Pier Pressure 
Pier Pressure
by Caroline Gilfillan
He is here.
Not the fat peasant with nose hairs like spiders and fists like
clubs. Not the blonde corporal who had watched too many Marlene Dietrich movies.
Not the mad captain with red hair who laughed like a hysteric during the long
interrogation sessions. Not the bearded ape smelling of garlic who was itching
to use the prod.
No, it's none of these. It's no one from the supporting cast. It's the man himself The General The man for whom we painted the square of grass green. The man for whom you scrubbed the staff lavatories clean of their piss and shit.
He is here, just up the corridor, through the swing doors, in the fourth suite on the right. Two policeman are sitting outside the door nodding off because of the heating and the sickly piped muzak. The pair of them sit with legs spread, yawning great circles over the carpet, waiting for one of the pretty care assistants to rustle up and offer them another cup of coffee and a slice of cake.
They don't know who he is. He's booked in under a false name, and this place has a reputation for discretion. They just have a job to do, and it's pretty cushy being sat there all day.
After all, it's not as if a madman is going to sneak in and murder him, is it?
Oh, by the way, I hope you don't mind me addressing all this to you. Who else
could I tell, after all?
*
Great news. I have heard that tomorrow, following his operation, the General will be moved to Intensive Care: my section. Just think of those cosy chats we'll be able to have!
He won't know me, of course. We never had the pleasure of being introduced I doubt if he saw the list on which your name and mine appeared. And if he did see our names he would have forgotten them. They were so common. How many people are called Scarlatti? Thousands and thousands. I'm sure he can't tell one Scarlatti from another.
Do you remember the night of our arrest? Friends had come round for supper, and we were discussing a film we'd seen earlier in the evening. What was it?
Taxi Driver! I can't be sure. But I do recall that we were all united in our opinion that it was capitalist American shit! We were so pompous and earnest. You had a cold corning on and told me in a cracked whisper to get rid of our guests. You kept making that wet sniffing noise that I can't stand.
I suppose we'd been talking about politics as well. Student stuff, A march was planned for the next Saturday. We were going to shout ourselves hoarse. We were going to show the military that they couldn't spirit away people's relatives and get away with it We knew that we might get soaked by water cannon or beaten by those gorillas in body armour, but we were young and we could stand the bruises and the blood.
They broke down the door while we were in bed. There was a hammering and splintering of wood then torch lights and jackboots smelling of saddle soap were in our bedroom. They pulled back the covers and revealed the beautiful comma of your back. I stood up on the mattress to protest, and a gloved fist punched me in the face. I felt a tooth snap from its root and cursed inwardly. I was so vain, so proud of my regular smile. A boot hit my back and then another, and then all thoughts of vanity were buried under a hail of blows.
They dragged you naked into the kitchen. Your cries shredded the air of the apartment.
I was so naive. I thought you were just having the shit beaten out of you.
He is here, Elena. He is here, and so am I.
*
Did I tell you that the General has oral cancer?
The surgeon is a man of the sort they call 'distinguished'. By this I mean a ruddy-faced, bow-tied, neat-nailed, silver-haired man who is a carpenter of bones and an upholsterer of flesh. He could have taught our tormentors a thing or two, but then they enjoyed the amateurishness of their efforts on our fingers, hands, knees, genitals and mouths. The master carpenter has cracked the General's jaw, taken out all his bottom teeth, and scooped out most of his tongue and soft palate. Oh and a fair bit of his throat has been excised as well. It seems we won't be having our cosy chats after all.
Now for the upholstery. Patches of skin have been removed from the general's inner thighs and grafted on to the point where the jaw meets the throat, so that there won't be a hole where a hole shouldn't be. The wounds on his thighs are pink as a kitten's tongue. And, guess what? His penis isn't so large, after all. All those rumours
about him being hung like a horse were untrue.
*
I am so frustrated. Our dear General is not suffering enough! I can now understand why our captors hurled buckets of water over us when we were slipping into oblivion. He is a zombie. He's anaesthetised from his balls to his bald spot. One tube goes up his nose and down into his stomach. Another comes out of his penis and into a bottle. A third pumps morphine into his bloodstream through a vein in his arm. The morphine and liquid food give him constipation which necessitates an enema every few days.
But there is good news. The other nurse in my section is unwell – a gastrointestinal complaint. I can't imagine why. I have been asked by the hospital management to take over sole responsibility for the general's care. This will give me a chance to adjust the morphine pump and the feeding tube. And of course he might
require an enema.
*
His wife was here today, weeping buckets onto my uniform. Why in God's name is he suffering so much? Can't the doctors get the dosage right? Why is he crying out in pain for hour after hour? Her face was so close that I could see the scars of her facelift.
I promised to speak to the consultant. But the distinguished man only drops in for a few minutes in the early evening on his way to the theatre or his club. He's usually a little fractious after working for the NHS all day. He's more than happy to
leave it all up to me.
*
Hello again. Twenty-four hours have passed. I am sitting in the room with the General. I have a bottle of bleach in my hand. I thought it might make a change from the Complan. The morphine pump is switched to minimum. His eyes are following me round the room. Every now and then he gives a hoarse groan.
Do you know what? His exclamations are like the noises we made in the torture rooms. They beat or screwed or electrocuted us until we produced grunts and screams like those from the slaughterhouse. Then they matched those grunts and screams to names. We didn't mean to give them names. We didn't have any names to give. All our comrades from the university had been rounded up at the same time as us. We saw them every day in the prison. In my case I shared a cell with over 20 of them. But pain produces sound and so we made a noise, just as a toy squeaks when squeezed.
Those names. They are the one thing I regret.
I don't know what you'll think of my activities. You were always one for forgiveness. After we were released and fled the country, you went all holy and hung a heavy crucifix round your neck. You had a bony old Jesus bumping up and down on your bust all day. He may have liked it but I thought it was a disgrace. And you insisted on going to mass and confession. When you fell pregnant with Camilla you got even worse. You tried to drag me along but I refused. Bugger God. What had he to do with it?
Forgive me for my blasphemy. All this torture is making me light-headed.
*
A week has passed, and do you know what? The General is looking better. He's livening up.
And shall I let you in on a secret?
I never did any of those things. Not because I've forgiven that cockroach. Not because I'm scared.
Because I don't want to be like him.