I explained my business. He contemptuously waved me to a brocaded chair, and left me alone for a good half hour.
By the time Zorchi was ready to see me, I was boiling. Nobody could treat a representative of the Company like an errand boy! I did my best to take into consideration the fact that he had just undergone major surgery—first under the wheels of the train, then under the knives of three of Naples’ finest surgeons.
I said as pleasantly as I could, “I’m glad to see you at last.”
The dark face on the pink embroidered pillow turned coldly toward me. “Che volete?” he demanded. The secretary opened his mouth to translate.
I said quickly, “Scusí; parlo un po’ la lingua. Non bisogno un traduttore.”
Zorchi said languidly in Italian, “In that case, Mario, you may go. What do you want with me, Weels?”
I explained my duties as a Claims Adjuster for the Company, pointing out that it was my task, indeed my privilege, to make settlement for injuries covered by Company policies. He listened condescendingly. I watched him carefully while I talked, trying to estimate the approach he might respond to if I was to win his confidence.
He was far from an attractive young man, I thought. No longer behind the shabby porter’s uniform he had worn on the platform of the station, he still had an unkempt and slipshod appearance, despite the heavy silken dressing gown he wore and the manifest costliness of his room. The beard was still on his face; it, at least, had not been a disguise. It was not an attractive beard. It had been weeks, at the least, since any hand had trimmed it to shape and his hair was just as shaggy.
Zorchi was not impressed with my friendly words. When I had finished, he said coldly, “I have had claims against the Company before, Weels. Why is it that this time you make speeches at me?”
I said carefully, “Well, you must admit you are a rather unusual case.”
“Case?” He frowned fiercely. “I am no case, Weels. I am Zorchi, if you please.”
“Of course, of course. I only mean to say that—”
“That I am a statistic, eh?” He bobbed his head. “Surely. I comprehend. But I am not a statistic, you see. Or, at best, I am a statistic which will not fit into your electronic machines, am I not?”
I admitted, “As I say, you are a rather unusual ca—a rather unusual person, Mr. Zorchi.”
He grinned coldly. “Good. We are agreed. Now that we have come to that understanding, are we finished with this interview?”
I coughed. “Mr. Zorchi, I’ll be frank with you.” He snorted, but I went on, “According to your records, this claim need not be paid. You see, you already have been paid for total disability, both a lump sum and a continuing settlement. There is no possibility of two claims for the loss of your legs, you must realize.”
He looked at me with a touch of amusement. “I must?” he asked. “It is odd. I have discussed this, you understand, with many attorneys. The premiums were paid, were they not? The language of the policy is clear, is it not? My legs—would you like to observe the stumps yourself?”
He flung the silken covers off. I averted my eyes from the white-bandaged lower half of his torso, hairy and scrawny and horribly less than a man’s legs should be.
I said desperately, “Perhaps I spoke too freely. I do not mean, Mr. Zorchi, that we will not pay your claim. The Company always lives up to the letter of its contracts.”
He covered himself casually. “Very well. Give the check to my secretary, please. Are you concluded?”
“Not quite.” I swallowed. I plunged right in. “Mr. Zorchi, what the hell are you up to? How do you do it? There isn’t any fraud, I admit it. You really lost your legs— more than once. You grew new ones. But how? Don’t you realize how important this is? If you can do it, why not others? If you are in some way pecu—that is, if the structure of your body is in some way different from that of others, won’t you help us find out how so that we can learn from it? It isn’t necessary for you to live as you do, you know.”
He was looking at me with a hint of interest in his close-set, dull eyes. I continued, “Even if you can grow new legs, do you enjoy the pain of having them cut off? Have you ever stopped to think that someday, perhaps, you will miscalculate, and the wheels of the train, or the truck, or whatever you use, may miss your legs and kill you? That’s no way for a man to live, Mr. Zorchi. Why not talk freely to me, let me help you? Why not take the Company into your confidence, instead of living by fraud and deceit and—”
I had gone too far. Livid, he snarled, “Ass! That will cost your Company, I promise. Is it fraud for me to suffer like this? Do I enjoy it, do you think? Look, ass!” He flung the covers aside again, ripped at the white bandages with his hands— Blood spurted. He uncovered the raw stumps and jerked them at me.
I do not believe any sight of my life shocked me as much as that; it was worse than the Caserta hemp fields, worse than the terrible gone moment when Marianna died, worse than anything I could imagine.
He raved, “See this fraud, look at it closely! Truly, I grow new legs, but does that make it easier to lose the old? It is the pain of being born, Weels, a pain you will never know! I grow legs, I grow arms, I grow eyes. I will never die! I will live on like a reptile or a fish.”
His eyes were staring. Ignoring the blood spurting from his stumps, ignoring my attempts to say something, he pounded his abdomen. “Twelve times I have been cut—do you see even a scar? My appendix, it is bad; it traps filth, and the filth makes me sick. And I have it cut out—and it grows again; and I have it cut out again, and it grows back. And the pain, Weels, the pain never stops!” He flung the robe open, slapped his narrow, hairy chest.
I gasped. Under the scraggly hair was a rubble of boils and wens, breaking and matting the hair as he struck himself in frenzy. “Envy me, Weels!” he shouted. “Envy the man whose body defends itself against everything! I will live forever, I promise it, and I will always be in pain, and someone will pay for every horrible moment of it! Now get out, get out!”
I left under the hating eyes of the sharp-faced secretary who silently led me to the door.
*
I had put Zorchi through a tantrum and subjected myself to as disagreeable a time as I’d ever had. And I hadn’t accomplished a thing. I knew that well enough. And if I hadn’t known it by myself, I would have found out.
Gogarty pointed it out to me, in detail. “You’re a big disappointment to me,” he moaned sourly. “Ah, the hell with it. What were you trying to accomplish, anyway?” I said defensively, “I thought I might appeal to his altruism. After all, you didn’t give me very explicit instructions.”
“I didn’t tell you to remember to wipe your nose either,” he said bitterly. He shook his head, the anger disappearing. “Well,” he said disconsolately, “I don’t suppose we’re any worse off than we were. I guess I’d better try this myself.” He must have caught a hopeful anticipatory gleam in my eye, because he said quickly, “Not right now, Wills. You’ve made that impossible. I’ll just have to wait until he cools off.”
I said nothing; just stood there waiting for him to let me go. I was sorry things hadn’t worked out but, after all, he had very little to
