The room was simple and quaint with a single bed, a chair, a mirror, a dresser, and a desk. No decorations, no pictures on the walls.
“Terrance thought it would be best that you bed next to the patient, so that you will be near enough to provide care and assistance as needed.”
I nodded. “Very well.”
“I will ring a bell when dinner is ready.”
“Thank you.”
After Blake left I opened my suitcase and arranged my clothes in a small dresser in the corner of the room. I became aware of just how many questions I had. Where I was to wash my clothes? Was there electricity throughout the entire house? Will Blake be preparing all of my meals?
It was early enough for plenty of light to shine through the one window in my room; however, there was no sign of electricity. The sconces on the walls were similar to those I had seen in the hallway, only these were equipped with fresh candles. There was a rather large three-wick candle on the top of the dresser, and a brass candelabra on the small nightstand beside the bed.
So many thoughts were going through my mind as I neatly folded my clothes. In all my years I had never been so far from home, so uncertain, so alone. This wasn’t what I had expected. Mister Adler had promised that I would be nursing a family member back to health in the wake of a terrible illness. Of course, I asked precisely what illness the patient had been stricken with, but he insisted that it was a rare condition that had been stabilized. He’d written that the medical system in Spain was poor and he would feel comforted having an American nurse. Furthermore, Adler wrote that he had chosen me because of the decision that caused me to be exiled from the medical system in America. Where others saw me as monster, he recognized my compassion, and I cannot express how much, at the time, that had touched my heart.
Five years ago I had been caring for Manny Gomez, a patient who had gone into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated by the paramedics. By the time he’d made it to the hospital he was stabilized, but that night he flat-lined and was brought back again. He didn’t fare so well. His family had been pacing the waiting room, red-eyed from crying. Dr. Bronson told them that the patient was possibly brain damaged. Their loved one. A father, a husband. Dr. Bronson asked, beyond his own inclinations that Manny was a lost cause, if they wanted to resuscitate and they were adamant about keeping him alive. Warnings of brain damage fell on deaf ears.
It went on this way for days. He flat-lined four times in all. When he died I was in the room checking his vitals. He looked at me just before that final flat-line. His eyes were cognizant, pleading. He was in pain. His body was beginning to fail. His mouth opened and closed, searching for words, for a voice that had become silent. Until that moment I was certain that he had begun to suffer from brain damage, that if he survived, he would be damned to the life of a couch potato. Then he spoke. “Please. No more. No more suffering.”
It was his time and he knew it, but his family couldn’t let go, and who could blame them? One day he’s laughing and jovial, maybe playing bocce ball or poker with friends, and then he’s in the hospital struggling, in pain.
Those eyes burned in my soul and I realized that though I am not God, I couldn’t allow a man to suffer like that. This man was in pain, and he didn’t want to live out his golden years sitting in a wheelchair with a hanger of drool running down his face, burdening his poor wife and children.
I pulled the plug.
A banging sound from the patient’s room startled me from reverie.
Wasting no time, I opened my door to an empty hallway. I stepped into the room beside mine to find my patient moaning. Rushing to his aid, I asked what the problem was, but he was only capable of grunting. He felt hot to my touch. I needed a washrag and a bowl of cold water. What I really wanted was an icepack.
Down the hall I opened doors until I found the bathroom where a grimy pedestal sink stood beside an equally neglected toilet. Fortunately, there was a bowl atop the toilet with used soaps in it. After emptying the dirt-blackened soap into the sink, I cleaned the bowl and filled it with water, then returned to my patient. I found a clean terry cloth, soaked it, and then placed it on his head to calm what appeared to be a nasty fever. At this gesture he screamed as if I had placed acid or lye on an open wound.
Head whipping left to right and back again, he managed to fling the cloth onto the ground. I felt terrible about his inhumane restraint, but I wasn’t going to free his arms until I spoke with Mister Adler.
“I need to reduce the fever,” I said, hoping he would find his voice and clue me into what he was going through, but he remained mute, moaning. He appeared so uncomfortable, but I could do very little for him just then.
After a moment of standing there looking at this strange creature before me, I wondered whether it was human at all, as preposterous as that notion was. I had seen rare diseases that caused people to look like freaks of nature, but this was something unfathomable. The protrusions on his face would account for one affliction, but then there were the bright orange eyes. What about the skin? Could it be possible that he was afflicted with a laundry list of rare disorders?
I thought not.
There was something in his eyes beyond the sickly orange glow. Something desperate. Maybe even frightened. Something not seen in the average patient seeking medical help for their afflictions.
Standing over him I said, “Can you understand me?” I paused and then added, “Nod your head if you understand me.”
We were in Spain, after all, so I couldn’t be sure he spoke English. I asked him again, but he remained silent, unmoving, staring at me with those queer, sad eyes.
The ring of a bell issued from the hallway.
Dinner was ready, and I was emotionally exhausted. More so than I had expected.
