A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall by Will Chancellor

Author:Will Chancellor
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

FIVE

HIDE THE STARS, HIDE THE MOON, SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN

—Can you read that top letter for me?

Owen blinked several times and focused on the E of the eye chart, sharpening the serifs. Then he fumbled a hand to his eye patch, but found a gauze bandage instead. The bed was broken and small. IV taped to the fold of his arm, saline bag on a rack. He looked around to a roomful of whitecoats, all with pens waiting for his reply.

Now the woman asked him in German he only half comprehended:

—Können Sie mir den ____________ auf der Tafel vorlesen?

He was in Berlin. He remembered Berlin. But his throat caught at the déjà vu. These were the tests that followed his injury, before the enucleation, testing the eye that only caught light: Close your right eye, please. Can you read any of the letters? Even the top one? Which way is my hand moving? How about now? Tell me when the penlight is on. How about now? Is it on or off now?

Then they asked him in French that ended in garbles:

—Pouvez vous lire la première lettre ______?

He was totally fucked if his right eye was damaged. He turned away from the chart to catch the window blinds trembling with the summer breeze. Beyond the window, flagstone wedges that reminded him of buildings in the Quad. But he was far from California, or they wouldn’t waste time with other languages—maybe Spanish. He looked at the acoustic ceiling tiles and froze the scattered ants in place. He counted.

—What’s your name?

He could see just fine from his right eye.

Now another doctor leaned in.

—Where are you staying? Where are you from?

He ran his thumb over the chrome bed rail and said nothing. Eventually they left and let him sleep.

He woke to nurses smoothing him like a crumpled piece of paper, certain that if they ironed him out, they would find something legible amid the folds and creases.

He refused to answer the questions in German, English, or any of the other languages they tried, partly because he was unsure of his footing, partly for fear of being hit with a six-figure bill. He smiled slightly when the hospital interpreter tried sign language, appreciating the exhaustiveness of their effort.

In fact, Owen had learned enough German in his time in Berlin to know it was no good that he kept hearing the word sterben. An einer Überdosis sterben, “overdose death,” a poetic pairing of words that kept him occupied for an otherwise uneventful day; vor Entkräftung sterben, to die of exhaustion. He nodded ever so slightly at the prognosis, which an Eastern European intern duly noted: Er wird leider sterben, “I’m afraid he’ll die”; and the coup de grace, Er hatte sterben können, “He could have already died.”

During the night, he overheard their diagnosis: “Idiopathic aphasia resulting from acute bacterial meningitis.” It wasn’t that his German was prodigious, it was that all the words were cognates. The only two he wasn’t quite sure of, idiopathic aphasia, spiraled down in his head, hypnotizing him.

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