'Well, anyway, you're lucky,' the old Tratt said. 'This kind of thing can be expensive, but Keff's building the box for him.'
'Keff?' I said. 'Why Keff?'
'I am sure I don't know,' said Frau Tratt. 'It's just a box, though - real simple. You don't get much for nothing, you know.'
Not from you, surely, I thought. But I said, 'Where's Gallon?'
'What do you care where she is?' said Auntie Tratt.
But I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. I sat hunched over on my bed of towels, drying off from my last bath of that day and trying to prepare myself for the old Tratt's rough hands going over me - tingling me, in spite of myself; with that good, nut-scented witch hazel.
The Tratt said again, 'What do you care where she is? Is Gallen a part of your plans now?'
But I told her, 'I just wondered where Gallen was keeping herself. She hasn't once come to see me.'
'Well,' the good Frau said. 'She won't be visiting until it's comfortable for you to wear some clothes again.' And when she said 'clothes,' she splashed that icy witch hazel on my back, and as I gasped half upright under her hand, she ground down her forearm on my neck and shoved my head down between my knees. She slopped some down my shoulders, and slicking her hands over me in her slaplike fashion, she got some witch hazel in one of my ears. Then her voice came at me, half underwater, prying, as if I were an eel to be coaxed out from under some rock - for the final stew. 'But you don't have any plans for the moment, Herr Graff?' she snooped.
'No plans,' I said quickly, and realized that this was the first hopeful thing to come into my head since the frotting bees. Remembering, of course, what Siggy had once said about plans. He had once had the way not to spoil it. No planning. Graff. No mapping it out. No dates to get anywhere, no dates to get back. And in a grating sort of way, I started laughing - really, it was so funny; that this should be his foremost, solemn ingredient for a good trip between us. How funny, really, his crazy and elaborate scheme for the zoo bust looked alongside that previous notion.
'Am I hurting you, Herr Graff?' said the Tratt, who must have felt my odd quivers even through her gross, insensitive calluses.
But I just laughed out loud at her. 'No plans, Frau Tratt!' I said. 'I don't have any. And I won't! No plans. Frot plans! Frot me!' I bellowed at her, 'if I so much as start to make any plans.'
'Well, goodness,' the rare old Tratt said. 'I only asked to make a little conversation.'
'You lie,' I told her, and she backed off - the sweet witch hazel drying on her hands so fast you could see it disappear, like the white under your thumbnail goes back to pink as soon as you unclench your fist.
Where Gallen Was
EVENTUALLY, BY MY bath-and bedside - after I'd healed sufficiently to wear at least a loincloth equivalent, and after I'd adequately insulted the Tratt, to make necessary someone else's waiting on me - Gallen cared for me, again.
I was permitted to show her my less-private bee welts, still a bit reddened, even after my tedious treatments. Because, I'm told, my poor antibodies had fled my bloodstream on the thirty-fifth or -sixth sting, leaving my general resistance rather low.
'How are you, Graff?' Gallen asked.
'My resistance is low,' I told her, and we discreetly discussed my poor antibodies.
She said, 'What are you going to do now?'
'I've not made any plans,' I said quickly, and she hung by my bed, hands folding and unfolding, in a mock-casual stance. She was growing too tall and forcing too much shape in her little-girlish clothes. Puffed shoulders and frilled cuffs on this outfit - a high-buttoned and forbidding blouse. The old Tratt's choice, I could be sure. A further, plotting defense of hers against me. May she rot.
'Sit down, Gallen,' I offered, and slid over for her.
'Your resistance is low,' she reminded, saucily; as if she were so old and frotting worldly - a favorite guise of hers - under the clothes.
'What have you been doing?' I asked.
'Thinking,' said Gallen, and pulled down her chin with her hand. As if she'd just started this minute, to convince me.
'What about?' I asked.
'About what you're going to do now,' she said.
'No plans,' I repeated. 'But I've got to do something with Siggy.'
'Keff built a nice box,' said Gallen.
'How thoughtful,' I said. 'How does he seem to you?'