The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [50]
The professor pondered for a moment. “All right, let’s see. My apartment is close by, in Kruununhaka. I’ll telephone from there. I don’t really believe you, and you’ll find you can’t trifle with a hare. I love animals. They can’t be left in just anyone’s hands.”
“Yet you perform vivisection.”
“That’s science. Nor is it your concern. It’s my profession.”
The call was made. The Sodankylä vet confirmed Vatanen’s story as far as the morning consultation in the Sodankylä hotel. He was amazed, however, that the person concerned had already proceeded to Helsinki.
Slowly, the professor put down the receiver. He gave Vatanen a very quizzical look. How much did the call cost? Vatanen asked. The professor seemed not to hear. He said: “I’d like to hear your story once again. I’ll make us a sandwich. You’re not in a hurry, are you?”
“Not particularly.”
19
Crapula
He became aware he was lying on the floor, rolled up in a carpet. He was bilious: acid griped his stomach and rose into his throat, and he felt like vomiting. He didn’t dare open his eyes; he heard nothing, but, focusing his mind, he could detect all sorts of sounds: borborygmi, whistlings, tinnitus. Again a yellow bile gushed into his mouth.
He lay still. The slightest motion, he knew, and he’d puke. He gulped back the bile. He didn’t dare move enough to put his hand to his forehead, but he knew it was bathed in sweat.
He must smell vile, he thought. His explored his mouth tentatively: a thick tongue encountered a palate coated with glue.
And his heart? It did seem to be beating, though rather arbitrarily. His pulse was sluggish, like the plod of a bored sentry; but occasionally it gave a spurt and produced a couple of enthusiastic beats that almost burst his chest and reached his toes; then it stood stock-still a few seconds, totally arrested, pounded out a few short clouts, and then continued its sluggish plod. He had to get a tight grip on the carpet: the floor had taken off, and he was floating around the room; drops of sweat trickled down his neck; suddenly he felt feverish; the mat was weighing insufferably on his sweaty torso.
If only I dared open my eyes, one of them at least, he suggested to himself, but opened neither. Even the thought seemed rash. He ought to try to go back to sleep: oh, to sleep, to sleep till he was dead. But perhaps he was dead already? The thought made him want to laugh, though the mirth died instantly. Bile had again flushed into his mouth; it had to be swallowed back manfully.
He made an effort to grasp where he was in his life at the moment.
He couldn’t grasp anything specific. Possibilities, images flashed by, quite a few, but the brain couldn’t get its teeth into them: not deep enough to call the result a thought.
At times this pursuit of thought struck him as a great joke. What was funny about it he couldn’t quite make out, but there was something completely hilarious. Yet, when he tried to concentrate on his weird hilarity, gloom took its place, and the gloom seemed only too well founded.
Everything was shifting around, everything slipping out of mind. For a second he thought of his head as a hand, withdrawing everything. My head’s gliding away, he thought. The idea tickled him again, only for a moment; then oblivion fell. He decided he’d better turn his mind to something practical.
For instance, what time of year was it? That was something to put your mind to. A question like that would be detached enough and yet practical. What season was it? Could you remember something like that if you made a big effort?
Without realizing it, he’d opened his eyes. Concentrating on the season of the