I Confess (11 page)

"What are you thinking about?" she asked and lighted a cigarette.

"Nothing in particular." I took the cigarette from her. "First get dressed, please. Somebody might come any time."

She nodded and got up. Totally unconcerned, she picked up her clothes. There was something animalisti-cally natural about her. There was no situation in which she felt inhibited or embarrassed. As she buttoned her blouse, she walked over to the open window.

"Are you crazy?"

"Why?" She turned to look at me, astonished.

"Come away from the window. Anybody could see you."

"So what?"

"It isn't exactly necessary. Here of all places."

"Not here of all places," she said, and laughed loudly. She seemed to find this terribly funny and kept on laughing.

"Don't laugh," I said, but I was laughing myself— uncontrolled, almost hysterical laughter. Yolanda was absolutely right. It was actually a comparatively respectable spot when you considered the places and circumstances under which we had made love—in the woods, on the train, on the floor, in a studio dressing room, in a niche under a streetcar viaduct. I laughed too. She came over to me and pressed her laughing mouth on mine. I grabbed her and she kissed me. We didn't laugh any more.

"When do I see you again?" she asked when she was at

I

last ready to leave. Nothing more was said about my illness.

"FUcall."

"I'll be waiting."

She gave me her hand. She didn't touch me again. She walked to the door without turning around. I looked at my bed, then I looked at her leaving. "Yolanda."

She stopped but didn't turn around. She waited. I said nothing more. "What?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"Nothing," I said. "Go."

She left, closing the door behind her. I lay down and looked up at the ceiling. Slowly I let my tongue glide over my lip where she had bitten me. The whole room was filled with her perfume.

Margaret came in the afternoon. I was very tired and she soon left. She didn't have anything to tell me. Eulen-glas, to'whom she had spoken before coming to see me, had promised a definite diagnosis in a few days. Otherwise nothing more happened on that day, but in the evening I got a curious phone call. Mordstein was on the wire. I hadn't seen him in months and was surprised.

"Don't be surprised," he said cheerfully. "Joe Clayton told me you're not feeUng well."

"I'm much better."

"That's good, Mr. Chandler. Tm glad to hear that."

"Thanks," I said and waited for him to hang up. But he didn't.

"What I wanted to say ... if you need me, you have my address, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Don't hesitate to contact me."

"It's very good of you but I don't know "

"You never can tell," he said. "Today you may be thinking: why doesn't Mordstein leave me alone . . . ?"

"Certainly not!"

"But tomorrow things could be quite different. Tomor-

row you may think: Mordstein is the only one who can help me."

I was soon to have the opportunity to remember those words.

16

Professor Dr. Victor C. Vogt was imprinted on his office door. It was two days later. Vogt had asked me to come and see him to hear the results of the examination. I was to be in his office at five. It was already five fifteen and his nurse asked me to please excuse him, he had been held up. I sat in the empty twilit waiting room and leafed through one of the illustrated magazines. Marlene Dietrich had been presented with the Cross of the French Legion of Honor. In New York a club had been raided that rented young girls to milUonaires. In the Pyrenees four explorers had lost their lives in a cave. And the war in Korea wasn't over. I looked through all the magazine, read the captions under the illustrations, then the jokes. Some were funny. Then I looked at the sign on the door again and wondered what the 'C stood for. Caesar? Or Christopher? It grew dark.

The last two days had been filled with further examinations. I had been x-rayed, my spine had been tapped, I had been given various fluids to drink. Eulenglas and Vogt had been friendly and to the point. They hadn't wasted a word on the progress of the examination and I had asked no more questions. I had grown much calmer, the hospital atmosphere made me sleepy. Quite possibly I was being given tranquilizers in my food, a bromide, something of the sort. I had heard somewhere that this

was frequently done. This would explain the indifference with which I watched things going on around me. My speech difficulties had stopped, my headache was bearable. Margaret came every day. I hadn't spoken to Yo-landa since her visit.

I picked up another magazine. As I turned the pages I tried to drum up a little excitement within myself. After all, the next few minutes were to decide my future. I would find out if I was healthy or sick, whether I was going to live or die. Everything depended on the doctors' findings. My hands should have been clammy, my lips dry. But nothing of the sort. I sat quietly and faced the fact that, if anything, I was bored. It had to be something they were giving me in my food.

The door with the sign on it opened and Eulenglas appeared. I rose. He apologized for the fact that they were late as he let me enter the Professor's office ahead of him. It was a large pleasant room that in no way betrayed the occupation of its owner. I shook hands with Vogt and we sat down. He offered me cigarettes, cognac. Then he moved nearer to me. "We are going to talk about the only thing that interests you—our findings."

