by Francis King
‘How are you, my dear?’
‘Theo.… Do tell these people to go away. What are they doing here?’ I tried to sit up.
‘Now don’t excite yourself. You’ve been through a major operation—’ Theo always insisted on thus dignifying my trivial ailment—‘ and now need all your strength.’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll tell you later what you said when you were coming round. You were not at all the Puritan Maid that I had always taken you to be.’ In actual fact, as I later discovered from my nurses, I had said nothing at all.
There always seem to be more doctors than nurses in Greek hospitals and late that evening when my surgeon came to visit me accompanied by some half-dozen assistants, Theo was among them. He stood as they stood, his hands clasped before him and his head slightly bowed, as the surgeon examined me; then, like them, he gave a nod of the head, while the surgeon said a few words, and afterwards treated me to a brief, yet sympathetic smile. The rôle had been perfectly sustained, even to the aside with which he told my nurse to straighten my pillow.
From then on, I saw much both of him and of Götz, though they rarely came together. Theo was fascinated by the life of this vast hospital and he would wander about the public wards on the same floor as mine, chat to the patients, nurses and doctors, and then come to me to tell me about some peculiarly atrocious discovery he had made. Götz, on the other hand, loathed the place; he had a morbid horror of disease and he told me that even the smell of the entrance made him feel faint and sick. It was, therefore, a real kindness that he visited me almost daily; while for Theo I suspect that such visits were as much a treat as a duty.
Each time that Götz called he would bring some small present. Once it was some oranges, wrapped in a screw of newspaper, which cascaded over the floor under the feet of my surgeon and his assistants who were examining me at that moment; on another occasion it was a bottle of Bovril which he had bought from one of the black market stalls and which turned out to be bad; on yet another occasion it was a completely unusable foot-rest which he himself had made when I complained that my heels were getting sore. We talked about English literature (about which he knew something) and about philosophy (about which I knew nothing) and about my night nurse. It was this last topic that really interested Götz.
Stavroula came from Boeotia and she amply justified the reputation for stupidity that the Boeotians enjoyed in classical times. It was she who dosed me with salts after I had been on sulphonamide drugs for three days; with disastrous results that mystified my doctors since I was reluctantly persuaded by her not to give her away. It was, needless to say, her hand that was holding the syringe on the only occasion when a needle has broken off in my flesh. And she, of course, was the nurse who had the reputation of giving enemas and forgetting to bring the bed-pan. She was a deeply religious girl, and if I ever complained of pain, would exhort me to pray. Her arms, when she rolled up her sleeves as she frequently did, were large and muscular, and covered with black hair; she was handsome, I suppose, in an ardent, provocative way, and Götz always maintained that the moustache on her upper lip only added to her attraction. To doctors and patients alike she exhibited all that jolly archness which seems to me the best argument for being nursed by nuns.
One day rumours had come to me through other patients, who were forever drifting into my room unasked, that Stavroula had been caught by Matron the previous night in the bath with one of the surgeons, a goat-like White Russian of over sixty. I did not need to be told that she was not in the bath for the sake of cleanliness; it was obvious that she had an aversion to water. In England I imagine that after such an incident both nurse and surgeon would never have been seen again; but apart from Stavroula’s red eyes and perpetual sniff as she went about her tasks, and the overt mockery of the patients, there were no more serious consequences that I could note.
‘Poor girl,’ Götz exclaimed, when I told him the story. ‘ How horrible these Greeks are! He probably forced her to do it. And now I suppose they all despise her and look down their noses at her. What a country!’
