The Bohemian Girl

‘We say testicles; I’d understand “nuts” or “balls”, too, if Latin bothers you. Feel that? And that? Mmm-hmm.’ He pulled the sheet back and arranged it over the leg.

‘Well? I want to know the worst.’

Gallichan pulled a white metal chair away from a wall and placed it near the foot of the bed. He sat, crossed his legs and leaned back with one arm over the back of the chair. He looked like a man about to light up a cigar, perhaps order a small brandy. He hooked his left thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat. ‘I was called in again because I am what is called a nerve specialist. Some think me a nervy specialist.’ He laughed. Denton didn’t. ‘I did the surgery to remove the bit of lead that had given up the ghost near your spine. It’s a tricky place. Rather like Piccadilly Circus — traffic coming in from all directions and rushing about and going out all over the shop.’ He looked into his satchel, found a piece of paper and a patent fountain pen and put the paper down on the bedsheet. After a moment, he cleared the tray on the bedside table of its water pitcher and glass and put the paper on it and began to draw. ‘The lower vertebrae look like something with wings, in profile — not important; I’m not Michelangelo — at any rate, there are holes along the side through which blood vessels and the nerves pass. Your bit of bullet lodged like so — close to the nerves and vessels but not in them, do you see? If it had gone into them, we’d have had the devil of a time, but as it was, we were able to get in and out — seventeen minutes, quickly done — and not have to do any cutting in nerve tissue. So the problem is bruising, not cutting. You follow me?’

Denton nodded. The drawing nauseated him.

‘Bruising, not cutting. Tissue is elastic, you see. The piece of bullet struck, as it were, a net of India rubber, which absorbed its velocity by stretching and yielding to it, then returning to its shape. But the yielding bruised the nearby tissues, eh? The nerves and vessels coming out on the right side of the vertebrae.’ He blacked in the nerves and vessels on the drawing. He looked at Denton for a response and, getting none, put the pen down and sat back again and resumed his old position. ‘The nerves there go to the right leg and to areas of the groin.’

‘Get to it. Is it permanent?’

Gallichan frowned, the kind of man who despite his jollity was vain and didn’t like to be denied his accustomed veneration. ‘I don’t give snap judgements.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘You can’t stand; you can’t move the leg. You have feeling in the sole of the foot, the testes and the glans penis. With time, I think, the leg can be made to function.’

‘Function? ’

‘I believe it will bear weight again. Some degree of movement, we might hope.’

Denton stared at him.

The doctor said, ‘You’re a good healer. I expect good results, if you work at it.’

‘Will I walk?’

‘I don’t predict the future, Mr Denton. I don’t plant false hopes. I think — think — you will recover some use of the leg, but I can’t promise it. And the rest, as well.’

‘What rest?’

‘Mmm, well-The, mmm, rectum and the anal sphincter could be implicated — nerves run close to the path of the bullet — and they are so far somewhat affected, are they not? We shall see about them. The penis, the, mmm, let us say the mechanism, although it’s far from a machine; it’s most wonderfully organic — but that system that causes the tumescence of the organ is perhaps implicated. You see, there are muscles that are meant to shut down the flow of blood-’ He had picked up his pen and bent over the paper again.

‘You’re saying I’m impotent.’

‘We don’t know yet. Time will tell.’

‘My God, what else are you keeping from me? Tell me!’ He had forced himself up on his elbows; his upper arms shuddered from the effort.

The doctor flinched back and turned the movement into one of standing, as if he had meant to do that instead of recoiling. ‘You mustn’t excite yourself.’

Denton fell back. ‘You bastard.’

‘My dear sir-’

‘Don’t dear sir me, you sonofabitch. Tell me the worst!’

Gallichan took hold of the lapels of his coat with both hands. He drew himself up, then settled himself, shot his chin out and pulled it back. ‘I have told you the worst,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You are in a disturbed mental state, sir. It has been a constant worry to us. Are you aware that twice you fought with the sisters — that male attendants had to be called? You pulled out your tubing! This was early on, I grant you; you were feverish. But you are a violent man, Mr Denton, and you do violent things and make violent statements. Now, I am telling you — your mental condition is abnormal and you are not seeing things clearly. I have told you the truth and you should believe me!’

‘Go away.’

‘I am here to help you. I will not go away.’

‘Go to hell.’

Gallichan looked at him. His face showed disgust. He cleared it almost feature by feature, settling it into the somewhat cautious physician’s face — a kind of cheerful blandness, ready at any moment to be sombre — that he usually wore. He sat again in the metal chair, put his right ankle on his left knee, and hooked his thumbs again into the armholes of his waistcoat. ‘My work on the nerves has led me to an interest in the mind.’

Denton, consumed with his helplessness, said nothing.

‘The mind drives the body. The healthy mind enables the healthy body. I want you to begin a course of exercises to repair your leg. I quite understand that what I told you about your bowels and your erectile tissue has disturbed you, but those things will, I hope, take care of themselves. It’s the leg I want to work on.’

Denton was looking at the ceiling. ‘So if I fill my pants or can’t get it up, it isn’t your province. Thank you.’

‘You’re trying to drive me away by being deliberately offensive, but you won’t. I’m the one who can make you better. Whether I can make you the man you were is up to you. Oh, yes, to you — you have to do the real work. I’m just a jolly fat man who studied medicine. You’re the one living in that body. As for damage other than the leg, yes, I’ve suggested indignity and horror to you. They may lie in your future. I don’t want them to be your future; I want you to be the man you were before you were shot. But you won’t be if you shout vulgarities at me and try to send me away. If your mind won’t help me to cure your body, Mr Denton, you will lie in that bed until you rot.’

Denton raised his head. ‘That’s a hell of a thing to say.’

‘I meant it to be. Get hold of yourself, man. I’m not your problem. ’

Denton’s head dropped back. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ ‘First, I want you to apologize to sister. You hurt and upset her.’

‘She was trying to force me to do things.’

‘On Bernat’s orders and with your good health in mind. I want you to apologize to her and then I want you to do as she asks.’

‘To hell with both of you.’

‘Mr Denton, I want you out of that bed. For one thing, you’ve bedsores on your buttocks. You don’t feel them because you’re full of morphine, but they’re getting worse and they’re going to go septic. Then I want you on your feet and getting about so you can get out of this nursing home and into familiar surroundings. It isn’t good for you here. Your mental state is made worse by isolation — if you don’t see it, I do. Now, will you apologize to sister?’

‘Why not?’

‘Then you’ll begin a course of exercises. I also want somebody from your household to learn them so you can do them when you leave here.’

The doctor tapped a finger on his lower lip. His eyes narrowed. ‘Will you talk with me — frankly, honestly — another time?’

‘About what?’

‘I shall tell you then. About your mind.’

‘My mind is my business.’