desktop and nodded. “Yes,” he said, staring abstractedly. “I believe you. It’s all as you’ve said.”
Mayo glanced back up.
“You called Security, Samia?”
“No. I thought maybe it was authorized and I’d ask her first, ask Tzipi. When I got to her station, though, she wasn’t there. So I walked back to find out what was going on but when I looked into the ward again he was gone.”
“You mean the clown?”
“Yeah, the clown.”
“The two children. Still awake?”
“Just the boy.”
“Did he seem somehow different to you?”
“Different? Like what?”
“Well, like healthier, perhaps.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know.”
“More alert?”
“I wouldn’t know. Not my ward.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I was reading: there’s this drug now in Europe, a hypnotic,men are slipping it to women and then raping them, Mayo.”
Mayo nodded. “Yes. Rohypnol.”
“Does it actually work?”
“Why, Samia? Want to slip it to yourself?”
The nurse emitted a chuckling snort and then stared at the neurologist fondly. “You’re so funny,” she said.
Mayo lowered his gaze.
“Yes, funny is forever,” he uttered distantly.
“You want to hear about Lakhme again?”
Mayo looked up with a frozen expression, then leaned forward, shuffling papers around on his desk.
“No, not now, Samia. Thanks. I’ve got a lecture to prepare.”
“Oh, well, I’ve got to get going myself.”
Samia stood up.
“Let me know if you’ve got some more questions.”
“I will.”
“Thank you, Moses.”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know.”
The nurse turned and walked out of the office, and even after she had vanished from his sight, Mayo’s gaze remained fixed on the empty hall until the squishing of her footsteps faded away. He remembered reading in a medical journal that in London there was once a Sleep Disorder Clinic located directly across the street from “Big Ben.” After that, Mayo thought, could there be any tale mad enough to doubt
?
An elevator door sighed open somewhere, waited, and then slowly and quietly closed.
Maurice making his getaway,
Mayo reflected,
before the“Crazy God Police” come to pick him up
.
Can we ever have a rational, dependable universe with this kind of crazy hocus-pocus going on?
“Never mind,” he then murmured: “Just so long as the magic is white.”
A faraway melancholy painted Mayo’s eyes as for a moment he stared at the
Casablanca
photo, and from there he turned his gaze to the Europa cigarette butts bent and mounded in an ashtray on his desk, and from there to the blackness outside his window, wishing it were dawn when the U.N. Headquarters building could be seen high on a hilltop to the east in Ein Kerem where John the Baptist had been born, thus permitting the neurologist his customary smile upon reflecting that the rise on which the building now stood was the biblical Hill of Evil Counsel. Then he quietly lowered his head to his work, desultorily studying the paper on pain and scribbling notes on a blue-lined yellow pad. Twenty minutes later he tossed down his pen. Racing thoughts. The foreboding. The dream. Restless, he got up and left his office to wander, prowling the quiet pre-dawn halls with their regularly posted SPEAK SOFTLY signs.
In the Burn Ward he chatted with a sleepless young soldier who had carried his own severed arm from the battlefield of October’s Yom Kippur War in the hope that surgeons could reattach it:
“That’s what I remember, that I took my arm by the hand.”
Then Mayo drifted up to the fourth floor Neurology Ward where, on stepping out of the elevator, he saw Father Mooney approaching. Seeing Mayo, the fortyish and handsome Franciscan paused in his stride for a moment, looking hesitant and somehow blocked; and then, smiling broadly, he resumed his approach with his hand outstretched to shake Mayo’s. The neurologist inwardly grimaced: a relentlessly hearty raconteur, the Franciscan would batter any cornered
Mayo glanced back up.
“You called Security, Samia?”
“No. I thought maybe it was authorized and I’d ask her first, ask Tzipi. When I got to her station, though, she wasn’t there. So I walked back to find out what was going on but when I looked into the ward again he was gone.”
“You mean the clown?”
“Yeah, the clown.”
“The two children. Still awake?”
“Just the boy.”
“Did he seem somehow different to you?”
“Different? Like what?”
“Well, like healthier, perhaps.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know.”
“More alert?”
“I wouldn’t know. Not my ward.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I was reading: there’s this drug now in Europe, a hypnotic,men are slipping it to women and then raping them, Mayo.”
Mayo nodded. “Yes. Rohypnol.”
“Does it actually work?”
“Why, Samia? Want to slip it to yourself?”
The nurse emitted a chuckling snort and then stared at the neurologist fondly. “You’re so funny,” she said.
Mayo lowered his gaze.
“Yes, funny is forever,” he uttered distantly.
“You want to hear about Lakhme again?”
Mayo looked up with a frozen expression, then leaned forward, shuffling papers around on his desk.
“No, not now, Samia. Thanks. I’ve got a lecture to prepare.”
“Oh, well, I’ve got to get going myself.”
Samia stood up.
“Let me know if you’ve got some more questions.”
“I will.”
“Thank you, Moses.”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know.”
The nurse turned and walked out of the office, and even after she had vanished from his sight, Mayo’s gaze remained fixed on the empty hall until the squishing of her footsteps faded away. He remembered reading in a medical journal that in London there was once a Sleep Disorder Clinic located directly across the street from “Big Ben.” After that, Mayo thought, could there be any tale mad enough to doubt
?
An elevator door sighed open somewhere, waited, and then slowly and quietly closed.
Maurice making his getaway,
Mayo reflected,
before the“Crazy God Police” come to pick him up
.
Can we ever have a rational, dependable universe with this kind of crazy hocus-pocus going on?
“Never mind,” he then murmured: “Just so long as the magic is white.”
A faraway melancholy painted Mayo’s eyes as for a moment he stared at the
Casablanca
photo, and from there he turned his gaze to the Europa cigarette butts bent and mounded in an ashtray on his desk, and from there to the blackness outside his window, wishing it were dawn when the U.N. Headquarters building could be seen high on a hilltop to the east in Ein Kerem where John the Baptist had been born, thus permitting the neurologist his customary smile upon reflecting that the rise on which the building now stood was the biblical Hill of Evil Counsel. Then he quietly lowered his head to his work, desultorily studying the paper on pain and scribbling notes on a blue-lined yellow pad. Twenty minutes later he tossed down his pen. Racing thoughts. The foreboding. The dream. Restless, he got up and left his office to wander, prowling the quiet pre-dawn halls with their regularly posted SPEAK SOFTLY signs.
In the Burn Ward he chatted with a sleepless young soldier who had carried his own severed arm from the battlefield of October’s Yom Kippur War in the hope that surgeons could reattach it:
“That’s what I remember, that I took my arm by the hand.”
Then Mayo drifted up to the fourth floor Neurology Ward where, on stepping out of the elevator, he saw Father Mooney approaching. Seeing Mayo, the fortyish and handsome Franciscan paused in his stride for a moment, looking hesitant and somehow blocked; and then, smiling broadly, he resumed his approach with his hand outstretched to shake Mayo’s. The neurologist inwardly grimaced: a relentlessly hearty raconteur, the Franciscan would batter any cornered
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