Diego Marani - The Interpreter

‘No, tomorrow. I’ve got to stay here tonight,’ he whispered, but I caught his words.

‘Nothing. We’ll have to wait and see…’ he added obliquely, holding the phone against his shoulder and wrapping the bundle of dollars in a handkerchief with his other hand.

‘Yes, part of it. We’ll get the rest tomorrow when the plane lands.’

He paused to listen for a time, puffing and panting, grinding away at the floor with his big boot.

‘You’ll just have to trust me! It’s not my fault that it’s foggy!’ he said impatiently, picking up his cap and gun. Then he stood up sharply and left the room, banging the door behind him, but I just managed to catch his last remark:

‘Listen, he can’t operate until the plane arrives! Otherwise he says it’ll fester, and the whole thing will be a write-off!’

It was then that I understood; I realised what they were talking about, and my blood froze in my veins. Radu had sold me to some organ dealers; the man in the fur coat was to open me up and remove everything inside me that was saleable, liver, kidneys, eyeballs, the lot.

Then I realised what that room was fitted out for: I cast a terrified glance over the operating table, the tin buckets underneath the holes, the cabinet with the glass bottles, the jars of disinfectant, the dry ice and the plastic containers in which my organs would be sealed up. In one horrified flash, I imagined my body being laid out on that slab of steel and well and truly pillaged.

But after those first moments of panic, a feeling of resignation stole over me. The death towards which I was hurtling struck me as a gesture of mercy on the part of a distracted and powerless God: obliged to contract the damnation or redemption of his creatures out to inexpert angels, he must have noticed that, in my case, his deputies were going about it with a heavy hand, so he was doing his best to temper the misfortune from which he could no longer protect me. What he didn’t seem to realise was that, in so doing, he was triggering another cataclysm, and in my heart I bitterly relished the idea that my infected organs would contaminate others with my vile disease: pieces of me would put down roots in alien bodies, and I would live on in their malady. I would proliferate, be fruitful and multiply, reducing one brain after another to mush, never to be snuffed out, never to be delivered from the verminous creepy-crawl of life. Through me, the bestial whistle would spread across the world like a wound; a hundred, a thousand whistling men would be born of my scattered tissues. It was I who was the source of the evil; I would branch out, lethally, tainting the defenceless fibres of humanity. I would send out my fearful whistles from a thousand mouths, I would see myself prosper from a thousand eyeballs, monstrous and base but ultimately untouchable. And how I wished I could be there when those looters of my body discovered what their fell deed was leading to, when Radu and the surgeon in the fur coat would have to account for their brutish error in front of their powerful clients!

The door was suddenly blown open by a draught, and a chill breeze filled the room; I shivered and pulled the blanket up with my free hand. Soon afterwards Radu returned, a rucksack on his shoulder; he glanced at me suspiciously, then picked up the stool and settled himself behind the bed, where he was out of view. I could hear him rummaging around, grumbling under his breath; after a while he came towards me with some biscuits, two wizened apples and a bowl of water. I ate and drank avidly; the last thing I could remember having in my stomach was the piece of bacon-flavoured bread given me by the man in rubber boots. I had no idea what time it was, nor how long I had been unconscious. Had I been abducted only yesterday, or had several days gone by since that dark afternoon in Odessa? I dozed off, and when I awoke it was beginning to get dark. My bones ached, my head was spinning and my throat was burning; I also felt distinctly sick. I wondered whether I was coming around from an anaesthetic: I was suddenly struck by the idea that the surgeon might have come back and started his butchering while I was asleep. Horrified at the thought, I clutched my stomach, turning a little as I did so, only to feel a sharp pain in my swollen wrist — I had forgotten about the handcuffs. I gasped with pain and curled up in the sheet, seeking relief on a cool corner of the mattress. Above all, they must not let me live — they could empty me of my organs, they could even take my blood, but they must not let me live thus maimed and blind. Terrified by these thoughts, I felt a roiling sensation in my stomach and began to retch.

‘I’m sick!’ I shouted, as a dark flood of liquid poured from my mouth, sullying the sheets and dripping onto the floor. I was aware of Radu jumping up behind me and shaking me viciously by the shoulder, swearing the while and looking around the room for something to clean up the mess. Heedless of the handcuffs, hoping to avoid further damage, he thrust my head over the edge of the bed, but it was too late, I was already soaked in vomit and a trickle of blood was running down my dangling arm. Losing all patience, Radu pulled the soiled sheet from under my stomach and threw it on the floor, kicking at it angrily with his boot; then he reached into his trouser pocket for the key, grabbed the handcuffs and unlocked them. Propping myself up on my elbows, I rubbed my aching wrist, but the sense of relief was short-lived: my jailer was now dragging me down from the bed and propelling me warily towards the door.

‘Toilet, toilet,’ he shrieked, cursing as he did so. We went out onto the landing, lit by a single fly-blown bulb; the lavatory was on the other side of the stairs. I noted that we were on the first floor of a crumbling prefabricated building which must once have been a clinic. The other rooms opening off the corridor no longer had any doors at all; a couple of rooms on the ground floor had their doors still hanging from them on rusty hinges. Inside them was assorted debris — broken glass, overturned metal cabinets and broken chairs. The rain was pouring into the stairwell through a shattered skylight; above me I could see a patch of dull grey sky and, despite the biting cold, a barely perceptible stirring of fresh air gave me a feeling of relief. Here and there the aluminium banisters snaked downwards crazily, torn clear of their supports, or had tumbled down into the foyer below, to lie among scrap metal, plastic bags, lumps of masonry, empty tins and broken bottles; grass grew on the upper steps of a staircase which was brought up short by a tumbledown wall. Barefoot, I picked my way cautiously through the debris-spattered mud with which the landing was strewn, with Radu tugging me impatiently by the hand; I wanted to beg him not to twist my arm, but as I opened my mouth to speak I sensed that I was about to be seized by one of my convulsions. I gave him a beseeching look, fearing that he might take it as some form of subterfuge and become violent, but I saw that he was even more frightened than I was, staring at me in terror and backing off. I held out my hands towards him; my tongue glued itself to my palate and my lips stiffened in a way that had become all too familiar. I began to tremble uncontrollably; after a bit of confused gobbling, I produced the usual raucous braying which soon transmuted into a kind of whistle. My teeth were chattering so much that I spat out the remains of my food; I felt I was losing my balance, the world was swaying round me, the lavatory door, the landing, the dripping skylight. Seized by a fit of helpless coughing — now I could scarcely breathe — and terrified of falling, I clutched at Radu’s shoulders; to escape my grip, he started flailing around with his arms and knocked me sharply against the wall. As he retreated, he leaned his back against the tottering banisters, lost his balance and toppled over the edge, pulling the wobbly banisters after him, while I carried on with my insane chirruping and gabbling, lurching around like one possessed.