Chapter 4: "The Recovery"
A few minutes after I finished eating, one English-speaking doctor came in to inform me of what was going to happen next.
"We're going to move you to the rehabilitation wing to regain your muscle tone and strength. It's a medical facility, so don't expect it to be like a gym in the United States. There are swimming pools. Don't worry - they're chlorinated just like pools in the United States. The water in the pools also contains a chemical which turns urine blue, so if any jerks pee in the pool, you'll know it. There are mountain climbing and tree climbing simulations to develop upper arm strength. Your upper arms are less than half the size they were when you came in. You've lost a lot of muscle. The same for your thighs. You need to take regular walks around Havana to regain your leg strength. You won't need to walk alone. Your friend Arianne will be here to walk with you. We also want to bring you up to 55 kilos before we release you. We want you to look presentable when we release you. We're not like hospitals in America where the insurance companies have you tossed out on your ass the instant you can stand up and breathe. It would reflect badly on Cuban medicine if we turned you out looking like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride."
I couldn't help giggling at the doctor's last crack. "You think I look like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride right now?"
"My dear, you look like walking death. We'll have a schedule for you which has various exercises you need to do each day, time for you to take walks in Havana, and six meals a day."
"Six meals a day?"
"You can't eat much at a sitting after all that time hooked up to intravenous drips. You're not used to solid food. We don't want to make you sick. You'll be eating six small meals a day. Relax, it's not as terrible as eating American hospital food. Cuban hospital kitchens use spices in the food. It's not as bland and flavorless as you might expect. I hope you like rice and beans, though. Ever since that British Petroleum oil spill poisoned the entire gulf, fish is extremely scarce and expensive in Cuba. Our fishing fleets go all the way out into the Atlantic to fish now. Most of it ends up in the tourist hotels. There are a lot of pork dishes on the hospital menus, but your friends have told me that you don't eat meat."
"I can take walks out in Havana?"
"You can go anywhere you like. No one will follow you. Cuba has changed a bit since the Castro years. This is still a socialist state, but the country is not as tightly regimented as it used to be. The Communist Party still has the final say on everything, but we have a parliament of 500 randomly selected citizens. The selection of our parliament is far more democratic than what you have in the United States. Even our Communist Party has more diversity than your corporate-controlled government. Rich lawyers do not run this country. Our prisons are nearly empty. We simply let our malcontents leave."
"Do you have any news magazines from the last five months available? Magazines in English, preferably. I can read Spanish to a limited degree, but probably not enough for a news magazine."
"I can tell you the highlights of what's been happening the last five months. First, the U.S. government thinks you're dead and has been crowing about your death the same way they celebrated the death of Bin Laden. People in the rich, gated communities turned out in big flag-waving ceremonies that appalled all of the rest of the world. No one outside of the United States thinks you're a terrorist. The poor communities rioted. I don't think the riots were about you. It was the idea that someone could get shot 104 times for stealing food that incensed the poor."
The doctor paused a moment to sip from a glass of water. He motioned to a nurse to approach and said something in Spanish too rapid for me to understand. The nurse left and the doctor continued.
"People in the homeless encampments of Los Angeles took over the entire city for two months. They declared it 'The People's Republic of Los Angeles' and took all the empty, foreclosed houses from the banks and gave them to homeless families. They declared all vacant lots to be public property and passed out seeds for people to start gardens. The governor of California ordered the California National Guard to invade the city and arrest all the members of the 'illegal government.' The commander of the California National Guard knew how heavily armed people in homeless encampments are and refused. He said invading Los Angeles would be a bloodbath. The California governor had him arrested and thrown in prison. The Los Angeles rebellion ended when the federal government launched drone strikes inside Los Angeles and had the Marine Corps invade the city. It was a bloodbath. The U.S. government kept the foreign and domestic press out, but they couldn't stop the flood of cellphone videos, photos, and bloggers' eyewitness accounts. All of the captured rebels were thrown up against a wall and shot. It was the Paris Commune of 1871 all over again."
"The first whiff of rebellion in the U.S., and I missed it," I said. At that moment, I felt cheated, and I still do.
