Naja Aidt - Baboon

* * *

But the bite was really tender and swollen when he showered on Sunday morning. He got Charlotte to look at it. She washed it with some rubbing alcohol and he winced and she said he was a baby and slapped his behind; he pretended to faint, then sprang up and howled like a wild animal and she hunted him down through the house; they laughed. A horn sounded in the driveway loud and long, then the door opened and Pete, their brother, sauntered into the living room, ruddycheeked and loud. The children had already run out to the yard to climb the trees. He went outside to bring them in for lunch, one in each arm, both of them squirming and squealing with delight.

They had herring and schnapps. Charlotte made an effort to be friendly to the children. But they were out of control, running from the table constantly, peeling the painted eggs, knocking over a beer, crawling up on his lap and pulling at his beard. He thought it was pleasant to have a little warm kid sitting on his lap, but Charlotte was clearly not amused. As she used to say, she didn't like children, and now she looked obviously put off. In contrast, Peter didn't seem to notice the commotion. He talked about the divorce, getting himself all worked up, until finally he was forced to signal to him that children with their big ears were nearby. Charlotte got up and helped them into their jackets and they ran right out and started throwing the newly cut grass at each other. As Peter was talking, he realized that he'd never hid Easter eggs. If he left right now, maybe he'd still be able to buy some. But he didn't feel like it, and it really didn't matter now. Peter poured some more schnapps. He'd always been so damned impulsive. He was never in control of anything. And now his wife had had enough. Peter's eyes looked wild, he pushed his chair back, stretched his legs, and hit the table with his fist, "It's fucking bullshit that she'll only let me see the children on the weekends !" And then at last it came out that she'd already met someone else. To top it all off, it was an old geezer with a shitload of money, as he put it. Charlotte seemed like she was going to give him a lecture, then suddenly she looked bored. She went into the kitchen to make coffee. The mosquito bite was fucking painful now. He felt around and noticed a large bump. It had evidently not helped to clean it. Peter calmed down, then began to cry. Charlotte came in the door rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she was drying a green glass bowl. He promised that he would try to help Peter find a better apartment. Maybe there was someone in the office who knew of something. He'd make a few calls. Peter blew his nose in the napkin. Then the children came bursting in completely covered in wet grass and mud.

* * *

In the middle of the night he woke up feeling miserable. His buttock was throbbing. He woke up Charlotte, who reluctantly got out of bed and turned on the light. She could see that there was an infection and the bump was hard and red. "It looks like it's turning into a boil," she said, yawning. Then he made her get a pin, hold it in the flame of the gas burner, and prick a hole in it. She pressed out the puss, shouting, "Yuck, disgusting!" He clenched his jaw. She told him he could get some aspirin in the bathroom, and then she turned off the light. The next day they cleaned and locked up the house. He carried their bags out to the car and closed the trunk. A blackbird belted its song from the tall birch tree near the driveway, and he caught sight of a whole bunch of snowdrops shining white on the wet black ground. An unusual feeling of loss, emptiness, sadness — he couldn't put his finger on it — welled up in him. But there was also joy. The blackbird, the flowers, and the sun, which was already low in the gray sky, hidden behind passing clouds. Then Charlotte came out and began to talk about how he should hire a man to lay the paving stones she had ordered for him from Italy. "You'll enjoy the house more if you have a proper terrace," she said. When he got home there was a message from their mother. She really wanted to see them on Easter, but maybe next week? He erased the message and put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, turning it up and opening the door to the roof terrace. The gold cupola atop the tower of the Church of Our Savior shone dimly in the dusk light. His buttock throbbed. It'll pass , he said to himself, it's nothing, it'll soon pass . Then he took a shower, got dressed, and went down to the local bar and got a couple of pints of draught beer, and his spirits quickly lifted talking to the bartender and some guys from a rival production company, and then he saw Heidi come in the door, loaded, accompanied by a fat girlfriend, and this suited him because the last time they were together was wonderful. So he got up from his rivals' table and shouted, "Hey gorgeous!" and she threw her arms around his neck. He could smell the liquor on her breath, an angel must've sent you .

Later they stumbled into his apartment, took off their clothes and threw them on the floor. He turned his back to her to turn on the light and she bent over to wrestle her feet out of her tights, then she got up and caught sight of his butt. Terrified, she let out a scream. He turned toward her. "Turn around again. What the hell is that?" He had almost forgotten about it. She walked over to him. "Turn around," he just stood there shushing her, grabbing her and kissing her throat, and she searched with her hand for what she had seen and then froze and pulled back, "Have you gotten the bubonic plague? No, stop it! Stop it! There's no fucking way I'm having sex with you when you've got that. . what is it, it must hurt like hell!" He persisted. "It's nothing, come on, Heidi." But Heidi wanted to wash her hands. And she wanted to go home. She forgot her tights. He was pissed. He wanted to screw her so badly, he really needed it.

* * *

A few days later, while he was in a meeting with a Swedish colleague and his partner Stig, it began to hurt so badly that he couldn't concentrate. He squirmed uneasily around in his chair. As the day went on the entire cheek swelled up more and more. In the evening he had a fever. He called Charlotte. He lay on his stomach freezing, and Charlotte said, "Christ, you should see yourself, you look like a baboon." She sighed deeply and carefully laid her hand on his lower back. She said it looked like there was a whole bunch of small boils around the large one. She called their uncle, who was a doctor, and he laughed, joking that he always knew he was a bit of a pain in the ass. Their uncle called the doctor from the emergency room, and when the doctor came at 10:30 and took one look at him, he asked why in the world he hadn't gone to his own doctor a long time ago, and sent him to the emergency room. The boils needed to be cut away.

* * *

And they were. He threw up into a paper bag. The pain was beyond words. Afterwards the nurse put a compress of gauze on it and told him that a home-care nurse would come and change the bandage once he got home. He thought about old people needing to be washed and their diapers changed. They kept him in the hospital for two days, and gave him a round of antibiotics. He lay on his side in the bed, tried to work, dozed, and watched TV. The fever subsided a bit. He insisted on going home. His mother picked him up and he lay in the backseat, quiet and drained. "You just need to concentrate on getting better, honey," his mother said. "Will you please stop it. I'm not SICK," he said. "It's just a mosquito bite for Christ's sake."

He called Stig and told him that he'd be out the next couple of days. He took his pills. Every morning the nurse came, a meticulous, straight-backed woman who looked like she'd been very beautiful once; she pulled the bloody gauze off, washed out the wound, and put on a new bandage. But then the fever went up. He called her Gorgeous. She smiled and shook her head shyly as she took his temperature. He had no appetite, only a constant headache, and in time, pain in his sinuses. After he'd been home eight days, the nurse arranged to have an ambulance bring him back to the hospital for new blood tests. It turned out that he had contracted a staph infection while he was in the hospital. More antibiotics. Then home again. Charlotte came over with soup and red wine. But in the middle of the night he woke up because he couldn't breathe. He roused Charlotte, who had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room with all her clothes on as she usually did. She got up, dazed, and turned on the light. Then she screamed, clapping her hand over her mouth. He was swollen up beyond recognition, his torso, his throat, his face — red, thick, and deformed. Charlotte ran to the phone to call an ambulance, whimpering, hysterical. He tried to get up, but she yelled, "Don't move! Don't move!" In the ambulance they immediately gave him an injection. They took his vitals. Then put on the sirens. He could hardly see out of his eyes. They raced him down the long corridors, and at last they arrived, a sea of anxious faces gathered around him, becoming one gray, blurry mass.