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Halstead came to slowly, the dim glare of a gas lamp burning through the haze of the anesthetic. The patient groaned and looked slightly to his left, at a man sitting at a nearby desk, pen in hand. The man in the white coat was then approaching him, and saying something Halstead could hear, but not understand.
Halstead replied with his own words not understood, and it was not until the doctor stared and turned away that Halstead realized the doctor was Joseph and that he had been speaking to Joseph in English. The patient attempted to rise from the cot he lay on, but the doctor returned with a glass of water and a firm hand on one shoulder. The patient sipped the water through the new bandages he could feel encasing his new face and lips, which were swollen from the cuts they had received from the surgeon’s scalpel.
It was after the water had trickled into his parched throat that the lifting of the fog from Halstead’s brain began to accelerate, and he could begin to understand the German that the doctor was muttering to him as he pulled the glass away from his patient’s lips. “...the swelling should recede completely within a week or two. Feel free to keep the bandages on, though your face will just be puffy after a few days. Your new face, that is—”
“Herr Doktor.”
“Yes?” Joseph held the water glass away from his patient’s face.
“Where is your assistant?”
“Fetching us both a bit of supper before the next operation. Why?”
Halstead drank thirstily from the glass that was set against his lips a second time, then pushed his doctor’s arm away. “Let me know when he gets back. I was so afraid, and everything turned out okay, so I want to be able to thank both of you personally.”
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