by Frank Wynne
His illness seemed stationary. Then, after three days on the fifth floor, a discharge appeared on his right leg and showed no sign of abating in the days that followed. It was an infection, the doctor told him, absolutely independent of the principal malady; a disturbance that could happen to the healthiest person in the world. In order to eliminate it as quickly as possible, an intense gamma-ray treatment would be needed.
“And are they able to give me these treatments here?” asked Giuseppe Corte.
“Certainly! Our hospital has everything,” responded the doctor, delighted. “There’s only one inconvenience.”
“What?” asked Corte with a vague presentiment.
“Inconvenient, as a form of expression,” the doctor corrected himself. “I meant that the only treatment unit is on the fourth floor, and I wouldn’t advise you to make the trek three times a day.”
“So, then, nothing?”
“Well, it would be better if you would be so kind as to go down to the fourth floor until the eczema has passed.”
“Enough!” screamed Giuseppe Corte. “I’ve already gone down enough! I would die. I’m not going to the fourth!”
“As you wish,” remarked the doctor, conciliatory so as not to irritate him. “But which one of us is in charge here? Mind you, I prohibit you to go downstairs three times a day.”
The ugly fact was that the eczema, instead of abating, was slowly spreading. Giuseppe Corte could find no rest and continually tossed and turned in his bed. He held out, furious, for three days until he had to give in. Of his own accord, he begged the doctor to send him for the treatments and, thus, to be transferred to the lower floor.
Once down there, Corte noted with unexpressed pleasure that he represented an exception. The other patients on the ward were decidedly in very serious condition and couldn’t leave their beds even for a minute. Instead, accompanied by the nurses’ compliments and expressions of marvel, he had the luxury of going by foot from his room to the treatment room. He spoke to the new doctor, insisting on his very special position: a patient who, in point of fact, had every right to be on the seventh floor had found himself on the fourth. Just as soon as the eczema passed, he intended to return upstairs. He absolutely would not permit any new excuses. He, who should legitimately still be on the seventh floor!
“On the seventh, on the seventh!” exclaimed the doctor smiling. “You patients are always exaggerating! I’m the first to say that you should be happy with your status. From what I see on your medical chart, there have been no great reversals. But all this talk about the seventh floor—excuse my brutal sincerity—there is a certain difference! You’re one of the less worrisome cases, I agree, but you’re still a patient!”
“So, then, then,” remarked Giuseppe Corte, his face lighting up, “which floor would you put me on?”
“Oh, God, it’s not easy to say. I’ve only had a short visit with you. In order to decide. I’d have to follow you for at least a week.”
“Okay,” insisted Corte, “but roughly, what do you think?”
In order to pacify him, the doctor made believe for a moment that he was pondering the question; then, he nodded to himself and slowly said, “Oh, God, just to make you happy, we could, hmmm, put you on the sixth!” And, as if he were persuading himself, he added, “Yes. Yes, the sixth would do very well.”
The doctor thought the patient would be pleased. Instead, an appalled expression spread across Giuseppe Corte’s face as he realized that the doctors on the other floors had fooled him. Here was this new doctor, obviously more able and honest, who, in his heart, had assigned him—it was obvious—not to the seventh, but to the sixth floor, and perhaps to the subjacent fifth! That evening his fever rose considerably.
His stay on the fourth floor marked the most tranquil period for Giuseppe Corte since his admission to the hospital. The doctor was a very nice person, solicitous and cordial. He often lingered for hours chatting about a variety of subjects. And Giuseppe Corte conversed willingly, finding many things to talk about concerning his everyday life as a lawyer and man of the world. He tried persuading himself that he still belonged to the society of healthy people, that he was still tied to the business world, that he was interested in public affairs. He tried, but without success, for the conversation invariably fell on his illness.
He became obsessed with the idea of making any improvement whatsoever. Unfortunately, although the treatments had succeeded in arresting the spread of the discharge, there hadn’t been enough to eliminate it. Every day, Giuseppe Corte spoke at length about it to the doctor, and he forced himself to appear strong—ironically, without success.
“Tell me, Doctor,” he asked one day, “How is the destructive process of my cells?”
“Oh, such ugly words!” the doctor jokingly admonished him. “Where did you ever learn them? It’s not good; it’s not good especially for a patient! I never want to hear you talk like that again.”
“Okay,” objected Corte, “but you haven’t answered my question.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you right away,” the doctor remarked politely. “The destructive process of the cells, to repeat your horrible expression, is minimal in your case, absolutely minimal. But I would tend to define it as obstinate.”
“Obstinate, meaning chronic?”
“Don’t make me say what I haven’t said. I only mean obstinate. The majority of cases are like that. Infections, even very mild ones, often need aggressive and protracted treatments.”
“But, tell me, Doctor, when can I hope to see an improvement?”
“When? Predictions in these cases are rather difficult. But listen,” he added after a meditative pause, “I see that you have a sincere and genuine desire to get well. If I weren’t afraid of making you angry, I’d give you some advice.”
“But tell me, just tell me, Doctor.”