"Yes," I said and smiled. It was really pleasant in this room.

Vogt looked me in the eye. "Mr. Chandler, we have examined you just as thoroughly as possible with the procedures we used. We. have evaluated all the results and are still unable to give you an exact diagnosis of your condition." Whereupon he stopped speaking and there was silence in the room.

"What do you mean?" I said. "You can't teU me whether I have a tumor or not?"

"We can't tell you with absolute certainty," said Eulenglas, shifting his thick glasses.

"But wasn't that the purpose of all you put me through?" I asked with a short laugh. My laughter sounded strange, and I wondered about it. Vogt rubbed his

hands together; in the twilight his round face looked like a white moon.

"Mr. Chandler," his voice squeaked, "we are talking about the present status of the examination. We are not finished."

"So why don't you go on?"

"Because to proceed, we need your consent," said Eu-lenglas.

This gave me a bit of a shock. For a few seconds I woke out of my lethargy. "Consent? What for?"

"A pure formaUty," said Vogt in his feminine sing-song voice. "Still, we need it." He moved closer. Now I could smeU garhc again. "Up to now, Mr. Chandler, we can teU you positively that something in your brain is not in order. On the left frontal side of your head you have a growth."

"Aha," I said.

"Would you like another cognac?" asked Eulenglas.

"No, why?"

"I just thought "he said.

"I have a tumor," I said.

"Not a tumor," Vogt corrected me. "A growth."

"Very well then. If you know all that, why don't you operate? What do you stiU have to know?"

So that's how it went. This was how they broke the news to you. Not very effectively. "Would you Hke another cognac?" and that was that. A Hollywood writer should try to get away with anything like that! What a loused up scene!

"You're way ahead of us, Mr. Chandler." Vogt poured himself another glass. "We don't operate quite that fast. There are many cases when we can save ourselves and the patient an operation."

"When?"

"When the growth is benign. Then we can eliminate it with x-ray treatment."

"And you think my erowth may be benign?"

"Of course, Mr. Chandler."

"Certainly, Mr. Chandler."

They spoke in unison and both of them were smiling. I had the feeling I must do something for them, they were taking so much trouble with me.

"Now I would like another cognac," I said, and they hastened to grant my request.

"Thanks," I said. Then I leaned back in my chair and laughed. "We haven't got very far, have we?" I said, "In this little routine of yours."

"What do you mean, Mr. Chandler?"

"To give the patient his death sentence in installments."

"Mr. Chandler," Vogt said reproachfully, his voice breaking on a hish note.

"All right, all rieht," I said. "On the whole you must admit I'm a tolerable patient. Just now, when vou told me I had a growth, I could have fainted, couldn't I?"

They gave me credit for that.

"Of course this is not going to be an easy time for me. When can I know for sure?"

"Tomorrow evening ... if you will agree to a very minor operation."

"How minor?"

"It is called a ventriculogram," said Eulenglas.

"Aha."

"An examination," explained Vogt (he remembered that everything had to be explained to me) "which enables us to decide the outlines of the growth, its nature and its position. We inject a contrasting fluid into your brain, the fluid surrounds the growth on all sides and we have a sharply defined picture."

"That sounds sensible."

"It's a good method," said Eulenglas enthusiastically.

"Just one question." I put down my glass.

"Yes."

"How does this contrasting fluid get into my brain?"

"Through two small holes," said Vogt and coughed. He sounded embarrassed.

"Through two small holes," repeated Eulenglas. Suddenly Vogt rose and turned on a standing lamp.

"And where will these two little holes be?"

He came over to me and touched the back of my head on both sides, about ten inches above the hairline.

"And you need my permission?"

"No," Vogt said, to my surprise.

"But. .."

"We don't need your permission for the ventriculography, Mr. Chandler. But if in the course of the ventriculography we find that the growth is not benien, but malignant, then we wouldn't want to put you through another period of waiting but would operate at once."

"Without lett^'n5 me come to."

"Yes, Mr. Chandler."

I got up and walked over to the window. Now it was quite dark outside. I could see the street lij^hts through the trees in the park. A car passed. T turned around. ^ "Listen," I said. "Isn't all this talk about ventri. .."

"Ventriculography."

"Just a way of telling me that an operation is necessary? Don't you know already that I have a tumor and that it is malignant?"

"No, we don't, Mr. Chandler," said Vogt, looking me in the eye. That was all he said, but I believed it: they really didn't know.

I went back to the table and sat down. "What do I sign?"

"You agree?"

"Of course," I said. "How could I possibly go on living without certainty?"

"Very sensible, Mr. Chandler." Eulenglas picked up a form from the desk. "It is the usual form that one signs before any operation, even if it's just an appendectomy. You declare that you agree to it."

