Читать книгу The Skinner's Revenge - Chris Karsten - Страница 16

The patient sat motionless, as if he had no vital signs. He hated strangers touching him. He especially detested fingers prodding his face. His face was sacred to him – more private than any other part of his body.

Without realising it, he was holding his breath as he endured the doctor’s fingertips. The doctor was the first person ever to touch his face. Not even his mother had done so, as far as he could remember.

It was only when the doctor leant back in his chair – so close their knees were touching – that he exhaled softly. The patient’s lazy eye blinked, like the recalcitrant shutter of an old camera. The eye had its own rhythm, out of sync with its partner. There was no remedy for it.

“The deterioration of the eye’s elevator and orbicular muscles is a congenital defect,” said the doctor. “It’s not ptosis, which could have been surgically rectified.”

The patient already knew that. He’d been ten when the diagnosis was made. He’d learnt to accept the condition, rather than risk losing his eyesight. That would be worse: a lazy eye was better than a blind one.

“Wear spectacles with dark lenses,” the doctor suggested. “If you’re embarrassed by the eye, get coloured lenses. Amber, mauve or blue, even yellow. Any colour you like. It’s foonky.”

The patient had to concentrate hard to follow the doctor’s conversation. Dr Lippens spoke English with an accent. His hard Germanic g’s and r’s were not unlike the language to which the patient’s ear was accustomed. But the oo was strange.

“You mean ‘funky’?”

“That’s what I said: foonky.”

Funky yellow spectacles rang a bell with the patient. He’d once tenderly removed such a pair of sunglasses from a woman’s face before laying her on his workbench and drawing purple lines with his felt-tipped pen where his scalpel was to cut through the soft skin of her stomach and groin.

“And the rest?” he asked the surgeon.

“The rest is a walk in the park.”

Dr Lippens sounded smug – almost disdainful – because his own face needed no modification. His features were in perfect proportion.

“A weekend facelift – that’s all it is. The procedure takes only a few hours. I don’t think you want the whole bang shoot of dewrinkling and rejuvenation and unnecessary surgery.”

“No,” agreed the patient. No unnecessary surgery. Even when the scalpel was in his own hand, he never made unnecessary cuts.

“I hate to say it, but when I’m done with you, you won’t recognise yourself. Guaranteed – or your money back.”

“How long is the recovery period?”

“Two nights in hospital to make sure everything is fine, that there’s no infection or anything. Then two weeks at home – at most, my friend. After two weeks the swelling will be gone, and no one will ever guess you’ve had work done to your face. Do you want to go ahead?”

My friend?

“Yes. Do it.”

“A good decision. You won’t regret it.”

Dr Lippens got up, returned with a camera.

“Photos?” The patient was worried. He didn’t like photographs of himself. No one had ever taken a picture of him, even as a child. There had been no album with baby photos; his childhood had gone undocumented. He knew of only one photo: him at the age of thirteen, standing between his mother and his granny, their faces severe, no smiles for the camera. That was the only photo.

“The photos are for the procedure – I use them as an aid on the operating table,” said the surgeon. “Artists follow the same method. Portrait artists and sculptors all work with models. It’s been the custom for centuries – no, millennia. Michelangelo used models for his huge marble works.”

“I’m not looking for a replica of my own face. I actually want a different face.”

“The photos help with the proportions. The proportions are important, even if the features change.”

“Take photos of your own face – you have good proportions. I want a sharper nose, like yours. And a more prominent chin, like yours.”

“You flatter me, Mr Lomas.”

“And my ears stick out.”

“The photos are still necessary, even if you only want your features refined. Once I’ve uploaded them on my computer, I’ll have a better idea of the modifications we need, and I can take exact measurements and plan the whole procedure before the first incision.”

The patient sat frozen in front of the flashing camera.

“It’s not just about cutting and hoping for the best, Mr Lomas. I’m not a cowboy.”

You should see my work, thought the patient. You should see the delicate work I do with a scalpel.

“Yes,” said Dr Lippens, studying the photos on his computer screen. “Your face needs a lot of work, that is clear. And if it’s what you want, I’ll use my own proportions as a template. Perhaps superimpose my face on your photo and see how we can help you. How does that sound?”