“All right. I’ll present the problem in very clear terms. If I, struck by this illness, even in its weakest form, were in this sanitorium, which is perhaps the best one in existence, I would have assigned myself of my own accord, and from the first day, from the first day, you understand, to one of the lower floors. I would put myself right on the …”
“On the first?” suggested Corte with a forced smile.
“Oh, no! On the first, no,” responded the doctor ironically, “this, no! But certainly on the third or even on the second. The treatment is much better on the lower floors, I guarantee. It’s a much more complete and robust system; the personnel are more able. Do you know who the soul of this hospital is?”
“Professor Dati, right?”
“Exactly, Professor Dati. He invented the treatment here; he designed this entire establishment. And yet, he, the Master, remains, so to speak, between the first and second floors. His directive effort radiates from there. But, I guarantee, his influence does not go beyond the third floor. Above that point, his very orders are diminished, lose their consistency, deviate. The heart of the hospital is below, and in order to have the best treatment possible, it’s necessary to remain below.”
“In short,” said Giuseppe Corte with a trembling voice, “you’re advising me…”
“You might add one thing,” continued the doctor. “You can add that in your particular case they would be able to look after the eczema. It’s nothing of importance, I agree, but it’s rather annoying, which after a while could depress your morale; and you know just how important the serenity of the spirit is to one’s recovery. The treatments I’ve given you have only been partially helpful. Why? It could be pure chance, but it could also be that the rays aren’t intense enough. The machines are much more potent on the third floor and the likelihood of curing your eczema would be much greater there. You see? Once your recovery is underway, you will have taken the most difficult step. Once you begin to go up, it’s difficult to turn back again. When you really feel better, nothing will stop your ascent, either from here or from the floors below, to the fifth, sixth, even, I dare say, to the seventh floor—in a
ccordance with your ‘merit’.”
“And you believe that this could accelerate the treatment?”
“But there can be no doubt! I already told you what I would do were I in your place.”
He and the doctor had these talks every day. Finally the moment came when the patient, tired of suffering from the eczema, and despite his instinctive reluctance to descend to the realm of more serious cases, decided to follow the doctor’s counsel and transfer to the floor below.
He noted immediately that a peculiar gaiety reigned over the doctor and the nurses on the third floor; this, despite the fact that the most severe cases were being treated down there. Indeed, he discovered that their happiness increased by the day. His curiosity aroused, having become somewhat friendly with the nurse, he asked why on earth they were so happy.
“Oh, you don’t know?” responded the nurse. “We’re going on vacation in three days.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’re going on vacation’?”
“Oh, yes. The third floor will be closed and the staff will be gone for two weeks. Every floor has its turn.”
“And the patients? What are they supposed to do?”
“Well, since they’re relatively few in number, we make one floor out of two floors.”
“How? You put the third- and fourth-floor patients together?”
“Oh, no,” corrected the nurse, “we put the second- and third-floor patients together. Those of you on this floor will go down below.”
“Go to the second?” said Giuseppe Corte, pale as a dead man. “I would have to go down to the second?”
“But of course. What’s so strange about it? When we come back to work in two weeks, you’ll come back to this room. I don’t think that’s anything to be afraid of.”
Instead, Giuseppe Corte, warned by a mysterious instinct, was overtaken by fear. But, having understood that he couldn’t stop the personnel from going on vacation and convinced that the new treatment was helping him (the eczema had almost completely disappeared), he didn’t dare oppose the new transfer. Nevertheless, he required—despite the nurses’ teasing—that a sign be posted on the door of his new room: “GIUSEPPE CORTE OF THE THIRD FLOOR. PASSING THROUGH.” In the entire history of the hospital, there had never been a precedent for this, but the doctors didn’t object for they were convinced that even small aversions could provoke a crisis in nervous temperaments such as Corte’s.
After all, it was a matter of waiting two weeks, not one day more, not one day less. Giuseppe Corte began to count them with stubborn eagerness, remaining in bed, immobile for hours on end, his eyes fixed on the furniture, which wasn’t so modem and bright on the second floor as it was on the upper floors. Instead, it assumed large dimensions and more solemn, severe lines. Once in a while he would listen intently and he seemed to hear vague gasps of agony coming from the floor below, the floor of the dying, the “condemned” ward.
Naturally, all this contributed to his decline. His diminished serenity seemed to encourage the illness, his fever began to rise, and his weakness became more intense. From the window—it was already full summer and the windows were almost always open—he could no longer glimpse the roofs or even the houses of the city, only the green wall of trees encompassing the hospital.
After a week had passed, one afternoon toward two o’clock, the head nurse and three other nurses suddenly entered the room and switched on a little round light. “Are we ready for the transfer?” asked the head nurse in a good-natured, jesting tone.
“What transfer?” asked Giuseppe Corte in a strained voice. “What sort of joke is this now? They aren’t returning to the third floor for seven days.”
“What third floor?” said the head nurse as though he hadn’t understood. “I have orders to bring you to the first. Look here.” And he showed him an official form for the passage to the lower floor signed by none other than Professor Dati.
Giuseppe Corte’s terror, his consummate anger, exploded in a long scream that echoed throughout the entire ward.
