Sometimes, you need a terrible plan to invent a terrific plan.
I feel a little worried about the bald man and the man in the tuxedo. I stopped the bleeding with the help of some sanitary towels, kept in place on the forehead of the two victims by several pairs of panties that the women on the street corner supplied. Head wounds always bleed a lot, which is why I look like Dracula's bride when the ambulance shows up. The medics insist that Scarlett and I accompany them to the hospital, which is close to Jungleland, so it saves us a walk (on high heels).
I assure the male nurse there's nothing wrong with me, and the three men are just sleeping, but they don't want to take any risk. They send Scarlett and me to a waiting room.
I can't keep walking around like this: I'm dressed like a woman, I'm covered in blood, and I've lost my left shoe. Walking on high heels is complicated, but walking on one high heel and one flat heel is impossible. I leave the waiting room, looking for a place where doctors keep their white coats. After all of tonight's bad luck, we deserve a little good luck.
The first aid is on the ground floor and that's also where the cleaners keep their outfits. After washing my hands and face, I change my bloody maiden image into a white male, with overalls and wooden slippers. But I'm not done yet. This environment tickles my wildest fantasy. A naughty plan comes up: I want to play doctors with Scarlett. We'll need the real McCoy. Two floors up, I find the launderette with a wide collection of white uniforms. I change again. This time, I become Doctor Alban, complete with the stethoscope and the clipboard. I put Scarlett's outfit in a bag and return to the waiting room.
In the corridor, a confused elderly lady stops me: "Please doctor. I'm in high need. Can you come and help me?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am. There's nothing I can do. You have to be patient."
The lady shouts: "I AM a patient! I need a doctor NOW!"
I take her to the floor nurse and go on; at least my disguise is convincing.
It's late, so all the offices are deserted, which makes my next step a lot easier. I start up a computer, find paper with the official letterhead of the hospital, and write a short, formal letter to a Mister William Oglethorpe, address found in the secret medical files, available for hospital employees only.
«Dear Mister Oglethorpe,
We would like to inform you that the outcome of your latest tests are positive, which means they are negative, which means that you positively DO have the virus, which is rather negative news. The positive news is that your lethal infection can be cured with a legal injection, so we advise you to contact us as soon as possible. You, as a V.I.P. (Virally Infected Patient), can NOT come to the hospital yourself, we are terrified you will infect others, so please call our hotline:
Yours sincerely,
Doctor Alban
(Head of section contagious diseases, Hospitality Operations Academic Krakow Sanitary)»
The best mouse trap is when the mouse calls you himself to ask you when would be the best time for you to catch him.
I print the letter, put it in an official envelope, even find a stamp (I plan to deliver it myself, tonight, so it won't have the mark from the post office, but I don't think Mister Oglethorpe is a philatelist and will notice the missing detail), I close the office like I found it, and return to Scarlett in the waiting room.
"I've found Mister Oglethorpe's home address and I've written him an invitation, that is, a letter which will make him hurry to invite us. All we need now is a ride, to transport us to the other part of town where our friend William has his residence. Here's your outfit. I hope I guessed the size right."
After Scarlett changed in the bathroom, I make a sexy series of photos of her (one with a chamber pot, one with a giant syringe and one where she looks dominantly demanding into the lens of the camera). I send them to The Nerd, not really because we need something from him now, more to create goodwill for future favours, but mostly because Scarlett looks spectacular in this combination of white uniform, red lips, black face, and a white cap with a red cross on her black hair. Scarlett adds another private message to the photos: «First I'll spank you, then I'll cure you, and then I'll spank you again». The Nerd already lost his head when he saw the pictures of Scarlett in her Roxanne outfit, but now it takes so long before we get a reply that I fear he died of a heart attack: «What can I do to become a field agent like you?»
My reply is brief: «Anything I ask you.»
The Nerd answers: «Deal.»
Finally, we need a car. There are several ambulances in the garage below the hospital, but the problem is the male nurse who's guarding them.
I explain my plan to Scarlett: "First, you distract him. Unbutton your uniform to get his full attention. I sneak behind him and give him a blow on the head. We tie him up and put half a mile of bandages in his mouth, so he won't scream for help. We need a place to lock him away, where nobody will find him for the next 24, or 48 hours. Have you seen a broom closet we can use? Or do you think it will be better if we tie him to the stretcher in the back of the ambulance?"