The patient remained silent. It was his dream, no, his obsession, to superimpose a face onto his own.

But not this doctor’s face.

No, the tender, softly tanned skin of a young woman. And not on a photograph. He wanted to pull on her face over his, feel her skin caressing his own.

Dr Lippens returned to his chair and moved slightly closer, again reaching out to the patient’s face with his fingers. The patient stiffened, but allowed the surgeon to go ahead. After all, this was how he examined his donors’ skins on his own operating table.

“The nose is the most important element,” the surgeon said. “The nose is smack in the middle of the face, the aesthetic focal point. It lends strength to the face, and character. The science of physiognomy is centuries old, you know. Even the ancient Greeks judged a man by looking at his features.”

“When can you begin?”

“A tenth of a second. That’s how long it takes to judge someone’s personality at first glance: he cares, he can be trusted, he’s aggressive, he’s an introvert, he’s thorough, he’s dishonest … Did you know that, Mr Lomas?”

“I want the photos when you’ve finished.”

“As a memento? Sure, I’ll put them on a memory stick for you. But I always keep photos of my patients. For the record. Have you heard of the halo of attraction?”

The patient shook his head, his thoughts focused on the photos that would remain on the surgeon’s computer.

“The halo of attraction … People who are considered attractive get more Valentine’s cards, are considered more socially acceptable, sexually alluring, intelligent, happy, healthy. They are popular and are treated more sympathetically – even by the courts.”

“What about a face that can’t be trusted?” the patient inquired. He did not trust the doctor’s face.

“The corners of the mouth turn down, the eyebrows form a V.”

“What about a baby face?”

“Someone with a baby face – and I’m not saying you have one – is seen as naïve, a bit of a mommy’s boy.”

The patient had read about physiognomy, even about ethology and phrenology, and a lot about lazy eyes. And especially about men who are scorned and derided and nicknamed Babyface. The surgeon didn’t know – or had forgotten, the patient suspected – about spots on the wings and bodies of certain butterflies, moths and fish that emulate eyes to confuse and evade predators. The principle was also applicable to a man with a baby face: the first impression, arrived at within a tenth of a second, was that the person was innocent and submissive. But just as the moth’s false eye was not a real eye, the owner of the baby face was not a baby. The patient knew that from personal experience.

“The chin is almost as important as the nose,” said the surgeon, measuring the patient’s features with sliding callipers. “The chin lends balance and harmony to the face. We’ll definitely have to do something about your chin. Or, in your case, your lack of a chin.”

“And the ears.” The patient looked at the long, black hairs on the back of the doctor’s fingers, inhaled the smell of his skin.

“Yes,” said Dr Lippens, his eager breath on the patient’s cheek. “The ears must be proportionate to the size and shape of the face and head. We’ll work on the ears, push them back against the skull, prune back the cartilage and skin to get the desired effect.”

“Like yours.”

“Exactly,” said Dr Lippens. “If I may say so – and I’m always honest with my patients – if anyone thought you had a baby face before, they’re going to eat their words by the time I’ve finished with you.”

From the storeroom of the patient’s memory – and he never forgot faces – he recalled Konrad Lorenz, ethologist and Nobel Prize winner, who maintained that someone with a baby face inspired in others a desire to nurture and protect. And Leslie Zebrowitz, psychologist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, who claimed that men with baby faces stimulated the amygdala, the emotional centre of the brain, in other people. She’d also found in her research that men with baby faces were generally better qualified, more assertive, and over time were awarded more military medals than men who were more mature in appearance. But of course there’s always a twist. She also found that men with baby faces overcompensated for their shortcomings, that they were usually more argumentative and aggressive, and, like Al Capone, more inclined to criminal behaviour.

“Lippens?” asked the patient. “Is that … ?”

“Belgian. Originally from Ghent. After Burundi’s independence, the country was not the Utopia everyone had been hoping for. Health services collapsed, along with many other things. The government turned to the old colonial master to recruit skilled workers: engineers, teachers, nurses and doctors.”

