“Really this place gets more and more slap-dash. Just look at that dust by the door. Looks as though somebody’s been spilling ashes all over the place.”
Nameless looked at it, and his hands shook a little. But he answered, more firmly than before: “Yes, I know. I’ll have a proper clean-up to-morrow.”
For the first time in ten weeks he smiled at them; a thin, haggard smile, but a smile.
IT WILL GROW ON YOU
Donald Wandrei
He couldn’t find the compass in the center drawer. Maybe he hadn’t left it at his office after all. Next he tried poking among the fitter of medical journals, canceled checks, and brochures about new equipment in the top right-hand drawer. Underneath lay his automatic, but no compass; he wondered briefly if it would be worthwhile to take the .38 along on the hunting trip.
He gave up searching. The time he’d wasted would have bought a dozen compasses.
The bell in the reception room rang, and he became conscious again of the cool, conditioned air inside, of the fever pulse of the city outside that he’d escape tomorrow.
He had finished with all appointments for the day; he had so arranged his patients and operating schedule as to permit him a week’s absence; the bell, he hoped, would signify no more than a minor case, or an emergency treatment.
The door opened, and he glanced past the portable examination table. For a moment the nurse, in insufferable white, was framed between many-hued bottles of medicines and rows of surgical tools in the wall cabinets. She blanked out all but small segments of the outer room: the cream leather edge and chromium arm of a chair, the robin’s egg blue of
a wall, the fat nap of a broadloom in avocado green, the comer of a Haupers original oil painting, July Moon.
She closed the door and leaned against it, and her face looked as chalky as her uniform.
“A stranger,” she said, “a man in a raincoat—” “Raincoat?” he stared toward the window, where shadows deepened in the canyon, but the great stone man-warren opposite shimmered as though melting from sunfire.
“One of those swagger coats with a belt.” She added foolishly, “It hangs all the way down to his shoes.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He won’t say, except that it’s urgent.”
“Who sent him here?”
“A ship’s doctor.”
“Strange. I don’t know any ship’s doctors. You’ve no idea what his trouble is?”
She hesitated, her lower lip curling inward between her teeth. “His coat flapped as he was coming in. Something is —seriously wrong. The most peculiar thing—”
“Very well. Send him in.”
She looked faint, as though she would slide down the door and dissolve into something liquid.
“I won’t need you,” he said. “You may go.”
She nodded dumbly and went out, with a kind of sidling motion around the man who entered. Her face was developing a greenish tinge. The doctor stepped toward her, but she shook her head mechanically with an expression of terror and a queer shine in her eyes. A line of sweat beads bubbled on her forehead. He eyed her closely as she pulled the door shut. Perhaps it would be well to observe her condition during the next few weeks.
For a moment his attention was distracted. He heard, or seemed to hear, a faint, muffled twittering like the cry of a bird. He looked toward the window, but there was nothing there, not even a sparrow, on the ledge outside. He cocked his head, straining, but did not hear the sound again. Yet he remained vaguely on edge, and wondered if some small animal might possibly have been trapped between the walls of the office.
The muted closing of the outer door told him that the nurse had gone. She had stayed later than usual; he was satisfied to have dismissed her. The patient was an irregular, and, whatever the trouble, would be diagnosed, treated, or referred quickly.
The man wore a swagger coat, a tan all-weather that hung to his shoes. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets. His face was burnt dark, but the skin stretched tightly across cheekbones and around nostrils and eyes. A curious pallor underlay the tan, a dusty grayness. His eyes held a glow, as though he kept going only by some flickering but intense fire from within.
His voice, when he spoke, also had a strangeness. It was flat and dead, with a huskiness on the edge of exhaustion. It came with the precise slowness of one using an unfamiliar language, or reciting a role from memory. He said, “I am very grateful. I have heard that the best specialists are not always so easy to see—” He hesitated, added quickly, “Your fee, Doctor will be paid at once and in full.”
“Be seated. You’re rather fortunate. My calendar is generally crowded, but I happen to be going off on a hunting trip tomorrow.”
“So? I hope the hunting will be good. Very good.” The stranger looked relieved. “That is excellent. I, too, am leaving tomorrow morning. I have booked passage on a ship.”
“A sea voyage is an excellent remedy for a good many ailments. What seems to be the trouble?”
The smoldering eyes appraised the examination table. “You could perform an operation here—a small operation?“ “It is not my usual custom.”
“But you could do it, in an emergency?”
“It all depends on the circumstances.”
A faint buzz distracted him, and he noticed with extreme irritation that a bluebottle fly had somehow got into the office. He supposed the insect must have entered along with the patient, or possibly when the nurse was leaving.
“Excuse me for a moment,” he said brusquely, “while I bring the wild life under control. This is most unusual.” He took a sprayer out of a bottom drawer, but, when he looked, the fly was nowhere visible, nor could he hear the hum of its wings. He did, however, for an instant hear again that same muffled twittering as before, and suddenly the hairs rose along his forearms.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What was what?” said the stranger.
