Nathaniel Rich - The Mayor's Tongue

"Rutherford must be in stable condition," says Mr. Schmitz to his silent companion. He is trying hard to keep his spirits high.

A minute later, the man with the broken arm returns to the waiting room. The arm is in the same awkward position, but now a white bandage is tied around it from elbow to shoulder, cinched in a bow. He thanks the nurse and, after pausing to brace himself against the wall for support, he slowly makes his way out of the waiting room, sighing quietly in brave, shut-eyed agony.

"Some doctor," says Daniel, thumbing open the page of another fashion glossy.

"If you don't want to be here, you can leave, I don't care at all."

Daniel pauses to consider Mr. Schmitz's offer.

"He thought I was his son," he finally says. "But I'm not his son, of course. I was born to a poor woman in an industrial park outside of Brescia. She wept when I left for Milan, but I knew I could make a better living in a big city. This man who thought I was his son— your friend — cooked for me. He let me use the shower, too — even his nail clippers. He gave me money to buy food. He trusted me, man to man. So I listened to his stories."

"Stories?"

"Yeah, stories. Stories about the woman, his wife. Who died with his son."

"Carlita."

"I listened to the stories, and he took care of me."

"But what did he want from you?"

"He was haunted. He told me all about the woman, Carlita, and he thought he could see her still. He would notice some lady at a café and think it was her. It was worse when he got sick, when he started to speak more Italian — and forget English. He finally stopped living the apartment, but every time he looked out the window he saw her in the street. Though anyone who wasn't old and blind and crazy could see that they were all different women and none of them his dead wife."

"So you. . took care of him?"

"I had my reasons for staying there," says Daniel, grinning like he has a happy secret. He turns his attention to the magazine on his lap; the cover story is about some famous old American writer who has just died in Italy. He opens to a two-page spread of a young Italian film actress, photographed while sunbathing topless on a private beach in Ibiza.

"What are you saying?" asks Mr. Schmitz. A fury runs through him like an electrical charge.

"His downstairs neighbor. She was older than me, maybe twenty-five, thirty. She once came up to see how the old man was feeling. She had heard him fall to the floor, during one of his attacks." "What attacks?" "I lied to her and said he was fine — that he was my grandfather and I would inherit all his money, as soon as he croaked. She slapped me. Can you believe it? But soon I was fucking her in the old man's living room while he was passed out. She knew to come upstairs when she heard the sound of his fat ass dropping against her ceiling. She'd tell her parents that she was going to help the old man. But I'd be waiting at the door for her."

Mr. Schmitz struggles to understand, and wonders whether his weak Italian is responsible for his confusion. Daniel, meanwhile, has become uncharacteristically still. When he speaks again, he uses a clear, measured tone that invests his features with a nobility Mr. Schmitz has not observed there before.

"If he got on my nerves with his fantasies and blabber, I'd bring on an attack. I would call him to the window and point out a woman in the street, and I'd ask him if he recognized her. 'Is it Carlita?' he'd ask, all foolish. He'd point his finger at her, and sometimes bang his flabby arms against the glass, and finally start his convulsions. I was nice, though. When he fell, I caught him and guided him to the bed. And then I myself would do a cannonball on the floor to get my girlfriend's attention and soon I'd hear her footsteps on the stairs."

"Rutherford — he would fall down often?"

"He might have stopped believing me about seeing Carlita, but by then he was too tired to leave his bed. I would cannonball myself anyway and the girl would come up and I'd take her onto the couch in the front room. I'd hush her up at first, put my hand over her mouth so her screams wouldn't wake him up. But then we stopped caring. I think the old man secretly loved it. Lying there in his stupor, he probably imagined it was him and his dead puttana."

"He was my friend," says Mr. Schmitz in English, turning away from Daniel. He can think of nothing else to say, and is overcome by a fatigue so thick and woolly that he begins to slide down in his seat. His knees flex and buckle just in time to prevent his body from sliding onto the linoleum floor. For the first time he feels the weight of his mission — the puddles and marshes and the ocean he crossed and the cold sweat of long-distance travel that clings to his underclothes and makes his skin clammy.

"Finally, one time, he managed to get off his ass and dawdle down the hall, where he caught us in the act. The slob probably got the whole dirty view. In his imbecility he started shouting the name of his dead wife — Carlita, Carlita — like she was a dog that had run away from him in the street. The girl screamed and rushed out of the apartment, and the old man began to cry. He mumbled something about his life feeling unnatural and strange. Then he went back to his bed and didn't move for a couple of days. That's where you found him.

"This is the first time he's been out of bed since. I hope he gets better.

I like his apartment. I like his neighbor."

"He was my friend."

With a shudder, Mr. Schmitz slaps Daniel in the face. The boy blinks in surprise, and then grins.

"Get out of here," says Mr. Schmitz, glaring darkly at the teenager. "Go back to the apartment."

Daniel is gone when the nurse reappears. Her arms are outstretched in a gesture of benediction. Signor Rutherford is ready to be seen, she says. Mr. Schmitz follows her to a room at the end of the hall where Rutherford lies on a hospital bed, covered by thin paper sheets. His arm is tethered to an intravenous bag. There is a black LED screen on the wall over the bed, like a headboard, casting pale electric green light down onto Rutherford's face, which his stroke has hollowed into a rare and uncanny topography. It is troubling to see that Rutherford bears a greater likeness to Agnes in the months before she died than to his previous self. Mr. Schmitz knows better than to blame Daniel. But if it is not Daniel's fault — may he suffer worse than a thousand infarctions — then whose is it?

Mr. Schmitz leans over the bed, so close that his breath moistens Rutherford's cheek. Nerves jump in Rutherford's eyelids, and Mr. Schmitz is sure he has animated some part of his friend that has fallen dormant. Then the nurse orders Mr. Schmitz to stand back from the patient, and Rutherford's eyelids freeze over once more. The brainwave monitor pops erratically, and the nurse bows her head in pity and leaves the room.

As soon as the door closes, Mr. Schmitz notices a change. The monitor seems to respond to his voice, and whenever he says Rutherford's name, the green line spikes. Mr. Schmitz repeats his friend's name over and over with increasing volume and frequency, until the LED screen looks like an emerald crown. Even when the nurse orders Mr. Schmitz to leave, he's ecstatic at the thought that he has found a new way to communicate with his friend. Because there is so much that Mr. Schmitz needs to tell him.

The rock faces stood as high and sturdy as two adjacent skyscrapers. Eugene and Keftir followed a corkscrew path between them. Eugene feared that Keftir might stumble, but the blind man swatted at him every time Eugene extended a hand. Keftir seemed to know the way by heart. He stepped cleanly over obstacles without even tapping them aside with his cane.