Yes, I know you’re Belgian, thought the patient. That’s why I’m here. You’ve been specially selected for the procedure on my face.

“Are you still a Belgian citizen?”

“Of course. I have permanent residency here, but why should I give up my citizenship and passport in favour of Burundi?”

The patient nodded and agreed to an endoscopic mini rhytidectomy, with rhinoplasty, mentoplasty and otoplasty. He declined the blepharoplasty, opting for amber-tinted spectacles instead.

* * *

For two nights he lay attached to a drip in the Prince Louis Rwagasore Clinic in the Rue Pierre Ngendandumwe, his entire head swathed in gauze bandages, only his eyes and mouth visible. He could see the surgeon enter to inspect his handiwork, and the nurses when they came to disinfect the wounds and wrap his head in fresh bandages.

And he could feel. It felt as if his entire face had been plunged into a basin of fiery coals, as if someone had peeled off his skin with a blunt knife. Tubes were pushed into his mouth, needles pierced his buttocks, pills and water passed across his parched lips, and pain and fever racked his body.

In his feverish mind he was vaguely aware of intense whispered conversations between doctor and nurses.

When he regained full consciousness, a nurse was at his bedside. Alone, hazy as a ghost.

“How are you feeling, Mr Lomas?”

She, too, spoke English with an accent, but by now the patient was used to it. Her Creole dialect reminded him of the speech of Jules Daagari, his Burundian friend and purveyor of masks.

“Can you hear me, Mr Lomas?”

He could hear – only dimly through the bandages around his ears, which ached after the otoplasty. But he couldn’t speak, because his jaw had been immobilised by the surgery to his chin. After the rhinoplasty, his nose felt as if it had been broken by a heavyweight boxer.

“Here, take a sip of water, and let me put some Vaseline on your lips. Better? Can you hear me now?”

As if water and Vaseline could assist with his hearing. He nodded.

“You gave us a fright, Mr Lomas. We thought we were losing you. Infection – sepsis. We don’t know where it came from. But there’s always a risk. Always bacteria, no matter how thoroughly you scrub. Here, have some more water.”

“Whrs th fckn qck?” The sounds came laboriously over his dry lips, his throat raw from the tubes.

“What’s that, Mr Lomas?” The nurse leaned closer, holding her ear to his Vaseline-covered lips.

“Whrs th fckn qck?”

“You could still be delirious, though the fever has broken. Take this tablet, it’s just a mild sedative, and sleep some more. I’ll change the bandages later tonight.”

His hand shot out from under the blanket and grabbed her wrist. With great effort he forced the words slowly over his vocal chords: “Where’s the fucking quack?”

She staggered back. “Mr Lomas!”

In his neck the muscles were taut. “Take off the bandages. Bring me a mirror.”

“Calm down,” said the nurse. “I can’t take them off. It’s too dangerous. We need antibiotic ointment for the wounds … ”

“Call Dr Lippens.”

“He isn’t here. He’s at his rooms. He’ll be here when I change the bandages tonight. Take the tablet and get some rest.”

He swallowed the pill, lay back against the pillow, dozed off.

When he woke up, he was feeling better. He lay waiting for her.

On the other side of the window, evening was falling over Bujumbura. His bed was next to the window, and he only had to turn his head to look out. He was glad about the window. He didn’t want to be squashed between beds occupied by groaning patients.

He waited, closed his eyes, listened to the drone and hooting of cars in the streets outside.

Then he felt her presence and heard her voice above him.

“Does it still hurt? Do you have any pain?”

Her fingers busily unwrapping the bandages over his ears.

“Where’s the doctor?”

“He’ll be here in a while. Still doing his rounds. Your ears look good, Mr Lomas. You have good-looking ears now, pixie ears. I think we can leave them uncovered, give them some air; there’s no more need for bandages. They’re just about healed.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Five days. That’s why the wounds are almost completely healed. Let’s take a look at your face.”

“Only two nights,” he said. “Then I was supposed to have gone home.”

“There were complications … Ah, the nose.” A click of her tongue. “No, the nose will need more work. Healed, but not quite right. You’ll have to return in about a month.”

“Bring me a mirror.”

