Stanislaw Lem - Hospital of the Transfiguration

“Who was it, Suzanna?”

“The Lord Jesus. He came at night.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He crawled into my bed and…” And she described sexual intercourse in the most vulgar terms, looking curiously at Stefan, as if to say, “And what do you think of that?”

Stefan froze and was so embarrassed that he didn’t know where to look. Nosilewska took out a small cigarette case, offered him one, took one for herself, and began asking the patient for details. Stefan’s hands shook so much as he tried to light her cigarette that he broke three matches. When Nosilewska asked him to check the patient’s reflexes, he did it awkwardly. Then the nurse, who had been standing by impassively, took the patient by the arm, lifted her out of her chair like a sack of laundry, and led her out.

“Paranoia,” said Nosilewska. “She has frequent hallucinations. You don’t have to write it all down, of course, but a few words would be in order.”

The next patient, a fat woman with reddish-gray hair, made countless fidgety gestures, as if trying to break free of the girl who held her from behind by the folds of her robe. She talked nonstop, a stream of nonsensically strung-together words that flowed on even when the doctor was asking her a question. Suddenly she jerked more violently, and despite himself Stefan flinched. Nosilewska ordered her taken away.

The third patient was barely human. A thick, cloying stench preceded her. It would not have been easy to guess the sex of the tall, wretched creature. Bluish skin on a shriveled frame showed through the holes in her robe. Her face was large, bony, and blunt as a scarecrow’s. Nosilewska said something Stefan couldn’t catch, and the patient, who had been standing stiffly with her arms at her sides, began to speak.

“ Menin aeide thea …” She was reciting the Iliad , accenting the hexameters properly.

After the nurse took the patient away, Nosilewska told Stefan, “She has a Ph.D. For a while she was catatonic. I wanted you to see her, because she’s pretty much a textbook case: perfectly preserved memory.”

Stefan couldn’t help saying, “But the way she looked…”

“It’s not our fault. I used to give her clean clothes, but a few hours later she’d look exactly the same. You can’t have a nurse standing over every coprophagic, especially these days. I’m going over to the pharmacy now, but you write out the case histories. Enter the dates and numbers in the book. Unfortunately, we have to take care of that administrative formality ourselves.”

Stefan yearned to ask whether the sort of obscenity the first patient had used was common, but the question would have revealed his inexperience, so he held his tongue. Nosilewska left. He riffled through the papers. When he was finished, he had to force himself to get up and leave. Women were walking around. Some were giggling as they dressed up with scraps of paper, strips of rag, and string. In the comer was a bed with screens at the side and cords across the top. It was empty. As Stefan walked along the wall, instinctively trying to keep Ms back to the patients, he heard a scream of despair. He looked through a thick portal set into a small door. It was an isolation cell. The naked woman inside was throwing her body against the padded walls as if it were a sack. Her eyes met Stefan’s and she froze. For an instant she was a normal human being, ashamed of her terrible situation and her nakedness. Then she seemed to murmur something and came closer. When her face was up against the glass, her long gray hair falling across it, she opened her braised lips and licked the pane with her lacerated tongue, leaving streaks of pink-tinged saliva.

Stefan fled, unable to control himself. He heard a scream. In a bathroom, a nurse was trying to force a howling and fiercely struggling patient into a tub. Her legs glowed bright red: the water was too hot. Stefan told the nurse to make it cooler. He knew he had been too polite, but he felt he could not reprimand her. It was too soon for that, he thought.

A third room was filled with snoring, rattling, and wheezing. Women suffering from insulin shock lay in bed, covered with dark blankets. Here and there a pale blue eye followed Stefan with an insect’s vacant gaze. Someone’s fingers clutched his smock. Back in the corridor, he ran into Staszek.

Stefan’s face must have looked different, because his friend slapped him on the shoulder and said, “So how was it? For God’s sake don’t take it all so seriously.” He noticed wet stains under Stefan’s arms.

With relief Stefan told him about what the first patient said and how the others looked. It had been so horrible.

“Don’t be childish,” Staszek said. “It’s only the symptoms of disease.”

“I want to get out of here.”

“The women are always worse. I was just talking to Pajpak, because I could see it coming.” Stefan noticed with satisfaction that Staszek was using his influence. “But Nosilewska really is all alone here, and she needs help. Stay with her a week to make it look good, and then we’ll get you transferred to Rygier. Or maybe—wait a minute, that’s an idea. You assisted Włostowski as an anesthesiologist, didn’t you?”

In fact, Stefan had been good at anesthesia.

“The thing is, Kauters has been complaining that he doesn’t have anybody.”

“Who?”

“Doctor Orybald Kauters,” Staszek intoned. “Interesting name, isn’t it? He looks Egyptian, but supposedly he’s descended from the Courlandian nobility. A neurosurgeon. And not bad.”

“Yes, that would be better,” Stefan said. “At least I’d learn something. Because here…” he waved his hand.

“I wanted to warn you earlier, but there was no time. The nurses are completely unqualified, so they are a little callous, a little brutal. In fact, they do some pretty rotten things.”

Stefan interrupted to tell him about the nurse who almost scalded a patient.

“Yes, that happens. You have to keep an eye on them, but basically—well, you know how people are. Behind one’s choice of a profession, there can be aberrant emotions…”

“There’s an interesting question,” Stefan said. He was looking for an excuse not to go back to the ward and wanted to talk. They were standing under a corridor window. “A free choice of professions sounds like a good thing,” he said, “but really it’s only the law of random distribution in a large population that guarantees that all important social positions will be filled. Theoretically, it could happen that no one would want to work in the sewers, for example. Then what? Would they be drafted?”

“It’s worked so far. The random distribution hasn’t failed. Actually, this is one of Pajpak’s favorite themes. I’ll have to tell him.” Staszek smiled, showing teeth yellowed by nicotine. “He says it’s a good thing people are so unintelligent. ‘Nothing but university professors—that would be a n-n-nightmare. Who would sweep the streets?’” Staszek intoned, imitating the old man’s voice.

But Stefan was getting bored with this too.

“Will you come back to the ward with me? I want to take the case histories up to my room. I guess one should be able to write in the ward, but I can’t with that door behind me.”

“What door?”

“I keep feeling they’re standing behind me, looking through the keyhole.”

“Hang a towel over the door,” Staszek said so matter-of-factly that Stefan felt reassured; Staszek must have gone through the same thing.

“No, I’d rather do it this way.”

They went back to the duty room, and to get there they had to pass through the three women’s rooms. A tall blonde with a ruined, terrified face called Stefan aside as if he was a stranger she was asking for help on the street instead of a doctor.