The Blot by Jonathan Lethem

Author:Jonathan Lethem [Lethem, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jonathan Cape

II

Day and night, sleep and waking, past and present, all had lost their definition, until one morning Bruno was awakened by a Japanese nurse. He knew she was Japanese because she said, “My name is Nurse Oshiro, I’m from Japan”; he knew it was morning because she declared it so. She then removed his breathing tube and told him to swallow. With that, though his eyes remained bandaged, Bruno rose from his miasma. It was as if Oshiro had thrown a line into his well of dread and memory and drawn him up toward the light—though not so far that he could see.

Attempting speech, he produced a shredded whisper and a surfeit of pain.

“You want to write me a note?” asked Oshiro.

“Yes.” The word came out wrecked. She understood nonetheless.

She brought him a small plastic slate and a blunt marker. “You write what you need to say. I’ll wipe it clean.”

WHERE IS MY DOCTOR?

“Your doctor’s been here three times. He talked with you, you don’t remember.” He felt her seize the slate, and return it to him. He wrote again.

AM I DYING?

“It’s a big success, everybody told you already. We told you lots of times. This time, you remember.”

Oshiro’s tone was ceaselessly chipper and admonitory. It gradually dawned on Bruno that she bore some special authority in his case. She’d been appointed his taskmaster, to teach him to swallow, to suck from a straw, and to cooperate with the management of his bedridden body, which, according to Oshiro, the nurses and orderlies were tired of negotiating during his long fugue. He must learn to help in their efforts to change his sheets and shift his bedpan.

“See,” said Oshiro, “you’re not too lazy!”

IT HURTS.

“You have to move, it’s good for you. Soon you’ll walk to the bathroom. Tomorrow you’ll eat.”

Next he endured Oshiro’s removal of the heart monitoring stickers and redundant IV lines, the litter strewn everywhere on his body. Then, horribly, she dethreaded the catheter from his penis. Bruno’s reward for answering Oshiro’s beckoning him back to life was to undergo one painful and humbling effort after another.

Not that Bruno imagined he had any choice in the matter.

“Tomorrow we will change your bandage, too,” she said, when he was exhausted.

MY EYES?

“Your eyes stay closed tomorrow, the gauze stays on. Doctor has to see your eyes.”

AM I BLIND?

“I told you, Mr. Bruno, everything went good, you’re very lucky. You should be happy.”

I AM HAPPY.

“Good, now go to sleep.”

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