“That sound—like a little animal of some kind, trapped or wounded.”
“I heard nothing—nothing except a fly buzzing around.” The doctor put his spray-pump aside; but he was positive that twice now he had heard an indefinable sound, a cry the more puzzling because he could not quite identify its nature or origin.
“Yes, it must have been the fly,” he agreed perfunctorily. “Now, what did you say your trouble was?”
“One moment, please.” The stranger loosened the slipknot in his belt and began to unbutton the swagger coat. “I must warn you to prepare yourself.”
“I am always prepared,” said the doctor a trifle coldly.
“I did not mean it that way. You must be prepared for a shock—for, perhaps, a very great shock. When Dr. Kelman advised me that you had no equal among specialists in your field-”
“Dr. Kelman? Who’s he?”
“He was the ship’s surgeon of the S. S. Maracaibo.”
“I see. I take it you’ve recently landed?”
“This very afternoon. I came here straight from the dock.” “I believe you said you intend to board ship again tomorrow?”
“It is imperative that I do so. But a different vessel, of course.”
“Hmmm. If your trouble is really serious—” He broke off, with a sudden feeling of suffocation, as though he had swallowed his tongue.
The visitor tossed his coat aside. Underneath, he wore a white suit, a tropical double-breasted that emphasized his stocky build. The jacket was wrinkled, and soaked with sweat. The left trouser leg had been cut off near the hip, just below the pocket; the seam had been ripped open to his waist and crudely fastened with a couple of safety pins.
Between crotch and knee in mid-thigh stood an enormous bandage, a bulky mound like a camel’s hump. It was sight of this bandage that sent a sharp tingle of unease through him, for the covering shook and undulated as though something alive were inside, something that scurried round and round in search of a way out.
The movement ceased almost at once; he had
the eerie feeling that whatever was within had sensed itself to be under observation. He reached out to unwind the tape, but the man settled himself in an office chair. He propped his bare leg on the footrest and unfastened a huge safety pin that secured the ends of the bandage.
“Permit me,” he said. “I have had some experience with this. It is not entirely—safe.”
“But this Dr. Kelman you mentioned—”
“The bandage is not his work. Even a ship’s surgeon would not have done such a ragged job. I wound this on, and I will take it off.”
“But surely Dr. Kelman—”
“Oh, he tried to help, but unfortunately he—ah—injured his hands.”
The stranger did not glance up. His thick fingers worked slowly, tensely, at unwinding the tape. He used both hands, but alternately, always leaving one hand free and half clenched. It was impossible to tell whether he «was preparing to pounce, or to ward off a blow.
“The ship’s doctor—Kelman—he did not write out a diagnosis or a recommendation?”
“He intended to. But he disappeared.”
“He what?”
“It was a strange event.” The patient worked more slowly now, for the unwinding tape had grown to a sizable mass. He would pass it down and under his thigh, snatch it swiftly with his free hand and, just as swiftly, jerk the released hand back, always alert and expectantly poised, half offensive, half defensive.
“Kelman was a curious fellow, a thin, baldish man with a bad case of indigestion. He claimed he suffered terribly from sinus trouble and hay fever when on land. But on a sea voyage he experienced an amazing improvement. Unhappily, he then developed a chronic state of indigestion which would clear up only when he set foot on land. Between the two evils, the sinus trouble affected him most, so he gave up his shore practice. He took his sensitive stomach out to sea permanently, and became a ship’s surgeon. He was a good one, though not for me.
“I saw Kelman last night. He spent an hour or more working on me. It was no use. He could do nothing. At one point the knife slipped and he gashed his hand quite badly. He said he would think about the case overnight and write me a report or prescription this morning. But he seems to have vanished during the night.”
“You are positive?”
“The ship was searched in every conceivable place.” “He left no message, no clue?”
“None. The captain will report that Kelman was lost overboard under circumstances unknown.”
The doctor asked—and he was unable to keep the growing uneasiness out of his voice—“You think there may have been some«connection between your trouble and Kelman’s disappearance?”
“I do not know.”
“Suppose you go back a little and tell me the symptoms, or the origins, of this—this—whatever it is.”
The hands hesitated for a barely perceptible instant; if the doctor had not been watching so closely, he would have missed the break in their rhythm.
“I am not entirely sure about it myself,” said the patient slowly, without raising his head.
“That often happens. Just tell me what you do know.”
“Is it absolutely necessary?”
“Of course it is,” the doctor insisted. “A case history is essential to adequate diagnosis and treatment.”
“I am afraid that what I have to tell you will not help you very greatly. For some time past I have been on a mission of a most confidential nature.”
“Where? You said you had just arrived by boat—”
“I am not at liberty to tell. There are many countries in Central and South America,” said the patient stiffly, “and many islands off the coasts. My work required me to visit numerous places.”
The doctor thought, a revolutionary agent or a troublemaker if ever I saw one. Aloud, he said, “That is sufficient; the exact spot is unimportant. Go on.”
