White Noise - Don Delillo [136]
There was a wheelchair ramp, which meant I could drag Mink to the front door without banging his head on the concrete steps. I got him out of the car, clutched his sleek foot and moved up the ramp. He held one hand at his midsection to stanch the flow. The gun hand dragged behind. Dawn. There was a spaciousness to this moment, an epic pity and compassion. Having shot him, having led him to believe he’d shot himself, I felt I did honor to both of us, to all of us, by merging our fortunes, physically leading him to safety. I took long slow strides, pulling his weight. It hadn’t occurred to me that a man’s attempts to redeem himself might prolong the elation he felt when he committed the crime he now sought to make up for.
I rang the bell. In a matter of seconds, someone appeared at the door. An old woman, a nun, black-habited, black-veiled, leaning on a cane.
“We’re shot,” I said, lifting my wrist in the air.
“We see a lot of that here,” she answered matter-of-factly, in an accented voice, turning to go back inside.
I dragged Mink across the entranceway. The place appeared to be a clinic. There were waiting rooms, screened cubicles, doors marked X-Ray, Eye Test. We followed the old nun to the trauma room. Two orderlies showed up, great squat men with sumo physiques. They lifted Mink onto a table and tore away his clothes in neat short practiced strokes.
“Inflated-adjusted real income,” he said.
More nuns arrived, rustling, ancient, speaking German to each other. They carried transfusion equipment, wheeled in trays of glinting implements. The original nun approached Mink to remove the gun from his hand. I watched her toss it in a desk drawer that held about ten other handguns and half a dozen knives. There was a picture on the wall of Jack Kennedy holding hands with Pope John XXIII in heaven. Heaven was a partly cloudy place.
The doctor arrived, an elderly man in a shabby three-piece suit. He spoke German to the nuns and studied Mink’s body, which was now partly clad in sheets.
“No one knows why the sea birds come to San Miguel,” Willie said.
I was growing fond of him. The original nun took me into a cubicle to work on my wound. I started to give her a version of the shootings but she showed no interest. I told her it was an old gun with feeble bullets.
“Such a violent country.”
“Have you been in Germantown long?” I said.
“We are the last of the Germans.”
“Who lives here now, mostly?”
“Mostly no one,” she said.
More nuns walked by, heavy rosaries swinging from their belts. I found them a merry sight, the kind of homogeneous presence that makes people smile at airports.
I asked my nun her name. Sister Hermann Marie. I told her I knew some German, trying to gain her favor, as I always did with medical personnel of any kind, at least in the early stages, before my fear and distrust overwhelmed any hope I might have had in maneuvering for advantage.
“Gut, besser, best,” I said.
A smile appeared on her seamed face. I counted for her, pointed to objects and gave their names. She nodded happily, cleaning out the wound and wrapping the wrist in sterile pads. She said I would not need a splint and told me the doctor would write a prescription for antibiotics. We counted to ten together.
Two more nuns appeared, wizened and creaky. My nun said something to them and soon all four of us were charmingly engaged in a childlike dialogue. We did colors, items of clothing, parts of the body. I felt much more at ease in this German-speaking company than I had with the Hitler scholars. Is there something so innocent in the recitation of names that God is pleased?
Sister Hermann Marie applied finishing touches to the bullet wound. From my chair I had a clear view of the picture of Kennedy and the Pope in heaven. I had a sneaking admiration for the picture.