XIX

 

 

Lora screamed.

Galvanised by the sound, Sheklov leapt from his chair. He slapped the door shut at the full reach of his arm and dropped to his knees beside Danty.

“Shut up!” he rasped at Lora. “Go find a phone, call a doctor! Magda, help me get him on the couch! We’ll need ice—scissors—bandages—”

Coolly she undercut him, bending over his shoulder to inspect Danty’s wound. “I did train as a nurse, remember?” she murmured. And put one hand accurately on a pressure-point that reduced the surging leakage of blood to an ooze.

“Oh. Yes, of course. Sorry.” Sheklov rose.

“And you?” she pursued. “Are you trained in medicine, too?”

What have I said now? Sheklov’s mind raced. But almost at once he hit on a good reason for Holtzer to know first-aid.

“Hell, of course! Do you have any idea how many lumbermen lose arms and legs to power-saws every year? Must be hundreds!”

“Good, then,” Magda said. “Lora, bring ice-cubes, will you? And you’ll find a box in the corner of the kitchen—top shelf—marked with a red cross. I’ll need that.”

“What about calling a doctor?” Sheklov snapped. “Don’t you have a phone?”

Magda gave him a steady look. “Think I can afford indemnity insurance?”

“What?”

“It’s very clear you’re not American! You want a doctor who makes house-calls, you have to pay insurance against his being mugged or robbed on the way to you. In Cowville the going rate’s a thousand a month.” She added after a moment, “Anyway, Danty’s black, and no white doctor would treat him, and I wouldn’t dare call a black one. Help me lift him to that couch—no, just a moment, I’ll put a sheet on it.”

He left a bloody trail on the floor.

 

After that Sheklov reacted mechanically as Magda efficiently cut away Danty’s sleeve, wiped the knife-wound—that was what it had to be, an inch wide and more than that deep—and sprayed it in turn with an analgesic, an antibiotic powder, and finally with a clear solution from an aerosol can. Reading the label on this last before Lora dutifully returned it to the first-aid kit, Sheklov learned that it was intended to create a film impervious to airborne infection that would contract as it dried and draw the edges of a cut together, obviating the need to insert stitches.

Hmm! That would be useful at home! A fine invention! On the other hand, he wouldn’t care to live in a society that found it necessary to include such a product in a home first-aid kit …

Then the final touches: rinsing of Danty’s face—his cut forehead was minor, hardly more than a scratch, although his eyes would be puffy for a day or two, Magda predicted—and the job of clearing up, which Lora undertook silently, despite her faintly green cheeks and look of incipient nausea. Magda complimented her a couple of times on being so helpful, and she flashed smiles of gratitude in response.

Sheklov recalled what she had said about her parents not taking an interest in their children.

At some point during all this—Sheklov did not notice exactly when—Danty regained consciousness, but apparently figured out what was going on and went on lying quite still. His first word, when Magda had done with him, was, “Thanks!”

“You’re all right, Danty?” Lora exploded, and almost let the bowl of pink water she was carying to the kitchen fall to the floor. Barely in time she recovered, parked it on the table, and fell on her knees at his side.

“Me? Sure, baby, I’m okay. I’m tough!” Danty said, ruffling her hair. “Let me sit up, hm? That’s the idea!”—as she twisted around to support him behind his shoulders. Touching his arm, he winced, and added, “I guess this may need a sling for a day or two, Magda!”

“Lora, go look behind that curtain, by my bed. There’s a bag full of rags,” Magda said, and Lora departed at a run. She added to Danty, “Who did it—Josh?”

“I’m not sure whether Josh beat Shark to it, or the other way around,” Danty sighed. “They took me completely by surprise. Jumped me near the hoverhalt as I was coming off the beach.”

“You know who did this to you?” Sheklov said, astonished. “Shouldn’t you—uh—report it, then? Or something?” he added lamely.

“To the pigs?” Danty said with a cynical grin. “Man, I should die laughing the day the pigs do anything for me! More like they’d give Josh a medal.”

“Is this long enough?” Lora called, waving a piece of blue cloth around the corner of the curtain that hid Magda’s sleeping alcove. Magda held out her hand for it, and after tugging hard on its ends folded and tied it to make a sling.

“Great, baby,” Danty said, having tried it out. “Say, I guess I should thank you all, shouldn’t I? Don—Lora … Lora, honey! Shit, what you crying for?”

She was struggling not to, but tears were pouring down her cheeks and she was clamping her hands together to stop their shaking.

“Give her a trank!” Danty said, and interrupted himself. “No, got a better idea. Any of that vodka left that Punchy gave us?”

“Sure is!” Magda said, snapping her fingers, and headed for the kitchen. She was back in a moment with mismatched glasses and a bottle half-full. According to its label, Sheklov noted, the contents were made in Schenectady, New York. This wasn’t like the Vyborova he drank at home, but it helped, and he set his empty glass aside gratefully. It was only when he found Danty offering the bottle for a refill that he realised he had drunk it Russian-style, in a gulp, instead of sipping it like the rest of them.

