Kiss Kiss (18 page)

      
“Listen,” she said softly. “How about the two of us taking a
little stroll down the garden to see the lupins?”
      
“Fine,” I answered. “Lovely. Anything you say.”
      
There is a small Georgian summer-house alongside the
croquet lawn in Lady Birdwell’s garden, and the very next
thing I knew, I was sitting inside it on a kind of chaise longue
and Miss Roach was beside me. I was still bobbing up and
down, and so was she, and so, for that matter, was the
summer-house, but I was feeling wonderful. I asked Miss Roach if she
would like me to give her a song.
      
“Not now,” she said, encircling me with her arms and
squeezing my chest against hers so hard that it hurt.
      
“Don’t,” I said, melting.
      
“That’s better,” she kept saying. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”
      
Had Miss Roach or any other female tried to do this sort of
thing to me an hour before, I don’t quite know what would
have happened. I think I would probably have fainted. I might
even have died. But here I was now, the same old me, actually
relishing the contact of those enormous bare arms against my
body! Also—and this was the most amazing thing of all—I
was beginning to feel the urge to reciprocate.
      
I took the lobe of her left ear between my thumb and fore-finger,
and tugged it playfully.
      
“Naughty boy,” she said.
      
I tugged harder and squeezed it a bit at the same time. This
roused her to such a pitch that she began to grunt and snort
like a hog. Her breathing became loud and stertorous.
      
“Kiss me,” she ordered.
      
“What?” I said.
      
“Come on, kiss me.”
      
At that moment, I saw her mouth. I saw this great mouth
of hers coming slowly down on top of me, starting to open,
and coming closer and closer, and opening wider and wider;
and suddenly my whole stomach began to roll right over
inside me and I went stiff with terror.
      
“No!” I shrieked. “Don’t! Don’t, Mummy, don’t!”
      
I can only tell you that I had never in all my life seen
anything more terrifying than that mouth. I simply could not
stand
it coming at me like that. Had it been a red-hot iron
someone was pushing into my face I wouldn’t have been
nearly so petrified, I swear I wouldn’t. The strong arms were
around me, pinning me down so that I couldn’t move, and
the mouth kept getting larger and larger, and then all at once
it was right on top of me, huge and wet and cavernous, and
the next second—I was inside it.
      
I was right inside this enormous mouth, lying on my
stomach along the length of the tongue, with my feet somewhere
around the back of the throat; and I knew instinctively
that unless I got myself out again at once I was going to be
swallowed alive—just like that baby rabbit. I could feel my
legs being drawn down the throat by some kind of suction,
and quickly I threw up my arms and grabbed hold of the
lower front teeth and held on for dear life. My head was near
the mouth-entrance, and I could actually look right out
between the lips and see a little patch of the world outside—sunlight
shining on the polished wooden floor of the summer-house,
and on the floor itself a gigantic foot in a white tennis
shoe.
      
I had a good grip with my fingers on the edge of the teeth,
and in spite of the suction, I was managing to haul myself up
slowly towards the daylight when suddenly the upper teeth
came down on my knuckles and started chopping away at
them so fiercely I had to let go. I went sliding back down the
throat, feet first, clutching madly at this and that as I went,
but everything was so smooth and slippery I couldn’t get a
grip. I glimpsed a bright flash of gold on the left as I slid past
the last of the molars, and then three inches farther on I saw
what must have been the uvula above me, dangling like a thick
red stalactite from the roof of the throat. I grabbed at it with
both hands but the thing slithered through my fingers and I
went on down.
      
I remember screaming for help, but I could barely hear
the sound of my own voice above the noise of the wind that
was caused by the throat-owner’s breathing. There seemed to
be a gale blowing all the time, a queer erratic gale that blew
alternately very cold (as the air came in) and very hot (as it
went out again).
      
I managed to get my elbows hooked over a sharp fleshy
ridge—I presume the epiglottis—and for a brief moment I
hung there, defying the suction and scrabbling with my feet
to find a foothold on the wall of the larynx; but the throat
gave a huge swallow that jerked me away, and down I went
again.
      
From then on, there was nothing else for me to catch hold
of, and down and down I went until soon my legs were
dangling below me in the upper reaches of the stomach, and
I could feel the slow powerful pulsing of peristalsis dragging
away at my ankles, pulling me down and down and down . . .
      