“I have recently spent several months in a rather isolated locality. There was a native girl. We had an understanding, or so I thought. A man’s needs are the same wherever he is. If he can not have what he wants, he must take advantage of what there is—you know how it is.”
“I can imagine,” said the doctor dryly.
“A couple of weeks ago I told her I must leave. She wanted to go with me. That was of course impossible. She must have been careless—or at any rate she had gotten herself pregnant. She was not only very unreasonable, she fought like a wild one. She had a knife in her hand suddenly, and before I could seize it she had slashed both of us.
“She kept screaming something in her own tongue. I caught only snatches of it. It was to the effect that her blood was mine, that she was now part of me, and that she would go with me always. Then she broke loose and ran out, but when I got to the door she had already sped into the jungle.
“My worst cut was on the upper thigh. After bandaging it, I got on my horse and rode toward the village, intending to have the wounds cleaned and dressed. I had not gone far when my horse shied at something I never saw. I received a mighty blow from a branch overhead and felt myself falling.
“The next thing I knew, it was dark, and I lay on the floor of my house. I saw ashes of a fire at my feet, and smelled a pungent bitter-sweetness in the air. There were spots of blood, too—much fresher than what we had spilled in the afternoon. I found, also, that I had—changed.
“I had intended to leave soon, but I was forced to go at once. I could not consult the local doctor, for, if word went around of what had happened to me, I would be an outcast. My usefulness would be ended. The same reason prevented me from moving on to my next assignment, which was also among rather primitive people. I took the first boat north, hoping that the ship’s surgeon would be able to treat me successfully, in utmost privacy, and at a safe distance to sea.”
There was silence, except for the soft swish of tape.
“That’s a curious story,” said the doctor reflectively. “You’ll pardon me if I say I hardly know what to believe.”
“It does not matter what you think. That is of no importance. All that I care about now is the operation. But it will not be easy. I have told you how Kelman tried, and failed. You see—”
He unwound the last of the tape. A pillowcase lay underneath, twisted around the thigh. His breathing had a hoarser sound, a rasp and a catch. He loosed the comers of the pillowcase and flung it aside with a jerky but practiced motion that left both hands cupped, veins bulging up.
There was a great purplish splotch on the skin. The ankles were rooted in its center, tiny ankles that flowed into the rudiments of feet that merged with the flesh. She could not have been more than a foot tall, a miniature and sinuous Venus, a perfect figurine, exquisitely formed in each minute detail, like a doll, but perilously alive with a vitality all her own. In the light of late afternoon her body seemed at moments nut-brown, then changing to a sort of metallic sheen, the color of old bronze overlaid with a patina of verdigris. Her eyes were closed. Her face had the vacant repose of an idiot child.
She opened her eyes and looked at the doctor.
He got up and walked over to the window There came a foolish little twittering from behind Some force stronger than his will turned him around The small horror was talking in a language that he did not know She was cooing upward at her host with mindless adoration, and straining tautly upon her rooted feet as though attempting to leap into his arms.
“What is she—what is it—saying?” the doctor asked in a faraway tone.
“I do not hear anything”
“Do you know what dialect it is?”
“I do not hear anything.” His eyes flickered briefly; the doctor had an impression of having looked—through a curtain momentarily drawn—upon great fires raging in some illimitable void. Sweat was pouring down his cheeks, tears from a face of stone. Only then, and with a shock of pity, did the doctor realize to what extent will-power alone kept up the man’s outward aspect of strength.
The doctor said, “Just stretch out on the table and relax.” He wash
ed his hands thoroughly and put on a smock, but decided against rubber gloves. His palms already felt warm and moist. “We’ll have that—growth—taken off right now. It should be a fairly easy and almost painless operation.” He laid out a row of scalpels and scissors, sutures, surgical thread, antiseptics. He sterilized the needle of a hypodermic syringe, tested the plunger, and filled the chamber with Novocain.
“Kelman tried everything,” The man appeared to be talking to himself. “He wasn’t smart enough. He couldn’t get rid of her. I don’t think anybody can.”
“Nonsense. I’ll fix you up in no time,” promised the doctor. He thought, damn that ass of a ship’s surgeon; the fellow was probably a broken-down hack who couldn’t have treated a carbuncle successfully, let alone remove an abnormal growth.
He became conscious of a buzz again, and glanced up. The bluebottle fly had returned. It circled over the man on the table. The insect droned lazily off to one side, gathered height, and sailed down past the tawny figurine. It got no farther. A small, supple arm swooped outward, the snared fly made a shriller hum. There was a flash of teeth as tiny as the points of an ivory comb, a dreadful smacking of the rosebud mouth.
The doctor felt as though someone had hit his solar plexus. His breath came out in a whistling sigh, and only with the action did he realize how tense, how stilled he had been.
He walked over to the table and swabbed the two areas of injection with alcohol. He did not glance directly at the alien thing; but its very nearness made him aware for the first time of its evil force, the exotic temptation that it combined with a singleness of purpose and a quality that he could not quite identify—wiliness, perhaps, or wariness, or cunning of a sort.
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