He straightened himself up and looked down at his tattooed body.

It is no doubt inevitable that Cornelius’s reentry into my life has brought my thoughts on the matter back to the fore.

I asked him what he meant. He didn’t answer. He did say though that he fully respected what he described as the “recent trend” in his relationship with Cornelius and wanted us both to know that it was perfectly understandable.

Tulip then asked him if he would characterize his relationship with Cornelius as loving or as intricate.

Both, my dear, he said, plopping into his chair. After all, history and night and water and now both of you are involved. What do you say we move on to something else?

At this, Tulip said that she had seen the one-time bartender and second murderer, Anthony, and had had a couple of drinks with him.

He’s glad to be out of it, she said. He thought we were all creepy.

Mr. Kindt said, oh well, you know, he does rather have a point. What has he found to do with himself?

He works as an orderly at one of the hospitals in midtown, said Tulip. Does things like administer shots and serve meals and give sponge baths.

I saw him too, I said. Not long ago. He told me I should think about getting out of the business and find some other friends.

Well, that’s probably not the worst advice, but I do, ha, ha, hope you aren’t thinking of taking it, which reminds me, Mr. Kindt said, then began talking again. At some point in this talking with Mr. Kindt, sitting there with his shirt still off, looking about as much like a crumpled game board as like his namesake, Tulip stood up, put her coat on, and said, let’s go.

TWENTY-TWO

I made my first and only serious play for Dr. Tulp’s affections not long after my latest distressing conversation with Mr. Kindt. I had the feeling, and I was not wrong, that things, if not coming to a head, were shifting into a terrain that would be murkier, more confusing, harder to effectively negotiate, so before one of her scheduled visits I threw off my hospital regalia, scrubbed myself at great length under an extra-hot shower, shaved carefully, then put on the only noninstitutional clothes I had — the ragged but clean three-piece vintage suit I had been wearing when I was brought in. I always used to like to apply a reasonable amount of thick pomade to my hair, and had managed to keep up this practice even when I was spending both nights and days on the streets, but there wasn’t any available in the hospital, so I contented myself with pulling my wet hair back tight against my head and holding it there until it was more or less dry.

Establishing an agreeable ambience in any hospital room is a problem, and for a while I shoved and pulled various objects — like the bedclothes, the dirty linen hamper, the curtains, the TV — this way and that, then experimented with various arrangements of the room’s key infrastructure — the bed, the side table, and the chair. When I was satisfied with the configuration, I made a quick trip around the ward and gleaned two fairly fresh bouquets of flowers and half a dozen still somewhat buoyant green and gold balloons from a recently vacated room, and did a few things with them.

The effect, when I was finished, was interesting, if not impressive, which I thought would be likely to play well with Dr. Tulp. I was certainly hoping this would be the case when she considered me. I had lost a pretty good deal of weight by this point and my suit, which was already a little baggy, fell, let’s say, differently than a suit should, and of course I didn’t have any shoes, only my large white slippers. Also my skin had gone a little sallow during my stay, so that under the bright light in front of the bathroom mirror I had a kind of jaundice thing going. But doctors are trained to see past surfaces, to look at the greatest corporeal horrors and smile, or yawn, so I didn’t have any trouble imagining that Dr. Tulp’s gaze would cut right through the really only mildly deficient portions of my exterior aspect and appreciatively palpitate the softer, richer surfaces beneath. Well, that’s what I was counting on. Just in case, I pulled the curtains closed and turned off all the lights except the one with the dimmer switch beside my bed, which I set nice and low. I then splashed a little alcohol on my cheeks, rubbed them with a dry bar of soap in hopes that some of the fragrance would stick, did the same with my wrists and ankles, then climbed onto the bed, crossed my arms and ankles, and set out to wait.

Unfortunately, I fell asleep. So that when Dr. Tulp did come in I greeted her first with a grunt then a disoriented shriek sparked by my perception, in the dim light, with the balloons bobbing in the middle distances and flowers and flower stalks strewn across the floor and various surfaces, that it was Mr. Kindt, not Dr. Tulp, who was moving, not through my room but instead some grotesque, aqueous grotto, toward me. I quickly recovered though, so that when she greeted me and said, what’s going on in here, Henry? I was in a position to smile and invite her to come over and take a seat by the bed. Her response to this was to flip on the lights, press the call button, then chew out the nurse for letting me, in so many words, trash the room.

This definitely didn’t look too good for my prospects, and I probably would have given up on them right then, but instead of instructing me and the nurse to start cleaning up, she told the nurse that would be all, waited until she had left the room, then turned the lights back off.

Do you want me to turn this dimmer up?

No, that’s all right, she said. In fact, it’s perfect in here.

Perfect, huh? I said.

Dr. Tulp batted at one of the balloons as she crossed the room to the chair. There was a balloon within my own reach so I batted at it. Our balloons drifted off in opposite directions for a few feet then went back to bobbing.

I once took part in a school rendition of The Tempest, said Dr. Tulp, as she sat down, leaned back a little in the chair, and crossed her long legs. We did a kind of flower thing like this for the cave. We also hung metallic streamers and blinking Christmas lights and pasted plastic jewels all over the place. When he saw it, the director said it looked like the interior of one of those Bangladeshi restaurants and wondered if we wanted to call for takeout.

I bet you played the wizard’s daughter.

No, I played the wizard’s slave.

Well, I would have liked to have seen that, Dr. Tulp. I said this with as much come-hither as my voice could muster. She didn’t, so I tried something else.

I was in some plays in school.

Oh?

Do you want to hear about them?

Dr. Tulp looked thoughtfully at me. I took this to mean I should go ahead. I started to tell her about playing the donkey in the Bremen Town Musicians, but she cut me off.

No?

She shook her head. I have to admit this flummoxed me a little. I pulled my legs up and wrapped my hands around them. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees.

Did you do this for me, Henry? she said. Her pale white hand did a pretty little back dive as she said this. I imagined it back-diving and back-stroking across the room and out the window. I imagined my own hand following it, out into the air high above the streets.

Well, yeah, I said.

It’s nice, she said. I mean it’s awful and you look awful, especially in that old suit, but it’s nice. The gesture, I mean. You may think I’m impervious to flattery but I’m not. In fact, I like it very much.

The hand that had been swimming reached out and touched a bit of sheet on the bed. A big smile lit my face.

Can I call you Nicola? I said.

I’ve scheduled you for surgery, she said.

What? What are you talking about? When? I said.