She unwrapped the last bandage, removed the gauze from his chin. “Oh no, your chin as well. The worst of the infection was on your new chin.”

He tried to get up out of bed but she pushed him back.

“I want to see!”

“In a little while. Let me clean it first. We don’t want a brand-new infection, do we, Mr Lomas?”

He lay back, allowing her to bathe his face with cotton wool and a cool liquid, an antiseptic smell sharp in his nostrils.

“Do you smell it? I see you’re wrinkling your nose, so you’re able to smell. That’s a good sign – the infection hasn’t damaged your sinus cavities or olfactory nerves. Good news, isn’t it?”

“What’s wrong with my nose and chin?”

“Nothing is wrong, Mr Lomas, it’s just, er … work in progress, you might say. Little more adjustments to be done.”

“He called it a weekend facelift. He didn’t say anything about unfinished work!”

“He couldn’t have known there would be complications.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll bring a bedpan.”

“I don’t want a bedpan.”

She helped him out of bed.

“Take the drip out of my arm.”

“I can’t.” She held out his dressing gown. “Doctor has to give his permission. Come, slowly now. Do you feel light-headed? Lean on my shoulder until your legs feel stronger. Can you stand on your own?”

He began to cough, wiped mucus from his lips with the back of his hand.

“Are you getting a cold, Mr Lomas? It could be the after-effects of the infection.”

She draped the dressing gown around his shoulders, over the hospital gown. He was short, inclined to chubbiness, especially around the hips and buttocks, with round, fat thighs.

“Cough syrup. Can you get me some for my cough?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the doctor.”

“Chamberlain’s. It’s harmless. Just a few sips of Chamberlain’s for the cough and my raw throat.”

“I’ll get you some.”

He shuffled to the door, the drip stand in one hand. The skin of his face felt taut, but it was free of bandages.

In the bathroom he found a mirror. Stared.

He didn’t recognise the face.

Before, he had been chinless. Now the mirror reflected a chin, a large one, the skin pockmarked, like craters on the surface of the moon. The once flat nose was now sharp, but crooked, the tip pointing up, the nostrils flared.

The face in the bathroom mirror was a caricature. He recognised only the eyes. The sluggish blink of the lazy eye.

He started to tremble as the rage seethed and roiled deep inside him. Then, suddenly, not able to be suppressed, his fury erupted in a mournful wail and his body twisted and convulsed as if seized by some undefined spirit, his bulging eyes distended, white froth gathering at the corners of his mouth. He hit his forehead against the bathroom wall and slowly slid down to the floor. He sat there, maybe for a minute, inert, with hunched shoulders. Then he lifted his face and gulped for air. His chest heaved and his quivering hands caressed his cheeks and nose and chin, and he forced his anger back into that dark crevice of his mind where it lurked and waited to be summoned again.

You’re not attractive, his mother had told him, so don’t make it worse by telling lies. He’d been ten or twelve at the time. Later, at thirty, she’d said: every man deserves the face he’s got. He hadn’t understood what she meant.

Work in progress. Straightening the nose, turning the tip down, tidying up the nostrils. And chiselling the chin. The craters in the skin were the result of the infection, he knew. It was water under the bridge. There was nothing to be done. He knew all about hides and skins, and he didn’t think a graft was possible. The risk was too great, here, in this place, with the possibility of infection.

He stood up, looked in the mirror again. With a paper towel, he wiped the sweat from his disfigured face and the froth from his plump lips and, carrying his drip, shuffled back to the men’s ward, past the beds occupied by complaining patients, crawling back under the blankets of his bed at the window. He took a sip from the brown cough-syrup bottle. He liked the liquorice taste, the soothing effect of the thick syrup as it slid down his throat.

He took another sip, lying propped against the pillows, and once again in full control of his mind and senses he studied the label and noted the ingredients: liquorice, ipecac extract, sodium benzoate as the preservative. He returned the bottle to the nightstand. Ipecac. His mother had given his father and brother ipecac syrup on the night they had suddenly and simultaneously fallen ill. Ipecac syrup was a home remedy used to induce vomiting when someone had ingested poison. Not that it had done his father and brother any good.

