Cabaret (18 page)

Shame really. Still that’s the way things are, I suppose; here today, gone tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. Hopefully, Valeria would go away and leave me alone. From time to time I felt the touch of her bandaged fingers against my bad leg, but I ignored them, and managed to drift off again.

While I was asleep, the doctor came in to make his round of the ward. He was an extraordinarily tall man, and had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the lamps hanging from the ceiling. He wore the green cap of a surgeon, and much of his face was obscured by his face mask. He examined Nerissa, and was a little too quick in plunging his fingers into her mouth.

Her overactive teeth couldn’t help biting him.

Then the doctor crossed to the bed of my neighbor, Valeria. Although she was advanced in years, she did not hesitate in raising up her already skimpy negligee to reveal more of her crepey legs and assuming what she supposed to be a seductive pose on the counterpane.The doctor examined her singed eyebrows. Was he being overimaginative, or did her withered lips pucker up as though they were about to kiss him, despite the protecting presence of the mask? He couldn’t take the risk, and, turning sharply, leaving Valeria gaping, came over to my bed.

One look from those dark eyes was enough to convince me that this wasn’t the regular doctor. I knew it was the Detective, got up in another disguise.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, shining his penlight into each of my eyes in turn.

Yet the bright light was not that of the penlight of the doctor-detective; it was the reading light above my bed. I blinked my eyes, in the dull space between sleeping and waking, wondering how much of the dream was reality and how much had been conjured up by my own imagination.

Leaning over me was Dario Mormile, although it took me a little while to place him, as he had a sort of brass helmet on his head that came down low over his eyes, shading them, so that in order to look at anything he had to tilt his head backward and squint out from underneath it. He read my look of confusion.

“It’s okay, Freda, it’s me; it’s a bass tuba,” he explained.

“That
puzzone
Selmo d’Angelo rammed it onto my head in the panic to escape the club. I spent seven hours in surgery, but they couldn’t get it off. It’s embedded itself into my skull. All they could do was saw off the rest, so at least now no one can play it.They say I’m going to have to live with it, but I want it gone. I’m going to go abroad, find a good doctor…” I thought I was still dreaming, but as I looked around me I had the feeling I must be awake. Some of the patients, those who were well enough, sat around the central table eating a supper of what smelled like boiled veal and onions. There were visitors at some of the bedsides, and a number of nurses walking past with bedpans and bandages. Mormile chattered on, although I wasn’t really listening to him.

“Freda, you know, I’m ruined now. Ruined. The club was destroyed by the fire.Totally.There’s nothing left. Nothing. All those years of work, just gone up in smoke. The insurers say they’ll pay me nothing. Some small print on the back of the policy. But I’ll get even with them. Nobody messes with me.

Some people are talking about lawsuits. Seven people died in there. And you know, Freda, I’m not blaming you, but it was all your fault.”

“My fault?” I gasped. My voice sounded strange to me.

Like someone else’s. I had got out of the habit of speaking.

“Think about it,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have happened.”

T
his time I woke up to find Signora Dorotea stroking my hand, with a worried look on her face.

“Is it really my fault?” I asked her.

“No, dear,” she said. “Of course it’s not your fault. It’s that louse Mormile. I can’t believe you took that job there.We said we’d help you with the money. Do you know, he had no insurance, and the fire escapes were blocked off? That’s in addition to keeping dangerous reptiles on the premises.You are lucky to be alive.The police are out looking for him, and when they find him, believe me, they’re going to throw the book at him.

There are other people looking for him too. Angry people.

Some very influential persons died that night, Freda—I know because we’re doing the funerals—and lots more were in-now and again jured. They want revenge. If the police find him first, he’ll be lucky.”

“But he’s in here,” I whispered. “In the hospital. I’ve seen him. He was here just now, before you arrived. He’s got the bell of a bass tuba stuck on his head. The doctors can’t get it off. He’s going to have to live with it like that, but he says at least nobody can play it now. They’ve cut the mouthpiece off…”

“Of course, dear,” said Signora Dorotea in the voice she used on deranged customers. “Now, the doctors have said you need a lot of rest.You’ve been very ill. The snake that bit you was a black mamba. By rights you shouldn’t be here. But you’re going to get better. So I just want you to lie quietly, and not get yourself excited. I’ve brought you some nice grapes, and look, here’s a copy of
Mortician’s Monthly
just out—I think you’ve come out lovely in the photo…”

“Nice grapes,” I repeated for no reason, “lovely in the photo.”

