The wet sand clung to our bodies with the tenacity of fresh-laid wall-paper. From the factories and hospitals nearby came the ingratiating aroma of exhausted chemicals, of hair soaked in pipi, of useless organs plucked out alive and left to rot slowly through an eternity in sealed vessels labelled with great care and veneration. A brief twilight sleep in the arms of Morpheus the Danubian dachshund.
When I got back to town Maude inquired in her polite fish-like way if I had had a pleasant holiday. She remarked that I looked rather haggard. She added that she was thinking of taking a little vacation herself; she had received an invitation from an old convent friend to pass a few days at her home in the country. I thought it an excellent idea.
Two days later I accompanied her and the child to the station. She asked me if I wouldn’t care to ride part of the way with them. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t. Besides I thought maybe she had something of importance to tell me. I boarded the train and rode some distance into the country, talking about things, of no consequence and wondering all the time when she would come out with it. Nothing happened. I finally got off the train and waved good-bye. «Say good-bye to daddy,» she urged the child. «You won’t see him again for several weeks.» Bye bye! Bye bye! I waved good-naturedly, like any suburban papa seeing his wife and child off. Several weeks, she had said. That would be excellent. I walked up and down the platform waiting for the train and pondering on all the things I would do in her absence. Mara would be delighted. It would be like having a private honeymoon: we could do a million wonderful things in a stretch of several weeks.
The following day I awoke with a frightful earache. I telephoned Mara and urged her to meet me at the doctor’s office. The doctor was one of the wife’s demonic friends. He had almost murdered the child once with his mediaeval instruments of torture. Now it was my turn. I left Mara to sit it out on a bench near the entrance to the park.
The doctor seemed delighted to see me; engaging me in a pseudo-literary discussion, he put his instruments up to boil. Then he tested out an electrically run glass cage which looked like a transparent ticker but which was actually some devilish sort of inhuman blood-sucking contraption which he intended to try out as a parting fillip.
So many doctors had tinkered with my ear that I was quite a veteran by this time. Each fresh irruption meant that the dead bone was drawing closer and closer to the brain. Finally there would be a grand conjunction, the mastoid would become like a wild mustang, there would be a concert of silver saws and silver mallets, and I would be shipped home with my face twisted to one side like a haemo-plagic rhapsodist.
«You don’t hear any more with that ear, of course?» said he, plunging a hot wire into the very core of my skull without a word of warning.
«No, not at all,» I answered, almost sliding off the seat with pain.
«Now this is going to hurt a bit,» said he, manipulating a diabolical-looking fish-hook.
It went on like that, each operation a little more painful than the last, until I was so beside myself with pain that I wanted to kick him in the guts. Still there remained the electrical cage: that was to irrigate the canals, extract the last iota of pus, and send me out into the street rearing like a bronco.
«It’s a nasty business,» he said, lighting a cigarette in order to give me a breathing spell. «I wouldn’t want to go through with it myself. If it get any worse you’d better let me operate on you.»
I settled down for the irrigation. He inserted the nozzle and turned on the switch. It felt as though he were irrigating my brain with a solution of prussic acid. The pus was coming out and with it a thin stream of blood. The pain was excruciating.
«Does it really hurt as much as that?» he exclaimed seeing that I had become white as a sheet.
«It hurts worse than that,» I said. «If you don’t stop soon I’ll smash it. I’d rather have triple mastoids and look like a demented frog.»
He pulled the nozzle out and with it the lining of my ear, of my cerebellum, of one kidney and the marrow of my coccyx.
«A fine job,» said I. «When do I come again?»
He thought it best to come to-morrow—just to see how it was progressing.
Mara had a fright when she saw me. She wanted to take me home at once and nurse me. I was so used up I couldn’t stand having anyone near me. Hurriedly I said good-bye. «Meet me to-morrow!»
I staggered home like a drunk and fell on the couch, into a deep drugged sleep. When I awoke it was dawning. I felt excellent. I got up and went for a stroll through the park. The swans were coming to life: their mastoids were non-existent.
When pain lets up life seems grand, even without money or friends or high ambitions. Just to breathe easily, to walk without a sudden spasm or twitch. Swans are very beautiful then. Trees too. Even automobiles. Life moves along on roller skates; the earth is pregnant and constantly churning up new magnetic fields of space. See how the wind bends the tiny blades of grass! Each little blade is sentient; everything responds. If the earth itself were in pain we could do nothing about it. The planets never have an ear-ache; they are immune, though bearing within them untold pain and suffering.
For once I was at the office ahead of time. I worked like a Trojan without feeling the slightest fatigue. At the appointed time I met Mara. She would sit again on the park bench, in the same spot.
This time the doctor merely took a look at the ear, picked away a fresh scab, swabbed it with a soothing ointment, and plugged it up. «Looks fine,» he mumbled, «come back in a week.»
We were in good spirits, Mara and I. We had dinner in a road house and with it some Chianti. It was a balmy evening, just made for a stroll over the downs. After a time we lay down in the grass and gazed up at the stars. «Do you think she’ll really stay away several weeks?» asked Mara.
It seemed too good to be true.
«Maybe she’ll never come back,» I said. «Maybe that’s what she wanted to tell me when she asked me to ride part of the way with her. Maybe she lost her nerve at the last minute.»
Mara didn’t think she was the sort to make a sacrifice like that. It didn’t matter anyway. For a while we could be happy, could forget that she existed.
«I wish we could get away from this country altogether,» said Mara. «I wish we could go to some other country, somewhere where nobody knows us.»
I agreed that that would be ideal. «We’ll do it eventually,» I said. «There isn’t a soul here whom I care about. My whole life has been meaningless— until you came along.»
«Let’s go and row in the lake,» said Mara suddenly. We got up and sauntered over to the boats. Too late, the boats were all padlocked. We started strolling aimlessly along a path by the water; soon we came to a little rest house built out over the water. It was deserted. I sat down on the rough bench and Mara seated herself on my lap. She had on the stiff dotted Swiss dress which I liked so much. Underneath it not a stitch. She got off my lap a moment and lifting her dress she straddled me. We had a wonderful close-knit fuck. When it was over we sat for a while without unhitching, just silently chewing one another’s lips and ears.
Then we got up and, at the edge of the lake, we washed ourselves with our handkerchiefs. I was just drying my cock with the tail of my shirt when Mara suddenly grasped my arm and pointed to something moving behind a bush. All I could see was a gleam of something bright. I quickly buttoned up my pants and taking Mara by the arm we regained the gravel path and started slowly walking in the opposite direction.
«It was a cop, I’m sure,» said Mara. «They do that, the dirty perverts. They’re always hiding in the bushes spying on people.»
In a moment, sure enough, we heard the heavy tread of a thick-witted Mick.
«Just a minute, you two,» he said, «where do you think you’re going?»
«What do you mean?» said, I pretending to be annoyed. «We’re taking a walk, can’t you see?»
«It’s about time you took a walk,» he said. I’ve a good mind to walk you back to the station with me. What do you think this is—a stud farm?»
I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about. Being a Mick, that enraged him.
«None of your lip,» said he. «Better get that dame out of here before I run you in.»
«She’s my wife.»
«So…. your wife, is it? Well now, ain’t that nice? Just doing a little billing and cooing, eh? Washing your private parts in
