Maud Casey - The Man Who Walked Away

Prick. Prick. Prick.

Prick. Prick. Prick.

The prick, prick, prick of the pin against the Doctor’s wrist. and Albert found himself once again in the foothills where the old women searched for healing herbs so rare they only have names in Catalan. Prick, prick, prick , and he discovered himself, not knowing how he got there, in a public square in Pau.

“Here, my friend,” said a well-scrubbed man with large, kind ears, and he gave Albert a kilogram of bread and twenty sous.

“Thank you, my friend,” replied Albert, though he wasn’t sure if he had ever met the man before. Better my friend than to be impolite. He wiggled his toes through the leaves stuffed into his battered shoes— there you are, there you are— and the well-scrubbed man told him about the centuries-old ancient cure the old women made from the nectar of the flowers that grew on the hill.

Ancient cure was all he needed to hear; it was all he had ever wanted.

He walked until he found himself in the foothills of the Pyrénées; on the honey pots was written les petits pharmiciens. Little doctors! The Pyrénées were truly magnificent! He stuck his fingers into the honey, plunged his hand up to the wrist, his arm coated in the thick amber drawn by the industrious bees from the nectar of the mysterious flowers. Sucking his honeyed fingers until they pruned, he sucked the ancient cure until he had sucked away all traces of the magic sweetness.

On that stony hill with the little doctors, his own sweet fingers in his mouth, it seemed, it appeared. . here he was, he was here. The ghost of sweetness in his mouth was an ache in his teeth. Here I am. No trembling. Here I am. No want in his bones.

When the first bee fastened itself to his lip, he thought, The little doctors have arrived. He was so ready for the ancient cure. But then the swarm began to prick him. Prick , up his arms. Prick , his face. Prick , along his jaw. Prick , inside his mouth where their furry legs found their footing, and prick, prick, prick .

He ran down the hill, stung and stung and stung. When the old women searching among the rocks looked up, what they saw was an exuberant man, arms waving, trampling their precious flowers. “Hey! Hey! Stop!” the women called after him, mistaking his shouts of terror for the recklessness of a honey thief.

“Careless man!” they shouted.

Albert was a deserter, the veteran was right, but Albert was not merely a deserter from the army. He deserted everything and everyone. Careless man, and he found himself once again walking in formation. Out of a morning mist, his friend’s familiar face marching next to him. So thin, as though Baptiste had just squeezed himself between the bars of a banister, his pinched body one enormous held breath. When he saw Albert, he let the breath out as though he had only been waiting for Albert to appear. Winter was brutal and cutting as they walked without good coats, the only sound their shoes wearing away on the road. Still, Here is my friend , he thought, but it didn’t matter because there was the tremble in the arch of his foot. The urge to walk returned, and he woke up into another day, not knowing how he got there, and Baptiste was gone. As quickly as he could he retraced his steps through the snow, his toes burning with cold even wrapped in the strips of wool he tore from his jacket. One kilometer and then two and then three, and there was his friend limping along, his face and his pinched body, that enormous held breath, turning blue. Here is love , he thought, but it didn’t matter. The urge returned, and again he woke, not knowing how he got there, somewhere else entirely. He was in Maastricht and his friend had disappeared. Have you seen a man? Thin? He sucked in his face until he thought he might swallow himself and a woman said, “Oh, him ,” and pointed down the road.

When he arrived at the home of the doctor who took Baptiste in, it was too late. He had already died of exhaustion.

The fragile thread from the past to the present snapped.

What was the question?

Through nameless towns Albert walked until his tears became the weather itself, raining down on him.

This was the curse for which there was no ancient cure.

Ring ( shadow ring ). I will be right back . Lying on his bed, ring ( shadow ring ), ring ( shadow ring ), ring ( shadow ring ), he watches through the window the sun moving across the sky without realizing he is watching it. It is as if he is being drawn up into the sky until there is only sky and the Doctor isn’t back and he isn’t and he isn’t.

He is a deserter, and now the Doctor has deserted him — isn’t this what he deserved?

It is only when Nurse Anne appears in his room, swiping the dust off his bedside table with her hand, that Albert realizes hours have passed.

“This isn’t Versailles. Lunch will not be brought to you on a platter.”

He is afraid to ask her where the Doctor has gone. If he doesn’t ask and if no answer is spoken maybe it won’t be real, like one of Walter’s fleetingly improvised concoctions.

“Coming?”

“Yes, yes,” and he is grateful for the arm she offers.

At the table, secure between the warmth of Marian and Walter, he arranges his food in such a way as to make it appear eaten.

“I will have that,” Elizabeth says.

“Here,” Albert offers.

“You are just like my brother,” she says. “So generous.”

For a moment Albert wonders if he has woken up into another life in which he is simply someone’s brother.

“No, Elizabeth,” Nurse Anne says. “One dinner is plenty.” She nods at Rachel’s plate, where usually half of the meal remains. “One and a half .”

“Help me with my puzzle?” Elizabeth asks when the plates are cleared and lunch is done.

“He is not your brother,” says Marian.

“You think I am nobody,” Elizabeth says. “I’ve had shocking dreams, you know. Even you would be afraid.”

But Albert wants to wait in his room while the smell of the Doctor’s pomade still hangs in the air. He will be right back.

“He has divine urgencies of his own,” Marian says to Elizabeth.

“I am feeling a bit dizzy,” Albert says.

He walks as quickly as one can who has claimed to be dizzy. In his room, the smell of the Doctor’s pomade is beginning to fade and the stench of his own forgetting has returned. Before he shuts the door, he hears the rumble of an argument down the hall, and then the veteran’s voice grows loud enough to be audible. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know what you said.” It is Walter. “You know what you said to him. You’ve upset him. You have frightened the hunger out of him.”

“Walter,” says Marian. “We are wasting an opportunity for me to go outside.”

“Why would I be thinking of someone who isn’t worthy of my thoughts?” the veteran says. “I am not thinking of anything but what is in front of me. And I’m not even thinking of that because that would be you.”

“I will join you, Marian,” Walter says.

“Listen, you,” the veteran says.

Listen.

And into the room comes Albert’s father’s voice. Il revient. Il revient.

Here, Albert, a story just for you.

The prince with one swan wing woke to discover a young woman standing over him, carrying an armful of chopped wood and a concerned look on her face.

“Perhaps you should see a doctor?” she said. “You don’t look very well.”