'Money,' said Ben. 'Where is my money?'
'It's in the safe in the flat,' said Teresa. There wasn't all that much of it left, but Teresa was sure that whatever else Alex did, he would be careful to replace what she had spent.
'Would you like to do that?' asked Alfredo, really curious about how Ben saw these sky men, who were disappearing downhill as they watched.
Ben was silent, staring, and they did not know what he thought.
Back they got into the car, and up they went through hills. Beautiful they were and Teresa thought so, and was grateful to be seeing them, but Ben was sitting with his eyes shut. They had to stop again, so he could be sick.
When they reached what they had heard described as 'the institute', imagining a building, what they saw was something like a town: a lot of low buildings were scattered about, and among them taller imposing buildings, one of which announced itself in large black letters as a hospital. But everywhere over the world is flung a kind of grid or net of hospitals, chemists, laboratories, research institutes, observation stations, and their functions blur and blend. Ben and Teresa were still looking for 'the institute' when the car stopped outside a building in no way different from a dozen others. Alfredo opened the car doors for them. He was looking nervous, apprehensive. This was because he had been ordered on no account to go near a certain group of buildings, nor to tell Ben and Teresa anything about them. What went on in these buildings everyone who worked here was ashamed of, or, if not ashamed, then defensive, even though their work lay in very different areas. By now Alfredo was more than interested in Ben everyone had to be that he was sorry for him, and guilty, too, because when he had mentioned those rock pictures, telling Ben he had seen people like him, he had not been thinking, and what he had achieved was something so bad he had not begun to measure it. At some point Ben would have to be told the truth, and disappointment was not the word for what he would feel then. Meanwhile, a nearer worry: what were these people and Alfredo did not much like his employers planning for Ben? Their warning not to let
Ben know about the bad place or 'The Cages' which is how most people described it meant that some kind of harm was intended. Alfredo liked nothing about this situation, only Teresa, and when he told her these tests were not so bad, and gave her a smile he meant as reassurance, it said much more. Ben and Teresa were taken inside a large room that had all kinds of apparatus in it, and Alfredo parked the car; he had hoped to return to be near Teresa, but he was given other duties.
In the room were two young women wearing white overalls. One was Inez, who had had to borrow an overall: it had been decided her presence would reassure Ben. He was frightened, and so was Teresa, but she was determined not to show it.
The assistant had been carefully instructed. She asked Ben to 'help' Teresa by sitting close to her and holding her hand while she sat on the edge of a low table, and held out her arm to have a rubber tube put on, and then inflated, and her blood pressure taken. Then it was Ben's turn. He was grinning, which reassured the assistant, who didn't know what that meant, while his blood pressure was taken. He hated the rubber tube tightening around his arm. Then Teresa was told she would have blood removed from her arm. She shut her eyes and averted her face as the syringe filled with dark blood. And now Ben: would he agree?
'Come on, Ben,' said Teresa, 'now you must do it too, like me.'
'Come on, Ben,' said Teresa, 'now you must do it too, like me.'
Ben allowed the needle to go in, and watched as the barrel filled with blood. This scene was not new to him: he had had tests done, when he was a child. He was more used to them, in fact, than Teresa, whose childhood had certainly not included expensive medical care. So far, so good. And now, eye tests. Another woman came in from somewhere to do these. Ben had undergone tests recently with the oculists in Nice, so he did not mind these.
Ears . Inez asked Teresa to ask Ben if he had had ear tests, and Teresa said, 'Why not ask him yourself?' Her voice was low and bitter; she was finding herself unable to look at Inez, who was guilty and defiant.
'Have you ever had hearing tests, Ben?' Inez asked.
Ben knew that his hearing was sharper than anybody's, but all he said was, 'Yes.'
He put up with the instruments poking into his ears, and the light being shone in.
And now urine: Inez was expecting him to pee in front of them all like an animal, Teresa thought but Ben took the flask and looked about him for cover. 'A screen,' ordered Inez, and to Teresa her voice sounded sharp and scornful. Behind a screen Ben peed, and brought back the flask.
They cut off a bit of his hair, and parings from his nails, and shavings of skin.
All this Ben put up with, silent, stolid grinning.
Now they wanted to put clamps on his head to measure brain activity, but when Ben saw the apparatus he backed to the door, wanting to escape, and Teresa's encouraging cries (prompted by Inez) that she would do it too, did not persuade Ben.
Inez said, 'Very well, we'll do the x-rays.'