“I
remember you,” said a voice at the foot of the bed.

I looked up. It was a nursing sister whom I vaguely remembered from before. Nurse Spada. She had big lips, like a fish, and a briny odor hung about her.

“Same leg, isn’t it? Unlucky that. I was saying to your husband…”

“My husband?”

“Yes, the little fat fellow with the loud suits. Has a habit of throwing his voice. Seems devoted to you. He’s been in every day, sitting by the bed, holding your hand.”

“He’s been here?” I asked, incredulous, horrified, confused.

“And the others,” she added with a wink and a smirk, “but now and again don’t worry, we’ve done our best to keep them from running into one another.”

“Others?” I asked weakly.Was this hallucination the result of the snakebite, I wondered, or the medication they were giving me?

“You know…” Nurse Spada said, with another wink, and this time a nudge of her elbow, for she had approached the side of the bed.

“The big tall one, nice eyes. Some of the girls on the ward have got the hots for him, I can tell you. And then there’s that other one, the strange fellow with the trumpet on his head.”

“It’s a tuba,” I corrected her.

“Whatever.” She shrugged. “Sidles about; here one minute, gone the next, shifty-like, always looking over his shoulder. There’s even been a schoolboy here, once or twice, bit wooden, shiny, small, high-pitched voice.You certainly get the biggest share of gentlemen visitors. Some of the other ladies are quite jealous. Still, I suppose that comes of being in show business. I’ve read that celebrity is an ‘aphrozodiac.’ ”

“Aphrodisiac,” I corrected her again.

“My, we are precise, aren’t we?” she said, and stalked off.

Later I heard her telling the other nurses that I was so full of my own importance it was pointless talking to me. From then on they called me Miss High-and-Mighty. “Miss High-and-Mighty needs a bedpan.” “Time for Miss High-and-Mighty’s medication.”

She had to be wrong. How could Alberto have been here?

What a horrible thought. I scrutinized my hand, looking for some trace of his greasy, fleshy touch upon it.There was none.

I convinced myself the nurse was suffering delusions, and sank back into my pillows. Signora Dorotea was right; I needed rest.

T
he following day, although I felt desperately tired, I willed myself to stay awake. If Alberto came again, I would catch him.When afternoon visiting began, I increased my vigilance. I was constantly on the watch, and scrutinized everybody who entered the ward to make sure no trick was being played on me.

Many men I recognized from the club came in from their ward down the corridor. Some of them had the most horrible injuries: missing eyes, arms, legs, teeth, ears; total body burns; and the various signs of crushing—indelible footprints on their heads, elongated bodies, mangled limbs.

I recognized Selmo d’Angelo, who had caused the tuba to become imbedded in Dario Mormile’s head. Selmo and Labbra Fini, who played the trombone, were bandaged together tightly around the torso. It appeared their flesh had melted during the fire and the two of them had fused. It was unclear whether they could hope for a successful separation. They were visiting Labbra’s lady friend, Lola, who was suffering from acute smoke inhalation, and the three of them were hotly debating their future sleeping arrangements for when they were discharged.

I spotted someone in a monkey costume, a magician, two nuns, an official photographer, and a vendor of rosaries, but I was ninety-nine percent certain Alberto had not managed to infiltrate the ward.

Finally a figure walked through the door that I knew. It was the Detective, and I wasn’t imagining it this time. The nurses began acting like schoolgirls, giggling, and blushing and making lewd comments to one another.With two strides, he reached my bedside. He was holding a bunch of tired anemones. I put them in my beaker of water. Valeria, in the next bed, was already busily adjusting her wrinkled décol-letage after applying an unnecessary amount of Springtime in Paris, which made everybody sneeze.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, predictably. The whole of the ward went suddenly silent.