"There were more rebellions than that," continued the doctor. "Homeless encampments carried out their own raids of hypermarkets for foods. Most food banks were either too far away or had too little to be of much use to the homeless encampments. It was steal or starve. They took weapons with them and sometimes blasted the doors open with machine gun fire and antique hand grenades left over from World War II and the Korean War. They filled shopping carts and took everything back to their encampments. The federal government used Marine Corps soldiers to arrest entire homeless encampments that had carried out raids. Some homeless encampments resisted. They sent their children fleeing right through the Marine Corps lines and fought to the last bullet. Mostly hunting rifles up against soldiers with automatic machine guns, grenades, and rocket-propelled grenades. It was suicide. The raids that you had been leading left almost no evidence behind because you always robbed hypermarkets that were several states away from the homeless encampment that you led. With the rubber gloves and ski masks, there was nobody left to blame but you. There were also jurisdiction problems. Very clever of you."
The nurse who had left a moment ago returned and handed me a stack of about twenty old copies of the International Herald Tribune. The doctor thanked her and told me that all the tourist hotels in the area sold the International Herald Tribune. "Tourists often leave their newspapers behind in the outdoor cafes. Nurses on their lunch breaks often scavenge the newspapers that the tourists leave behind after eating. You can keep those." I looked at the masthead. "A Joint Publication of the New York Times, the Manchester Guardian, and Le Monde." So the newspaper wasn't all American sources. Maybe I would find out a bit more than most Americans knew. I put the stack of newspapers in the small closet on top of my travel bag.
"We'll leave you in this room for one more day and you can tell your friends when they arrive that you're being moved over to the rehabilitation wing. Hatter and Arianne usually come in the evening at about six o'clock. Cheshire goes home then. Hatter and Arianne usually leave at about seven o'clock. You're then alone until the next morning. Cheshire shows up at around six o'clock every morning. He stays with you most of the day, only going out to eat. He found a tidal pool which has plenty of fish swimming around, and he's been feasting on fish. Did you notice that his fur has grown back in? He was pretty skeletal-looking when we first saw him." Cheshire hopped up on my bed.
"Did you all forget that I was here?" Cheshire paraded back and forth on the foot of my bed. "So what do you think, Alice? Do I look better with fur?"
I didn't notice because I had had my head back on my pillow, staring at the spinning ceiling. Cheshire had a full coat of fur and looked like a normal lynx. "You're a very handsome cat!" I said.
Cheshire sat down on his haunches. "I'm having trouble believing it myself. I'm so used to being an ugly, old bag of bones. The snarks in Wonderland just aren't enough."
I made a mental note of it to teach Cheshire how to cook eggs when we got back to Wonderland. I'd seen eggs in cans of cat food before and knew that eggs were a reasonable form of protein for Cheshire. I looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was around six o'clock. Time for Hatter and Arianne to show up and for Cheshire to go home.
Cheshire's ears perked up. "You have guests." Hatter and Arianne walked in and were instantly startled to see me awake. Hatter opened a portal for Cheshire and he sauntered through with that Puss-In-Boots swagger of his.
"Well, well! The sleeper has awakened!" announced Hatter. "You had us all worried! There are some clean clothes and lingerie in your travel bag in the closet. A nurse was giving you a quick sponge bath every morning. You're clean. There are some socks and shoes in the closet, as well. Why don't you get dressed and we'll go out into Havana to look around a bit. There's a small outdoor café near the hospital that has fish tacos. Arianne and I haven't had dinner. How about you?"
"I just had something to eat. Thanks." The doctor looked at Arianne and Hatter and obviously had something to say.
"We're going to move Alice to the rehabilitation wing tomorrow. She's too thin and weak to be turned loose now. We'd like to bring her back up to 55 kilos before we release her. We want her to look presentable before we toss her out." Hatter looked at me while the doctor walked out the door. Arianne shut the door.
"There are no bills to worry about, Alice. I made a deal with the Cubans for emergency medical care ages ago. This isn't America."
"If this were America, a CIA assassination squad would have gotten me." I got up out of bed to get dressed. I got a surprise when I saw the dress that Arianne had packed for me. It was a child's floral gingham dress.
"I had to get a child's dress to find something small enough to fit. You're tiny now."
I stripped off my hospital gown and lingerie in front of Hatter and Arianne. Hatter winced and looked embarrassed.
"Oh, come on now, Hatter! You've seen me naked in physical exams before. No need to turn away." I saw Arianne wince, too.
"Not a pretty sight, am I? I need a bikini for tomorrow because part of my rehabilitation involves swimming. I need my muscles back." I held up my twig-like right arm. I still had the strength of The Queen of Hearts - and Medusa! - but I looked like a weakling. I didn't like looking like a weakling.
