The Convalescent (23 page)

The monks knew that Brother Lignarius was not intelligent; his face rarely changed expression; his eyes did not possess even a flicker of the curiosity that speaks to an enlightened mind. But eventually they were able to teach him a few simple prayers, which he mimicked lightly on his large lips: “God is love,” they said, and he repeated the words even if he did not understand them. “The age of the myth is over,” they explained, distinguishing God from the stories of the Greeks and their shape-shifters. These were false gods, they said, the ones that became bulls and swans and oxen. Gods that assumed earth-forms to deceive. Manipulate. They had heard rumors of a
pagan deity, some “Man in the Sky” capable of bringing sunshine and rain at his own inestimable whim, and they made sure to explain to Lignarius in simple terms that there could never be a Man in the Sky, because, reasonably, men require ground to stand on. Could he disagree with that?

He could not.

“
Credo in unum Patrem
?” they asked.

Szeretlek shrugged his shoulders. “Credo,” he said.

And then they would give him his breakfast.

But as time passed, the monks spoke less and less to Lignarius, and Lignarius rarely spoke to them. He developed a lingering cough which no one could cure; he suffered from nosebleeds, crippling headaches. Mysterious pains grabbed random places on his body, and his skin dried in flakes and itched him terribly. He was always lifting his arms up around his back to reach one particularly tortuous itch which brewed in the exact place where neither hand can reach.

But his change in behavior disturbed them the most. The monks watched as Lignarius started wandering the woods, snapping trees he was not supposed to snap. He would not cut them or pile them neatly as before; instead he dragged the logs back to the monastery and abandoned them, strewn haphazardly all over their nice front lawn. The giant monk walked for hours in the vegetable gardens, coughing until his chest rattled and making funny gestures with his arms and body, as though pretending to shoot imaginary targets with imaginary arrows. The honey pot was always empty, and there was Lignarius, ducking out of the kitchen, furtively licking his fingers. He began mumbling to himself in a tongue so unrecognizable it did not sound like human speech at all. If scolded, no look of contrition crossed his face. Lignarius would only say “Credo” and then walk away.

The monks tried offering him gifts: a fresh piece of cloth, occasional shoe leather. But Lignarius just looked blankly at the objects. He displayed no gratitude. No emotion at all. One afternoon, the matter grew quite serious when Lignarius was served his supper and right away he began slurping his tomatoes. Without prayer. If he realized the brothers were staring at him, he did not show it; he sucked down the meal quickly, without regard for anyone else at the table. When he finished, he looked up, skin flaking from his cheeks.

“What of grace, Brother Lignarius,” they said.

He looked at the monks and their soupbowls. “Credo,” he said coldly, then stood up from his place at the table and left.

That day, in the darkness of the pit, Wiborada grabbed the monk’s gigantic head between her hands and stared at him with wonder. A thread of spit dangled from her lower lip. “God cannot save you,” she said.

The monks gasped. “God saves us
all
, Little Sister,” one protested.

Wiborada eyed him coolly. “An invading horde of men approaches from the east. You must move the monks and the treasury, but most importantly the library. All of this will be destroyed if you do not.”

“And how does the lady know this?”

“I’ve seen it,” she said, and pointed to the wall. “God moved the wall and showed me. It’s a blessing.”

The monk looked at the stones, at the moss which had grown undisturbed for decades, and was amused. If God would choose anyone to proffer a vision to, it would likely be himself, he thought, certainly not anyone else at the monastery, and
certainly
not a female. He laughed all the way up the stairs, across the gardens, and well into the night. Under his bedsheets, he tickled himself with the idea that he lived in the same place as a woman who thought she saw invaders coming through the walls of a monastery. No barbarians would ever invade God’s house. They wouldn’t, he snickered, have the gall. He took his nighttime tea and slept in peace. Only a week later, when the early Hungarians came as Wiborada said they would, burning houses, stealing gold and jewels, destroying the entire neighborhood of Lake Constance and moving, positively
brimming
with gall, to the front door of the monastery—only then, in fear and astonishment, did he believe her. A long log swung and the front door burst open.

All of the monks ran out the back entrance, crying like frightened children: “
De sagittis Hungarorum libera nos, Domine
!”