Far above me, outside in the open air, I could hear the
distant babble of women’s voices:
      
“It’s not true . . .”
      
“But my dear Mildred, how awful . . .”
      
“The man must be mad . . .”
      
“Your poor mouth, just look at it . . .”
      
“A sex maniac . . .”
      
“A sadist . . .”
      
“Someone ought to write to the bishop . . .”
      
And then Miss Roach’s voice, louder than the others, swearing
and screeching like a parakeet:
      
“He’s damn lucky I didn’t kill him, the little bastard! . . . I
said to him, listen, I said, if ever I happen to want any of my
teeth extracted, I’ll go to a dentist, not to a goddam vicar. . .
It isn’t as though I’d given him any encouragement either! . . .”
      
“Where is he now, Mildred?”
      
“God knows. In the bloody summer-house, I suppose.”
      
“Hey girls, let’s go and root him out!”

Oh dear, oh dear. Looking back on it all now, some three
weeks later, I don’t know how I ever came through the
nightmare of that awful afternoon without taking leave of my
senses.
      
A gang of witches like that is a very dangerous thing to
fool around with, and had they managed to catch me in the
summer-house right then and there when their blood was up,
they would likely as not have torn me limb from limb on the
spot.
      
Either that, or I should have been frog-marched down to
the police station with Lady Birdwell and Miss Roach leading
the procession through the main street of the village.
      
But of course they didn’t catch me.
      
They didn’t catch me then, and they haven’t caught me
yet, and if my luck continues to hold, I think I’ve got a fair
chance of evading them altogether—or anyway for a few
months, until they forget about the whole affair.
      
As you might guess, I am having to keep entirely to myself
and to take no part in public affairs or social life. I find that
writing is a most salutary occupation at a time like this, and
I spend many hours each day playing with sentences. I regard
each sentence as a little wheel, and my ambition lately has
been to gather several hundred of them together at once and
to fit them all end to end, with the cogs interlocking, like gears,
but each wheel a different size, each turning at a different
speed. Now and again I try to put a really big one right next
to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning
slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very
tricky, that.
      
I also sing madrigals in the evenings, but I miss my own
harpsichord terribly.
      
All the same, this isn’t such a bad place, and I have made
myself as comfortable as I possibly can. It is a small chamber
situated in what is almost certainly the primary section of
the duodenal loop, just before it begins to run vertically
downward in front of the right kidney. The floor is quite
level—indeed it was the first level place I came to during that
horrible descent down Miss Roach’s throat—and that’s the
only reason I managed to stop at all. Above me, I can see a
pulpy sort of opening that I take to be the pylorus, where the
stomach enters the small intestine (I can still remember some
of those diagrams my mother used to show me), and below
me, there is a funny little hole in the wall where the pancreatic
duct enters the lower section of the duodenum.
      
It is all a trifle bizarre for a man of conservative tastes like
myself. Personally I prefer oak furniture and parquet flooring.
But there is anyway one thing here that pleases me greatly,
and that is the walls. They are lovely and soft, like a sort of
padding, and the advantage of this is that I can bounce up
against them as much as I wish without hurting myself.
      
There are several other people about, which is rather
surprising, but thank God they are every one of them males.
For some reason or other, they all wear white coats, and they
bustle around pretending to be very busy and important. In
actual fact, they are an uncommonly ignorant bunch of
fellows. They don’t even seem to realise where they are. I
try to tell them, but they refuse to listen. Sometimes I get so
angry and frustrated with them that I lose my temper and
start to shout; and then a sly mistrustful look comes over their
faces and they begin backing slowly away, and saying, “Now
then. Take it easy. Take it easy, Vicar, there’s a good boy.
Take it easy.”
      
What sort of talk is that?
      
But there is one oldish man—he comes in to see me every
morning after breakfast—who appears to live slightly closer
to reality than the others. He is civil and dignified, and I
imagine he is lonely because he likes nothing better than to
sit quietly in my room and listen to me talk. The only trouble
is that whenever we get on to the subject of our whereabouts,
he starts telling me that he’s going to help me to escape. He
said it again this morning, and we had quite an argument
about it.
      
“But can’t you see,” I said patiently, “I don’t want to escape.”
      
