Michael Moorcock: A Cure for Cancer

']a,' she said, a depraved look appearing momentarily in her eyes.

'Do you speak English,' said Jerry lazily, 'Southern English?'

'Ja, of course.' She looked him over slowly and with a certain amount of awakening surprise, as if she had not at first been struck by his black skin and his turban. What had been her first impression? Jerry wondered.

Cornelius put his hand to his cheek. 'I was going through Nibelburg,' he told the girl, 'when I was overcome with toothache. I inquired at the police station and they told me that I would find a dentist here.'

'And more,' said the girl mysteriously, standing aside to let him enter and gesturing vaguely with the dildo in her left hand.

When he stood in the polished oak hall, she closed the door with a crash and popped the dildo into the umbrella stand, folding her hands under her breasts and looking down at the floor.

'You wish to see Doctor von Krupp?' she said at length.

'I believe that is the name I was given.'

The girl raised her perfect eyebrows. 'But your first name?'

'It's Michael,' he said. 'I call myself Mike.'

'This way.' She began to walk along the hall; paused at the stone, oak-banistered stairway until he had caught up with her, and then began to ascend.

On the fourth landing, the girl stopped and knocked gently at the only door. A voice came from the other side. Jerry couldn't hear the words. The girl turned the handle and they wandered in together, into a high-ceilinged surgery with a large window of rich, stained glass — a pastoral scene from the sixteenth century. The glass was exquisite and Jerry stared at it for several seconds before he saw the luxurious dentist's chair, the chrome-finished instrument stand, the dentist, at a desk in one corner, looking through a stack of index cards.

'Herr Michael von Krupp,' said the girl. 'A toothache.'

'Aserinsky,' said Jerry.

Doctor von Krupp smiled condescendingly and spoke in German: 'You must leave, liebchen.' The girl glanced through narrowed eyes at Jerry and then went out.

Dr Karen von Krupp was about thirty in a stiff, black and white paisley overall, black net stockings and purple charley boots. Her hair was a deep, dark red, very thick and wavy, worn at shoulder length. Her face was strong, with pronounced cheek-bones, intelligent and attractive. Her lipstick almost matched her shoes and her eyebrows were pencilled thin to match her hair. She spread back her overall to put her hands on her hips and revealed a dress of layered chiffon that was predominantly bottle-green, its hem six inches above the knees of her long, well-shaped legs. Her taste, thought Jerry, was dreadful, but splendid.

'It is Herr Michael Aserinsky?' the woman asked, smiling once.

'It is.' He admired her figure. 'A toothache.'

']a, ja.' She turned and began to pack the index cards into a box on the desk. Jerry took off his coat.

'Will you go and sit in the chair, please.'

'Well.' Jerry wondered why he was here.

'And remove your — hat,' she said firmly, then laughed.

'No,' he said.

'But you must.' She looked over her shoulder, staring hard, smiling again. 'Otherwise, you see, I cannot get a proper grip on you.'

'My political convictions...'

'You have some?'

'Forbid me, doctor, from removing my turban in the presence of a woman. I hadn't realized...'

'Ah,' she closed the lid of the box, 'so,' began buttoning up her overall. 'Still, Herr Aserinsky, you must decide whether you would feel in health in this world or suffer a moment or two somewhere else.'

Jerry's hand began to move towards his vibragun, but he stopped it with great self-control. 'Well, perhaps you could first look at the tooth and tell me what you think needs work. Then we can decide.'

'But you could be making me waste my time.' She shrugged. 'Very well, into the chair, sir.'

He clambered warily into the chair and rested his head back so that he was looking at the upper part of the stained glass window and a section of the drilling rig.

'You like my window?' She picked up a barbed tool from the tray of instruments. 'Open wide, please,' and she began to poke and scrape at his teeth. 'What do you think about cocaine?'

He blinked.

When she stepped back she was smiling. 'Black teeth. Like black marble. Curious.'

'You noticed?' He tried to rise. 'The pain's gone now. Psychosomatic, I suppose.'

'You're an expert at that, aren't you?'

'Um,' he said.

'Why have you got black teeth, then? Painted with white enamel by the look of it...'

'Bored with them...'

'I think not. Re-born, perhaps.'

Jerry's hand fled into his jacket and grasped the butt of the vibragun. 'Dancing was never more disgusting than when done by Kelly, eh?'

'I'm with you there.'

He felt sick. He poised himself to jump from the chair, noticing how beautiful she was. He fell in love with her.

'Why did you come here?' She replaced the hooked instrument on the tray and looked down into his eyes. She did something to the chair and he was tilted back even farther. His fingers fell limply from the gun-butt. Her face came closer, the lips opening to show large, even teeth (two of them gold) and a huge, curling tongue.

He dropped his hand away from the gun altogether. It went out, instead, to grasp her thigh, feeling the ridge of a suspender belt beneath the thin material of dress and overall.

She kissed him coarsely.

'Oh,' he said. He still felt sick. He was breathing heavily.

'Ah,' he said as she drew back. 'Who cares?'

An unpleasant whine from outside. The blonde girl came in. 'Rockets,' she said.

There was a crash from below.

'No warheads,' said Jerry, getting up, drawing his gun and putting his arm round Karen von Krupp's shoulders. 'Pack a bag, doctor.' He pulled on his coat.

'That's real Panda, isn't it?' she asked, fingering it. 'Where did it come from — Moscow or London?' Another rocket whined in and grazed the roof. 'Ouch,' she said. 'Perhaps my husband...'

'Pack a bag. We'll go to Paris.'

'Wait a moment, then.'

'Time flies,' said Jerry.

'And who, these days, knows his name?' smiled Karen von Krupp tenderly as the crystal city became distinct ahead.

Left fingertips on her knee, right on the wheel, Jerry cruised at ninety towards Paris. 'There is something,' he said, 'concerning Russia. But what about America?'

'I don't know what you mean, darling.' She drew on her long cigarette holder one last puff and threw the whole contraption from the window. 'Well, that over.'

'Something's going on,' he said.

'Always. And was it not you, anyway, who engineered the Moscow thing?'

'Possibly,' said Jerry frowning desperately, glancing behind him at the blonde girl who, pouting disinterestedly, lounged in the back seats. 'You'd better change into an ankle-length skirt. You know what they're like in the Three Republics about that sort of thing.' He touched a stud and the glass partion slid down, allowing her to crawl into the back of the car. The blonde girl moved over and looked out of the window.

While she changed he looked at his map for the best route into Paris.

In the rearview mirror he noticed that Bishop Beesley had caught up with him again for there was the silver Cadillac spinning along behind them, a fat, pasty figure at the wheel. Jerry blacked out the back windows.

'That's clever,' she said, struggling into a long, bottle-green skirt. He wondered if all her skirts were bottle-green and all her shoes purple. It indicated an interest in Ouspensky, at very least.

In Paris they were just in time to watch the presidents ride by, their white horses wading, sometimes swimming, through the watery street, sending up a fine, bright spray in the pale sunshine.