"Alice, nobody wants to see a skeleton in a bikini." Arianne looked uncomfortable.
"I'll be in a medical rehabilitation center. Nobody expects me to be a pretty sight."
"I'll get you one," promised Hatter.
"Not alone, you won't," said Arianne. "I'll go along with you to make sure you don't pick out something hideous.
"I'll bring Lindsay along and we'll make it a night out," answered Hatter.
"Three's a crowd, Hatter," said Arianne. "I trust Lindsay's judgment. Let her pick out a bikini. Make sure that Lindsay knows Alice's current size." Lindsay was Hatter's third wife. The first bailed on him, and the notorious Sarah Palin got eaten by a killer mushroom. Nobody had expected Lindsay to last so long. Bill McGill had found the perfect job for Lindsay at the brewery: quality control. Lindsay was the taste tester. She was also one of the brewers.
Hatter pulled a syringe out of a small bag. "I've been injecting you with a concentrate of water from Wonderland. I was worried about the effect of no exposure to Wonderland's water for the duration of your stay in this hospital. This issue has never come up before. Roll up your sleeve. This is the last one. I'll bring you a bottle of water from Wonderland tomorrow."
I rolled up my sleeve and let Hatter inject me with the concentrate. He was good with a needle. I hardly felt it. "You were worried that I'd shrivel up like that woman at the end of the novel 'Lost Horizon,' weren't you?"
"I was worried because I don't know what the effect would be," said Hatter. I was glad that he had thought of the water issue. It made me feel that Hatter had been looking after me the entire time that I was out.
"It looks like I shriveled up, anyway," I said. I wasn't happy at all about what had happened to my face. I was so used to looking like Judy Garland. Without the chubby, full cheeks, I looked completely different. I felt ugly.
All three of us left the hospital with Hatter leading the way to the small outdoor café. We sat down. I was relieved to note that Hatter and Arianne both looked exactly as I had remembered. Hatter was the same old dandy in fine clothes, face as ugly as ever. Arianne was the same plump, buxom size 16 that I had been. Looking at her, I was intensely aware of what I had lost. I was more than a little jealous. Hatter and Arianne ordered two fish tacos for themselves. I had just had a small dinner, but it dawned on me that I was kind of starving. "You've got money to pay, Hatter?" I asked. Hatter said that he had enough Cuban currency for a small shopping expedition. I didn't ask where he got the money. "If you're paying, then I'm going to eat. You all know that I'm going to be eating hospital food six times a day, right?"
Arianne nodded in the affirmative. I ordered six tacos and Hatter gasped. "You'll never finish them! Didn't the hospital warn you not to eat too much at one sitting?"
"I'm not going to get the opportunity to eat here every day, am I? I think I should take advantage of the occasion."
Hatter bet Arianne two flasks of period brandy that I wouldn't finish the tacos. Arianne took the bet. "Of course she'll finish them. She has a stomach made out of rubber. You think she got up to 172 pounds by eating like a bird?" Hatter reminded Arianne that she had weighed 173 pounds at her last physical exam.
"Perhaps, Arianne, you have a stomach made out of rubber, too?" Hatter said, smirking just a little bit. Arianne scowled. Unlike me, Arianne was touchy about her weight. I gave Hatter a silent look that he knew meant "Back off!" Hatter gave me a sweet smile and shut up.
I took my time eating the tacos. I had to get up and walk around a bit every 15 minutes because my bony ass hurt so much. I literally had nothing to sit on and the chairs were wrought iron. Hatter and Arianne finished their two tacos in about fifteen minutes. I wanted to savor the occasion of an outdoor café near the ocean in an area that vaguely reminded me of the older sections of Paris. The locale was lovely, the breeze kept the flies away, and the birds that fluttered about the empty tables were only a minor annoyance. The salt smell of ocean spray was a lovely accompaniment to the spicy, grilled fish tacos. I did finish the six tacos in about an hour. I felt fine. Stuffed, but fine.
Arianne looked at me. "You eat like that every day, and you'll be back up to 172 pounds in two months.
"Good!" I said. "I fucking hate being flat-chested!" And bony-faced. For the record, I didn't puke.
End of Chapter 4
This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. EA (Electronic Arts) owns the copyrights.
Version 2