At this moment Stavroula herself came in with the thermometer. She always refused to take my temperature in my mouth, and insisted on tucking it under my arm, on this occasion making a crude joke about the differences between the Greek, English and French methods. ‘ Time for beddy-byes,’ she said (I translate the Greek into what seems to me the nearest English equivalent). She began to sweep all my papers off my bed, inextricably confusing them as Götz leapt up to help her; soon they had the appearance of fighting for the papers over my body. ‘But keep them in order,’ I protested. ‘Keep them in order.’ The papers, the beginnings of a new novel, were placed on the seat of the commode. Götz gave Stavroula a slow grin, and she looked back at him, her arms crossed over her ample bosom, with a challenging expression that seemed to demand: ‘So what?’ He pulled out a slab of chocolate from his pocket, and offered her some.
She tossed her head, and as she plucked the thermometer from under my arm, said: ‘I don’t want to spoil my supper.’
Götz looked humbled.
‘Your friend will have to go now. I can’t have him tiring you out.’ What really tired me out, as Stavroula well knew, was her habit of playing the radio full on in the nurse’s room beside mine. ‘Tell him to run along now … I must give you your injection.’ I winced at the thought of that indifferently jabbing needle, the discomfort of which was always accompanied by Stavroula singing to herself in her deep contralto. ‘ Tell him to run along, dear—come on!’
‘He knows Greek.’
Götz was staring at Stavroula utterly bemused, but now he shook himself and picked up a pile of books he was returning to Dino for me. ‘Sorry, Sister,’ he said; it was obvious that, even in Greece, Stavroula would never be anything but a nurse. ‘We’re all glad that Mr Cauldwell finds himself in such competent hands. Well—we must soon get him well. And then the three of us ought to celebrate by going out together.’ He was backing out of the door when there was a jangle and clatter as he collided with the trolley Stravroula had left outside.
‘Mind my bottles,’ she shrilled; and as Götz loped off, muttering apologies, she added: ‘Idiot!’
‘Your friend’s not exactly a picture, is he?’ she said, as she arrived with the syringe. ‘Now over you go! … Oh, your poor little sit-upon!’ She was dabbing with cotton-wool. ‘I don’t mind going out with you, Mr Cauldwell, of course—seeing that you’ve been my patient—but I must say I was surprised at that suggestion, coming from Mr Frankenstein.‘ I wanted to tell her that it was not Frankenstein, but his monster, who was hideous, but my face was in the pillow. ‘ Now then, keep still.’ She began to trill a snatch from the film ‘The Great Waltz’ that had just been revived in Athens and then broke off to say: ‘These needles they give me! I could use them for knitting.… Now, dear, perfectly still—perfectly still!’ She jabbed, and then as she slowly withdrew the needle she said: ‘Yes, I think he’s cheeky—he’s altogether a little too cheeky. And he could do with some plastic surgery … There we are!’ The needle was at last out. ‘Now, have you been a good boy today?’
I nodded; this was a euphemism that I particularly detested.
‘Really and truly?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right.… Now remember to say your prayers! What would your mother in London think if she knew that night after night you …’
I turned my face to the wall, and drew the blanket up over my ears in an effort not to hear her. It seemed to me one of life’s typical ironies that whereas I, and most of the other male patients on the floor, had perpetually to repel Stavroula’s advances, poor Götz’s advances should in turn be repelled by her.
By now I had reached a stage when, unless I thought about it, I had ceased to notice Götz’s ugliness; and on occasions such as this, when Stavroula’s distaste had forced it on my notice, it only seemed to throw into greater contrast the quite extraordinary simplicity and goodness of his heart. Dino was equally generous, but he was aft
er all a rich man; Theo was equally attentive, but, unlike Götz, so far from feeling horror, he enjoyed visiting hospitals. Neither of the two men gave the impression, as Götz did, of sympathy in its fullest Greek sense; of suffering shared, so that one’s own physical aches and disabilities seemed to become another’s.
But I shall be chiefly grateful to Götz for what may appear to be two of the most trivial of kindnesses; for giving me the only bed-bath I ever had in hospital and for helping me to escape from hospital a week before I should. The bed-bath he gave me on the day on which I had my stitches removed. We had been playing chess, when the surgeon arrived, with his customary entourage of white-robed assistants, and Götz shambled, blushing, to his feet; unlike Theo, he was unable to face such a situation with anything but embarrassment and panic. ‘Shall I go?’ he asked, stumbling for the door.
