590
SUSAN SONTAG
amazed by the change in him when he returned to the bedroom fifteen minutes
later. Utterson looked almost like a young man, alert, smiling, and full of good
spirits. He said that this was a fortunate meeting, and that while Jekyll had
forced him to make an almost impossible effort, it had been a positive experi–
ence for both of them. He then announced that he and Jekyll would eat
together, alone: an enormous lunch, for which he would break open his best
bottle of fine old Armagnac.
Jekyll remembers that as they ate this lavish meal, downing glass after glass
of Armagnac, Utterson told Jekyll to talk about whatever had been troubling
him. Jekyll remembers finding it difficult to begin, for at that moment he felt
he had no problems at all. He had never felt better in his life. And Jekyll
remembers that when he finally managed to explain his griefs and fears,
Utterson listened without comment, and said finally that what Jekyll had told
him was of no real importance, nothing to worry about. End of
FLASHBACK.
Jekyll feels so weary now, as he holds his wife. Conceivably, he could throw
a line to Utterson that would run from his solar plexus to Utterson's burly right
hand. He would tugon that line, a signal of distress, and Utterson, wherever he
is-in Oyster Bay or in the city-would feel the pressure, would realize that
Jekyll is in trouble, would turn on that violent, electric blue light, whose rays
would be transmitted along the cord connecting them straight back to Jekyll's
chest, and he would feel a new, pure uprising of energy, he would feel
wonderful, he would feel his problems were of no importance. But for this to
happen, Utterson would have to not be too busy with whatever he's doing,
sacred or profane, right now. And he would have
to
understand the exact sense
of Jekyll's signal as well as know who it comes from, who among his many
rebellious ex-pupils. And Utterson would have to be willing, at least for a while,
to imperil his own forces. To be himself, at least for a while, very very tired.
Still in his surgeon's overalls, Jekyll tilts backward in a chair in the third
floor staff lounge of the clinic, havingjust come from the operating room after
a risky, bloody two hours which have saved his patient's life. He allows himself
one cigarette. While, somewhere else, a war is going on, bombs are falling, flesh
is being punctured and burned, hospitals with bamboo walls and thatched
roofs are being targeted for additional bombing, Jekyll looks at the backs of his
capable hands, at the short pale hairs sprouting from each pore-at the
intricate tiny lines connecting each pore that make a web, like an aerial map. Or
a game.
While a nurse comes in to bring Jekyll the latest report on the patient's
condition (good) and stays long enough to flirt with him, the war goes on-an
ache in the bones, an ache in the gut, an ache in the heart. To supplement the
