Sylvie: Short Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

housekeeper brings in her tea, that bitter tea she’s starting to acquire a taste for. John pours it. If he has any misgivings about the operation, he never shows them. He talks about the future. They are going to have four children. They are going to visit her father’s village in Portugal.
    Two days before the operation they return with the surgeon to New York City. Blood tests have to be done, more X-rays need to be taken, and John and the surgeon are giving a news conference. The surgeon wants Sylvie at the conference, but John is afraid that some of the questions might upset her, so she’s not attending, which is fine with her.
    As the conference is scheduled for the afternoon of their arrival, John has time only to take her up to her hospital room. After he’s gone she lies on her bed and listens to “Vic and Sade” on the radio.
    About ten minutes go by, and then a nurse barges into the room and hands her a hospital gown to change into. Throwing open the curtains, the nurse says that Thursday is the big day. She pretends not to be dying of curiosity, but Sylvie isn’t fooled and she undresses facing her, letting her catch a glimpse.
    Throughout the rest of the afternoon nurses and interns arrive to take blood and her temperature or just to plump her pillow, and cleaners keep coming in to mop the floor and to empty the empty wastepaper basket. Sylvie sits on her bed withher skirt hiked above her little knees. Why not give them a thrill? she thinks wistfully.
    Around six o’clock John returns with their dinner on a tray, and they eat at the desk. “The news conference went very, very well,” he says. Pushing away his half-eaten meal, he gets up and prowls the room. “This is a very, very important operation in terms of certain precedents,” he says. He reminds her of Mr. Bean on opening night in a big city. Before he leaves for the hotel, he fills her coffee cup with water and has her take two sleeping pills.
    The next day, Wednesday, it’s mostly doctors who keep coming into her room. They don’t have to put on any acts. They pull up her hospital gown and take good looks, and if a couple of them arrive at the same time, they talk with each other about her little womb and menstrual cycles and bowel movements. Sometimes they ask her questions, sometimes they don’t even say hello. Off and on John pops in to see how she is. He isn’t as keyed-up as he was the day before, but he has meetings and can’t stay for long.
    When she is wheeled out on a stretcher to have X-rays, patients are lined along the corridors, waiting for her. She feels like a float in a parade. When she returns to her room, John is at the desk having his dinner, but there’s no meal for her because she isn’t allowed to eat now until after the operation. “Am I allowed sleeping pills?” she asks anxiously, afraid of what she might start thinking, and remembering, if she lies awake. John pulls out a bottle from his coat pocket. “How many do you think you’ll need?” he asks.
    A nurse wakes her before dawn to wash her and to shave the pubic hair from herself and from Sue. Several minutes later John and another nurse and an intern come in.
    “This is it,” John says.
    He keeps her calm by holding her hand as she is wheeled down the corridors and into the operating theatre. She isbrought to the centre of what seems like a stage. John scans the rows of doctors seated behind glass in the encircling tiers. “There are some big names here,” he says quietly.
    “John?” she says.
    He bends toward her. “Yes?”
    She gazes at his beautiful face. She can’t remember what she was going to say.
    “Are you ready, darling?” he asks.
    She nods.
    A doctor places the ether mask over her mouth and starts the countdown. Still holding her hand, John leans to look into her eyes. The doctor says nine. John’s eyes bore into her. The doctor says eight, seven. Sylvie’s eyelids drop.
    Light hits glass and magnifies something. A polyphemus