‘Your friend can wait on the balcony—in this wonderful spring sunshine,’ my surgeon said in English. Then, as Götz went out, he turned to one of his assistants and murmured in Greek: ‘Better shut the doors. If he yells, we don’t want his friend to hear.’
I clenched my fists under the bedclothes and shut my eyes; I wished that, if I were going to yell, I might be allowed to do so before less of an audience. I began to count; conscious, at the same time, both of the cold sweat that was pricking through my skin, and of a fussing with my bandage. How long they were taking!
‘There!’ the surgeon said. Well, at least, the bandage was off; now would come the pain as the stitches were ripped out. I shut my eyes tighter, and clenched my teeth.
‘All right!’ the surgeon said. I heard instruments rattling ominously in a basin.
‘All right!’ he repeated. ‘All over!’ The stitches were already out.
There are many advantages in being ill, not in Greece, but in England; the doctors are better, the nurses more efficient, the hospitals cleaner. But there is one, to me insuperable, disadvantage: one is expected to be brave.
Götz was now by my bed, his face clammily green as he asked: ‘Was it really awful?’ He took my hand in one of his paws.’
‘Mr Cauldwell is the perfect patient,’ the surgeon said. ‘ He has great physical courage.’
It was the first time that anyone had ever said that about me, and it will probably be the last.
Götz squeezed my hand again as the entourage filed out in order of seniority: ‘Was it awful?’ he asked again.
‘Frankly, I didn’t even know it was happening.’
‘You’re vonderful! You’re so brave!’
‘But I felt horribly ashamed of being so dirty. They all looked so clean.’
‘Don’t the nurses wash you?’
‘No, never. I don’t know whether it’s laziness or excessive modesty. I suspect the former, posing as the latter.’
‘Shall I wash you?’
‘Oh, Götz, no—it’ll be far too much trouble. Thank you all the same.’ I had visions of being lifted up and down even more clumsily than when Stavroula made my bed; of water being splashed on to the blankets; even of being rolled on to the floor or having a basin spilled over me. Yet how wrong these imaginings were! Götz had worked in a military hospital in Germany during the war (‘it was the most horrible, and yet the most vonderful experience of my life’) and he now set to work with a skill and gentleness that none of my Greek nurses, and certainly not Stavroula, could ever hope to equal. He had taken off his tartan wind-jacket and there was a terrible pathos about the sweat-shirt which he wore underneath. Never had a garment been more aptly named: it had once been navy blue but now, under the arms and round the neck, sweat had stained it the colour of rust. A hole in front had been clumsily drawn together into a tight knot with some ordinary black cotton, while behind another hole had been patched with what looked like a scrap from an old woollen vest. I felt an intense pity towards him, and hated myself for feeling it.
‘How kind you are, Götz!’
He said nothing but, quietly absorbed, went on with his task of soaping my body.
I had hoped to leave hospital before the last week of Lent, but further complications had started and it now seemed as if I might even be there for Easter. Boredom and irritation set in. Instead of laughing at the cheerful inefficiency of the nurses, I now wanted to curse; my injections, instead of being an uncomfortable nuisance, had become a dreaded ordeal which prevented me from going to sleep; and, worse even than the sound of Stavroula playing the radio, church services had begun to be held in the corridors at all hours of the day and night. At first the nurses had wanted to wheel my bed out into the corridor so that I could be present at these services; then, when I refused, they would deliberately leave my door open so that all the sounds could reach me. Finally, when I used to shout for the door to be closed, they would ask the priest to call in on me before he left the floor; and I would blink up crossly at him, a book on my stomach, as he murmured some prayers, made the sign of the cross over me, and shook incense about the room, as though he were exorcising a devil. I became increasingly depressed.