“
That day
,” writes Anonymus, “
the monastery at St. Gallen was abandoned to the invaders except for a large and friendly, but not terribly bright monk, who plunked down in the middle of the courtyard and refused to leave because he had not yet been given his monthly allowance of shoe leather, and the anchoress Wiborada, who remained in her pit, listening as the invaders approached
.”

The Hungarians thundered into the pit. They were expecting to find barrels of wine, and were more than surprised to find a woman there, hunched in a corner amongst towering piles of books. The leader of the invaders, a
short man with a mustache which broomed over his lips, stepped forward. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Of course Wiborada could not understand him. “Please,” she begged. “Kill me if you want to, but leave the library intact.”

Árpád sighed. “Can anyone understand this woman?”

Wiborada glowered at Árpád. “
Paganismo transnatauerunt
,” she said, her chin quivering. “Transient pagans.” She grabbed a book and held it tightly to her chest.

Árpád looked around. “Can anyone tell me if her life is worth a hundred books?”

“I’d say fifty,” the men said. “Fifty-five.”

“Forty!”

“A dozen!”

“
Nulla
!”

Then it was everyone chanting, “No books! No books! No books!”

The Hungarians banged their swords and axes on the floor.

Árpád sighed. He was never happy when the men got carried away. “Leave the books,” he said. “Get the wine.”

“
Bor
!” they shouted happily.

Árpád followed them upstairs to check on the bread supply in the pantry of the monastery’s kitchen. In the courtyard, he came upon the large, sickly-looking monk, sitting with his legs folded on the flat stones. The monk was moving his large arms randomly about, appearing to shoot at imaginary targets with imaginary arrows. Other Hungarians quickly gathered around him, holding their swords high above his head. “Why do you not flee?” they cried.

The Giant turned his invisible bow upon them, held it, and then released his fingers. “I can be of use,” he said.

The Hungarians looked at each other. They demanded to know how this monk, way out here in the remote regions of Swabia, knew how to speak their language. So as they sat around the long wooden table that afternoon, Szeretlek, in a spattering of consonants, confessed that he was not actually from the monastery; that he came from a small camp of tribes somewhere further east.

Árpád was amused. The man clearly had come from Carpathia. “What else?” he asked, pouring himself some wine.

Szeretlek shrugged. “I’m in love,” he said.

“With whom?”

“A woman,” said Szeretlek.

The men roared.

Árpád held up his hands. “What sort of woman?”

Szeretlek looked patiently around the table. “She has very large thighs,” he said.

The men lost it. But Árpád’s ears perked up. “Large
thighs
?” he said.

“Like loaves of fresh bread.”

Árpád paused. “Tell me about your tribe,” he said. “Who are your people?”

The large man lifted his large face. He looked the Grand Prince in the eyes. The look, Árpád felt, was unsettling.

“I am a member of the
Fekete-Szem Hentes
,” he said.

Then Árpád recognized the man’s face, his body. The Giant looked different: his body was thinner, more brittle, and something horrid had happened to his face and skin. Suddenly, Árpád very clearly remembered how the same gigantic arms and legs had entwined themselves around the legs of his beloved Lili under the burlap. It had been nearly five years since he had spoken about the Fekete-Szem, but the image of the creatures packed into the tent still flooded his brain. Each time he closed his eyes they were there, staring at him, licking their teeth, shaking nits from their hair, blinking their enormous, frightening eyes. And that woman! The táltos! Despite the fact that he had given them Lili, a proper Hungarian, to stay and watch over them, Árpád felt that he still had not satisfied the old witch. He felt that she had somehow cursed him. Ever since the day he stumbled into that tent, Árpád had awoken in the middle of the hot night, gasping for breath, thousands of those black eyes blinking back at him in the darkness, her words “
We are the weakest among you
” running full speed through his brain. How the image of these creatures persisted, like a second, insatiable conscience! He was stunned he had not recognized the Giant earlier, but it hardly seemed possible that Szeretlek could have survived Exile. And yet here he was, displaying one of his enormous leg-wrestling thighs to other members of the cavalry, who were
ooh
-ing and
ahh
-ing admiringly.

“Can we bring him with us?” the men begged. “Please?”