"Do you have a pen?"

He handed me one.

I signed.

I didn't read what I was signing. I was afraid of finding the word death in the text.

17

"I'll pray for you," said Margaret.

It was seven in the evening, and she was sitting beside my bed. The nurse had told her she would have to leave at seven-thirty; then I was going to be given something to sleep.

"I'll pray for you and everythinj» will ^o well. It doesn't hurt. Professor Vogt promised—it doesn't hurt. And I'm sure they won't have to operate."

"I don't think they will either."

"The growth is benign. Professor Vogt told me it's incredible how many of these growths are harmless."

"He told me the same thing.l'

"And when they're benign the x-ray treatment dissolves them."

"Yes."

"They've had wonderful results with x-ray treatments."

"Yes, so I hear."

"You know I've always had a sort of skth sense darling, haven't I?"

"Yes."

"And I have the feeling—^they won't operate."

"That would be great."

"Positively. Just wait and see. Two tiny holes—that's aU there'll be."

"And a bald head"

"Yes, of course. You'll have a bald head." She smiled. "I wonder what you'll look like."

"I don't."

"Will they shave your whole head?"

"Yes."

"Funny. Why?"

"In case they do have to operate. Then the whole head has to be clean-shaven."

Margaret nodded. She looked exhausted. Her lower hp twitched a Uttle. "How stupid of me not to think of that."

"Margaret," I said, "my will is in the right hand drawer of my desk."

"For God's sake don't talk about anything like that!"

"But I must," I said. "It's the will I drew up when the war started. Everything goes to you."

Suddenly she was crying. "Darling, please . . ."

"Don't cry," I said. "After all, it is possible."

She grasped my hand. "No, it is not possible. It's not possible even if they have to operate. Vogt is an expert and this operation is his baby. He's done hundreds of them. He's the best man in Germany."

"Yes," I said.

"I. . . I'm sure all is going to go well. I know it is. And I ... I hope, Roy, that afterwards you're not only going to be perfectly well again but .. . but that the two of us, you and I, can begin a new Hfe." Her face was lying beside mine on the pillow; she was still crying. "Don't you think so?"

I didn't think so, but I said, "Yes, Margaret."

"I was often unfair and hurt you. But all that's going to change when you get out of here. I promise you...."

"Yes, Margaret." The pillow was wet.

"Everything's going to be different . . . you too, Roy. We still love each other, don't we? I love you. I know that. And you still love me, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Say so, Roy, say you love me."

"I love you, Margaret," I said.

I didn't love her anymore.

She lay heavy on my arm. "We'll get out of this city, Roy. We didn't have any luck here. We'll go home. At home everything will be all right again. Maybe we should never have come to Europe."

"Maybe."

"Europe was no good for us, Roy. It was a Dods--worth."

"You may be right."

"But things aren't going to end like that for us, are they?"

"No."

Things had ended for me quite some time ago. For her too, but she didn't want to admit it.

"Kiss me," she said suddenly.

I kissed her and smelled the so familiar scent of Pepso-dent, Chanel #5 and PalmoUve soap.

"Thank you, Roy."

"For what?"

"For everything. All the years. Every day."

"I thank you too."

The nurse came in. "You'll have to leave now, Mrs. Chandler."

"Yes."

She got up and smoothed down her skirt. Her eyes were red from crying. She smiled heroically and stepped aside so that the nurse could give me my sleeping pill. Meanwhile she hastily restored her face.

"So we're off." She kissed me again.

"Auf wiedersehen," I said and gave her my hand

"When you come to I'll be sitting right here."

"Fine."

"Sleep weU."

"I shaU."

"And don't forget my sixth sense."

"I won't."

"I won't call again."

"That's right. I'U be asleep."

"And ru pray for you."

"Yes."

"Bye, Roy," she whispered. There were tears in her eyes again as she hurried to the door. She turned around once more, smiling through her tears.

"Goodnight, Margaret."

She sobbed once and ran out of the room.

The nurse opened the window and puffed up my cushions. "Tomorrow evening you'll have it all behind you," she said, smiUng gently.

"Yes, nurse."

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No thank you."

"Then have a good night, Mr. Chandlen"

She left. I turned out the Ught and lay in the dark. The shadows of the leaves outside trembled across the white cover on my bed. A dog barked. Then all was still. I tried to think of the day that lay ahead. I felt very tired. Whatever the nurse had given me must have been strong. My bed was soft and warm, my eyehds were heavy. Should I call Yolanda? I thought about it. As the minutes passed it became less a question of the mind but increasingly a physical problem. I felt too tired to lift my arms. I was utterly exhausted. And nothing meant very much to me. I was almost asleep when the phone rang.