364
PARTISAN REVIEW
"You're an author, eh?"
I said I was.
"You'll be able to write a book about this," said the eye doc–
tor. "There's plenty of material."
I was passed on to the weight, measurements and distinguish–
ing marks doctor. It was the urine doctor, but now he had finished
with urine. He discovered the scar on my top lip, where Geoffrey
Walker had caught me with an enamelled mug ten years ago in
Saltburn, and told a clerk to put down "small scar on upper lip."
This I did resent. It was only noted down in case I became a
deserter. I felt a mild claustrophobia.
The joints doctor, who was the chairman of the board, was
the first to require total nudity. While I was lying down on a camp
bed, the shameful parts doctor came up to him.
"You see, he's quite hairy," said the joints doctor. "He can't
be a hermaphrodite."
"He says it does come out occasionally," said the shameful
parts doctor. "And his voice is normal."
They giggled.
"Well," said the shameful parts doctor, "I've always noticed
that the larger the man the smaller the penis."
It was the Roumanian they were talking about. He was plump,
bald-headed and gentle, and at a first glance he had no shameful
parts at all. There was a normal mat of hair, but only a small valve
nesting in it. The joints doctor probed my stomach and made me
stand on one leg.
He also looked at my form and said:
"Author, yes? What sort of books do you write?"
I told him.
"You'll be able to write about this," he said.
"It's been done," said
I.
"By whom?"
"Lawrence."
"Whom?"
"D. H. Lawrence. A long chapter called 'The Nightmare' in
Kangaroo."
"I don't read D. H. Lawrence, but my son does," said the
joints doctor. "Is it good?"
"A bit overdone," I said. "He thought it the final insult to
human dignity."