"I think you're crazy. I think you've seen too many films on TV, papa-know-it-all. To live in your world of intelligence without brains, that's dangerous. In my world, if you want something, you ask for it. Didn't your mother teach you anything?"
I feel ashamed. Scarlett is right. At least, I should give her the chance to prove she's right. We can always use the slapping and bondage as a Plan B.
Scarlett walks to the nurse and says: "Do you have a cigarette for me, please. I'm so nervous. I don't know what to do."
The nurse looks concerned: "No, sorry. I don't smoke. And this is a hospital. You're not allowed to smoke here. As a nurse, you should know."
"Those ambulances don't smoke either? Living in a town as big as Krakow, with the number of cars that drive around every day… Someone who works on the street breathes as much bad air as someone who smokes seventeen cigarettes per day. Didn't they warn you? Never mind. It's my life, it's my worries, it's my problems…"
Scarlett's worries wake the empathy of the male nurse: "Is there anything I can do for you?"
Scarlett sits down on the plastic chair next to him and covers her head in her hands: "It's… my daughter. She just called me. Her boyfriend… They had a fight. She's pregnant. He didn't want the responsibility, and now he kicked her out of his flat. He threw all her clothes behind her, out of the window. Should she sleep on the street tonight? She has no place to go. She needs her mother, but… I have no idea how I can get to her, fast, at night, all the way to Gdansk…"
The nurse puts his arm around her: "A baby? Come on, be happy. Sing hallelujah! You're going to be a grandmother. Don't worry. Take ambulance number seven. If you put the siren on, there's no faster way of transport. Return it tomorrow, with a full tank. I will cover you. If you need anything, all you need is to ask…"
Scarlett dries her tears, thanks the nurse with a kiss on his cheeks: "Thank you. You saved my life, and the life of my daughter, and the life of her unborn child. I promise you, if it's going to be a boy, we'll name him after you."
"My name is Miroslaw."
"Thanks, Miroslaw. The keys are in the contact?"
* * *
We deliver the letter and wait until it's late, but it looks like Mister Oglethorpe is already asleep, alone, so we decide to follow his example, I in my room in Pension Chopin and Scarlett in her flat in Jungleland.
The next morning at eight o'clock, there's still no news from Mister Oglethorpe, so we go to work and deliver the packages; Friday is the busiest day of the week in the package delivery industry.
At lunchtime, still no sign of life. After lunch, we inspect the ambulance, with all the medicines and bandages and medical equipment. Scarlett needs inspiration. She wants to find new ways to torture her victim: "Read all those leaflets with instructions that come with the medicines, Red. This one is nice: causes nausea and headaches. Those red pills cause problems with concentration, those blue ones cause traffic accidents, and the best ones are these little ones: they cause a lifelong addiction. I stick to that old saying of an apple a day to keep the doctor away."
"Health insurance doesn't reimburse the costs of apples. Dying of hunger, one of the most frequent forms of premature death in the Third World, is not considered a medical problem, and healthy food is not considered medicine. Obesity, on the other hand, is considered a large-scale life-threatening epidemic health problem, so people over 150 kilos get all the medical treatment they need."
I said that without thinking. My remark referred to the general way of living in most of the Western European and Northern American countries. I didn't mean it to be personal. I forgot about how Scarlett feels about her body, her overweight, her coming of age that can't be stopped. She takes it personally and defends herself against my unfair attack: "Stop bugging me. Stop bothering me. It's my life. Do you understand? What you see is what you get. I live the way I want to live. Stop telling me what I have to do and what I have to eat. It's my life, it's my worries, it's my problems."
"Sorry, Scarlett. It's nothing personal. I was referring to hunger in the Third World and the ignorance of people like William Oglethorpe. According to his medical file, he weighs over 150 kilos. He gets intensive treatment in the hospital. For the price we pay, together, to treat overweight, we could buy all the food the rest of the world needs; nobody would have a problem. By the way, I never think of you as someone overweight. Be honest: last night, three men fought for you. You're a knock-out."
Scarlett doesn't want to listen. She's angry, she's sad, she's disappointed, she's had enough, and she didn't have much time to get over everything that happened earlier this week either. She steps out of the ambulance, shouts: "I hate you! I'm going to buy doughnuts! With chocolate!", and bangs the door closed behind her.
Quickly I go after her, just following her, without saying anything. She goes to a little bakery, orders ten doughnuts with all kinds of sweet toppings, plus hot chocolate to drink with it, and then takes a seat on the terrace in front of the shop to work on her full figure.
