The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 93

I was cold for a while, now I’m warm.

I have a feeling that this is not a good sign, but fuck, who cares anymore?

Words from… somewhere.

Kafka, Franz, b. 1883, d. 1924, unknown in his lifetime, famous after death. “One of the first signs of understanding is the wish to die.”

Or other side-splitting japes: “My guiding principal is this: guilt is never to be doubted.”

But then again: “Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”

1924 was a leap year.

Lenin dies.

The Ottoman Empire gives way to the Turkish state.

The Immigration Act in the USA paves the way to racial discrimination against Asian communities, and will later be cited by the Japanese as proof of American colonial imperialism.

Nellie Taylor Rose is elected first female governor in the USA.

Edwin Hubble declares that Andromeda (previously believed to be a nebula) is a galaxy, and that the Milky Way is merely one of millions of billions of galaxies spinning through the universe.

Approximately eighty-six billion neurons in the human brain. Approximately three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way. Approximately two hundred billion galaxies in the universe, assuming infinity to be an unhelpful term. Approximately 7×10²⁷ atoms in the human body.

I am…

here.

Chess: after three moves on a board, there are over nine million different possible positions that can be achieved in the following game. In a forty-move game, there are more possible positions than the number of electrons in the observable universe.

I am

awake.

My eyes.

Slowly.

No more screaming.

The screams went into my mind, but that’s okay, there’s plenty of room, and much weight of knowledge that I may cast down upon them, if they grow too loud. I am knowledge, you see. I find it is less harmful than many of the other things I could be.

My eyes are quiet, and so am I.

I open them, and I see.

Hospital.

Kinda unexpected, really.

All hospitals look the same.

Blue curtains separate the beds. A bedstand next to me, a jug of water and a plastic cup. A drip of something mixed with something running into a cannula in my left hand, the clear tubing threaded through my hospital gown. In the bed opposite mine, an old woman is awake and scowling, rolled onto one side, her feet bulging beneath the tight anti-thrombosis socks that contort her pale, spotted flesh. Hard to imagine her face, with its jowls and furrowed thick black brows, looking anything other than angry, but perhaps I do her a disservice. Perhaps everyone is angry in this place, with the grey winter light coming through the window at the end of the bed. Perhaps the doctors are rude.

A TV on in the booth besides me. Italian reality TV, something about seducing a rich man, a paradise island, a disastrous dinner — whatever. Waiting a while.

Traditionally this moment, this wakening, is when the doctors come and say, “How are you, are you in much pain, can you remember your name?” and I reply no, no I can’t, oh God what year is it who am I who am I who am I…?

Not so much.

A nurse pads by, sees I’m awake, smiles brightly and perhaps assumes that I’ve been awake a while, and someone else has already said hello. I smile back. She’s forgotten me by the time she’s gone, but that’s okay, there are a lot of patients on this ward, it’s easy to forget. A miracle really that I wasn’t left in the ambulance, an extraordinary thing to be here at all.

Wait a while.

Easy to be forgotten to death in the medical system, but it’s okay, there’s paperwork, NHS targets (do they have those in Italy?), no patient to be left in A&E for more than four hours, just keep on rolling rolling rolling

the woman across the aisle from me turns onto her other side. She’d forgotten I was there, and is unimpressed at the sight of me. In her free time, she shouts at children, I decide. They make too much noise. They’re always smiling and happy and running and free and it’s for their own good that their dreams are crushed asap.

A senior doctor arrives, three juniors in his wake.

How are you feeling? he asks, hands in pockets, casual, relaxed, a flicker in the corner of his eye as he tries to work out if he’s ever seen me before. He’s seen tens of thousands of patients in his career, and forgotten most of them, but they all know he remembers them by name and cares deeply for their condition. That’s how good he is. His badge says his name is Dino, but I find that hard to believe.

I’ve been better, I admit. I think I was stabbed.

Ah! The horror at the hotel, yes of course! The senior doctor smiles, the juniors recoil, suddenly a little alarmed at being near me for, sure, I was stabbed but is there not a danger that I might have stabbed someone else too?

Well then yes, let’s have a look… could be worse, could be worse, nice clean dressing, looking good, missed the lung I see that’s good, antibiotics of course we’ll have a nurse come take some readings

(the nurse does not come)

no name, whispers a junior

Dr Dino is relieved — he hasn’t forgotten my name, he never knew it, perhaps he doesn’t have to go on a mind-boosting fish-oil diet after all.

What’s your name?

Faye, I decide. Faye Cavarero. Where is this?

You’re in the Ospedale dell’Angelo, in Mestre. The Paolo was overwhelmed by the scale of the medical emergency, and the paramedics were able to stop the bleeding on the scene, so you were evacuated here. You were a guest? A note of caution in his voice.

No: a photographer.

Instant relief. Oh, a photographer! I imagine the police will want to see your pictures.

I imagine they will.

Do you need counselling? he suggests carefully. There’s a chaplain, someone to talk to, I can have someone sent up.

Sure, why not.

Of course! Minions! (The juniors stand to attention.) Alert psychiatric services!

They depart.

No one comes.

No name on my chart.

No name on the board above my bed.

Doctors do not bother to write these things down, they have people for that. I call a nurse over, more water, please, she takes my stats while she’s there, writes it down, says, there’s no name.

My name is Faye Cavarero.

Ah, like the philosopher, yes!

Yes, just like the philosopher.

It’s a good name, a strong name. You’ll be strong!

When dinner came, I asked for toast, but they forgot my order, so sorry, I go to get it now, forgot again, and I went without.

That settles it: I cannot stay here for ever. I will starve to death if I do.

Nurse! screams the woman in the bed opposite mine. My head hurts! Bitch — give me more painkillers! Bitch, why won’t you do it my head hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!

Her words deteriorate to a low groaning, an animal sound from deep within, a low mewl that the nurses cannot silence.

Please give her painkillers, sighs the woman in the bed next to hers. Please: just anything to make her stop.

When the lights are turned out, the woman is still moaning, and I am out of water, and no one comes.