"I don't like that dream," he said to his empty room.
At last, his fingers trembling, he lifted the receiver and called the long-distance operator and gave her a number and waited, watching the bedroom door as if at any moment a plague of sons, daughters, grandsons, nurses, doctors, might swarm in to seize away this last vital luxury he permitted his failing senses. Many days, or was it years, ago, when his heart had thrust like a dagger through his ribs and flesh, he had heard the boys below ... their names what were they? Charles, Charlie, Chuck, yes! And Douglas! And Tom! He remembered! Calling his name far down the hall, but the door being locked in their faces, the boys turned away. You can't be excited, the doctor said. No visitors, no visitors, no visitors. And he heard the boys moving across the street, he saw them, he waved. And they waved
back. "Colonel ... Colonel ..." And now he sat alone with the little gray toad of a heart flopping weakly here or there in his chest from time to time.
"Colonel Freeleigh," said the operator. "Here's your call. Mexico City. Erickson 3899."
And now the far away but infinitely clear voice:
"Bueno."
"Jorge!" cried the old man
"Senor Freeleigh! Again? This costs money."
"Let it cost! You know what to do."
"Si. The window?"
"The window, Jorge, if you please."
"A moment," said the voice.
And, thousands of miles away, in a southern land, in an office in a building in that land, there was the sound of footsteps retreating from the phone. The old man leaned forward, gripping the receiver tight to his wrinkled ear that ached with waiting for the next sound.
The raising of a window.
Ah, sighed the old man.
The sounds of Mexico City on a hot yellow noon rose through the open window into the waiting phone. He could see Jorge standing there holding the mouthpiece out, out into the bright day.
"Senor ..."
"No, no, please. Let me listen."
He listened to the hooting of many metal horns, the squealing of brakes, the calls of vendors selling red-purple bananas and jungle oranges in their stalls. Colonel Freeleigh's feet began to move, hanging from the edge of his wheel chair, making the motions of a man walking. His eyes squeezed tight. He gave a series of immense sniffs, as if to gain the odors of meats hung on iron hooks in sunshine, cloaked with flies like a mantle of raisins; the smell of stone alleys wet with morning rain. He could feel the sun burn his spiny-bearded cheek, and he was twenty-five years old again, walking, walking, looking, smiling, happy to be alive, very much alert, drinking in colors and smells.
A rap on the door. Quickly he hid the phone under his lap robe.
The nurse entered. "Hello," she said. "Have you been good?"
"Yes." The old man's voice was mechanical. He could hardly see. The shock of a simple rap on the door was such that part of him was still in another city, far removed. He waited for his mind to rush home--it must be here to answer questions, act sane, be polite.
"I've come to check your pulse."
"Not now!" said the old man.
"You're not going anywhere, are you?" She Smiled.
He looked at the nurse steadily. He hadn't been anywhere in ten years.
"Give me your wrist."
Her fingers, hard and precise, searched for the sickness in his pulse like a pair of calipers.
"What've you been doing to excite yourself?" she demanded.
"Nothing."