Paul Theroux - Hotel Honolulu

She didn't know that the invasive procedure was Buddy's way of ridding himself of her.

Dr. Miyazawa pronounced the operation a success, but before Buddy was sent home, the doctor sat with him and Pinky in the hospital room and gave them instructions.

"I must tell you that this procedure will not be a complete success until you strengthen your lungs." The doctor gave Pinky the diet Buddy had to follow and described the exercises. "Use the treadmill. Deep breathing. Get your heart rate up. And especially no drinking."

Buddy nodded solemnly, so did Pinky, and with the doctor lecturing them, they were exactly what they had seemed — children, with the same faces that children put on when they are being scolded by an adult.

Hearing "no drinking," Buddy immediately wanted to sneak a drink, and this made Pinky conspiratorial.

"Only one, to celebrate," Buddy said when he got home. Already Pinky was pouring it, because she was afraid of him, Buddy told himself.

Ihe vodka tasted as sharp and beneficial as medicine.

She was afraid — of course she was. He knew that. But he wished to be rid of her anyway, because he needed her so badly. As long as she was needed, the operation was a failure. And still she sat by him, frowning each time he said, "Give me another one, just a little one this time."

"I can breathe," Buddy said, though he was so overwhelmed by the drama of the operation he could not manage anything else. He looked in wonderment upon a world that seemed new to him. Now he dared to hope for more, because he felt he was going to live. His boozing proved it.

Pinky repeated her ambiguous promise: "I take care for you."

Buddy filled his lungs again without much effort. The air was like hope entering his body. He said, "I'm going to be all right."

His hospital stay had been misery. His other operations had not prepared him for this ordeal. To get at his chest cavity, four of his ribs had to be sawed through. The incision was a vicious cut, chest to back and under his arm, like a gory sash. As soon as the anesthesia wore off, he began coughing, and he thought the cut would burst. He was fussed over by masked white-capped aliens. One gave him his stuffed Wile E. Coyote to cling to. When he was able to sit up, he was told to blow into a plastic tube that had a ball inside. Blowing hard, he got the little plastic ball to rise to the top of the tube. The aliens praised him for this, but then he coughed even more, bringing up from his lungs flotsam of evillooking dried blood and dead tissue. But he had survived. He was a new man, and he wanted his world renewed, to reflect this rebirth. No sooner was he home than he began talking of buying a fancier house. He boasted openly, in front of

Pinky, of divorcing her and sending her back to Manila with her relations, of finding a surf bunny, a coconut princess. He bought a new BMW. And: "I should put the hotel on the market. That land's worth a fortune."

"Do you think you'll do it?" I asked, fearing for my job.

"I haven't currently made a determination."

That way of speaking was also a weird novelty, something to do with Buddy's operation and aftercare — his Latinate vocabulary another sign that he was throwing his weight around.

"But in my judgment it's worth contemplating," he said.

Anyone listening to him now was uncomfortably aware of being dispensable. Even I felt it, and was surprised and ashamed of my insecurity. The prospect of my having to prove myself made me face the fact that I had no practical skills. In Pinky's eyes, bloodshot with sleeplessness, I saw a greater fear. Her ruthless tenacity, her eagerness to prove her worth to Buddy, made her my rival. She quarreled with me and tried to put me in the wrong.

The lung operation had first frightened Buddy, and then had made him fearless. The invasive procedure had changed him, cut fear out of him, introduced hope and sewed it up. He was surprised and relieved; he was saved. Though he had always been sentimental, he had no natural piety, so his survival made him arrogant and more obnoxious. From being a boisterously contented man, counting his blessings in a shouting voice, he now spoke of radical changes. His operation had been like a near-death experience. He had seen the truth of the world; he said he now knew what mattered. "Rejuvenated" was a word he used. He became pompous and wordy, with at times an incomprehensible garrulity.

"At this juncture, I want everyone out of my face."

"Dad hybolic," his son Bula said. "That no good fo us."

"Currently, I require personal space. Elbowroom, if you will."

The only hint of indecision in this new, robust Buddy with puffing lungs was his choosing which changes to make first. Pinky took comfort from that. So did everyone who knew him, including me. "Don't be rash," I said, fearing that I might lose my job. I resolved to become a better hotel manager. Pinky sidelined Evie, who had not visited Buddy's bedroom ("No can sleep, meesta") since before the operation. Pinky made the visits now, rekindling Buddy's sexual interest. Her job, her future, depended on it.

Buddy felt so energetic that he put off his exercise, avoided the treadmill, drank much more, and puffed a cigarette now and then. He was indignant when anyone called attention to his habits.

"Do you realize what I've endured?" he said. "I've been through hell, for want of a better word."

That also, his expression "for want of a better word," was new. Like "if you will," it made me smile, but still I was worried about my job.

To help Buddy regain full use of his lungs, the doctor had given him an oxygen bottle. Pinky lugged it around, and every so often Buddy would say, "I need another hit."

"Are you doing your exercises?" Dr. Miyazawa asked at Buddy's first post-op checkup, and Buddy said, "At this juncture, yes," because he felt so much better than before.

The doctor examined him, tapped his chest, slid the smooth cold medallion of the stethoscope across his back, cueing him to breathe; yanked a rubber tube around his arm, cinching it until Buddy's hand was numb, and took his blood pressure; looked down his throat and shone a light into his ears.

"No drinking? No smoking?" the doctor asked in a cautioning tone, delicately broaching the subject. "You sure?"

"Nothing!" Buddy said, much too loudly, showing his tongue, like a child protesting because he is in the wrong.

"This true?" the doctor asked Pinky.

She who poured the double vodkas, she who lit the cigarettes said, "True."

"Remember, this operation only works if you do exactly as you're told," the doctor said. "The exercises. No alcohol or tobacco. Or else catastrophic obliteration of lung."

Tinkering with his body was Buddy's pleasure and preoccupation.

Like the best hobbies, the pastime educated him, made him bold, and gave him something to talk about. Ihe doctor said that he might feel a little weak at the outset, so Buddy bought a wheelchair, which he pushed himself, manipulating the wheels, Pinky following behind with the oxygen tank. Not long afterward, Buddy demanded that Pinky push him. She obliged and steered him briskly through the hotel, seeming to enjoy seeing Buddy's employees, me especially, jump out of the path of Buddy's oncoming chaig his big feet splayed like a cowcatcher.

On that first occasion, in town for the checkup, Buddy had Pinky wheel him into Paradise Lost, where he sat with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, shaking his head. He coughed, his eyes were bleary, his skin was blotchy from vodka. He was mystified by Miyazawa's insight: "How do you suppose he knew?"

Buddy's confidence grew even as his strength seemed to slacken.

The operation had made him tyrannical and short-tempered. "In my judgment, your time is up!" he said to Keola because a leaky showerhead had not been promptly repaired — fired, just like that. Keola blinked, smiled, and said, "Sorry, boss." Though Buddy allowed me to rehire him, Keola was a different and much warier man from then on.