed him from behind. Szeretlek spun around to find himself nose-to-nose with the biggest horse he’d ever seen. The horse was enormous, big and white. Magnificent-looking. Truly it was the most magnificent horse he had ever seen. It was M. Earlier that day, as the Hungarians were preparing to leave, the horse had gotten into a barrel of wine, become swimmingly drunk, and passed out, hooves to belly, in a nearby barn.

Árpád had tried to rouse him, but the horse just lay there, sleeping. The Grand Prince did not realize the horse was asleep; he’d assumed that one of the monks, sometime during the hours of the Hungarians’ indelicate arrival at the monastery, had poisoned him out of revenge. So he’d left M lying on the floor of the barn and instead mounted a speckled and far less impressive horse named Paprika, who suffered from backaches and perpetual foot rot. “Death to the man who stole my horse from me!” he’d cried.

Of course Szeretlek hadn’t heard him; at the time, he had been clear on the other side of the monastery, assembling his things. He packed the doubly curved bow that he made in the wilderness. He packed shoes, his cloaks. He’d spent a few extra minutes wandering the fields and gardens, gathering gifts for Lili: an unusually long blade of grass which wound around his finger like a wedding ring; from an assortment of insects creeping in the grass, he selected a large shiny beetle; he found a small, funny-looking caterpillar, bearded in fur. When he’d returned to the courtyard, he was astonished to find the monastery empty. He’d been abandoned. He had no horse to carry him home.