That, though, apparently wasn’t unexpected in the present context. At least, none of them commented.

After a pause to wipe her eyes, Lora said suddenly, “I—uh—I’d like to say something.”

“So shoot,” invited Danty.

“I …” She took the plunge. “I like you! Both of you! You feel real.”

“That’s a change from this morning,” Danty chuckled. “I thought you’d set the stairs afire, the speed you left at.”

“I know,” Lora said, almost inaudibly. “All the time I do stupid things, the exact opposite of what I want. … I wish I could figure out how to explore inside myself, too. I’m sure there’s something in there I ought to know about, something that would be worth having. After all, I’m not an idiot. I’m just”—a furious grimace—“kind of crazy!”

“Aren’t we all?” Magda said, and drained her glass. At the same moment there was a shrill ring from behind the curtain, and she jumped up.

“That might be about Molly,” she said, answering an unspoken query from Danty. “I left the number at the hospital so they could tell us the news.” And vanished.

“Friend of ours,” Danty explained. “Pregnant.”

“Oh. Is she in the maternity ward?” Sheklov hazarded.

He gave his usual crooked grin. “No. Emergency. They have three kids already and their neighbours aren’t talking to them. So her husband threw her downstairs to try and abort her. Broke her pelvis.”

“What?” Lora burst out in horror.

“Happens all the time,” Danty said, passing his unhurt hand wearily over his face. “Shit, what you expect? We got three hundred sixty million people now, and no way out.”

There was silence among them. During it, they heard Magda’s voice.

“But how the hell did you get this number? It’s unlisted, and I never gave it to Avice!”

“Oh.” Danty said softly. “Not Molly. One of her patients—I mean clients. Mustn’t say ‘patient.’ You have to have a licence if you have patients.”

Magda again: “Yes! Yes, all right! Thanks for calling. But don’t use this number again, and above all don’t pass it on to anyone else, is that clear? I don’t want to have it changed again!”

And she came back, scowling.

“The Clarke woman?” Danty asked.

“Right in one.” She helped herself to more vodka and resumed her seat. “Husband’s been called back unexpectedly, so she won’t dare come here tomorrow. Christ, can you call that sort of thing a marriage? That’s what mine was like you know, why it broke up. I wasn’t allowed to do anything I thought of by myself, or I’d get kicked in the ass for my temerity.” She threw her liquor down her throat as though it would drown the memory.

“Danty!” Lora said suddenly, jumping out of her chair and going to sit at his side. “Are you okay now? Feeling all right?”

“No,” Danty said. “I’m feeling lousy—what the hell do you expect, with a crack on the head and a knife-cut?” And relented, reaching up to tousle her hair affectionately. “Don’t let it get you down, though. I’ve had worse things happen to me, and lived through them. … Say, Mag’!”

“Yes?”

“Could we like feed these people? Day’s wearing on, and all I had was brunch.”

“Well—”

“Hold it!” Sheklov interrupted. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we all eat dinner together? My expense. Lora, would you drive us somewhere? Like maybe out of town?”

“Oh, great!” Lora said. “Sure, wonderful! Danty?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no, if we can find somewhere that doesn’t mind a mixed party,” Danty said after a pause. “What about you, Mag’?”

“I guess so,” she said. “Have to change clothes first, though, if we’re going any place—uh—respectable.”

“So will I,” Danty said, getting up. “But I sure wouldn’t refuse a square meal. Thanks, Don. We won’t be a moment.”

He caught Magda by the arm and escorted her through the curtain, out of sight.

 

The moment they were alone in the sleeping alcove, she rounded on him. Very softly, but very ferociously, because this must not carry to the others, she said, “What the shit possessed you to walk into that much trouble?” She tapped his cut arm.

“Had to,” was the curt reply. “Just had to. Know what happened this afternoon? Turpin was called out from home to go somewhere very fast in an EG veetol. And I can guess where.”

“That reserved area?” Magda said, her eyes fixed on his drawn face.

“Where else? And for some reason it was more important for me to know that than for me to steer clear of where Josh and Shark and Potatohead might find me.”

There was an awful, dead pause.

“Remember what I said about getting scared?” Danty said at last. “What—what—what could be more important than my keeping alive? And I mean that! They were going to cut me into little pieces, and no one would have tried to help! It was just luck that there was a pig somewhere around who wasn’t fond of them right now. I got the notion that Shark and Potatohead were like having a blow on the beach, and the pig moved them on. So when he saw them again …” A vague gesture. “That was all that saved me. I rode the hoverline back here, bleeding all over the car, and you know, nobody even offered me a seat?”

“That’s America,” Magda said.

“Yes.” Danty turned away and pulled open the small built-in closet where his clothes were stored. “And you know something? I want out.”

“Where to? Africa? Look what happened to the people who went there in the black exodus!”

“No, just out,” Danty said. His voice, still barely above a whisper, suddenly became level and determined. “Any place where this fucking talent would have something solid to work on, instead of walking me into trouble all the time!”