The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [321]
“What about the treatment?”
“Oh he’ll get the treatment. I’ll just have to double up on the quantity of the sodium pentothal first. His resistance to that is simply amazing. You understand these are extra treatments that he requested himself of course. There might be something masochistic in that. He even suggested that himself in his letter. But I don’t think so. I think that boy’s beginning to get a grasp of reality. I’m sending you the letter. You can be very encouraged about that boy Mr. Wheeler.”
“How’s the weather over there?”
“What’s that? Oh the weather. Well it’s just a bit off from what I’d describe as typical for this time of year. No it’s not entirely typical. There has been some unreasonable weather to be frank. You call up anytime Mr. Wheeler. I wouldn’t be upset or worried about the progress that boy’s making for a moment. I’ll send you his letter. You could almost describe it as a brilliant letter. Yes Mr. Wheeler. No Mr. Wheeler I’d say everything’s going finely Mr. Wheeler. There’s nothing to worry about. You’d like to talk to him? I’ll see that your call goes through at the hospital. Tomorrow is better perhaps. He’s naturally a little exhausted after the treatment. Tomorrow would be better. You say he didn’t have the treatment? That’s quite correct Mr. Wheeler. I had no idea that boy was capable of anything like that strength. That’s correct. The treatment is for tomorrow. I’ll just increase the sodium pentothal. These additional treatments he requested himself, remember. Give him a call day after tomorrow. That’s a free day for him and he will have had a rest. That’s right Mr. Wheeler that’s right. You have no cause for anxiety. I would say his progress could not be more satisfactory. Today’s Tuesday. You call him on Thursday. Any time Thursday.”
The wind was back in the south on Thursday. There was not much it could do now to trees except blow the dead brown palm branches and bum the few mango blossoms whose stems had not died. But it yellowed the leaves of the alamo trees and blew dust and stripped leaves over the swimming pool. It blew dust through the screens into the house and sifted it into the books and over the pictures. The milk cows lay with their rumps against the wind and the cuds they chewed were gritty. The winds always come in Lent, Mr. Wheeler remembered. That was the local name for them. All bad winds had local names and bad writers always became literary about them. He had resisted this as he had resisted writing that the palm branches blew forward making a line against the trunk as the hair of young women parts and blows forward when they stand with their backs to a storm. He had resisted writing of the scent of the mango blooms when they had walked together on the night before the wind started and the noise of the bees in them outside his window. There were no bees now and he refused to use the foreign word for this wind. There had been too much bad literature made about the foreign names for winds and he knew too many of those names. Mr. Wheeler was writing in longhand because he did not wish to uncover the typewriter in the Lenten wind.
The houseboy who had been a contemporary and a friend of his son when they were both growing up came in and said, “The call to Stevie is ready.”
“Hi Papa,” Stephen said in a hoarse voice.