Banishing the two of them once more from his thoughts, he waited for Dr Lippens and wished he had his MP3 so that he could listen to Paganini.

His thoughts turned to Jules of Bujumbura, whom he’d met in Johannesburg. Jules, who had supplied him with African masks for his gallery of ethnic artefacts in the mall. All his beautiful, authentic masks, which had spoken to him from the walls, sharing with him their stories and legends and myths. All gone now, presumably packed in boxes, gathering dust in the dark, stuffy room where the police locked away their evidence.

It couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t have brought them along. His flight had been too sudden, entirely unexpected. But he would get others, with Jules, on their travels through Africa. To the Bwa and Nuna in Burkina Faso, the Zackana in Mali, the Grebo of the Côte d’Ivoire, with their rare battle masks.

Yes, he would like to go in search of a Grebo. The small round eyes signifying vigilance and aggression, the teeth sharply pointed and exposed, the straight nose depicting obduracy – like his own new nose, despite its being crooked. A Grebo as a symbol of a new phase in his life and his destiny, liberated now from the straitjacket that had tied him to his mother for fifty years. A Grebo in the place of his beloved Punu, which he had left on a faceless skull.

“Mr Lomas, I’m glad to see you’ve come back to us.”

He opened his eyes, saw the perfect proportions of the surgeon’s face, the harmony and balance lent to the face by the nose and chin. He smelt the subtle aroma of cologne on the unblemished skin. He heard “ooh” and “aah” and “mmm” as the fingers probed and palpated the skin of his cheeks, chin and ears; felt the cold metal of the stethoscope on his chest.

“How many cosmetic procedures have you done, Dr Lippens?”

“The nose isn’t right. The splint moved when we were treating the infection. The cartilage didn’t set properly.”

“How many?”

“Hundreds. Reconstructive surgery is actually my field. Victims of fire, accidents, shooting incidents, birth deformities.”

“You said two nights.”

“We’ll have to work on the chin as well, perhaps a smaller implant, not so prominent. But it’s still better than no chin, isn’t it, Mr Lomas? At least you have a chin now.” He gave a rueful smile.

The patient didn’t like lies. On that account he had been seriously reprimanded during his childhood by his mother, who had called down fire and brimstone on his head. But there were times, he believed, when a white lie was unavoidable. Even his mother would understand and pardon him.

“When can I come for the final work on my face? The nurse said a month. Enough time for the soft tissue to heal. In a month’s time I’ll be ready for the modifications.”

“Of course, Mr Lomas. I’m glad that you’re so positive about this unfortunate incident. That you understand the risks of infection. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve had patients who have been beside themselves with rage when the bandages were removed.”

“So I can be discharged now?”

“Perhaps tomorrow morning. Spend tonight here, just to be on the safe side. I’m very proud of your ears – they came out beautifully. Flat against your head. Michelangelo couldn’t have done it better.”

Pixie ears, the nurse had remarked.

“Why Burundi?” the patient asked. “Wouldn’t Europe be better, where there’s less danger of infection? Wouldn’t your wife prefer to live in Europe instead of Africa?”

“I’ll be going now,” Dr Lippens said. “I have a few more patients to visit before I can go home, and it’s almost ten o’clock. On a Saturday night! No time for myself. I’ll take another look tomorrow morning. If everything seems in order, I’ll sign your discharge papers. All right, Mr Lomas?”

“He’s not married,” the nurse volunteered as soon as the doctor had left the ward.

“Oh,” said the patient. “I don’t want to be disturbed. I want to sleep. Draw the curtains around the bed.”

As soon as she’d left, he pulled the IV needle from his arm and put on his dressing gown, tying the cord around his bulging stomach. He searched for his shoes in the rusty metal nightstand. There, along with his clothes and shoes, were his wallet, his watch and the keys to his 4X4 bakkie and the door to the back room he was renting from the widow Demarcène. There was also a stainless-steel knife, made by J. Russell & Co. of Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts – ideal for severing tough sinews and cartilage while slaughtering animals.

