The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

‘She needs educating, praise God’s Holy Name.’ Rideout leaned toward Newsome, his own hands clasped behind his back. He reminded Kat of a picture she’d seen once of Washington Irving’s schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane. ‘She’s had her say. Shall I have mine?’

Newsome was sweating more heavily, but he was smiling again. ‘Have at her. Rip and roar. I believe I want to hear this.’

Kat faced him. Those dark, socketed eyes were unsettling, but she met them. ‘Actually, so do I.’

Hands still clasped behind his back, pink skull shining mutedly through his thin hair, long face solemn, Rideout examined her. Then he said, ‘You’ve never suffered yourself, have you?’

Kat felt an urge to flinch at that, or look away, or both. She suppressed it. ‘I fell out of a tree when I was eleven and broke my arm.’

Rideout rounded his thin lips and whistled: one tuneless, almost toneless note. ‘Broke an arm while you were eleven. Yes, that must have been excruciating.’

She flushed. She felt it and hated it but couldn’t stop the heat. ‘Belittle me all you want. I based what I said on years of experience dealing with pain patients. It is a medical opinion.’

Now he’ll tell me he’s been expelling demons, or little green gods, or whatever they are, since I was in rompers.

But he didn’t.

‘I’m sure,’ he soothed. ‘And I’m sure you’re good at what you do. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of fakers and posers. You know their kind. And I know yours, miss, because I’ve seen it many times before.

‘They’re usually not as pretty as you’ – finally a trace of accent, pretty coming out as purty – ‘but their condescending attitude toward pain they have never felt themselves, pain they can’t even conceive of, is always the same. They work in sickrooms, they work with patients who are in varying degrees of distress, from mild pain to deepest, searing agony. And after awhile, it all starts to look either overdone or outright fake to them, isn’t that so?’

‘That’s not true at all,’ Kat said. What was happening to her voice? All at once it had grown small.

‘No? When you bend their legs and they scream at fifteen degrees – or even at ten – don’t you think, first in the back of your mind, then more and more toward the front, that they are lollygagging? Refusing to do the hard work? Perhaps even fishing for sympathy? When you enter the room and their faces go pale, don’t you think, ‘Oh, now I have to deal with this lazy slug of a thing again’? Haven’t you – who once fell from a tree and broke your arm, for the Lord’s sake – become more and more disgusted when they beg to be put back into bed and be given more morphine or whatever?’

‘That’s so unfair,’ Kat said … but now her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Once upon a time, when you were new at this, you knew agony when you saw it,’ Rideout said. ‘Once upon a time you would have believed in what you are going to see in just a few minutes, because you knew in your heart that a malignant outsider was there. I want you to stay so I can refresh your memory … and the sense of compassion that’s gotten lost along the way.’

‘Some of my patients are whiners,’ Kat said, and looked defiantly at Newsome. ‘I suppose that sounds cruel, but sometimes the truth is cruel. Some are malingerers. If you don’t know that, you’re blind. Or stupid. I don’t think you’re either.’

He bowed as if she had paid him a compliment – which, in a way, she supposed she had.

‘Of course I know. But now, in your secret heart, you believe all of them are malingerers. Like a soldier who’s spent too long in battle, you’ve become inured. Mr Newsome is invaded, I tell you. Infested. There’s a demon inside him so strong it has become a god, and I want you to see it when it comes out. It will improve matters for you considerably, I think. Certainly it will change your outlook on pain.’

‘And if I choose to leave?’

Rideout smiled. ‘No one will hold you here, Miss Nurse. Like all of God’s creatures, you have free will. I would not ask others to constrain it, or constrain it myself. But I don’t believe you’re a coward, merely calloused. Case-hardened.’

‘You’re a fraud,’ Kat said. She was furious, on the verge of tears.

‘No,’ Rideout said, once more speaking gently. ‘When we leave this room – with or without you – Mr Newsome will be relieved of the agony that’s been feeding on him. There will still be pain, but with the agony gone, he’ll be able to deal with mere pain. Perhaps even with your help, miss, once you’ve had a necessary lesson in humility. Do you still intend to leave?’

‘I’ll stay,’ she said, then said: ‘Give me the lunchbox.’

‘But—’ Jensen began.

‘Give it over,’ Rideout said. ‘Let her inspect it, by all means. But no more talk. If I am meant to do this, it’s time to begin.’