Palm for Mrs. Pollifax Read Online Free PDF

now.”
    “
Mon Dieu
, one hopes!” he said, returning to his humorous role. “If not—” He shrugged. “If not, the menu for service is on the desk.
Jambon ou lard, oeuf plat, oeuf poache sur toaste
—” His eyes were positively dancing at her. “My name is Marcel, madame.
Bon appetit!
” he said with a bow, and walked out.
    My confederate, she thought, and was grateful to him for giving her something specific to do because a night without sleep had left her feeling jaded and just a little disoriented. She realized that she was also ravenous, and began to spread marmalade on her croissants. Over coffee she gazed around the room, which was cool, pale, and high-ceilinged, all white with small touches of blue and a deep red Oriental rug on the floor. Tonight, she decided, she would begin her explorations with the Geiger counter, and as her glance fell upon the bed, heaped high with pillows, she conceded that a brief morning nap would not be decadent.
    Moving to the bed she saw that Marcel had left the door ajar, and that it was slowly opening wider. “Who’s there?” she called out, and when no one answered she walked to the door.
    “Bon jour, madame,”
said the small boy she had seen at the entrance. He looked even smaller standing there, and more forlorn, his arms slack at his side. He lifted huge dark eyes to her face. “Would you be my friend, madame?” He pronounced the word
m’domm
.
    She stared down at him in astonishment. “Are you a patient here?” she asked. He was very brown, very thin andwiry and leggy, with jet-black hair. In the small-boned dark face his eyes looked enormous. She had thought him the gardener’s son.
    He shook his head. “Grandmama is a patient and I am here to be with her. Have you grandchildren, madame?”
    “Yes, three,” she told him.
    From somewhere down the hall a voice called, “Hafez? Hafez!”
    The boy turned with a sigh. “Here, Serafina,” he called.
    A sallow-faced woman in black joined him in the framework of the door, took his hand, bent over him and admonished him in a language new to Mrs. Pollifax.
    Hafez pushed out his underlip. “But this is my friend—one
must
have friends!” he cried, and there were tears in his eyes.
    The woman polled him away without so much as a glance at Mrs. Pollifax, who took a few steps into the hall to peer after them. Down at the far end of the hall, near the solarium, a man in a wheelchair sat watching the boy and the woman approach. Seeing Mrs. Pollifax he pushed his way back into the room behind him. Hafez and the woman went into the room opposite, two doors closed at once and there was silence.
    A curious child, thought Mrs. Pollifax, the sound of his voice lingering in her ear.
    She walked to the bed, lay down and fell asleep.
    Twice she was awakened by knocks on the door, the first by a young woman in white who said she was a nurse but would return, the second time by a woman in white who said she was a dietician and would return. The third knock brought the secretary of the Clinic, a pigeon-breasted woman profuse with apologies at not having welcomed Mrs. Pollifax earlier. Seeing that it was eleven o’clock Mrs. Pollifax abandoned the idea of further sleep and got up. Lunch, said the secretary, was from noon to oneo’clock, and dinner from six to eight. Mrs. Pollifax would be examined by a doctor tomorrow morning.
    “Doctor? I’m only tired,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.
    “Ah, but it is the prerequisite, a how you say, a must? Everyone is examined, it is the rule of the Clinic. I understand also that you have not been weighed by the nurse yet, nor given menu instruction to the dietician.” She shook her head reproachfully. “But you were tired?”
    “I was asleep.”
    “Ah, yes,” she murmured vaguely, and went out.
    It occurred to Mrs. Pollifax that at such a pace the quietness of the Clinic might be illusion. She had been here in her room three hours, and had already received a nurse, a small boy, a