Don't Move by Margaret Mazzantini, John Cullen Read Free Book Online Page B

internal medicine, like my father. He wasn’t any good at diagnosis, and I would never have been any good at it, either. I had no intuition. And I wasn’t interested in treating sicknesses hidden behind a wall of flesh. I wanted to open, to see, to touch, to cut away. I knew that I’d do good work only if I could get to the bottom of things, only there and nowhere else. I fought tenaciously against what seemed to be my destiny; I struggled against my natural reaction with all my strength, because it was killing my dreams and forcing me to go in the wrong direction.
    And then, one morning in the students’ bathroom, I deliberately cut myself. I used a razor blade and slowly made an incision in the adductor muscle of my left thumb. I felt the wound grow wet and the blood seep out. I had to endure it, had to open my eyes and endure the sight of it. And at last, I succeeded. I watched my blood drip into the sink and felt slightly faint, nothing more. That same day, I stood close to the operating table in class and finally looked. My heart remained calm. It also remained calm the first time I pressed a scalpel into living flesh. Before newly incised flesh begins to bleed, time passes in a special way. The blood doesn’t flow immediately; for a fraction of a second, the wound remains white. I’ve performed thousands of operations, and it’s only then, at the moment of the incision, that I feel a slight dizziness, because the revulsion I used to struggle against is still alive in me. I raise my hands and leave the cauterization of the wound to my assistant. Except for those first moments, though, I’ve always remained clear-headed and calm, even in the most desperate situations. I’ve always done everything I was capable of doing, and when I’ve had no other recourse, I’ve let people die. I’ve taken off my mask, I’ve washed my face and hands and forearms, and, without asking myself useless questions, I’ve looked in the mirror to see how my efforts have marked my features. My child, I don’t know where people go when they die, but I know where they stay.
    Alfredo must have already started by now. The cutaneous layer is detached, the bleeding stanched. They’re probably cutting into the fascia of the temporal muscle. Then they’ll saw away a section of your skull. It’s a difficult operation; if they apply too much pressure, they run the risk of nicking the dura mater. Afterward, if they have to, they’ll sew the bone section into your abdomen to keep it sterile—but later, at the end of the procedure. Now there’s no time for frills; they have to go straight to the blood. And here’s hoping that the hematoma hasn’t compressed the brain too much. I’d like to be an ordinary father in this situation, one of those trusting men who put their faith in anyone wearing a doctor’s coat and bow before it as before a sacred garment. But I can’t pretend I don’t know how little the goodwill of even the best surgeon can accomplish against the workings of fate. A man’s hands are rooted firmly in the earth, Angela. God, if he exists, is behind our backs.
    You know, sweetheart, it’s my sense of decency that stops me from entering the operating room. Because if you don’t make it, I don’t want to remember you like that; I don’t want to watch while your heart stops beating in such undignified circumstances. I want to remember you like a father—I don’t want a memory of your naked, pulsing brain, I want to remember your hair. The hair I stroked at night, bending over you as you frowned in your sleep. The sight of your little face filled me with fantasies about your future. One was about your wedding day: I imagined your white arm on my dark sleeve; I pictured that long walk, at the end of which I’d turn you over to another man. I’m ridiculous, I know. But the truth about men is often ridiculous.
    Out here there’s a lot of silence. There’s silence in these empty chairs in front of me; there’s