of onion soup on a little hot plate. He tried not to think too much about the veterinary quarantine room and his dream, imprisoned in its muggy incubator. He wondered if he could maybe grease the watchman’s palm and get him to personally oversee the growth of that overly fragile little thing slowly coming into its own under its bell jar. Couldn’t it be spared a few tests if its charts were hidden, or even tampered with? Sure, it’d cost a lot of money, but David told himself that was the price of making sure his work survived. His last few dreams had died in quarantine, poisoned by ham-fisted vets who thought they were still working on plow horses and jabbed at dreams as if inoculating hippopotami.
He lapped up his soup, brooding over the idea, downed two cups of very sweet black coffee, and headed out toward the marble depot. The compound’s great courtyard was still littered with useless chunks no one would ever come for now, and these rain-soiled slabs had ended up forming a kind of miniature mountain range firmly rooted in the muddy ground. Just past the main gates, you found yourself deep in a labyrinth of abandoned megaliths richly slathered in pigeon shit. It was like a garden of stone, a pagan cathedral of menhirs raised to the sky. The ruins of some unknown disaster lost to memory. Wandering among these forgotten monoliths, David wound up convinced he was crossing the wreckage of a bombed-out city reduced to its bare foundations. He found the sheer enormity of the slabs somewhat frightening, and hastened his step toward the far side to exit the oppressive enclave.
Upon entering the building, he flashed his card at a sullen orderly who waved him along, stifling a yawn. “I’m here to see Soler Mahus,” David explained. “They haven’t moved him?”
The orderly rolled his eyes as if he’d just been asked a particularly moronic question, and dove back into reading his paper. David hesitated at the room’s threshold; on the heels of the stone labyrinth was now one of curtains shivering in the drafts. It was as if they’d hung a gargantuan load of laundry out to dry … or the sails of a ship. David ran his gaze over the canvas expanse, trying to pick out a mizzen, a jib … He gave himself a shake. They weren’t sails, just rough, thick curtains. Numbers had been painted on them to help you find your way around. When would he get over the annoying foible of always seeing things in other things?
Once a week, he came to see Soler Mahus, an old diver who’dsuffered a serious decompression accident. Soler’s brain was deteriorating as the months went by. He had gone prematurely gray, and the prolonged bed rest had melted his muscles away, reducing his body to a skeletal schematic wrapped up in cellophane skin that would tear at the slightest scratch. David had nothing to say to him, but Soler liked to soliloquize before a willing audience. The accident had stripped him of his powers, and he no longer lifted a finger to fight his illness. The doctors paid him erratic visits, not knowing what cure to prescribe, content to cram him full of sedatives while waiting for his EEG to flatline.
David went up the central aisle. The worn, porous stone had been sprayed down with some milky disinfectant still stagnating in the cracks between slabs. After getting it wrong twice, he finally found Soler’s cell and pulled back the curtain. The old man didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even wink to greet his guest. For two months now, his facial muscles had been almost completely paralyzed, and he spoke in a curious ventriloquist’s voice, without moving his lips. No sooner was David was seated at his bedside than he resumed his monologue, as if the young man had simply slipped away for a moment. Maybe he didn’t notice the passing of time, and believed his visitor had just returned from the bathroom?
“Did I ever tell you about my Bengal safari?” he murmured, his face not betraying the slightest expression.
He lapped up his soup, brooding over the idea, downed two cups of very sweet black coffee, and headed out toward the marble depot. The compound’s great courtyard was still littered with useless chunks no one would ever come for now, and these rain-soiled slabs had ended up forming a kind of miniature mountain range firmly rooted in the muddy ground. Just past the main gates, you found yourself deep in a labyrinth of abandoned megaliths richly slathered in pigeon shit. It was like a garden of stone, a pagan cathedral of menhirs raised to the sky. The ruins of some unknown disaster lost to memory. Wandering among these forgotten monoliths, David wound up convinced he was crossing the wreckage of a bombed-out city reduced to its bare foundations. He found the sheer enormity of the slabs somewhat frightening, and hastened his step toward the far side to exit the oppressive enclave.
Upon entering the building, he flashed his card at a sullen orderly who waved him along, stifling a yawn. “I’m here to see Soler Mahus,” David explained. “They haven’t moved him?”
The orderly rolled his eyes as if he’d just been asked a particularly moronic question, and dove back into reading his paper. David hesitated at the room’s threshold; on the heels of the stone labyrinth was now one of curtains shivering in the drafts. It was as if they’d hung a gargantuan load of laundry out to dry … or the sails of a ship. David ran his gaze over the canvas expanse, trying to pick out a mizzen, a jib … He gave himself a shake. They weren’t sails, just rough, thick curtains. Numbers had been painted on them to help you find your way around. When would he get over the annoying foible of always seeing things in other things?
Once a week, he came to see Soler Mahus, an old diver who’dsuffered a serious decompression accident. Soler’s brain was deteriorating as the months went by. He had gone prematurely gray, and the prolonged bed rest had melted his muscles away, reducing his body to a skeletal schematic wrapped up in cellophane skin that would tear at the slightest scratch. David had nothing to say to him, but Soler liked to soliloquize before a willing audience. The accident had stripped him of his powers, and he no longer lifted a finger to fight his illness. The doctors paid him erratic visits, not knowing what cure to prescribe, content to cram him full of sedatives while waiting for his EEG to flatline.
David went up the central aisle. The worn, porous stone had been sprayed down with some milky disinfectant still stagnating in the cracks between slabs. After getting it wrong twice, he finally found Soler’s cell and pulled back the curtain. The old man didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even wink to greet his guest. For two months now, his facial muscles had been almost completely paralyzed, and he spoke in a curious ventriloquist’s voice, without moving his lips. No sooner was David was seated at his bedside than he resumed his monologue, as if the young man had simply slipped away for a moment. Maybe he didn’t notice the passing of time, and believed his visitor had just returned from the bathroom?
“Did I ever tell you about my Bengal safari?” he murmured, his face not betraying the slightest expression.
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