“I feel that this isn’t really me,” I whispered, “that all of this is happening to somebody else.”

“And how’s the leg?”

“It’s still green.” I pulled up the covers to show him. I thought he had earned the right to see it. After all, he had saved my life. If he found the sight horrible, his face didn’t show it. I was grateful for that. We lapsed into silence, as the rest of the ward started talking again.

“Just imagine the size of it!” I heard one of the nurses saying. Her colleagues laughed raucously and indecently.

“You can examine my legs any time you like!” called Valeria, exposing limbs that would not have looked out of place on a chicken.

The Detective sat down in the vinyl-covered chair next to my drip and locker. It emitted a loud squeak, and then a snort as the air was squeezed out of the cushion.

“You saved my life,” I said, sounding like a character from a bad movie, but I couldn’t help it; I had to say it. I meant it though; I wasn’t acting. “If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead.” He leaned in close. His scent filled my body. If I’d had the strength, I would have buried myself in him, regardless of the audience.

“Freda,” he replied, so softly I hardly heard him, “I wasn’t there that night, you understand? It’s important.” Everybody else on the ward was straining to hear his words. And what they couldn’t hear, they made up.

I nodded. I understood. But what I understood was nothing.

His face was so close it was almost touching mine. His lips were dry, soft, pink, parted. His breathing was slow. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but visiting time evaporated, and the spell was broken by chairs scraping on the floor, cries of “Get well soon,” and Nurse Spada saying loudly,

“Too bad the husband didn’t come in today.”

“They’re saying Alberto has been in,” I said, remembering, “but it can’t be true, can it?” The Detective opened his mesmerizing lips to speak. “We can’t rule out any possibility.” I felt the weight of each word, each minuscule puff of breath on my face, and preserved them as something precious.

Reluctantly, he stood up to leave. There was so much of him it was like the unfolding of a map. He gave me a look, which I preserved along with his breath, with his words, and tried to smile. Simultaneously we glanced at the anemones.

They had wilted and their heads flopped over the edge of the glass, too heavy for their stems.

I watched the Detective’s giant back retreating. It gave me pain to watch him leave me. At the exit, he turned, and searched for me among the rows of identical beds. All the ladies waved their hands, at least those who still had them did. Those that didn’t raised what bandaged limbs they could muster in the circumstances. Even the nurses blew kisses.

Finally he ducked through the doorway and was gone.

“C
ome on, Signora Kapoor,” said Nurse Spada in my ear. “Time to wake up. The psychiatrist is here to see you, Dr. Piccante.”

A round face, rosy and shiny as a little apple, was looking down at me. Perching on its upper lip was a mustache that looked like moss. Idly I wondered what had become of Dr.

Boncoddo, but didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to confess to a history of psychiatric involvement.

Dr. Piccante glanced down at a folder with my stage name on it. Then he looked at me and smiled.

“So how long have you been having these hallucinations, Signora Kapoor?”

My look must have been as blank as the sheets, because he continued talking:

“These erotic fantasies about a detective, Signor”—ruffling among his papers for the name—“ah, yes, Balbini?

“The delusions about a small, fat man with a hairpiece and a ventriloquist’s dummy? Parrots crop up a lot too. About performing as a cabaret singer in a nightclub of dubious repute?

What is it, the Pussy Cat Lounge? Oh, no, the Berenice, yes.

Dreadful place—we had the departmental Christmas party there once. Never again.The nightclub proprietor, one Dario Mormile. Snakes.Venom. Fires.The old familiar stuff.The list goes on and on,” he concluded, shuffling through the sheaf.

“But they’re not delusions,” I said. “This is my life.”

“Ahh, Signora Kapoor, if you only knew how many of my patients have used that immortal line. Now, tell me, apart from the fantasy cabaret act, what do you really do for a living?”

“I’m an embalmer.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Now, would you say you’ve been overdoing it a bit recently? Bodies been piling up, have they?”

Now it was my turn to nod. I thought he was waiting for it, and it would seem churlish not to.

“Thought so. Yes, you’ve been feeling a little strained.