The man looked skeptical. “Dr. Nilson had her on the phone when we left. Probably she’ll come back.”
He nodded and asked again, “Was she beautiful? Is she?”
“You want her to be, man?”
“I guess I do.”
“Then she was. Like, big blues and one of those china-doll faces, you know?”
The driver said, “Green.”
He answered, “Yes?” and the first man asked, “What you mean?”
“That Lora woman has green eyes, fool.”
“Don’t pay no mind to him,” the first man said. “He’s crazy. Now, you want out of that jacket?”
He had somehow expected that the hospital would be in the city. It was not, but in the suburbs, set among rolling lawns and beds of daffodils just coming into flower. The wind had a bite to it, yet was fresh and clean in a way winter winds never were. When he saw there were no bars on the windows, he said, “This doesn’t look like a mental hospital.”
“It isn’t, man. It’s just a regular hospital, and they do babies and triple bypasses and all like that. See, that way if people ask where you was, you can just tell them where like you was swearing in court, ’cause you might have had your appendix out. See?”
He nodded. They went inside, where one man talked briefly to a receptionist who motioned them toward an elevator. On the ninth floor (he was careful to note which button had been pushed) the same man conferred much longer with a nurse at a desk. When their conversation was over at last, the man said, “Now we gone take you to the lounge. I told her you’ll stay there nice and not make no trouble. You do it, hear? ’Cause we got to leave you there and go on back.”
He nodded again. He had nodded so often now that he had lost track of the number.
Although the lounge was clean, he missed the freshness of the spring wind. He tried to open both windows, but they would not open; when he examined their frames, he saw that the glass was very thick. There were seven varnished chairs in the room, and a low, varnished table supporting a stack of old magazines. After a time, it occurred to him that Lara’s picture might be in one. He picked up a magazine and began to page through it.
He was on his third when a weary-looking bald man came in and sat down. “You like to read?” the bald man asked.
He shook his head.
“I do. I’d read all the time, if it weren’t that my eyes give out. Then I have to go off and take care of my patients.” The bald man chuckled.
“What do you read?”
“History, mostly. A little fiction. Of course I have to read the medical journals. We subscribe to
He said, “I’d like to see some movie magazines. I don’t suppose that impresses you very much.”
“More than you might think,” the bald man told him. “Most people don’t read at all.”
“Books always seemed like a waste of money to me.”
“You’re careful about money?”
“I try to be.”
“But you’re in the hospital, now. Hospitals are extremely expensive.”
“The store’s paying for everything,” he explained. He felt a sudden thrill of fear. Was it?
The bald man got out a notebook and a Cross pen. “What day of the week is this?”
He tried to remember and could not. “Wednesday?”
“I’m not sure myself. Do you know the date?”
“April sixteenth.”
“Do you know why the store’s paying for your treatment?”
“That’s the policy,” he said.
“But why do they feel you need treatment?”
“Because I was gone so long, I guess. Nearly a month. No, over a month.”
The pen danced over the notebook. Sunshine had come in the window; reflected on the pen’s bright gold, it made it seem that it was the pen who spoke, and not the man. “I want you to cast your mind back, back for an entire week. Don’t answer at once; shut your eyes and think back. Now, where were you a week ago?”
It was the day he had met Lara. “I was walking beside the river.”
“In the park.”
“Yes.”
“Why were you there?”
“I’d brought my lunch. I ate it there on a bench, and I had fifteen minutes before I had to be back at the store.”