“Quiet. Quiet. For heaven’s sake,” pleaded the nurses. “There are patients here who aren’t well!”
But that wasn’t enough to calm him. Finally, the doctor who ran the ward arrived. He was extremely kind and very well-mannered. He asked what had happened, looked at the form, and asked Corte to explain. Then he turned to the head nurse, furious, declaring that there had been a mistake; he hadn’t given any such order; for some time there had been an intolerable confusion, and he had been kept in the dark about everything. At last, having said his piece to his subordinate, he turned politely to the patient, excusing himself profoundly.
“Unfortunately, however,” the doctor added, “unfortunately, Professor Dati left just an hour ago for a short break; he won’t be back for two days. I’m absolutely distressed, but his orders can’t be disobeyed. He would be the first one to complain about this sort of error, I guarantee. I don’t understand how this could have happened.”
By this time a dreadful trembling had seized Giuseppe Corte’s body. His ability to take control over himself had abandoned him entirely. Terror overwhelmed him as though he were a child. His sobs resounded through the room.
Thus, because of that accursed error, he had arrived at the final station. He was in the ward of the dying. He, who, after all, considering the gravity of his illness and according to the judgment of much more severe doctors, had the right to be assigned to the sixth, if not the seventh floor! The situation was so grotesque that there were moments when Giuseppe Corte sobbed almost uncontrollably.
Stretched out on the bed as the hot summer afternoon passed slowly over the city, he looked through the window at the green of the trees. He had the impression of having arrived in an unreal world made of preposterous, sterile tiled walls, icy mortuary passages, and white human-like figures without souls. He even began to believe that the trees that he perceived through the window were not real: indeed, he convinced himself of it, noting that the leaves didn’t move at all.
The idea so agitated him that Corte rang the bell for the nurse and asked her to bring his eyeglasses. Only then did he calm down a little. With the aid of his glasses, he could reassure himself that they really were green trees and that the leaves did move, if only slightly, with each stirring of the wind.
When the nurse left, he passed a quarter of an hour in complete silence. Six floors, six terrible barriers—even though it was technical error—now hung over Giuseppe Corte with implacable weight. How many years—yes, he had to think in terms of years—how many years would it take for him to rise again to the edge of that precipice?
But, why was the room suddenly so dark? It was still early afternoon. With supreme effort, Giuseppe Corte, who felt himself paralyzed by a strange torpor, looked at his watch on the night stand next to his bed. Three-thirty. He turned his head to the side and saw that the shades, obeying a mysterious command, were slowly lowering, blocking out the passage of light.
THE BOY ON THE TÜNEL
Sait Faik Abasıyanık
Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe
Sait Faik Abasıyanık (1906–1954) was one of the greatest Turkish writers of short stories and poetry and considered an important literary figure of the 1940s. He brought new life to Turkish short story writing with his harsh but humanistic portrayals of labourers, fishermen, children, the unemployed, and the poor. He died on 11 May 1954 in Istanbul. Sait Faik left his wealth to the Darüs¸s¸afaka School for orphans, having taught in an orphanage as a younger man. He proved to be a better writer than a businessman: his father persuaded him to run a wheat shop owned by the family. Abasıyanık bankrupted it within six months.
Nothing is too much for these people
Lately I’ve been spending my nights in a very strange neighborhood. There’s this black haze that rises from the sea around nine o’clock. It spreads and spreads, until it has enveloped us all. As the neighborhood sleeps, a cool breeze wafts through it, seeking human compan
y, but settling down with the stray dogs and the lonely cats in the dark, quiet streets. Until the new day dawns, that’s all there is.
Once there was a Greek entrepreneur who ran two dynamos on diesel. This was the only source of electricity; a yellow, morbid courant continu that turned us all into ghostly and indecipherable blurs. Now the municipality and the entrepreneur have had a disagreement and the lights are out. Who knows where these dark streets might take you after half past eight?
As for the residents – those who are fond of their wives stay at home all night, smoking at their windowsills, planning the next day’s arguments.
In the distance you only see the torches made of rags dipped in any gasoline they could lay their hands on. The flames slash through the darkness. Staring out over this haunted landscape, they catch glimpses of the houses along the coast. They track the lights and the sounds; they drift off into a trance that is not quite sleep; they see the crabs.
I spoke about these long, dark nights with a Turkish lady who went to a private lycée (a lady, no less, who speaks both English and French!) and she said:
“Even the people there are too dark!”
Thick mustachioed Greek fishermen, scrawny bare-legged children, Kurdish porters whose windpipes are bursting from their throats, ninety-year-old Greek women, the postman and the delivery boy at the corner shop. They can all count themselves among those people, and so can you and I.
So there I was, conversing with this woman. Someone else was standing a little further on. The greengrocer was in his corner, and the delivery boy was halfway up the hill, beautiful and forlorn.
I didn’t disagree with her. What would be the point! She is on casual terms with the head of the neighborhood. She gives men ideas, and women advice.
I went into Istanbul that day. And I am writing this description of a boy on the Tünel for the boy on the Tünel, not for this woman – I have long since given up on her.