“My dear Vicar, why ever not?”
      
“I keep telling you—because they’re all searching for me
outside.”
      
“Who?”
      
“Miss Elphinstone and Miss Roach and Miss Prattley and all
the rest of them.”
      
“What nonsense.”
      
“Oh yes they are! And I imagine they’re after
you
as well,
but you won’t admit it.”
      
“No, my friend, they are not after me.”
      
“Then may I ask precisely what you are doing down here?”
      
A bit of a stumper for him, that one. I could see he didn’t
know how to answer it.
      
“I’ll bet you were fooling around with Miss Roach and got
yourself swallowed up just the same as I did. I’ll bet that’s
exactly what happened, only you’re ashamed to admit it,”
      
He looked suddenly so wan and defeated when I said this
that I felt sorry for him.
      
“Would you like me to sing you a song?” I asked.
      
But he got up without answering and went quietly out into
the corridor.
      
“Cheer up,” I called after him. “Don’t be depressed. There is
always some balm in Gilead.”

“Everything is normal,” the doctor was saying. “Just lie back
and relax.” His voice was miles away in the distance and he
seemed to be shouting at her. “You have a son.”
      
“What?”
      
“You have a fine son. You understand that, don’t you? A
fine son. Did you hear him crying?”
      
“Is he all right, Doctor?”
      
“Of course he is all right.”
      
“Please let me see him.”
      
“You’ll see him in a moment.”
      
“You are certain he is all right?”
      
“I am quite certain.”
      
“Is he still crying?”
      
“Try to rest. There is nothing to worry about.”
      
“Why has he stopped crying, Doctor? What happened?”
      
“Don’t excite yourself, please. Everything is normal.”
      
“I want to see him. Please let me see him.”
      
“Dear lady,” the doctor said, patting her hand. “You have a
fine strong healthy child. Don’t you believe me when I tell
you that?”
      
“What is the woman over there doing to him?”
      
“Your baby is being made to look pretty for you,” the doctor
said. “We are giving him a little wash, that is all. You must
spare us a moment or two for that.”
      
“You swear he is all right?”
      
“I swear it. Now lie back and relax. Close your eyes. Go
on, close your eyes. That’s right. That’s better. Good girl . . .”
      
“I have prayed and prayed that he will live, Doctor.”
      
“Of course he will live. What are you talking about?”
      
“The others didn’t.”
      
“What?”
      
“None of my other ones lived, Doctor.”
      
The doctor stood beside the bed looking down at the pale
exhausted face of the young woman. He had never seen her
before today. She and her husband were new people in the
town. The innkeeper’s wife, who had come up to assist in the
delivery, had told him that the husband worked at the local
customs-house on the border and that the two of them had
arrived quite suddenly at the inn with one trunk and one
suitcase about three months ago. The husband was a drunkard,
the innkeeper’s wife had said, an arrogant, overbearing, bullying
little drunkard, but the young woman was gentle and
religious. And she was very sad. She never smiled. In the few
weeks that she had been here, the innkeeper’s wife had never
once seen her smile. Also there was a rumour that this was the
husband’s third marriage, that one wife had died and that the
other had divorced him for unsavoury reasons. But that was
only a rumour.
      
The doctor bent down and pulled the sheet up a little
higher over the patient’s chest. “You have nothing to worry
about,” he said gently. “This is a perfectly normal baby.”
      
“That’s exactly what they told me about the others. But I
lost them all, Doctor. In the last eighteen months I have lost
all three of my children, so you mustn’t blame me for being
anxious.”
      
“Three?”
      
“This is my fourth . . . in four years.”
      
The doctor shifted his feet uneasily on the bare floor.
      
“I don’t think you know what it means, Doctor, to lose
them all, all three of them, slowly, separately, one by one. I
keep seeing them. I can see Gustav’s face now as clearly as if
he were lying here beside me in the bed. Gustav was a lovely
boy, Doctor. But he was always ill. It is terrible when
they are always ill and there is nothing you can do to help
them.”
      
“I know.”
      
The woman opened her eyes, stared up at the doctor for a
few seconds, then closed them again.
      
“My little girl was called Ida. She died a few days before
Christmas. That is only four months ago. I just wish you could
have seen Ida, Doctor.”
      
“You have a new one now.”
      
“But Ida was so beautiful.”
      
