Бруно Травен: Aslan Norval

“And do you now build levees?” asked the lady with great interest.

“I’m as far from that as I was on the day of my discharge.”

“That’s hard to imagine, since the training did not cost you a penny.”

“That’s not entirely true, ma’am. A large part of my pension goes to tuition, books, office supplies, transportation to the Institute of Technology, all kinds of educational needs. But that’s not the reason I’m dropping out. It’s not my budget, but my peace of mind that’s gone to pieces.”

“Well, how am I supposed to understand that?”

“It’s easy, ma’am, just like—oops, I apologize, ma’am. I almost said something one can never say in the presence of a lady. But you see I spent six weeks studying like crazy in the classroom. And in my naivete, I thought that afterward I would get to go into the field with engineers and other technical personnel, where the levees and canals were just waiting to be built with my help.”

“And that’s not what happened?”

“Not at all. In the military, I was in basic training for three months and six days. Four weeks later, I found myself in the middle of the fiercest battles in Korea. I learned more in one week than during three months of basic training. It’s all about practical application, ma’am. Practical experience is what it takes.”

“And you didn’t have the opportunity for practical application at the Institute of Technology?”

“Not in the least. I’ve been at the Institute for fourteen months. I was trying to learn how to build levees and canals, but I haven’t even heard the words ‘levee’ or ‘canal’ once during that time.”

“Nevertheless, you must have learned something during those long months?”

“Sure, I learned to be bored to death. Nothing but mathematical calculations, square and cubic roots, equations, numbers raised to all kinds of powers, specific weight of dry and wet earth, of cement and iron. We had to figure out the weight per square meter expressed in kilograms and grams, if the pressure comes directly from above, from below, and from this or that side. We also studied the influence of rain, snow, and comets. We had to determine how many seconds it would take for rain to fill, to the brim, a tin can with a height of ten centimeters and a diameter of six centimeters. But I never heard anything about levees, dikes, canals, and the prevention of floods. I’m afraid the teachers there will not think I am worthy of learning about dikes until I am seventy-five years old.”

The lady opened her purse and rummaged around in it. She only did so in order to not have to constantly look into the face of the young man as he grew increasingly interesting to her.

The young man, however, interpreted this in his own way.

Surely she is not going to give me a hundred-dollar bill, he thought. If she were to try that, I’d have to be rude. I don’t need her money. I still have my veteran’s pension for a few weeks and then—

He wanted to pursue those thoughts, but the lady stood up and closed her purse. Signaling regret with her hand, she remarked: “Unfortunately, I do not have my business card with me. No worries. You will have to be here for at least three days while you’re being thoroughly examined. May I have some books sent to you?”

The young man hesitated before answering: “As you wish, ma’am. If it is not a great bother, I would be glad to accept.”

“What kind of books would you like to read?”

“Well, since I have to abandon my studies so that I won’t be tempted to slay one or two of my professors, I would finally like to learn something about levees, dikes, and canals. Please send me some books about canals. Books that describe how they are built, not with charts of logarithms, but rather with steam shovels, bulldozers, and tons of dynamite.”

“I understand.” The lady laughed, and she walked to the door. “You will hear from me tomorrow.” With a glib “See you then, young man!” she left his cell, which smelled of carbolic acid.

Twenty minutes later, you could not tell the hospital apart from a disturbed anthill. The only difference was that it was human beings and not ants who seemed to have suddenly gone crazy, and, from the perspective of an outsider, for no reason whatsoever. But the doctors, residents, nurses, orderlies, bedpan changers, cleaning ladies, and toilet cleaners, who were all running around with their heads cut off, screaming at each other, were well aware of the cause of this mayhem and of the ensuing consequences. The victim of a well-insured Cadillac had gotten away. The hospital was losing a patient who could have earned it at least two thousand dollars without much effort.

Instead, the director, the doctors, and the nursing manager were now very worried that this untreated “patient,” might turn up in half a year to score lifelong payments of three hundred dollars a month.

Anyone wearing a white coat or a white apron was sent on the manhunt by their superiors, also wearing white. They were dashing from one room to the other, from the attic to the basement, from the kitchen to the bathrooms, and from the laboratories to the bedrooms of the residents. But no matter how frantically these ants-in-white ran from place to place, and no matter how many secret torture chambers they crawled into, there was no trace of him. He had disappeared into thin air. There was just no other explanation. Perhaps he had snuck into one of the residents’ rooms, thrown on a white coat, and left the hospital in this disguise with a quick nod to the doorman.

“Where is the doorman?” yelled the hospital director, while a vein swelled on his forehead. “Where is that gangster? Find him! He is fired.”

Worried about his job, the doorman swore on the grave of his mother that no one had left the hospital except visitors, and there had only been three of them, since it wasn’t visiting hours at the moment. No one else, not even the cat, had left.

“But the patient can’t possibly have escaped through the window,” yelled the director. “He must have passed you.”

“No, he didn’t pass me. Not here. And I haven’t had the time yet to check all the windows.”

“I didn’t ask you about that. Send me the front door receptionist. I will decide tomorrow whether or not to fire you when this whole matter has been resolved. Understood?”

The receptionist appeared, also shaking with worry about her precious post. As she was getting married next year, she desperately needed the money that she planned to save from her wages.

“What is the man’s name? Where does he live? How old is he? How tall is he? What’s his weight?” the director asked, practically attacking her.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know? What in the world do you do at this hospital if you don’t even know that?”

The vein on the director’s forehead had grown even larger and now it also turned bluish. “It’s your goddamned job to receive every new patient and to register their personal data.”

“I didn’t have enough time for that.”

“You didn’t have enough time? Not enough time? What do you have time for, then? Maybe an affair with one of these amateurs in white I keep getting stuck with. They can’t even do an appendectomy without removing half the liver or who knows what else at the same time. You’re probably busy having affairs instead of doing your job. Where is his personal information, I said?”

“I had neither the time nor the opportunity to get them. The patient arrived on a stretcher and was rushed upstairs so quickly that I assumed he would have to be operated on immediately.”

“Well, at least that’s an excuse. But don’t let anything like this happen again!”