When you apply the gross amount to the normal tax of forty per cent and the excess-profits tax of ninety per cent, the net loss to us comes to under two million- "
I had slammed down the phone, cutting him off.
It was all well and good.
But how do you charge off on a balance sheet the life of a man who was killed by your greed?
Is there an allowable deduction for death on the income-tax returns?
It was I who had killed Amos and no matter how many expenses I deducted from my own soul, I could not bring him back.
The door opened and I looked up.
Rosa came into the room, followed by an intern and a nurse wheeling a small cart.
She came over to the left side of my bed and stood there, smiling down at me.
"Hello, Jonas."
"Hello, Rosa," I mumbled through the bandages. "Is it time to change them again?
I didn't expect you until the day after tomorrow."
"The war is over."
"Yes," I said. "I know."
"And when I got up this morning, it was such a beautiful morning, I decided to fly down here and take off your bandages."
I peered up at her. "I see," I said. "I always wondered where doctors got their logic."
"That isn't doctor's logic, that's woman's logic.
I have the advantage of having been a woman long before I became a doctor."
I laughed.
"I’m grateful for the logic, whichever one of you it belongs to.
It will be nice to have the bandages off, even for a little while."
She was still smiling, though her eyes were serious.
"This time, they're coming off for good, Jonas."
I stared at her as she picked up a scissors from the cart.
I reached up and stayed her hand.
Suddenly, I was afraid to have her remove the bandages.
I felt safe having them wrapped about my face like a cocoon, shielding me from the prying eyes of the world.
"Is it soon enough?
Will it be all right?"
She sensed my feeling.
"Your face will be sore for a while yet," she said, snipping away at the cocoon. "It will be even sorer as the flesh and muscles take up their work again.
But that will pass.
We can't spend forever hiding behind a mask, can we?"
That was the doctor talking, not the woman.
I looked up at her face as she snipped and unwound, snipped and uncovered, until all the bandage was gone and I felt as naked as a newborn baby, with a strange coolness on my cheeks.
I tried to see myself reflected in her eyes but they were calm and expressionless, impersonal and professionally detached.
I felt her fingers press against my cheek, the flesh under my chin, smooth the hair back from my temples.
"Close your eyes." I closed them.
I felt her fingers touch the lids lightly.
"Open."
I opened them.
Her face was still quiet and unrevealing.
"Smile," she said. "Like this." She made with a wide, humorless grin that was a slapstick parody of her usual warm smile.
I grinned. I grinned until the tiny pains that came to my cheeks began to burn like hell. And still I grinned.
"O.K.," she said, suddenly smiling now. Really smiling. "You can stop now."
I stopped and stared up at her.
"How is it, Doc?"
I tried to keep it light. "Pretty horrible?"
"It's not bad," she said noncommittally. "You were never a raving beauty, you know." She picked up a mirror from the cart. "Here. See for yourself."
I didn't look at the mirror. I didn't want to see myself just yet.