“Yes,” the doctor said. “I know.”
      
“How can you know?” she cried.
      
“I am sure that she was a lovely child. But this new one is
also like that.” The doctor turned away from the bed and
walked over to the window and stood there looking out. It
was a wet grey April afternoon, and across the street he could
see the red roofs of the houses and the huge raindrops splashing
on the tiles.
      
“Ida was two years old, Doctor . . . and she was so beautiful
I was never able to take my eyes off her from the time I
dressed her in the morning until she was safe in bed again at
night. I used to live in holy terror of something happening to
that child. Gustav had gone and my little Otto had also gone
and she was all I had left. Sometimes I used to get up in the
night and creep over to the cradle and put my ear close to her
mouth just to make sure that she was breathing.”
      
“Try to rest,” the doctor said, going back to the bed. “Please
try to rest.” The woman’s face was white and bloodless, and
there was a slight bluish-grey tinge around the nostrils and the
mouth. A few strands of damp hair hung down over her forehead,
sticking to the skin.
      
“When she died . . . I was already pregnant again when
that happened, Doctor. This new one was a good four months
on its way when Ida died. ‘I don’t want it!’ I shouted after
the funeral. ‘I won’t have it! I have buried enough children!’
And my husband . . . he was strolling among the guests with
a big glass of beer in his hand . . . he turned around quickly
and said, ‘I have news for you, Klara, I have good news.’
Can you imagine that, Doctor? We have just buried our third
child and he stands there with a glass of beer in his hand and
tells me that he has good news. ‘Today I have been posted to
Braunau,’ he says, ‘so you can start packing at once. This will
be a new start for you, Klara,’ he says. ‘It will be a new place
and you can have a new doctor. . . .’ ”
      
“Please don’t talk any more.”
      
“You
are
the new doctor, aren’t you, Doctor?”
      
“That’s right.”
      
“And here we are in Braunau.”
      
“Yes.”
      
“I am frightened, Doctor.”
      
“Try not to be frightened.”
      
“What chance can the fourth one have now?”
      
“You must stop thinking like that.”
      
“I can’t help it. I am certain there is something inherited
that causes my children to die in this way. There must be.”
      
“That is nonsense.”
      
“Do you know what my husband said to me when Otto
was born, Doctor? He came into the room and he looked
into the cradle where Otto was lying and he said, ‘Why do
all
my children have to be so small and weak?’ ”
      
“I am sure he didn’t say that.”
      
“He put his head right into Otto’s cradle as though he were examining
a tiny insect and he said, ‘All I am saying is why can’t they
be better
specimens
? That’s all I am saying.’ And
three days after that, Otto was dead. We baptised him quickly
on the third day and he died the same evening. And then
Gustav died. And then Ida died. All of them died, Doctor . . .
and suddenly the whole house was empty . . .”
      
“Don’t think about it now.”
      
“Is this one so very small?”
      
“He is a normal child.”
      
“But small?”
      
“He is a little small, perhaps. But the small ones are often a
lot tougher than the big ones. Just imagine, Frau Hitler, this
time next year he will be almost learning how to walk. Isn’t
that a lovely thought?”
      
She didn’t answer this.
      
“And two years from now he will probably be talking his
head off and driving you crazy with his chatter. Have you
settled on a name for him yet?”
      
“A name?”
      
“Yes.”
      
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I think my husband said that if
it was a boy we were going to call him Adolfus.”
      
“That means he would be called Adolf.”
      
“Yes. My husband likes Adolf because it has a certain
similarity to Alois. My husband is called Alois.”
      
“Excellent.”
      
“Oh no!” she cried, starting up suddenly from the pillow.
“That’s the same question they asked me when Otto was born!
It means he is going to die! You are going to baptise him at
once!”
      
“Now, now,” the doctor said, taking her gently by the
shoulders. “You are quite wrong. I promise you you are wrong.
I was simply being an inquisitive old man, that is all. I love
talking about names. I think Adolphus is a particularly fine
name. It is one of my favourites. And look—here he comes
now.”
      
The innkeeper’s wife, carrying the baby high up on her
enormous bosom, came sailing across the room towards the
bed. “Here is the little beauty!” she cried, beaming. “Would
you like to hold him, my dear? Shall I put him beside you?”
      
