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By plane, car, horse, camel, elephant, tractor, bicycle and steam roller, on foot, skis, sled, crutch and pogo- stick the tourists storm the frontiers, demanding with inflexible authority asylum from the "unspeakable con- ditions obtaining in Freeland," the Chamber of Com- merce striving in vain to stem the debacle: "Please to be restful. It is only a few crazies who have from the crazy place outbroken." JOSELITO And Joselito who wrote bad, class-conscious poetry began to cough. The German doctor made a brief ex- amination, touching Joselito's ribs with long, delicate fingers. The doctor was also a concert violinist, a math- ematician, a chess master, and a Doctor of International Jurisprudence with license to practice in the lavatories of the Hague. The doctor flicked a hard, distant glance across Joselito's brown chest. He looked at Carl and smiled -- one educated man to another smile -- and raised his eyebrow, saying without words: "Alzo for the so stupid peasant we must avoid use of the word is it not? Otherwise he shit himself with fear. Hoch and spit they are both nasty words I think?" He said aloud: "It is a catarro de los pulmones." Carl talked to the doctor outside under the narrow arcade with rain bouncing up from the street against his pant legs, thinking how many people he tell it to, and the stairs, porches, lawns, driveways, corridors and streets of the world there in the doctor's eyes... stuffy German alcoves, butterfly trays to the ceiling, silent portentous smell of uremia seeping under the door, suburban lawns to sound of the water sprinkler, in calm jungle night under silent wings of the Anoph- eles mosquito. (Note: This is not a figure. Anopheles mosquitoes are silent. ) Thickly carpeted, discreet nurs- ing home in Kensington: stiff brocade chair and a cup of tea, the Swedish modern living room with water hyacinths in a yellow bowl -- outside the China blue Northern sky and drifting clouds, under bad water- colors of the dying medical student. "A schnaps I think Frau Underschnitt." The doctor was talking into a phone with a chess board in front of him. "Quite a severe lesion I think... of course without to see the Horoscope." He picks up the knight and then replaces it thoughtfully. "Yes... Both lungs... quite definitely." He replaces the re- ceiver and turns to Carl. "I have observed these people show amazingly quick wound recovery, with low in- cidence of infection. |
