The apparition did not remain.
She walked on, grew smaller, finally disappeared behind a sunshade, behind a row of loungers, behind the orderly geometry of the beach. And with that, for a reasonable person, the matter could have been settled: seen a beauty, had a moment, move on.
But Gustav von A. was not a reasonable person.
He took his notebook.
He wrote.
Hans Castorp could not see what he was writing; but he could see how he was writing: fast, dense, as if he had to hold on to something that was slipping away from him.
“She…” Hans Castorp began.
“Don’t,” said Gustav.
A single word.
Hans Castorp fell silent.
He looked at Gustav.
And now he noticed that Gustav looked different.
Not masked – he was that anyway – but… affected. There was a dull moisture on his forehead, a sheen that was not cosmetics. His lips were, beneath the sheen, a little too pale. His hand holding the pen trembled almost imperceptibly.
Hans Castorp felt a sentence come into his head that was not from Dr. Porsche, not from AuDHS, not from Zieser, but from something older, darker:
The body takes what it wants.
“Are you…” Hans began.
Gustav kept writing.
Then he paused briefly, laid the pen on the paper as if he had to park it there, and said quietly:
“It’s nothing.”
Hans Castorp exhaled.
“Really?” he asked.
Gustav looked at him.
There was a nuance of annoyance in this look.
“Do you want to…” Gustav searched for a word, and one could tell that, despite everything, he still wanted to keep control. “…get medical?”
Hans Castorp smiled, although he did not feel like smiling.
“I’ve been medical for months,” he said.
Gustav twisted his mouth.
“You are… optimized,” he said.
Hans Castorp felt how the sentence hurt him because it was true.
“And you?” he asked.
Gustav looked back at the water.
“I’m busy,” he said again.
Then he stood up.
He did not stand up easily. It was as if he had to lift himself out of the deck chair as out of a situation.
“Where to?” asked Hans.
Gustav made a small, indeterminate hand movement.
“Walking,” he said. “That helps.”
Hans Castorp thought: Walking helps against everything. It is the universal bourgeois trick.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
Gustav nodded without turning around.
They walked.
The sand was soft. The air had grown heavier. You could feel how the day pressed into your own skin.
Gustav walked quickly at first, then more slowly.
He stopped, looked at the water.
Hans Castorp saw, from up close, that the color at the shore was not just light. It was, how shall one say, a discoloration, a veil that mixed into the movement. Red was saying too much – and yet, at a certain angle, it was a red.
“The water…” Hans began.
Gustav said:
“Don’t look at it.”
Hans Castorp stared at him.
“I beg your pardon?”
Gustav looked at him, and now there was, in his gaze, something that Hans had not expected: fear. Not the loud, not the panicked kind; but the quiet kind that is ashamed.
“If you look,” Gustav said softly, “you have to act.”
Hans Castorp felt the sentence hit him in the stomach.
“And if we act?” he asked.
Gustav lowered his gaze.
“Then we have to leave,” he said.
Hans Castorp was silent.
It was, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, a moment of terrifying clarity: it is not disgust at illness that often keeps people in place; it is the fear of the end of a desire.
Gustav raised his head.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
It was not defiance. It was a judgment.
Hans Castorp felt his system two kick in, that slow thinking that takes effort. He felt his head trying to do a calculation that did not add up: friendship, risk, duty, beauty, sentence.
“Gustav,” he said, and it was the first time he said the name without “von A.”, as if the noble particle had suddenly become incidental.
Gustav looked at him.
“Leave me,” he said. And then, as if he himself were surprised by his harshness, he added, more softly: “Please.”
Hans Castorp nodded.
He nodded because he stayed.
