indistinct from the ground on which we were driving.
It’s a wonder we survived the half-hour drive.
Another wonder is how I ended up in an emergency ward in East Gwillimbury. I held on to consciousness just long enough to get us to a hospital. But I must have passed out as soon as we reached the parking lot of Our Lady of Mercy Health Centre. The professor later told me he thought we were lucky to reach the place. And I agreed. It would have been terrible if I’d passed out somewhere along the road. It felt, though, as if I had been guided to East Gwillimbury – an otherworldly feeling, a feeling made stranger by my coming to on a gurney, blood flowing into me from a sack suspended on a transfusion stand. I was more or less naked under a sheet. They’d left my socks on.
Our Lady of Mercy unnerved me. Because I have a fear of hospitals. Because, when I was a child, I spent months in Toronto Western watching my mother go through chemotherapy. Because the look and smell of hospitals remind me of being scalded by boiling water. I have no good memories of hospitals, and Our Lady of Mercy was not much different from others I’ve been in.
There were panels of white Styrofoam on the ceiling above me. In a gap among the panels were tubes of fluorescent lighting, darkened where their pins entered their holders. The light from the tubes was inconsistent – white, yellowish, blue. I had time to notice all this because I was on my own for quite a while. I didn’t want to make a fuss but, after what felt like an hour, I finally called out.
– Can someone help me?
– Oh, a nurse answered, you’re awake!
The woman had a freckled face with high cheekbones and her hair was red. She seemed so surprised, I wondered if my regaining consciousness was an unexpected turn of events.
– You lost a lot of blood, she said, and since you’re here to have your tonsils out, we wanted to make sure your levels were good.
– Why are my tonsils being taken out? I asked.
– I guess there’s something wrong with them, she said. People don’t usually have them out otherwise.
I admitted this was true. But I expressed my reservations. I’d never been bothered by my tonsils.
– I think there’s been a mistake, I said. My tonsils haven’t given me trouble. I was bitten by dogs.
– Well, there you go, she answered. The dogs probably made your tonsils worse. That’s how trauma works sometimes. But your gurney being in this place means you’re ready for a tonsillectomy. We don’t tend to make mistakes about these things, you know.
– But the dogs didn’t get me by the throat, I said.
She said
– The doctors might have found you needed a tonsillectomy while they were treating your wounds. Wouldn’t it be better to have your tonsils out now, while you’re already a little injured?
– Could I see the doctor? I asked.
– I think it’s better we don’t disturb Dr. Flew while he’s getting ready to take your tonsils out. Don’t you agree?
She was polite, but I felt she’d been encouraged by my tone, maybe thinking I was unsure about my tonsils. We went back and forth like this, each of us expressing our side of the matter. And, to my surprise, I was suddenly engaged in a pitched battle of politeness, those kindly – but ferocious – skirmishes that are so common in our country: each side trying to polite the other into submission. I prefer these sorties to the open arguments that happen in the United States. But I felt that, the battle being for my tonsils, it was important that I win. So, I asked again and again if she was certain I’d been left in the right place, seeing as I did not want an operation if it could be avoided.
Finally, she said
– Mistakes do happen. I’ll look into it for you. Would you like that?
I was relieved and, thanks to the blood transfusion, I felt more or less myself again. The only things missing were my clothes or, at least, pyjamas so I could walk around. Without them, I was trapped on my gurney and, after a while, I fell asleep.
I woke when the nurses came for me. They were taking me to the operating room or, rather, to a place beside the operating room where the anesthesiologist would put me under.
– I don’t need an operation, I said. I was bitten by dogs, that’s all.
– You came in for a tonsillectomy, one of the nurses said. You can’t just change your mind.
I insisted there’d been a mistake. I tried to get up from the gurney, but, in the end, what saved me from a tonsillectomy was chance. My gurney passed by a public waiting area on its way to the operating room and, despite my distraction, I saw Professor Bruno reading a book. I called his name as loudly as I could and he heard me.
The nurses were just as suspicious of the professor’s words on behalf of my tonsils as they’d been of mine. But the weight of two testimonials must have instilled some doubt. So, they did a little digging around. They discovered then that my name was in fact Alfred Homer, as I’d repeatedly told them, not Arthur Helmers, and that they’d got my name wrong when I was admitted to the hospital. The other thing that saved me from a tonsillectomy was the discovery that Arthur Helmers had died from his infection.
– I told you it was serious, one of the nurses said.
For a moment, I wondered if they’d take my tonsils, anyway, as a precaution. But I was conveyed to a ward and, eventually, my suitcase was given to me.
I’d have liked to leave at once but there were papers to sign and apologies to be heard. At some point, I was famished because I hadn’t eaten for hours. So, when one of the nurses gave me a pomegranate she’d brought for her own dinner, I was grateful. More than that, her kindness struck me as a good omen. I was reminded of my father’s idea that the beginning of a trip casts its shadow forward, that it influences the trip itself. I remember thinking that, despite the small misunderstandings we’d encountered, the day had been a good one.
I could tell that Professor Bruno, who sat with me in the ward, was pleased I was out of danger.
– I hate to think what might have happened to you, dear boy, if we’d had an accident. I’m an old man. My death would have meant nothing. But you, Alfie, you still have your life in front of you. It would have been a tragedy.
His spirits were further lifted when I was discharged. He joked that the dogs we’d encountered were like Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of Hades, and thanked me for protecting him from them.
– The good news, he said, is that we’ve got past Cerberus. That’s a rare feat, Alfie. Only Hercules and Orpheus have done it! The bad news is that, from now on, we’ll be travelling through the underworld.
He smiled and patted my shoulder.
– God knows how we’ll get out, he said, but at least we’ll talk to the glorious dead!
I was on the edge of sleep again, the stress of nearly losing my tonsils having tired me out.
– We’re going to Hell? I asked.
– No, no, no, he said. The underworld is the domain of Hades, the unseen. No punishment involved! Unless you count an eternity of talk as punishment. Which I do not!
I wasn’t sure what to think about Hades or what to feel about it. I certainly wouldn’t have minded talking to the dead, to my mother and father, above all. I had so many questions to ask them, so many things I would have liked to tell them.
I closed my eyes while listening to the professor’s voice.
And I fell asleep while waiting for more paperwork, for the right paperwork to be brought to me. The hospital wanted official reassurance that I wasn’t angry, I suppose. And I wasn’t. I was grateful that nothing irreparable had been done to me. Despite my bites and bruises and the threat to my tonsils, the thing that had unnerved me most was Our Lady of Mercy, the hospital itself. Not just its clean surfaces