I have to admit that I was pleased to see wine was served with dinner. I had never been much of a drinker, but I needed something for my nerves.
Blake had prepared the table with a blissfully fragrant array of steaming dishes fit for a king. I had to wonder whether he made such fancy feasts every night. If this was the way they ate, I was going to put on a few pounds.
There were three places set at the table, one on the end and two that faced one another. Assuming the end seat to be reserved for Mister Adler, I took one of the adjoining spaces, making no haste in grabbing the fiasco of wine and pouring myself a glass. On second thought, I poured all of us a glass. I didn’t want to give the wrong impression.
Mister Adler sauntered through the hallway with a look on his face that was almost bitter, as if there was some lingering issue that was on his mind, something he was preoccupied with. However, I did not yet know the man, so it was certainly possible that this was his natural expression.
Terrance Adler sat at the head of the table. He took in a deep snuff of our dinner and expelled a breath through his mouth. “Smells decadent,” he said. He then he looked at me and said, “Don’t expect this fare every night. I thought it would be a nice gesture for us to have a celebratory feast to start things off right, don’t you think?”
I then realized just how dry my mouth had become. I should have taken a sip of wine. “I have a lot to ask you, Mister Adler.” So nervous my voice.
“Very well. I trust you have stabilized your patient, yes?”
I took a sip of wine, a pleasant vintage, and said, “No, I haven’t, but then again how could I without the patient’s chart, or at least the equivalent information? This is not a hospital, but if you would like me to nurse…whoever that is back to health, you need to provide me with the necessary information. In my opinion, that man,” I paused, for that couldn’t be a man, “should be admitted to a hospital. He’s very sick. His fever is entering dangerous territory. I agreed to take this position to help an unfortunate who could not help himself or seek the help of medical professionals; however, I have my limits, and I will not stand by and watch my patient die. He needs to see a doctor.”
“You’re also here because of the money, are you
not?”
Anger welled inside. I could have exploded just then, but I remained calm. He had me there. I did indeed need the money, and he was paying me handsomely.
“I also know that you have your ethics,” he continued, “but I want you to understand that I cannot take him to doctors. I had thought about that and ultimately decided that if a he could not be nursed back to health, then perhaps he was better off dead.”
I just about spilled my wine. “What did you say?”
He grinned. I didn’t like that grin from the beginning, and would soon discover that it was perhaps the most insidious and evil grin that I ever had the misfortune to know.
“You do not understand, and at this point it is not for you to properly understand just who you are dealing with and who your patient is, for I hardly understand him myself. You’ve no doubt discovered that his arms are restrained, yes? Of course you have. You couldn’t possibly understand why, and I’m certain that you are intelligent enough not to have unrestrained him, right?”
I nodded, glaring. Adler had begun eating his rabbit like some starving savage, this conversation having no bearing on his voracious appetite.
“Just what have you brought me into, Mister Adler?” I asked.
“Perhaps the most amazing spectacle of life in all the world,” he said, spitting rabbit grease as he spoke. “I want you to be sure that he does not die.”
Mister Adler focused his attention on the dinner before him, cutting into tender, glazed rabbit meat as if I should be pleased to be a part of his mischievous plans, whatever they were. He was a cryptic man, perhaps better left alone.
I began eating as well, all of us in silence for just a moment before I asked, “Who is he? Where did he come from? You have to at least tell me that.”
“Why do you ask?”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I ask? He looks…well, he looks like he’s suffering from an array of disorders. How am I to nurse him to health if I don’t understand who he is and where he comes from?”
“That is a good question. What is your answer to that?”
My answer to my own question?
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t really know where he came from, and I certainly don’t know who he is.”
Mister Adler stood, his silverware tossed on the plate in a gesture that expressed what I could tell was a growing anger directed toward me due to my line of questioning as if I should just accept these ridiculous circumstances.
“You understood the circumstances—I made sure of that before I hired you—so I expect you to do your best to care for your patient. If I do not feel you’ve done your best, I will not offer you payment for your services.”
With that, he turned and fled in the direction he had come. Blake remained unfazed. The food that had smelled wonderful moments ago left a bad taste in my mouth.
I said, “If you’ll excuse me, Blake, I would like to return to my room.”
“Feel free to take your plate with you—and the wine, if you like.”
I stood and turned to walk away. My stomach rumbled and I realized that I had better take the food. I left the wine.
After reentering my room I placed the plate of food on a desk. I made a U-turn through the hallway into my patient’s room. I felt terribly confused. He was asleep, breathing hoggishly through a contorted nose. I stood there and stared, watching the chest rise and fall like a human’s. Yes, like a human’s. I was beginning to accept the possibility that this thing before me may very well be male, but was not of the human species.
What then?
The protrusions on his face, the abnormal teeth and flesh like a fish-snake hybrid. These afflictions could not be explained as an onslaught of severe medical conditions.
I returned to my room and made no haste in stuffing myself with the cold remains of my dinner. I couldn’t figure out why it was Mister Adler resisted seeking proper medical assistance. Did Adler have no other option than to hire me? And why not a doctor? Was it that this thing in the room beside me was not of this world?
