400
DAVID ZANE MAIROWITZ
honest, says the policeman or whatever he may be in
his
crisp black
suit, all servicemen returning from "that part of the world" are sub–
jected to strict urinalysis and none is released until "clear." She misses
the implication. It's quite simple, he explains, the man who has left
her in this dilemma has not been through the normal medical chan–
nels, which is highly irregular, iIIegal and impossible except in cases
of absence without official leave. Perfidia is lost in this, implicated,
as she is,
in
one of her own nightmares, and the paranoia is acute. She
knows nothing, she pleads. Remember, he warns, who you are, Miss
Munch. And now the snare is truly laid as she reads his face precisely.
It registers every step she has taken for three months, every petty theft,
knows her connections, her plans for the immediate future, has in–
formed on the very dirt beneath her fingernails.
"We can discuss it further tomorrow."
He stands, carefully brushes the grass from his legs.
"Tomorrow?"
"Oh yes, you aren't leaving here, Perfidia. It's all over, you
know."
That night she is subjected to more probing
in
her city laid
waste. Every entry brings with it great pain and sensation, all quite
new to her. She is given morphine and, as she fades, she explores
herself again, discovering new furrows, new valleys and waterways.
It occurs to her she is fighting for her life. Not against the riot squads
and their smiling executives, or even Kropotkin and his pressure, but
against the years, the years which have climbed on her, probed,
scraped, left her as broken glass under their immense weight.
She is riding to sleep on the crest of her disaster. The clinic has
become an instant prison into which she will wake in chains.
In the night she dreams her escape across the panorama of green,
shearing the barbed wire as Kropotkin has taught in his lectures. She
cannot cross the city in her hospital gown or she will raise suspicion.
Instead, she makes her way to Mother Munch's, enters and rifles her
wardrobes. Something startles her in the act and behind her stands
the old woman with her breadknife. She has always faced her face–
lessly, hoping to remove herself from the elder's gaze. She has made
chaos of her Mother's intentions. She ought, she feels, to be ashamed.
But this time she can hold a stare; it states her case.
The breadknife cuts through the hospital garment and the old
