Read Online Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson - Free Book Online Page A

after opening another button of his pajama top, she washed his chest and painstakingly wiped hisarmpits. She felt the heat from his body. She fetched a bottle of eau de cologne from her bedroom, a bottle she had saved for special occasions, sprayed a few drops onto his forehead, and blew on it lightly to spread the perfume so that its coolness would pleasantly refresh his hot skin. It helped. She saw his face become more lively again.
    “I’ll get you a fresh pair of pajamas, yes?” she said, bent closely over him.
    A weak nod was the answer. When she was going over to the hiding place where his clothes were, she heard him say, with great effort, “I don’t have any more . . .”
    He didn’t own much, and what little he had had been used up in the days he’d been sick. She went out to the hall, where the laundry bag was still full of the clean clothes that had come back from the laundry that day, and she pulled out a pair of Wim’s pajamas from the bottom of the bag. She called Wim to come help her, and together they dressed Nico. Even though he couldn’t do much to help, since he was already so weakened by his illness, and even though they themselves had no experience nursing sick people, everything went smoothly.
    “Thank you, it was so hot,” he said weakly, when he was lying motionless on his back again. Wim was already in the doorway.
    “So, you’ll sleep better now. Good night,” Marie said, and she left the room on tiptoes.
    Outside in the hall, they stopped for a moment and listened, as though standing outside a room where a child was sleeping. Their eyes met.
    “Come on, Marie!” He opened the door to their room.
    She followed slowly after him, still on tiptoes.

VIII.
    The doctor was standing in the front hall in his hat and coat. It was quarter past ten. He rubbed his hands together. “I came on my bicycle,” he said. He usually used a motorcycle, since he’d had to put his car into a garage because of the shortage of gasoline. It was pitch-black outside. “We’re going right now?” he asked, and he peered up the steps.
    Marie had taken off her apron. Her hands were puffy and red, her face was shining. Still, she was calm and focused. “Can I help with something,” she said, “or . . .”
    “Let’s go,” Wim said to the doctor, and let him go first. Then, turning back to Marie, “It’s better if you wait here downstairs, maybe in the front room . . .”
    “Don’t forget the coat,” she replied.
    Wim stopped on the stairs. “Right,” he said, and he leaped back down in two big jumps. He pulled his hat down tight over his head.
    “Which door?” the doctor asked when Wim came running back up the stairs behind him. He was a littleout of breath because he was wearing his heavy winter coat.
    They walked into the room in their hats and coats like two men from some commission, officials who had come to launch an investigation into a case of death where foul play was suspected. They stepped decisively up to the bed, stood standing alongside it for a second, and calmly considered the case before them, their hands buried deep in their coat pockets. Then the doctor shoved his left hand under the dead man’s neck, grabbed his stiff left arm with the other hand, and pulled. The body slid out of the symmetrical position it had been in until then, and now lay a little diagonal and tilted onto the right side of the face and body. The doctor looked at the prominent Adam’s apple of the dead man in silence. Wim stood hesitantly next to him.
    “If we sit him up first,” he said.
    “That won’t work,” the doctor answered, puffing up his cheeks a little, “with the rigor mortis.” He had already tested it out. Silence. Wim held his hands clasped behind his back; he had the strange feeling of not being in his own house, but rather in a strange house for a wake.
    “It’s not so simple, really,” the doctor began anew.
    Wim turned back the covers and measured the length of the body.