“We have enough oxen,” said Árpád.

“But he’ll be of use,” the men said. “Get a load of these legs!”

They slapped Szeretlek’s thighs and beamed.

Árpád threw his helmet across the table. “Fine,” he snapped.

Fueled by the prospect of a homecoming with Lili, Szeretlek ran off to collect his belongings. Árpád reached over the table and grabbed bowls of food from his men. But they were empty. The Hungarians had eaten everything. There was no soup, no fruit. No fresh bread. He grabbed a large gray piece of ját, the size of a small skull. “Is this all that’s left?” he said. The men looked at each other.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “Everyone up! We’re leaving! Get your horses.”

In a flurry, the men began assembling their belongings and leaping upon their horses. When Árpád realized that Szeretlek had no horse to ride, he threw a fist in the air with fresh enthusiasm, jumped on top of the table, and cried out, “Hooy Hooy!”

“Hooy Hooy!” the Hungarians howled.

In the mere seconds they were famous for, the Magyars signaled everyone together with bugles and fire beacons. They quickly gathered their plunder, threw themselves over their saddles, and began galloping east across the Swiss plains, leaving one person, the one who would save them from their deaths, behind.

Adrian enters the Waiting Area with her clipboard. “Pfliegman,” she says. “There’s been a cancellation. You’re up.”

The Sick or Diseased children stop banging blocks as I limp past Mrs. Himmel’s desk and into the narrow corridor that leads to Dr. Monica’s office. I am going where they’re going. Perhaps they’re curious to see why I’m going. Perhaps they’re curious to see if I’ll return.

They quickly go back to the banging.

Adrian sits me down on the examining table, hands me my gown, and wordlessly closes the door, leaving me to the intense privacy of Dr. Monica’s office sans Dr. Monica. Some improvements have been made: white curtains now hang down each side of the window like an open robe, a brand new humidifier purrs next to the door, two small chairs with painted daisies are in one corner, the examining table is in another, Dr. Monica’s swivel chair is in the third, and in the fourth all of the stuffed animals have been piled into one big amalgam of fun.

I admit that part of me does not want to have impure thoughts about Dr. Monica. But I cannot help myself. It’s like Pfliegmans were born to suffer such urges. Lovely Lily, I think. Exquisite Flower! I could take you. I could take you right here, our bodies splayed across the children’s examining table.
It could happen—My Darling, I would beg, won’t you let me sniff your soft chin? May I, if for only just a moment, squeeze the fat of your calves? Is not lust, after all, the fertile and exacting seed of love?

Adrian pokes her head in. “Everything okay?” she says.

“Get out!” I want to scream. “You’re ruining the moment!”

“Undress, Rovar,” she says, and closes the door.

I undress. I go to the closet and hang up my coat. My trousers fall to the floor in a pile, heavy from the caked-on dirt and the weight of my belt buckle. At home in the bus, I often let the clothes stay where they are, in the accordion shape into which they fall from my body, but not here— Here, I fold the trousers and sweatshirt neatly, and place them on the floor next to a small white chair. The boots remain on my feet, the tongues hanging out the front as though panting. I hold the paper gown over my head.

It floats on.

Dr. Monica knocks briefly and enters the room, my manila folder embraced tightly to her bosom. Pieces of blond hair are everywhere. They decorate her face. Her cheeks, pink and round, perfectly complement the red dress, which hangs over her in U-shaped drapes. Her body is an altar. The dress,
la nappe d’autel
.

New curtains?
I write.

Dr. Monica beams, admiring her windows. “It makes a difference, I think,” she says.

I look down. Usually Dr. Monica wears puffy white sneakers, but not today; today she flaunts these red, open-toed heels. There is no rational reason why the extra space is afforded the toes; it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with comfort. The red shoes are a tease; a deliberate act of vanity. And suddenly my Darling is removing her tiny white hat and letting all that hair go. She’s unbuttoning her white doctor’s coat and pulling low the neckline of this unbelievable dress. She climbs on top of me, straddling the examining table, and her thighs emerge from underneath the dress like two pale hams. She flips her hair over one shoulder and presses herself into me, biting the outer orbit of my ear, and me, all the while, grabbing her by the buttocks, quietly kneading—