Light and dark

[42]

“I ASSUME you took the castor oil?”

The doctor’s freshly starched surgical gown rustled as he spoke.

“I drank it, but nothing much happened.”

Tsuda hadn’t had the leisure the day before to focus on the castor oil’s effectiveness. All day he had been obliged to concern himself with one thing after the other; the laxative’s effect had been psychologically negligible and unexpectedly feeble even physically.

“Let’s give you an enema, then.”

The result of the enema was also unsatisfactory.

When it was over, Tsuda moved straight to the table and lay down on his back. As his skin made contact with the chilly, rubberized sheet he shivered involuntarily. With his head propped on an unforgiving pillow he was struck full in the face by a beam of light from the opposite direction so that his eyes, as though he were sleeping with his face to the sun, were restless. He blinked repeatedly and repeatedly looked up at the ceiling. The nurse moved past him with a square, shallow, nickel-plated tray of surgical instruments, and a white metallic light glinted. Lying on his back, he felt that the glinting tray had registered in the far periphery of his vision; it was very much as if he had stolen a look at something awful he wasn’t meant to see. Just then a phone in the hall abruptly rang. He had forgotten about O-Nobu and now he remembered. As her phone call to the Okamotos was ending, his surgery was at last about to begin.

“Cocaine is all we’ll need. There shouldn’t be much pain. If an injection doesn’t work I’ll apply the anesthetic topically as I go deeper and that should do it.”

Spoken as the doctor swabbed the area clean, these words terrified Tsuda and at the same time struck him as nothing to worry about.

The local anesthetic worked well. Peering intently at the ceiling, he had no idea what sort of major incident was occurring below his hips. From time to time he was merely aware in one sector of his body that someone was applying pressure in a distant place. In that area he could feel a dulled resistance.

“How are you doing? No pain, is there?”

There was abundant self-confidence in the doctor’s question.

Tsuda replied with his eyes on the ceiling.

“It doesn’t hurt. I feel a heaviness.”

The words he needed to express appropriately the feeling of oppressiveness eluded him. Out of nowhere he found himself wondering if the ground might feel that way, the nerveless ground, when a shovel dug into it.

“It’s a strange feeling. I can’t explain it.”

“I see. Any dizziness?”

The doctor’s tone of voice, as if he were concerned about impeded blood flow to the brain, effectively churned the calmness Tsuda had been feeling. He had no idea whether it was customary in such a case to give a patient wine or something else to drink, but he hated the idea of receiving emergency treatment.

“I’m all right.”

“Good. We’re about finished.”

The doctor’s attitude as he conducted this conversation with the patient while his hands moved incessantly seemed to radiate the competence that can only have come from mastery.

The procedure, however, was not wrapped up as quickly as he had indicated.

From time to time there was the ping of a blade against the tray; the amplified echo of what sounded like scissors shearing through flesh reached him menacingly. Each time, he saw with a rich, fulsome bloodiness in the eye of his imagination the red gushing that had to be stanched and swabbed with gauze. His nerves as he lay there not allowed to move grew strained and taut to a point where holding still was agony. The feeling was of insects swarming in his veins.

Opening wide his eyes, he stared up at the ceiling. His beautifully attired wife was on the floor above. What she was thinking, what she was doing at this moment, he had no idea. He was overcome by a desire to call out to her in a loud voice. Just then the doctor’s voice sounded from down at his feet.

“Finished.”

He felt gauze being packed inside him endlessly, and a terrible itchiness, and the doctor spoke again.

“That scar was surprisingly tough so there’s a danger of hemorrhage. Try to lie as still as you can for a while.”

With this final word of caution, Tsuda was at last helped down from the operating table.