Marshlands by Matthew Olshan Read Free Book Online Page A

belts and pulleys stripped away. Everything was whitewashed. The center of the room was partitioned with hanging sheets of sandblasted glass.
    â€œThere are hospitals in this city that still won’t treat marshmen,” she said. “The ones that do often require payment in cash. So we’ve set up a free clinic for them.”
    She led him to a waiting area full of austere furniture softened with pillows made from tribal rugs. She told him she had to check on something, but that he could rest if he needed to. He sank heavily into a chair.
    He had no idea how much time passed before her warm hand touched his neck. His head bent instinctively to it, like a cat to its owner’s fingers, but she pulled away. The breaking of that connection was what finally woke him.
    He would have been happy to spend the night in that chair, surrounded by the musk of dried marsh grasses, but she took him to one of the glass-paneled rooms and told him to be prepared to work in the morning.
    The room was small but efficient. There was a sink, a set of drawers, a scale, and an examination table, which she’d made up as a bed with a blanket and a pillow scrounged from the waiting area. She told him that the water from the tap was potable, but she recommended drinking from the glass carboy at the end of the hall. She looked very tired.
    He wanted to apologize and ask how they knew each other; instead, he thanked her again for her hospitality.
    There was no rejoinder this time, no proverb. She closed the door behind her and paused outside as if trying to decide whether to lock it. Then her blurred shadow disappeared.
    She hadn’t shown him a bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, but didn’t drink.
    When the lights went out, he pictured her throwing a huge industrial switch. He approved of her frugality. Even so, he wished she’d left him with a little light.
    He felt his way to the examining table and climbed on. The blanket was thick and rough and smelled like carbolic. He fell asleep remembering the harshness of winter in the marshes, and how he used to listen for spring peepers, whose mating song, so insistent and piercing, offered the promise of warmer nights to come.

7
    He groaned and covered himself when the lights came on. There was whispering outside the door. He got up, rinsed his mouth, and brushed his teeth with a curved finger. His jaw ached from the dentist, but he took pleasure in his mouth’s new solidity.
    He needed to find a bathroom. He was hungry, too. He rewrapped his leggings, smoothed his caftan, and ventured out.
    There were orderlies about, weather-beaten women from the marshes who went about their business preparing the examination rooms as if he didn’t exist.
    A young marshman with unusually dark skin folded a newspaper and rose from one of the wicker chairs. He offered his hand, saying it had been a long time since there was a real doctor in residence. He’d been doing the best he could, but his training was cursory, and really only in the area of emergency response. Sadly, he was all the doctor there was for this underserved population. Also, he added, if anyone overheard a marshman calling him Doctor , it was only an honorific. He had no interest in passing himself off in any way above his station.
    He asked the marshman to direct him to the restroom.
    â€œOf course,” he said, “how thoughtless of me.”
    The restroom was bright and clean. There was a vase by the sink with fresh flowers, and a stack of worn but neatly ironed hand towels in a grass basket. After washing his hands, he ran the water a while longer, as if he were inspecting the plumbing of a new home.
    The marshman was waiting for him just outside the door. “Satisfactory? Good,” he said, tucking his newspaper under his arm. “To breakfast, then.”
    A buffet had been set up in the waiting area. There was warm flatbread, yogurt, and an assortment of fruit—some fresh, some