He pushed the knife into his dressing-gown pocket and slunk to the window. The sharp lights in the ward had been dimmed and the silence was almost complete except for an occasional sigh or groan from a bed in which sleeping tablets and sedatives had not yet taken effect.

He undid the catch, pushed up the sash and felt the sultry subtropical night air on his injured face. He clambered out and pulled the window back down. With its large grounds, the clinic lay at an intersection. His window faced the car park used by the hospital staff, out of sight of the main gate and visitors’ parking lot. He waited under an acacia tree beside the wall, a motionless figure in his dressing gown. His eyes searched the dark shadows, then glanced up through the branches at the night sky, where the stars were obscured by dark clouds that had begun to gather over Lake Tanganyika.

Someone came out through the side entrance, got into a car and drove away. He focused his attention on the cars belonging to the night staff, on the door and on the large green metal dumpsters for medical waste.

Half an hour went by before the door – illuminated by a dim light and displaying a sign that read NO UNAUTHORISED ENTRY: HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY – opened again and Dr Lippens stepped out, his white doctor’s coat folded over his arm.

The patient came out from under the acacia and moved towards the car that the surgeon was heading for. The doctor must have heard his footsteps because he turned.

“Mr Lomas!” he exclaimed.

“There was something I wanted to tell you, Doctor … ”

“What are you doing here? You should be in bed.”

“I wanted to tell you: I lied.”

“What?”

“About being back in a month’s time to have my nose and chin fixed. I’ve given it some thought: I like the sharp, crooked nose. And I like the chin. It’s a strong chin. It says something about my personality.”

“I’m surprised. Are you sure?”

“The only thing I don’t like is the pockmarks on my chin.”

“Yes, that is a pity. It’s the result of the sepsis.”

“My skin was always smooth, like a baby’s. I like smooth skin without scars. Babyface, they used to call me.”

“Skin grafts … we can try. But we’ll discuss it tomorrow, during my last consultation before I sign your discharge forms.”

Dr Lippens unlocked his car door and put his medical bag inside.

The patient stepped closer to the open door, took off his dressing gown, placed it on the seat and took the coat from Dr Lippens’s hand.

“What are you doing?”

The patient said nothing, just held the blade of the Russell knife to the soft hollow at the base of the startled Dr Lippens’s throat.

“Mr Lomas … I … ”

“Be quiet. Close the door.”

“I … ”

The patient pierced the skin, drawing a little blood. “Let’s walk to the garden at the back of the building. Perhaps we can sit and talk somewhere. And quietly, Doctor. You lead the way.”

As they walked, the patient managed to shrug on the doctor’s coat. He gave Lippens a shove in the back, steering him into the dark, park-like grounds, to a spot out of sight of the side entrance and parking area. In a pocket of the coat, next to a stethoscope, he found a pair of latex gloves, standard equipment for doctors and paramedics in a time when Aids was rife.

He saw wild asparagus shrubs and frangipani in the glow of a distant streetlight and, closer, more dense shrubbery. He sniffed and smelt rain in the dark overcast air.

“Right, we can talk here.”

Dr Lippens turned. The hilt of the Russell knife struck his temple with so much force that he stumbled, lost his balance, and pitched into the undergrowth.

The patient sat down on the surgeon’s stomach, pinning his back to the ground, and pulled on the gloves. His fingers locked around Lippens’s neck, strong thumbs on the arteries, all the strength and weight of his upper body and arms concentrated on his victim’s throat and neck.

“Thank you for the new face, Doctor. It’s not exactly what I wanted, but it’s unrecognisable, and that’s the main thing. I’m sorry I lied to you. Twice. I won’t return in a month’s time and my real name isn’t Lomas.”

He felt the pulse under his fingers falter, like the fluttering of a bird, then die. To make certain he took out the stethoscope and pressed it against the doctor’s chest. Nothing.

He got up, put the stethoscope back into the pocket, buttoned the coat and set to work with the Russell knife. The first incision was in the hairline on the doctor’s forehead, the exact location where a skilful cosmetic surgeon would insert his scalpel to execute a traditional facelift. Not the three fine incisions that allowed an endoscope entry to perform a “weekend” facelift.