Teresa permitted herself to be x-rayed for the first time in her life. It was a long process. Legs, arms, feet, pelvis, spine, shoulders, neck. They did not suggest doing the head, so as not to frighten Ben. He stood by, watching, and as the photographs were processed and held out to Teresa and to him, he seemed interested, looking at Teresa's bones.
'Have you ever been x-rayed?' asked Inez.
'Yes,' said Ben. 'I broke my leg once.'
Inez's impatient sigh suggested that he might have told them that before, but all she said was, 'Then you won't mind doing it for us, will you?'
He went through it patiently, Teresa beside him, and Inez on guard.
And now it was getting on in the afternoon. Ben said, 'I'm hungry.'
They did not want to cause comment by taking him to the canteen. Sandwiches were brought. Teresa was hungry. Ben could never easily eat bread, but he took out the meat fillings and ate them. Teresa asked for fruit, and when it came he eagerly ate it.
Now Inez said he must have the wires attached to his head for brain tests.
'No,' he said. Then he shouted, 'No, no, no, no!' They had planned to test the workings of his digestive system, his circulation, his breathing: there were a great many more to do, but the tests on his brain were considered the most important, and Ben shouted, 'No!' and began stamping about.
Inez went out to the telephone, her slim compact little body in its white overalls showing a determination that Teresa understood.
'I want to go home,' said Ben, meaning the place in Rio.
Inez came back, smiling brightly and falsely, not looking at Teresa, who knew that deceptions were being planned, and said that Alfredo would take them both back.
The swooping looping drive back down through the hills made Ben sick, and they had to stop twice. At last they were driving along the sea front, and then were in the flat. Alfredo came in long enough to say that they wanted Ben to go back tomorrow for more tests. He knew that Ben was going to say no, and he did.
Alfredo and Teresa stood close together, looking at each other. Their eyes spoke clearly, saying they were going to defend Ben, and that they were angry about what was happening; saying, too, that they liked each other, very much. If Ben had not been there, humped over the table, banging his fists down again and again, probably the two would have been in each other's arms, or at least something would have been said. This strong understanding they had, as if they had known each other always, ended in their marrying, some months in the future. So their story at least has a happy ending: things turned out well for them.
Alfredo went off, and Teresa and Ben sat at the table, and Teresa cooked for him, steak, and more steak, because he was hungry.
She was so anxious she did not sleep much, because she knew bad things were being planned. She could hear Ben moving about his room, but at least he was not banging his head on the wall.
Next morning there was a telephone call: Luiz Machado was coming to discuss Ben. Teresa told Ben this and now she did hear the thudding on the wall. She sat at the table, quite still, for some time, and her breathing was shallow and scared: then she began smoothing her long black hair as if it were life itself she was trying to bring into order, and so she waited, telling herself that now she must be strong, and stand up for Ben and for herself. It felt to her that even the thought of these powerful people made her want to faint, or to run away; she was being expected to confront what she had held in awe all her life: the educated, clever all-knowing world of modern knowledge. Who expected her to? She, herself. Alfredo. And poor Ben.
Luiz Machado was not alone, for with him came one Stephen, another American, Professor Stephen something or other she couldn't get the name: Gumlack, or Goonlach and this one was a tall thin bony man, with a face all big bones, and a big mouth pushed forward by his teeth. His eyes sat inside hollows of bone, prominent eyeballs that seemed to jump out at her when he blinked. He came from some famous institute in the States: she knew it was famous because when he presented the name to her he expected her to recognise it and knew too that because she did not respond she was being classed as an ignoramus.
Ben came into the room, and she understood the two men expected her to dismiss him so they could discuss him and then give her orders. She said to Ben loudly, because she was afraid her voice would shake, 'This is Luiz Machado you met him, Ben, and this is Professor Stephen . Gumlack .'
'Gaumlach,' he said promptly, showing he was irritated.
'Professor Gaumlach,' she repeated carefully. 'He comes from America, like Alex.' To them she said, 'Alex brought Ben here to make a film with him.' To Ben she said, 'Sit down, Ben. It's all right.'
The two men were put out, she could see. She was triumphant: she wasn't going to dismiss Ben, as she had been in her time, like a servant.
A brief silence, then Professor Stephen Gaumlach leaned forward, and said, 'This is very important, very important indeed.' His lips mouthed the words, moulding each one as it came out, rolling them towards her like cold marbles. His eyes were cold, fanatic, obsessed. Seldom had she disliked anyone as she disliked this man. 'You must see that, Teresa '