Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [30]
“Yes, after a while.”
“I lost consciousness almost at once. The trouble was, I kept coming back to it, again and again and again. I wish I had taken their advice and removed my uniform.”
“You came down in a uniform!” cried Lanark, horrified.
“Yes. Belt, boots, braid, brass buttons, the lot. I even had my pistol, in a holster.”
“Why?”
“I meant to surrender it to the commander here: a symbolic gesture, you know. But there isn’t a commander. That pistol made a trench as deep as itself across my right hip, which is why I am dying, I suppose. I could have survived the uniform but not the revolver.”
“You’re not dying!”
“I feel I am.”
“But why, why, why should we suffer that pit and blackness and pressure, why should we even try to be human if we are going to die? If you die your pain and struggle have been useless!”
“I take a less gloomy view. A good life means fighting to be human under growing difficulties. A lot of young folk know this and fight very hard, but after a few years life gets easier for them and they think they’ve become completely human when they’ve only stopped trying. I stopped trying, but my life was so full of strenuous routines that I wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for my disease. My whole professional life was a diseased and grandiose attack on my humanity. It is an achievement to know now that I am simply a wounded and dying man. Who can be more regal than a dying man?” His languid voice had become a very faint murmur.
“Sir!” said Lanark fervently. “I hope you will not die!”
The man smiled and murmured, “Thank you, my boy.”
A moment later sweat suddenly glittered on the visible parts of him. He clawed the coverlet with both hands and sat upright saying in a harsh commanding voice, “And now I feel very cold and more than a little afraid!”
The lamp went out. Lanark leaped onto the polished floor, slipped, fell and scrambled to the man’s side. Some pearly light from the window passed over the body half sprawling from the covers, the head and neck hanging off the mattress and an arm trailing on the floor. A dark stain was spreading on the bandage where the rubber tube had been wrenched out. Lanark ran to his bed, grabbed the radio and flicked the switch; he said, “Get Dr. Munro! Get me Dr. Munro!”
A small clear voice said, “Who is speaking, please?”
“I’m called Lanark.”
“Dr. Lanark?”
“No! No! I’m a patient, but a man is dying!”
“Dying naturally?”
“Yes, dying, dying!”
He heard the voice say, “Will Dr. Munro report quickly to Dr. Lanark, a man is dying naturally; I repeat, a man is dying naturally.”
A minute later the ward lights went on.
Lanark sat on the bed staring at his neighbour, who looked crudely and insultingly dead. His mouth hung open and it was now obvious that his sockets were eyeless. By the hand on the floor a tiny puddle was spreading from the nozzle of the rubber tube. Dr. Munro came in and walked briskly to the bedside. He lifted the arm, felt the pulse, hoisted the body farther onto the mattress, then turned off a tap on the suspended bottle. He looked at Lanark sitting on the edge of his bed in a white nightshirt and said, “Shouldn’t you cover yourself up?”
“No. I shouldn’t.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he recognize himself?”
“Yes. What are you going to do with him?”
“Bury him. Strange, isn’t it. We can find a practical use for any number of dead monsters, but a mere man can only be burned or shovelled into the ground.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Get into bed, Lanark.”
“I want to see out the window.”
“Why?”
“I feel enclosed.”
“Can you walk there?”
“Of course I can walk there.”
The doctor opened a locker beside the bed, took out dressing gown and slippers and handed them to Lanark, who put them on and walked to the window, ignoring a feeling of floating above the floor. He was surprised to find the corridor hardly longer than the room he had left: to right and left it ended in a