‘I shall never get out of here,’ I said to Götz. ‘And tomorrow is Good Friday. I was given boiled fish and yoghurt today, and yesterday, and the day before. Why should I have to fast? It’s not even our Easter yet.’
Theo, who was with Götz, said: ‘You sound just like a minor character in a Russian play.’
‘We must get you out at once,’ Götz said decisively. ‘All you need is to be taken away from this place. Of course you can’t get well here.… Where is your surgeon?’
‘My surgeon?’ It was then five o’clock in the evening.
‘Is he still in hospital? And if not, where can we find him?’
‘I suppose he’s at home now.’
‘Where is his home?’
I had never known Götz show so much decision.
‘Voucharestiou 112. But, Götz, he’ll never let me out.’
‘Why not? I’ll say that you want to be home for Easter. Every Greek understands that.’ He lowered his enormous bulk on to my creaking bed and said earnestly: ‘ Look, Dino has said that as soon as you leave hospital, you can go straight to him. You‘ ll be much more comfortable there, won’t you?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘First point. Second point, I shall come and nurse you. I can do that better than Stavroula—can’t I? Even if—’ his face collapsed into a grin—‘ there are some respects in which I cannot hope to equal her. Right?’
‘Right,’ I said dubiously.
‘Good. Now you’ve finished your injections and you’re out of danger. So there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t lie in bed at Dino’s instead of here. Right?’
‘Personally I think it’s unwise to——’ Theo began.
But Götz overwhelmed him. ‘I shall go and see old Doctor what’s-his-name now. You’d better come with me, Theo.’
More than an hour later Götz rushed into my room, followed by Theo; shouting: ‘All right, you can go!’ he began to fling my clothes into the suitcase he had dragged from under my bed. ‘ We’ve telephoned Dino, and everything will be ready. He’s sending the car round.’
‘Have you told the matron?’
‘I told someone in the hall.’
‘I think this is most unwise,’ Theo said. ‘Dr Kolliacopoulos was obviously doubtful whether, after a major operation like yours——’
‘What a wonderful tie!’ With an almost child-like pleasure Götz ran to the window and held it against his tartan wind-jacket, turning it this way and that so that the late evening sunlight glinted on the silk threads. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Do you like it?’ It had just arrived, belatedly, as a Christmas present from Italy. ‘Somehow it doesn’t suit me. You can have it, if you wish.’
‘May I——? Oh, no, I couldn’t! Really, I couldn’t!’
‘Don’t be silly. Take it, please.’
After a brief tussle, Götz slipped the tie into his pocket and went on with the job of packing my things. A trolley jangled in the
corridor outside, the door was flung open and Stavroula came in. She looked in amazement: ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded at last.
‘Your patient is leaving you, Sister,’ Götz said. He always blushed to a fiery red when confronted by her.
‘What! … Are you mad? He’s not leaving until next Monday.’
‘Ring up and ask the doctor.’
‘But he can’t leave now.’
‘Why not?’
‘The male nurses are all off duty. How’s he going to get to the lift? He can’t walk there.’
‘I shall carry him.’
As inevitably happens when there is an argument in Greece, other people now began to appear as though some sixth sense had drawn them to the scene. Patients, nurses, maids, visitors, even the barber with a silver jug of hot water steaming in one hand: one by one they looked in, listened and then added their voices to the general uproar. Götz continued to pack stolidly as they argued with each other. Finally, even a priest appeared, to rattle a collecting box before me.
When he had finished the packing, Götz handed the case to Theo and then, wrapping me in a blanket, lifted me in his arms and made for the door. Bound as in a cocoon, I felt like some monstrously over-grown baby. Stavroula rushed at me. ‘Get down!‘ she shouted. ‘Get back to bed! Do you want to kill yourself?’ She began to pluck at the blanket about me in a feverish effort to catch hold of my arms. ‘ Let go!’ Theo shouted at her, and she shouted back: ‘You want to murder him! That’s what it is—you want to murder him!’