“Is he well wrapped?” the doctor asked. “It is extremely cold
in here.”
      
“Certainly he is well wrapped.”
      
The baby was tightly swaddled in a white woollen shawl,
and only the tiny pink head protruded. The innkeeper’s wife
placed him gently on the bed beside the mother. “There you
are,” she said. “Now you can lie there and look at him to your
heart’s content.”
      
“I think you will like him,” the doctor said, smiling. “He is
a fine little baby.”
      
“He has the most lovely hands!” the innkeeper’s wife
exclaimed. “Such long delicate fingers!”
      
The mother didn’t move. She didn’t even turn her head to
look.
      
“Go on!” cried the innkeeper’s wife. “He won’t bite you!”
      
“I am frightened to look. I don’t dare to believe that I have
another baby and that he is all right.”
      
“Don’t be so stupid.”
      
Slowly, the mother turned her head and looked at the small,
incredibly serene face that lay on the pillow beside her.
      
“Is this my baby?”
      
“Of course.”
      
“Oh . . . oh . . . but he is beautiful.”
      
The doctor turned away and went over to the table and
began putting his things into his bag. The mother lay on the
bed gazing at the child and smiling and touching him and
making little noises of pleasure. “Hello, Adolfus,” she whispered.
“Hello, my little Adolf . . .”
      
“Ssshh!” said the innkeeper’s wife. “Listen! I think your
husband is coming.”
      
The doctor walked over to the door and opened it and
looked out into the corridor.
      
“Herr Hitler!”
      
“Yes.”
      
“Come in, please.”
      
A small man in a dark-green uniform stepped softly into
the room and looked around him.
      
“Congratulations,” the doctor said. “You have a son.”
      
The man had a pair of enormous whiskers meticulously
groomed after the manner of the Emperor Franz Josef, and
he smelled strongly of beer. “A son?”
      
“Yes.”
      
“How is he?”
      
“He is fine. So is your wife.”
      
“Good.” The father turned and walked with a curious little
prancing stride over to the bed where his wife was lying.
“Well, Klara,” he said, smiling through his whiskers. “How did
it go?” He bent down to take a look at the baby. Then
he bent lower. In a series of quick jerky movements, he
bent lower and lower until his face was only about twelve
inches from the baby’s head. The wife lay sideways on
the pillow, staring up at him with a kind of supplicating
look.
      
“He has the most marvellous pair of lungs,” the innkeeper’s
wife announced. “You should have heard him screaming just
after he came into this world.”
      
“But my God, Klara . . .”
      
“What is it, dear?”
      
“This one is even smaller than Otto was!”
      
The doctor took a couple of quick paces forward. “There
is nothing wrong with that child,” he said.
      
Slowly, the husband straightened up and turned away from
the bed and looked at the doctor. He seemed bewildered and
stricken. “It’s no good lying, Doctor,” he said. “I know what it
means. It’s going to be the same all over again.”
      
“Now you listen to me,” the doctor said.
      
“But do you
know
what happened to the others, Doctor?”
      
“You must forget about the others, Herr Hitler. Give this
one a chance.”
      
“But so small and weak!”
      
“My dear sir, he has only just been born.”
      
“Even so . . .”
      
“What are you trying to do?” cried the innkeeper’s wife.
“Talk him into his grave?”
      
“That’s enough!” the doctor said sharply.
      
The mother was weeping now. Great sobs were shaking
her body.
      
The doctor walked over to the husband and put a hand on
his shoulder. “Be good to her,” he whispered. “Please. It is very
important.” Then he squeezed the husband’s shoulder hard
and began pushing him forward surreptitiously to the edge
of the bed. The husband hesitated. The doctor squeezed
harder, signalling to him urgently through fingers and thumb.
At last, reluctantly, the husband bent down and kissed his
wife lightly on the cheek.
      
“All right, Klara,” he said. “Now stop crying.”
      
“I have prayed so hard that he will live, Alois.”
      
“Yes.”
      
“Every day for months I have gone to the church and
begged on my knees that this one will be allowed to live.”
      
“Yes, Klara, I know.”
      
“Three dead children is all that I can stand, don’t you realise
that?”
      
“Of course.”
      
“He
must
live, Alois. He
must
, he
must
. . Oh God, be
merciful unto him now . . .”