When I wake up, I remember that Beatrice is in the same hospital, and I suck on this thought like a Mentos. This makes me forget the pain, the boredom, and television. When the most beautiful person you know is near you, everything, even ugly things, transforms. Before, nothing made any sense. Then, it all takes on life. I must come up with a plan. I want to see her at least. I am able to get out of bed now. I carry my arm in a sling and my neck is stiff thanks to the collar, but immobility is no longer necessary. The X-rays are good.
Finally, I decide. I get out of bed. I’m not exactly a miracle of beauty, I can’t even take off my pajamas. That’s okay. In the hospital, you get used to seeing people in pajamas. In fact, it’s unbelievable how fast you can get used to being in pajamas in front of someone you don’t know. That’s the way it is in a hospital. Maybe it’s because we are all ridiculous in the same way when facing pain and suffering. All so much the same that pajamas are the right uniform to cancel out the differences. Besides, I have a very elegant pair of pajamas that belong to Dad. Mom brought them to me because they’re bigger and fit better over the cast. Also, they smell of Dad, which makes me feel at home.
So elegantly attired, I venture down the corridors of the women’s wing. I don’t have the courage to ask the nurses directly where Beatrice is, so I wander around as if I were going for a walk. I stick my face in the rooms of the oncology department. Silvia told me that’s what they call the section dealing with cancer. I don’t really know why, but the onco must be something from Greek that has something to do with tumors, because the ology part of the word is always joined to another Greek term. I must look it up in the Rocci Dictionary when I go back home. Rocci is manna for the ophthalmologist! I don’t miss it at all. I peer into the rooms. Just like in my ward, the majority of patients are old people. Old. I feel like a sort of mascot. The elephant is seventy-five. … The hospital is a gallery of old people with white hair. The young people, if they’re in the hospital, are there because they are unfortunate; the old ones are in the hospital because they are old.
But if you see a head with sparse red hair resting on a white pillow, like a rose lying on snow or the sun in the Milky Way, that is Beatrice sleeping. Yes, it’s Beatrice sleeping. … I enter. Her roommate is an old lady so full of wrinkles that it seems they have been sculpted. She smiles like a crumbled up piece of aluminum foil.
“She is very tired.”
I smile back. I approach, like a mummy, toward Beatrice’s bed. I am afraid. Because one tube is over her, and another tube goes directly into her wrist. It enters into the veins, and the needle that wounds Beatrice’s skin lets me get a glance at her red blood. My blood also runs in those veins. My super red blood cells are devouring those white ones of hers, making them red, too. I feel the pain of Beatrice overwhelming me, and I wish it were mine, and she were well. I have to stay in the hospital anyway.
Beatrice is sleeping. She is different from what I remember. She is defenseless. She is pale, a strange blue color encircles her eyes, and I know it isn’t makeup. She continues sleeping. Her arms, resting at her sides, are covered by light blue pajamas. Her hands are delicate and thin. I had never seen her from so close up. She seems like a fairy. She is alone. She is sleeping. I stay there, contemplating her for at least half an hour. And she sleeps. We don’t say anything, but it’s not necessary. I stare at her face intensely to remember every trait. She has a little dimple on the right cheek that makes her look as if she were smiling even when she is sleeping. She doesn’t make any noise. You can’t hear her breathing. She is silent. Luminous as always, like a star in the night. Then, a nurse comes in to check things, and she asks me to leave. I stand up in a rather awkward way in my ceremonious pajamas.
“Do you know her, Mr. Elegant?” the nurse asks me. She is as fat as Simmenthal, potted meat all compressed into gelatin, all bouncy because of the joke she has just made. I remain silent a second and then answer with a broad smile, “Yes, she is my girlfriend. In order to be near her, I had to break an arm. … ”
The chubby nurse holds back something more than a smile, which I don’t know how to define. … Before leaving, I give Beatrice a caress. I don’t wake her, but upon her awakening, I want her to find my caress there on her cheek.
Get better, Beatrice. I have a dream. And I must take you along with me.