Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [88]
'I've come from England to see him on important business. Can you tell me where I can find him?'
The record came to its end. The German turned it over, wound up the machine and started it playing again before answering.
'Sebastian's sick. The brothers took him away to the Infirmary. Maybe they'll let you thee him, maybe not. I got to go there myself one day thoon to have my foot dressed. I'll ask them then. When he's better they'll let you thee him, maybe.'
There was another chair and I sat down on it. Seeing that I meant to stay, the German offered me some beer.
'You're not Thebastian's brother?' he said. 'Cousin maybe? Maybe you married hith thister?'
'I'm only a friend. We were at the university together.'
'I had a friend at the university. We studied History. My friend was cleverer than me; a little weak fellow—I used to pick him up and shake him when I was angry—but tho clever. Then one day we said: "What the hell? There is no work in Germany. Germany is down the drain," so we said good-bye to our professors, and they said: "Yes, Germany is down the drain. There is nothing for a student to do here now," and we went away and walked and walked and at last we came here. Then we said, "There is no army in Germany now, but we must be tholdiers," so we joined the Legion. My friend died of dysentery last year, campaigning in the Atlas. When he was dead, I said, "What the hell?" so I shot my foot. It is now full of pus, though I have done it one year.'
'Yes,' I said. 'That's very interesting. But my immediate concern is with Sebastian. Perhaps you would tell me about him.'
'He is a very good fellow, Sebastian. He is all right for me. Tangier was a stinking place. He brought me here—nice house, nice food, nice servant—everything is all right for me here, I reckon. I like it all right.'
'His mother is very ill,' I said. 'I have come to tell him.'
'She rich?'
'Yes.'
'Why don't she give him more money? Then we could live at Casablanca, maybe, in a nice flat. You know her well.? You could make her give him more money?'
'What's the matter with him?'
'I don't know. I reckon maybe he drink too much. The brothers will look after him. It's all right for him there. The brothers are good fellows. Very cheap there.'
He clapped his hands and ordered more beer.
'You thee? A nice thervant to look after me. It is all right.' When I had got the name of the hospital I left.
'Tell Sebastian I am still here and all right. I reckon he's worrying about me, maybe.'
The hospital, where I went next morning, was a collection of bungalows, between the old and the new towns. It was kept by Franciscans. I made my way through a crowd of diseased Moors to the doctor's room. He was a layman, clean shaven, dressed in white, starched overalls. We spoke in French, and he told me Sebastian was in no danger, but quite unfit to travel. He had had the grippe, with one lung slightly affected; he was very weak; he lacked resistance; what could one expect? He was an alcoholic. The doctor spoke dispassionately, almost brutally, with the relish men of science sometimes have for limiting themselves to inessentials, for pruning back their work to the point of sterility; but the bearded, barefooted brother in whose charge he put me, the man of no scientific pretensions who did the dirty jobs of the ward, had a different story.
'He's so patient. Not like a young man at all. He ties there and never complains—and there is much to complain of. We have no facilities. The Government give us what they can spare from kind. There is a poor German boy with the soldiers. And he is so kind. There is a poor German boy with a foot that will not heal and secondary syphilis, who comes here for treatment. Lord Flyte found him starving in Tangier and took him in and gave him a home. A real Samaritan.'
'Poor simple monk,' I thought, 'poor booby.' God forgive me!
Sebastian was in the wing kept for Europeans, where the beds were divided by low partitions into cubicles with some air of privacy. He was lying with his hands on the quilt staring at the wall, where the only ornament was a religious oleograph.