‘You are to be congratulated, I take it,’ Mr Denker said.
‘Well see,’ Morris said, but like Timpnell, he was barely able to stifle his grin. ‘We’ll see.’
Things have a way of working out,’ Denker replied vaguely, and then turned on the TV with the remote control device. It was now quarter to six, and they watched the last of Hee-Haw. It was followed by the evening news. Unemployment was worse. Inflation was not so bad. The hostages were still hostages. A new Gallup poll showed that, if the election were to be held right then, there were four Republican candidates who could beat Jimmy Carter. And there had been racial incidents following the murder of a black child in Atlanta (it would be another six months before a grisly pattern of murder began to emerge in the Atlanta murders) — ‘A night of violence’, the newscaster called it. Closer to home, an unidentified man had been found in an orchard near Highway 46, stabbed and bludgeoned.
Lydia called just before 6:30. Dr Kemmelman had called her and, based on the young intern’s report, he had been cautiously optimistic. Lydia was cautiously joyous. She vowed to come in the following day even if it killed her. Morris told her he loved her. Tonight he loved everyone -Lydia, Dr Timpnell with his Lawn Boy haircut, Mr Denker, even the young girl who brought in the supper trays as Morris hung up.
Supper was hamburgers, mashed potatoes, a carrots-and-peas combination, and small dishes of ice cream for dessert. The candy striper who served it was Felice, a shy blonde girl of perhaps twenty. She had her own good news — her boyfriend had landed a job as a computer programmer with IBM and had formally asked her to marry him.
Mr Denker, who exuded a certain courtly charm that all the young ladies responded to, expressed great pleasure. ‘Really, how wonderful. You must sit down and tell us all about it. Tell us everything. Omit nothing.’
Felice blushed and smiled and said she couldn’t do that. ‘We’ve still got the rest of B wing to do and C wing after that. And look, here it is six-thirty!’
‘Then tomorrow night, for sure. We insist — don’t we, Mr Heisel?’
‘Yes indeed,’ Morris murmured, but his mind was a million miles away.
(you must sit down and tell us all about it)
Words spoken in that exact-same bantering tone. He had heard them before; of that there could be no doubt. But had Denker been the one to speak them? Had he?
(tell us everything)
The voice of an urbane man. A cultured man. But there was a threat in the voice. A steel hand in. a velvet glove. Yes.
Where?
(tell us everything. Omit nothing.)
(?Patin?)
Morris Heisel looked at his supper. Mr Denker had already fallen to with a will. The encounter with Felice had left him in the best of spirits — the way he had been after the young boy with the blond hair came to visit him.
‘A nice girl,’ Denker said, his words muffled by a mouthful of carrots and peas.
‘Oh yes—’
(you must sit down)
‘- Felice, you mean. She’s (and tell us all about it.)
‘very sweet.’
(tell us everything. Omit nothing.)
He looked down at his own supper, suddenly remembering how it got to be in the camps after a while. At first you would have killed for a scrap of meat, no matter how maggoty or green with decay. But after a while, that crazy hunger went away and your belly lay inside your middle like a small grey rock. You felt you would never be hungry again.
Until someone showed you food.
(’tell us everything, my friend. Omit nothing. You must sit down and tell us AAALLLLL about it.’)
The main course on Morris’s plastic hospital tray was hamburger. Why should it suddenly make him think of lamb? Not mutton, not chops — mutton was often stringy, chops often tough, and a person whose teeth had rotted out like old stumps would perhaps not be overly tempted by mutton or a chop. No, what he thought of was a savoury lamb stew, gravy-rich and full of vegetables. Soft, tasty vegetables. Why think of lamb stew? Why, unless The door banged open. It was Lydia, her face rosy with smiles. An aluminium crutch was propped in her armpit and she was walking like Marshall Dillon’s friend Chester. ‘Morris? she trilled. Trailing her and looking just as tremulously happy was Emma Rogan from next door.
Mr Denker, startled, dropped his fork. He cursed softly under his breath and picked it up off the floor with a wince.
‘It’s so WONDERFUL? Lydia was almost baying with excitement. ‘I called Emma and asked her if we could come tonight instead of tomorrow, I had the crutch already, and I said, 'Em', I said, 'if I can’t bear this agony for Morris, what kind of wife am I to him?' Those are my very words, aren’t they, Emma?’
Emma Rogan, perhaps remembering that her collie pup had caused at least some of the problem, nodded eagerly.
‘So I called the hospital,’ Lydia said, shrugging her coat off and settling in for a good long visit, ‘and they said it was past visiting hours but in my case they would make an exception, except we couldn’t stay too long because we might bother Mr Denker. We aren’t bothering you, are we, Mr Denker?’
‘No, dear lady,’ Mr Denker said resignedly.
‘Sit down, Emma, take Mr Denker’s chair, he’s not using it. Here, Morris, stop with the ice cream, you’re slobbering it all over yourself, just like a baby. Never mind, we’ll have you up and around in no time. Ill feed it to you. Goo-goo, ga-ga. Open wide… over the teeth, over the gums… look out, stomach, here it comes!… No, don’t say a word, mommy knows best Would you look at him, Emma, he hardly has any hair left and I don’t wonder, thinking he might never walk again. It’s God’s mercy. I told him that stepladder was wobbly. I said, 'Morris,' I said, 'Come down off there before-'’
She fed him ice cream and chattered for the next hour and by the time she left, hobbling ostentatiously on the crutch while Emma held her other arm, thoughts of lamb stew and voices echoing up through the years were the last things in Morris Heisel’s mind. He was exhausted. To say it had been a busy day was putting it mildly. Morris fell deeply asleep.
He awoke sometime between three and four a.m. with a scream locked behind his lips.
Now he knew. He knew exactly where and exactly when he had been acquainted with the man in the other bed. Except his name had not been Denker then. Oh no, not at all.
He had awakened from the most terrible nightmare of his whole life. Someone had given him and Lydia a monkey’s paw, and they had wished for money. Then, somehow, a Western Union boy in a Hitler Youth uniform had been in the room with them. He handed Morris a telegram which read:
REGRET TO INFORM YOU BOTH DAUGHTERS DEAD STOP PATIN CONCENTRATION CAMP STOP GREATEST REGRETS AT THIS FINAL SOLUTION STOP COMMANDANTS LETTER FOLLOWS STOP WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING AND OMIT NOTHING STOP PLEASE ACCEPT OUR CHECK FOR 100 REICHMARKS ON DEPOSIT YOUR BANK TOMORROW STOP SIGNED ADOLF HITLER CHANCELLOR.
A great wail from Lydia, and although she had never even seen Morris’s daughters, she held the monkey’s paw high and wished for them to be returned to life. The room went dark. And suddenly, from outside, came the sound of dragging, lurching footfalls.
Morris was down on his hands and knees in a darkness that suddenly stank of smoke and gas and death. He was searching for the paw. One wish left If he could find the paw he could wish this dreadful dream away. He would spare himself the sight of his daughters, thin as scarecrows, their eyes deep wounded holes, their numbers burning on the scant flesh of their arms.
Hammering on the door, a perfect fusillade of blows.
In the nightmare, his search for the paw became ever more frenzied, but it bore no fruit. It seemed to go on for years. And then, behind him, the door crashed open. No, he thought I won’t look. I’ll close my eyes. Rip them from my head If I have to, but I won’t look.
But he did look. He had to look. In the dream it was as if huge hands had grasped his head and wrenched it around.
It was not his daughters standing in the doorway; it was Denker. A much younger Denker, a Denker who
