Room: A Novel полностью

Ma puffs her breath. “See, if their mothers were there, they’d have cuddled the baby monkeys, but because the milk just came from pipes, they — It turns out they needed the love as much as the milk.”

“This is a bad story.”

“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No, you should,” I say.

“But—”

“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.”

Ma holds me tight. “Jack,” she says, “I’m a bit strange this week, aren’t I?”

I don’t know, because everything’s strange.

“I keep messing up. I know you need me to be your ma but I’m having to remember how to be me as well at the same time and it’s. .” But I thought the her and the Ma were the same.

I want to go Outside again but Ma’s too tired.

• • •

“What day is this morning?”

“Thursday,” says Ma.

“When is Sunday?”

“Friday, Saturday, Sunday. .”

“Three away, like in Room?”

“Yeah, a week’s seven days everywhere.”

“What’ll we ask for Sundaytreat?”

Ma shakes her head.

In the afternoon we’re going in the van that says The Cumberland Clinic, we’re driving actually outside the big gates to the rest of the world. I don’t want to, but we have to go show the dentist Ma’s teeth that still hurt. “Will there be persons there not friends of ours?”

“Just the dentist and an assistant,” says Ma. “They’ve sent everybody else away, it’s a special visit just for us.”

We have our hats and our cool shades on, but not the sunblock because the bad rays bounce off glass. I get to keep my stretchy shoes on. In the van there’s a driver with a cap, I think he’s on mute. There’s a special booster seat on the seat that makes me higher so the belt won’t squish my throat if we brake suddenly. I don’t like the tight of the belt. I watch out the window and blow my nose, it’s greener today.

Lots and lots of hes and shes on the sidewalks, I never saw so many, I wonder are they all real for real or just some. “Some of the women grow long hair like us,” I tell Ma, “but the men don’t.”

“Oh, a few do, rock stars. It’s not a rule, just a convention.”

“What’s a—?”

“A silly habit everybody has. Would you like a haircut?” asks Ma.

“No.”

“It doesn’t hurt. I had short hair before — back when I was nineteen.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to lose my strong.”

“Your what?”

“My muscles, like Samson in the story.”

That makes her laugh.

“Look, Ma, a man putting himself on fire!”

“Just lighting his cigarette,” she says. “I used to smoke.”

I stare at her. “Why?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Look, look.”

“Don’t shout.”

I’m pointing where there’s all littles walking along the street. “Kids tied together.”

“They’re not tied, I don’t think.” Ma puts her face more against the window. “Nah, they’re just holding on to the string so they don’t get lost. And see, the really small ones are in those wagons, six in each. They must be a day care, like the one Bronwyn goes to.”

“I want to see Bronwyn. May you go us please to the kid place, where the kids and Bronwyn my cousin are,” I say to the driver.

He doesn’t hear me.

“The dentist is expecting us right now,” says Ma.

The kids are gone, I stare out all the windows.

The dentist is Dr. Lopez, when she pulls up her mask for a second her lipstick is purple. She’s going to look at me first because I have teeth too. I lie down in a big chair that moves. I stare up with my mouth wide wide open and she asks me to count what I see on her ceiling. There’s three cats and one dog and two parrots and — I spit out the metal thing.

“It’s just a little mirror, Jack, see? I’m counting your teeth.”

“Twenty,” I tell her.

“That’s right.” Dr. Lopez grins. “I’ve never met a five-year-old who could count his own teeth before.” She puts the mirror in again. “Hmm, wide spacing, that’s what I like to see.”

“Why you like to see that?”

“It means. . plenty of room for maneuvering.”

Ma’s going to be a long time in the chair while the drill gets the yuck out of her teeth. I don’t want to wait in the waiting room but Yang the assistant says, “Come check out our cool toys.” He shows me a shark on a stick that goes clattery clattery and there’s a stool to sit on that’s shaped like a tooth too, not a human tooth but a giant one all white with no rot. I look at a book about Transformers and another one with no jacket about mutant turtles that say no to drugs. Then I hear a funny noise.

Yang blocks the door. “I think maybe your Mom would prefer—”

I duck in under his arm and there’s Dr. Lopez doing a machine in Ma’s mouth that screeches. “Leave her alone!”

“Is OK,” Ma says but like her mouth is broken, what the dentist did to her?

“If he’d feel safer here, that’s fine,” says Dr. Lopez.

Yang brings the tooth stool in the corner and I watch, it’s awful but it’s better than not watching. One time Ma twitches in the chair and makes a moan and I stand up, but Dr. Lopez says, “A little more numbing?” and does a needle and Ma stays quiet again. It goes on for hundreds of hours. I need to blow my nose but the skin’s coming off so I just press the tissue on my face.