"Is one of them for me?"
No sound.
"Does this make you feel better?"
No reply.
"Can we become friends again? I didn't mean to…"
No answer.
This starts to become painful. Scarlett takes her second doughnut and looks straight through me when she squeezes it into her mouth, entirely.
I'm saved by the bell, by the buzz, by the ring tone of her phone. Twenty-six years of office work provokes a mental responsibility to answer phones like I can't even imagine. With fingers filthy of melting chocolate, her mouth full of sweet pastry, her bag full of necessities that make your mobile phone impossible to find, Scarlett starts to panic. In her haste, she hits the cup with hot chocolate; half the content drown the plate with doughnuts, and the other half ends up in her lap, hot enough to make her jump up and start an Indian rain dance, kicking her chair backwards and the table with the remainders of her tea time forward, while she limits her conversation to a hardly audible: "Uh, uh, uh".
The best thing I can think of, is to solve the problem: I grab her purse, throw the whole content on the ground, pick the buzzing phone out of the mess, turn the speaker on, and answer: "Yes, please?"
"This is William Oglethorpe. You need to come to my house immediately. My life is in danger."
Despite the mess around me, I try to sound calm: "It's teatime, Sir. You have to be patient."
"Patient? I'm already a patient for fifteen years! I need a doctor and I need him NOW! This is an emergency!"
"What makes you think you'll get faster treatment if you shout at people, Sir? Do you treat everybody like that?"
"You don't understand. It's my life. You HAVE to come, immediately!"
"I think you are crazy, Sir. I think you've seen too many films on TV. You need urgent medical treatment, if you ask me."
"That's what I call you for. I'm dying. I need an injection and I need it FAST! You HAVE to listen to me! You HAVE to come here! FAST!"
"Stop yelling me. Stop telling me. Didn't your mother teach you anything? If you want something from me, all you have to do is to ask…"
Scarlett ended her rain dance, too amazed to concentrate on the weather when hearing my polite conversation with her upcoming client. She can't hold it anymore and explodes with laughter. The half-chewed doughnuts end up in my hair, on my shirt and on my face.
I keep calm and carry on: "Right now, I'm rather in an emergency myself, Mister Oglethorpe. A woman here is laughing herself to death and needs my immediate attention. Can you live with it if we call you back later, in about three or four months? And you HAVE to be a little more polite, Sir, or we don't even put your name in the hat."
Mister Oglethorpe is silent for two, three, four seconds: "In the hat?"
"Yes, Sir. We are severely understaffed. People care so little about their health lately. They leave it all to the doctors to solve their problems. So we've invented a new policy: we write the name of every patient on a piece of paper, we put all these pieces of paper in a hat, and at the beginning of each new working day, we pull three or four names out of the hat; those are the ones we'll cure. But if you keep shouting, we don't even put you in the hat…"
Scarlett's laughter is now completely out of control. She holds her stomach with both her hands and rolls between the remainders of the chocolate and doughnuts. The baker and his other clients come out of the shop to see what's happening, but it's so contagious… They can't help it and become victims of the same laughter attack that took Scarlett out of business.
"I really have to go, Sir."
"Please… I beg you… It's my life… Can you come over to my house as soon as you're available? Please?"
"I'll see what I can do, Sir, but it will take me at least an hour to clean up the mess here. Half-past five suits you?"
"That would be fine, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope to see you then, Sir. And have a nice day. And thank you again."
It takes quite a while before the laughter is under control. The baker says his face hurts, two of his customers complain about pain in the muscles of their belly, Scarlett has hurt the back of her head when she fell over the chair, and the whole circus almost starts again when I suggest we go to the ambulance, so I can try out all the medicines we have available, but I'm not really a doctor so I have to try them all to give us a better chance to success…
Finally, we clean up the mess on the terrace, and we go home. Scarlett and I climb the eighteen floors to her flat, where we clean up and change into our doctor-nurse-disguises.
"It's a long time ago I laughed so much. You are crazy, Red."
"No, I'm Doctor Alban, a brilliant doctor who can cure every pain, both physical and emotional. My secret medicine is: humour. When you laugh, you forget about your problems, even when it's just for a few minutes. Health insurance should reimburse the costs of stories by Ronaldo7."
Scarlett shakes her head: "I prefer the apple. Come on. Our patient waits for us."