Read Online A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr - Free Book Online

better,” he said. “Otherwise she’s much the same. But I managed to speak to the doctor when I rang, and he said they were trying a different treatment.”
    “I see.” She did not know whether that was good or bad.
    “Anyway, he’ll be at the hospital, so you can speak to him yourself. Oh, and Max rang up from Athens. He’s hoping to get on a flight to Paris this afternoon, in which case he’ll be here either tonight or tomorrow.”
    “Oh good.” The thought of Max was cheering.
    “He only knows about the pneumonia, of course.”
    “Not about the overdose?”
    “He didn’t ask me, so I didn’t tell him,” said Konrad stiffly.
    Watching him drive through the pouring rain, she noticed again how worn he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes, and not only his face but even his large body looked a little collapsed. Of course, he’s been coping with all this far longer than me, she thought. But as they approached the hospital, her stomach tightened as it had done the previous day at the prospect of seeing Mama, and she felt suddenly angry. If Konrad hadn’t had an affair with some wretched typist, she thought, none of this would have happened.
    Unlike the previous day, the reception hall was full of bustle. Nurses hurried to and fro, the telephone kept ringing while a man in a raincoat stood dripping patiently at the desk, and immediately behind them an old lady in a wheelchair was being manoeuvred in from the rain under several black umbrellas. Of course, she thought, this was Monday. Yesterday most of the staff would have had the day off.
    The nurse behind the desk announced their arrival on the telephone and a few minutes later a slight, balding man in a white coat came hurrying towards them. He introduced himself as Mama’s doctor with a heel-clicking little bow and plunged at once into an analysis of Mama’s condition.
    “Well now,” he said, “the pneumonia no longer worries me too much. We’ve been pumping her full of antibiotics and she’s responded quite well. But that’s no use unless we can bring her out of the coma. We’ve made no progress there at all, so we’ve given her some powerful stimulants in the hope that these may help. You’ll find her very restless.”
    “Restless?” said Anna. It sounded like an improvement.
    He shook his head. “I’m afraid the restlessness does not mean that she’s better. It’s just a reaction to the drugs. But we’re hoping that it will lead to an improvement eventually.”
    “I see,” she said. “What—” She was suddenly unsure how to put it in German – “What do you think is going to happen?”
    He spread-eagled the fingers of both hands and showed them to her. “Fifty-fifty,” he said in English. “You understand? If she comes out of the coma – no problem. She’ll be well in a few days. If not…” He shrugged his shoulders. “We’re doing all we can,” he said.
    At first, when she saw Mama, in spite of what the doctor had told her, she thought for a moment that she must be better. From the far side of the landing, with Mama’s bed partly obscured by a large piece of hospital equipment, she could see the bedclothes move as though Mama were tugging at them. But there was a nurse standing by the bed, doing something to Mama’s arm, and as she came closer she saw that it had been bandaged on to a kind of splint, presumably to stop Mama dislodging the tube which led to it from the bottle suspended above the bed.
    Tethered only by her arm, Mama was lurching violently about in the bed, and every so often a strange, deep sound came from her chest, like air escaping from an accordion. She no longer had the tube in her mouth, but her eyes were tightly shut, and she looked distressed, like someone in a nightmare, trying to escape.
    “Mama,” said Anna, gently touching her face, but Mama suddenly lurched towards her, so that her head almost struck Anna’s chin, and she drew back, alarmed. She glanced at Konrad for comfort,