No. I couldn’t convince myself of that, not then anyway. There had to be a medical explanation, but I wasn’t the one to make that diagnosis. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to remain there, but I had no choice. If I left, I would become destitute and have a life on the streets ahead of me. There was no one waiting for me back in the States. All that waited was a growing pile of bills and a tiny flat that needed dusting.
The food was blissful, but left me with a terrible thirst. I took to the hallway again. I hadn’t adjusted to the time change, but the darkness told me it was early evening. I headed toward the kitchen for a glass of water. I decided that when I returned to my room I would use the matches I had seen earlier to light one or two of the sconces.
The stone floor was cold on my bare feet. My bones ached something wicked. I came to a closed door that led to the lounge with the spiral staircase. I grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn.
Reasonable woman I am, I didn’t panic. I knocked on the door and listened, but all was silent. Too silent. It was as if there was no one in the house at all.
“Hello,” I hollered, knocking on the door again. “Can anyone hear me? The door is locked.”
No response.
“I need some water. Could someone please unlock this door?”
The hall seemed darker. I tried the doorknob again, but it remained locked. It had been open an hour ago, I was sure of it, so who had locked it?
After pounding on the door and waiting in silence, I padded my way back to my room where I produced a box of matches, lighting one of the sconces on my wall as well as the candelabra. I lit a candle in the hallway before slipping into my patient’s room.
I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Lying there helpless, bound like some kind of…freak. I couldn’t fathom using that word to describe a patient. Far too many people belittle one another because of mental disorder or even physical deformation. How could I not feel compassion for him regardless of how strange he appeared to me?
I lit a sconce, dimly illuminating the room in flickering light. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I listened to his breathing pattern. It was so unusual. The raspy quality could easily be attributed to a buildup of phlegm or even fluid in the lungs, but what I found particularly startling was the sporadic pattern as he breathed in and out. The better side of my speculative mind told me that he could be suffering from sleep apnea, but I couldn’t fool myself. Nothing about that breathing could be attributed to sleep apnea or anything else I knew of. His breathing wasn’t abnormal. It was abominable.
I needed something to do, something to take my mind off the impending reality that I was standing in a room with something inhuman. I had never been a fan of the mysterious and fantastic, science fiction and fantasy, but this situation had my mind going in so many directions I didn’t know which way was up or down.
The room was small, about the same size as mine. A table opposite the bed was topped with an array of medical supplies, haphazard and piled like an afterthought. Not so neat and tidy as Adler had insisted earlier. I took it upon myself to arrange the tools, instruments, and supplies in as similar a hospital room manner as I could, that way I would have easy access when I needed something. As I preformed this task, I used a pad of paper and a pen from my purse to make a list of supplies and drugs that I would need if I was going to attempt to nurse the thing in the bed to some semblance of health, though I must confess that I thought it was, if he had truly been something otherworldly, a lost cause.
He coughed and choked and I was at his side with a bowl and a cloth, encouraging him to vomit if necessary. My hand at the back of his head, I was shocked at how hot he was. His fever radiated, as if soaking into my fingers and through my wrist. I had intended to gently assist him in lifting his head toward the bowl and before I knew it I’d become transfixed as the heat traveled through my hand, obliterating my arthritis, warm, inviting, like dipping my arm into hot b
athwater.
I closed my eyes, alerted back to reality by a tugging on my hand as he tried to replace his head on the pillow. He stared at me with those eerie orange eyes. In them I saw understanding, realization that I was there to help.
“Rest your head,” I said in a soothing voice. My colleagues used to rib me that my voice would have been perfect for an ad spot promoting cigarettes, but I had been reassured by previous patients that it was indeed nice and soothing.
Head on the pillow, my patient huffed and grunted and for a moment I felt a pang of reservation, that perhaps I had misinterpreted his understanding of my assistance. Mouth opening and closing, he searched for something, for a voice that seemed to have been obliterated or removed. Then he uttered something harsh and swift, yet undeniable.
“Hot.”
“You’re hot? Would you like some water?”
He closed his eyes and growled then shook his head from side to side. When he opened his eyes again, he looked to my right, staring at the glowing sconce on the wall.
“Would you like more light?” I asked.
He growled the word “hot” again, and then something unintelligible, like a frustrated little boy who couldn’t find the words to properly articulate himself.
I scratched a strike-anywhere match across the stone wall of the room, preparing to light the candelabra that rested upon a stationary desk beside the rectangular foldout table that held my neat array of medical supplies. At the sight of flame my patient’s eyes grew, blazing orange to match the glow of new fire. His mouth opened, salivating as if the sight of the lit match had somehow piqued his appetite.
Turning away to light the candles, I heard him make whimpering noises. I turned back and saw a look of longing in those bizarre eyes. The flame burned down the thin length of wood, reaching toward my fingers. Did he want the flame?
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