To begin with, she had stopped collecting the vegetables Kugel left in her garden each morning. She had, she said with a disconcerting air, far more important things to do now. Kugel continued to put the fruits and vegetables out each morning, regardless, but now he had a second, more tedious chore, that of collecting the same fruits and vegetables again that very evening. And his new injuries weren’t making those chores any easier. Most of the bruises Kugel suffered in the fall down the attic stairs were contusions and scrapes, some simple, some severe; his right thigh, from buttock to knee, was covered in a large purple-and-red bruise that ached whenever he put any weight on it. So painful was it to step on that leg that he thought he had broken his ankle, but the X-rays revealed no leg fractures at all, and the doctors gave him some painkillers and a hospital cane to ease the pain of walking. His left wrist suffered the most damage: hairline breaks on two of his metatarsals and a fracture on the end of the radius; he was in a cast from elbow to fingertips, the end of which was shaped like a flat paddle in order to keep his wrist and fingers straight.
