Читать книгу Charlotte Roche Two-Book Collection: Wetlands and Wrecked - Charlotte Roche - Страница 16

I open my eyes and see a woman in a nurse’s uniform but one that’s a different color from all the others here. The others all wear light blue and she’s in light green. Maybe she had a laundry mishap.

“Good evening. Please forgive me for disturbing you so late. The rounds took longer than usual today. I’m a candy striper.”

What? She must have broken out of the psychiatric ward. I just look at her. She must be crazy, I think, and I’ll leave her to believe what she wants. My ass hurts bad. And it’s getting worse. That’s the only thing I could possibly say to her. That would be a great conversation: “I’m a candy striper.” “Yeah, and my ass hurts.”

I watch her with tired, half-open eyes like a grandmother. It seems to me she talks very slowly—each word seems to echo.

“That means I’m a volunteer. I try to make things more comfortable for the people here in the hospital. We candy stripers”—there are others!—“run errands for patients, get them phone cards, pick up their mail, that sort of thing.”

Very well.

“Can you get me painkillers?”

“No, we’re not authorized to do that. We’re not nurses. We just look like them.” She snorts. It’s supposed to be a laugh.

“Please leave me alone. I’m sorry, but I’m in pain and I’m waiting for a nurse and some medication. Normally I’m nicer. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

As she leaves, she asks, “Where would you call?”

Get out. I need peace and quiet.

I’m not going to be able to keep it together much longer. I take deep breaths. And blow them back out loudly. My hand wanders down to my pubic mound and I pull my knees up toward my chest. Although this position hurts, I stay in it. Into the pain with you, Helen. The other hand I put over my ass crack. This is bad. The kind of pain that makes you feel extremely lonely and scared. I think to myself, no patient should have to be in pain in a country as rich as this; I think, there’s enough medicine for everyone here. I ring the buzzer. Peter comes running in. He apologizes that it’s taken so long. He couldn’t reach the doctor at first. He found out that the day shift had made a mistake. I was supposed to get an electronic device so I could self-administer pain medication. They were supposed to have the anesthesiologist attach one that would allow me just to click with my thumb to get doses of the medicine through the catheter in my arm. They forgot. Forgot? I’m at their mercy. Forgot. And now?

“You can have strong tablets upon request all night long. Here’s the first one.”

I pop it into my mouth and wash it down with the dregs of the beer. Peter clears away the pizza box. He’s probably forgotten he’s responsible for the medical waste. Hospital of the forgetful. My painkillers forgotten, my rectal goulash forgotten. We’ll see what else gets forgotten. The half-eaten mushroom pizza sits on top covering everything. My goulash ends up in the normal trash. I like that. I don’t say anything. He also throws out the beer bottles, very carefully so they don’t bang against each other. Very delicate, Peter.

Because of the pain, my shoulder muscles are pulled all the way up to my ears, stretched taut like rubber bands. Now, after taking the pill, they begin to slowly relax and I can breathe more easily. I need to piss from the beer, but I can’t get up. No worries. I fall asleep.

When I wake up it’s still dark. I don’t have a clock. Wait, my camera has a clock in it. I turn it on and take a picture of the room; when I view a shot, it always says when it was taken, right? 2:46 a.m. Too bad. I’d hoped the pill would allow me to sleep through the night. Did Peter leave more pills here?

I turn on the light. It’s terribly bright and white. I’m dizzy. I guess these tablets they’re giving me are pretty strong. I’m having trouble thinking straight. My eyes adjust to the nightmarish light. Why did I bother with the clock in the camera? I have a mobile phone. You’re funny sometimes, Helen. It must be the medication. I hope. I see a tablet in a little plastic cup on the nightstand. Down the hatch. I can do it without a drink. It tastes disgustingly chemical. It takes a long time before I have enough spit to swallow it. Gulp. And it’s down. I turn off the light and try to go back to sleep. Can’t. My bladder’s full. Very full. At least it’s my bladder bothering me and not my ass. There’s a noise bothering me. It’s a loud hissing. From outside, I think. Sounds like the exhaust pipe of the hospital’s air-conditioning system. They must have moved it right outside my window while I was asleep. I refuse to go to the bathroom. You’re going to have to fall asleep with a full bladder, Helen, or not at all. To block out the hiss I put the pillow on top of my head. Top ear blocked by the pillow, bottom ear by the mattress.

The hiss in my head is now as loud as the air conditioner outside. I press my eyelids together and try to force myself to sleep. Think about something else, Helen. But what?

I smell something.

I fear it’s gas. I sniff and sniff again. It still smells like gas. A gas leak. I can almost hear it. Sssssssss. Just to be sure not to make a fool of myself, I wait a little while longer. I hold my breath. I count a few seconds and then take another deep breath. It’s definitely gas. Turn on the light. I stand up. The motion hurts. But who cares. Better to have your ass hurt than to get blown sky high.

I go out into the hall and call.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Mom always forbid us to call out “hello.” She thought it sounded as if you were talking down to handicapped people.

I’ll make an exception. It’s an emergency.

“Hello?”

It’s silent in the hallway. Hospitals are creepy at night.

A nurse comes out of the nurses’ station. Thankfully it’s not a man. Where’s Peter?

“Can you come check this out? It smells like gas in my room.”

Her face becomes very serious. Good, she believes me.

We go into my room and sniff around. I can’t smell it anymore. The strong gas smell. It’s gone. No gas, no nothing. It’s happened again.

“Oh, no, I guess it doesn’t. My mistake.” I exaggeratedly raise the corners of my mouth.

I’m hoping to make it look as if I was joking.

I don’t pull it off very well. I can’t believe I’ve fooled myself again. For the hundredth time. Approximately.

She looks at me full of disdain and leaves. She’s right—it’s nothing to joke about. But it wasn’t meant to be one. The worst gas incident so far—except for the real one—happened at home. One night when I was trying to fall asleep I was sure I smelled gas. The smell just kept getting stronger. Because I know gas is lighter than air—even though it’s hard to believe—I thought I was well situated lying there in bed. It’s not far off the floor.

I also know it takes a long time for all the rooms of a building to fill with gas and for the gas to slowly descend from the ceiling and spread out. I was sure my mom and brother were already dead. Whether the leak was in the basement or the kitchen, their rooms would be full by now.

I lay in bed a long time with my eyes nearly closed—because of lack of oxygen, I thought, though it turned out to be from sleepiness—thinking about what I should do.

I thought if I got out of bed I might cause a spark and it would be my fault if the apartment blew up and I died. The others were already dead—it wouldn’t matter to them if the place exploded.

I decided to climb out of bed very slowly and inch my way outside on the floor.

The apartment was silent. If I made it out alive I would still have my father, who, luckily, didn’t live in that deadly building. That’s the one advantage to having divorced parents.

Lying on the floor I reached up for the handle of the front door and opened it. It took a long time to make it down the hall, snaking my way across the carpet. As soon as I was outside I took a few deep breaths. I’d made it.

I walked away from the building so I wouldn’t be hit by any flying bricks if the place blew up.

I stood on the sidewalk in my nightgown, lit up by the only street lamp on our block, and looked at the tomb of my mother and brother.

There was a light on in the living room. I could see mom on the couch with a book in her hand. At first I thought she had suffocated and was frozen in that position. Rather improbable.

Then she turned a page. She was alive, and I realized I had fooled myself again.

I went back in and flopped down in bed. Real hard, to cause sparks.

There’s no way for me to know whether I’m imagining it or not when I smell gas. It always smells strong. And it happens pretty often.

It’s actually a pleasant smell.

Fear makes you tired. Painkillers, too. I lie down in the hospital bed and fall asleep.