can, amusing you the way it used to try to amuse you in But he would not think of that. He would not allow himself to think of that.
Drifting into sleep, he thought of a boast he had made to Heather (but never to Lydia; it didn’t pay to boast to Lydia; she was not like Heather, who would always smile sweetly at his harmless puffing and crowing):
Very close to sleep, drifting back and forth across its threshold, Morris thought: Perhaps I knew him in the camp. That would be ironic indeed — what they called ‘a jest of God’. What God? Morris Heisel asked himself again, and slept.
19
Todd graduated salutatorian of his class, just possibly because of his poor grade on the trig final he had been studying for the night Dussander had his heart attack. It dragged his final grade in the course down to 91, one point below A- average.
A week after graduation, the Bowdens went to visit Mr Denker at Santa Donate General. Todd fidgeted through fifteen minutes of banalities and thank-yous and how-do-you-feels and was grateful for the break when the man in the other bed asked him if he could come over for a minute.
‘You’ll pardon me,’ the other man said apologetically. He was in a huge body cast and was for some reason attached to an overhead system of pulleys and wires. ‘My name is Morris Heisel. I broke my back.’
'That’s too bad,’ Todd said gravely.
'That’s too bad, he says! This boy has the gift of understatement!’
Todd started to apologize, but Heisel raised his hand, smiling a little. His face was pale and tired, the face of any old man in the hospital facing a life full of sweeping changes just ahead — and surely few of them for the better. In that way, Todd thought, he and Dussander were alike.
‘No need,’ Morris said. ‘No need to answer a rude comment You are a stranger. Does a stranger need to be inflicted with my problems?’
’ 'No man is an island, separate from the main -'’ Todd began, and Morris laughed.
‘Donne, he quotes at me! A smart kid! Your friend there, is he very bad off?’
‘Well, the doctors say he’s doing fine, considering his age. He’s seventy nine.’
‘That old!’ Morris exclaimed. ‘He doesn’t talk to me much, you know. But from what he does say, I’d guess he’s naturalized. Like me. I’m Polish, you know. Originally, I mean. From Raden.’
‘Oh?’ Todd said politely.
‘Yes. You know what they call an orange manhole cover in Radan?’
‘No,’ Todd said, smiling.
‘Howard Johnson’s,’ Morris said, and laughed. Todd laughed, too. Dussander glanced over at them, startled by the sound and frowning a little. Then Monica said something and he looked back at her again.
‘Is your friend naturalized?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Todd said. ‘He’s from Germany. Essen. Do you know that town?’
‘No,’ Morris said, ‘but I was only in Germany once. I wonder if he was in the war.’
‘I really couldn’t say.’ Todd’s eyes had gone distant./
‘No? Well, it doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago, the war. In another two years there will be people in this country constitutionally eligible to become President — President! -who weren’t even born until after the war was over. To them it must seem there is no difference between the Miracle of Dunkirk and Hannibal taking his elephants over the Alps.’
‘Were you in the war?’ Todd asked.
‘I suppose I was, in a manner of speaking. You’re a good boy to visit such an old man… two old men, counting me.’
Todd smiled modestly.
‘I’m tired now,’ Morris said. ‘Perhaps I’ll sleep.’
‘I hope you’ll feel better very soon,’ Todd said.
Morris nodded, smiled, and closed his eyes. Todd went back to Dussander’s bed, where his parents were just getting ready to leave — his dad kept glancing at his watch and exclaiming with bluff heartiness at how late it was getting. But Morris Heisel wasn’t asleep, and he didn’t sleep — not for a long time.
Two days later, Todd came back to the hospital alone. This time, Morris Heisel, immured in his body-cast, was deeply asleep in the other bed.
‘You did well,’ Dussander said quietly. ‘Did you go back to the house later?’
‘Yes. I put the box back and burned the damned letter. I don’t think anyone was too interested in that letter, and I was afraid… I don’t know.’ He shrugged, unable to tell Dussander he’d been almost superstitiously afraid about that letter — afraid that maybe someone would wander into the house who could read German, someone who would notice references in the letter that were ten, perhaps twenty years out of date.
‘Next time you come, smuggle me in something to drink,’ Dussander said. ‘I find I don’t miss the cigarettes, but—’
‘I won’t be back again,’ Todd said flatly. ‘Not ever. It’s the end. We’re quits.’
‘Quits.’ Dussander folded his hands on his chest and smiled. It was not a gentle smile… but it was perhaps as close as Dussander could come to such a thing. ‘I thought that was on the cards. They are going to let me out of this graveyard next week… or so they promise. The doctor says I may have a few years left in my skin yet. I ask him how many, and he just laughs. I suspect that means no more than three, and probably no more than two. Still, I may give him a surprise and see in Orwell’s year.’
Todd, who would have frowned suspiciously over such a reference two years ago, now only nodded.
‘But between you and me, boy, I have almost given up my hopes of seeing the century turn.’
‘I want to ask you about something,’ Todd said, looking at Dussander steadily. ‘That’s why I came in today. I want to ask you about something you said once.’
Todd glanced over his shoulder at the man in the other bed and then drew his chair closer to Dussander’s bed. He could smell Dussander’s smell, as dry as the Egyptian room in the museum.
‘So ask.’
‘That wino. You said something about me having experience. First-hand experience. What was that supposed to mean?’
Dussander’s smile widened a bit. ‘I read the newspapers, boy. Old men always read the newspapers, but not in the same way younger people do. Buzzards are known to gather at the ends of certain airport runways in South America when the crosswinds are treacherous, did you know that? That is how an old man reads the newspaper. A month ago there was a story in the Sunday paper. Not a front page story, no one cares enough about bums and alcoholics to put them on the front page, but it was the lead story in the feature section, IS SOMEONE STALKING SANTA DONATO’S DOWN-AND-OUTS? — that’s what it was called. Crude. Yellow journalism. You Americans are famous for it’
Todd’s hands were clenched into fists, hiding the butchered nails. He never read the Sunday papers, he had better things to do with his time. He had of course checked the papers every day for at least a week following each of his little adventures, and none of his stewbums had ever gotten beyond page three. The idea that someone had been making connections behind his back infuriated him.
‘The story mentioned several murders, extremely brutal murders. Stabbings, bludgeonings. 'Subhuman brutality' was how the writer put it, but you know reporters. The writer of this lamentable piece admitted that there is a high death-rate among these unfortunates, and that Santa Donato has had more than its share of the indigent over the years. In any given year, not all of these men die naturally, or of their own bad habits. There are frequent murders. But in most cases the murderer is usually one of the deceased degenerate’s compatriots, the motive no more than an argument over a penny-ante card-game or a bottle of muscatel. The killer is usually happy to confess. He is filled with remorse.
‘But these recent killings have not been solved. Even more ominous, to this yellow journalist’s mind — or
