I spent the night in the university medical center. A young doctor who talked too much without saying anything bandaged up my left hand and examined me, flashing a light into both of my eyes and then into the opening of my right ear. I’m left-handed, and he was sure that a certain crooked way I had when I walked was the effect of a neurological deficiency. He was going to do a few tests, wanted to see how I’d respond. He attached some wires to my forehead and distributed the electrodes around other parts of my head. He made me talk, and a needle began tracing lines on a sheet of graph paper. He asked me questions and gave me orders. Point to the right, close your eyes, please touch the tip of your nose with your left hand. Now, without opening your eyes, stand up straight. I imagine he expected me to collapse or become paralyzed. I was on the point of satisfying him, but I think I fell asleep at some point during the exam.
The next morning, as I sat in the emergency room awaiting the diagnosis, I saw a man enter who was barely able to move. He was a recovering alcoholic who’d had a relapse; he’d spent two days wandering around from bar to bar in Trenton. They had to detox him before they could return him to the rehab clinic. His son arrived a while later and went to the desk to fill out some forms. The man didn’t recognize him at first but finally stood up, laid a hand on his shoulder, and spoke to him in a soft voice from very close by. The boy listened to him as though he was offended. In the diffusion of languages that’s typical of these places, a Puerto Rican nurse explained to a black orderly that the man had lost his glasses and couldn’t see. “The old man lost his espejuelos,” he said, “and he can’t see anything.” The wayward Spanish word shone like a light in the dark.
Finally they had me come in, and the doctor explained that my losses of orientation and sleepless nights were a result of excessive work. I had to slow my pace and rest, and he prescribed me some painkillers and advised me to return to my home country. Of course, I didn’t say anything to him about Ida’s death because it was beside the point. Hermann Broch had died in that hospital, and when I asked which room he’d been in, he stared at me like I was raving.
When I left the hospital, I walked toward the street where my car was parked, and there, off to one side, I came across the recovering alcoholic standing by a streetlamp. He’d put on a leather, Lenin-style cap, and when he saw me he latched onto me and asked if I could please take him closer to the train station. We left together and ended up at Tavern, a bar on Alexander Road. He went to get a drink and take the edge off because he’d never touch another drop after that in his life. He was thinking about going to his brother’s house in Boston and then putting himself in a clinic. He used to teach economics at the university and was now the director of a Wall Street consulting firm. In those days the market had become a huge business because people could now speculate and buy and sell stocks online from home. Many people were leaving their jobs in order to devote themselves to financial speculation, and he would advise them in exchange for a commission. He took risks with their money but not his own. He’d been earning close to a million a year for a while, but it was a full-time job and required nerves of steel; the markets in Tokyo and Seoul opened as the New York stock exchange was closing, while the reports from Frankfurt and Paris were already in full swing. He was weary of that life, getting up at six in the morning and catching the Amtrak at Junction, already hooked up to his laptop, taking orders and making transactions. At Penn Station, a limo would be waiting to take him to his office on Wall Street, and he would stay there until 5 p.m. when he set out on his way back. He made it home at 7 p.m., watched the news on TV for a while, and went to sleep. Sometimes he woke up at two o’clock and went back to his computer. Lots of money, lots of suspense, and he’d started to drink. Sometimes he lost his
