‘Dwyer, sir.’
‘Well, Mr Dwyer, did you also note that the gentleman was only forty-four when he died? What do you think brought him to such an early end? Do those lungs appear normal to you?’
Dwyer leaned over and took a closer look. The smell of formalin at such proximity was sickening. But he saw what he was intended to see. ‘His lungs are pretty shriveled up – and they seem awfully black …’
‘Which means he was either a coal miner – or a heavy smoker. That blackness is carbon. Do you notice anything else, Mr Dwyer?’
‘There’s a lump on his left lung – kind of white and gooey.’
‘Like marshmallow, you might say,’ Lubar added with a slight grin. ‘When you get to Pathology, you’ll find those boys always talk in metaphors of food. Anyway, you’ll also note the kind of salt-and-pepper effect on the other lung. The marshmallow’s the primary carcinoma. And the grains of salt are metastases – newly established colonies from the principal malignancy. So if any of you want to commit suicide slowly, you can puff your way to heaven at an early age – just as this man did.’
There was a chorus of murmurs around George’s bier. Some, still unpersuaded of their mortality (or the American Cancer Society’s report), thought, It won’t happen to me. I just smoke two or three a day – except maybe at exam time.
‘All right,’ said the professor, ‘now you can all go back and open up your own hearts.’
‘What shall we call him?’ Barney asked as he and his partners nervously undraped their cadaver.
‘How about Leonardo?’ Alison Redmond proposed. ‘I mean da Vinci’s anatomical drawings are as good as anything in Gray’s – and he did them in 1487. In fact, he was a pioneer in the use of undershading to get the three-dimensional effect.’
‘Fine,’ Bennett agreed, ‘I’ll go with Leonardo. Those drawings are magnificent. And dissection was probably not even allowed in his day.’
‘Of course the Italian Renaissance was a rare exception,’ Alison lectured on. ‘Leonardo actually dissected a body himself in 1506, probably thanks to his friend, Professor Marcantonio della Torre—’
‘Okay, okay, Alison,’ Barney interrupted, to put a tourniquet on her verbal hemorrhage. ‘You’ve made your point. Why don’t we get to the nitty-gritty. Who wants to do the first slice?’
Alison and Bennett both volunteered.
‘Well, so do I,’ Barney asserted, ‘but why don’t we just say ladies first.’
‘You don’t have to be patronizing, Livingston,’ Alison retorted with undisguised hostility. ‘I’m as good as any man or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘I don’t doubt that for a second,’ Barney replied. ‘In that case, let’s draw straws.’
‘Sounds fair to me,’ Bennett commented. ‘Only who’s got straws?’
‘We can use some of my fags,’ said Alison, withdrawing a half-empty pack of Gauloises from her pocket.
‘It’s better than smoking them,’ Barney commented sarcastically.
‘My body is my own,’ she countered.
‘Sure, sure,’ Barney said in halfhearted apology.
They were interrupted by the voice of Professor Lubar.
‘Please note how I’m holding the scalpel.’ He was grasping it like a cello bow and making the pronating motion they were intended to imitate. ‘Try and enter the skin at a ninety-degree angle. Make it swift but light because I want us to study the layers of skin, subcutaneous fat, fasciae, and muscles on the way down. So just cut down to the top of the pectoralis major.’
Barney, who had drawn the winning cigarette, imitated Lubar’s grasp of the scalpel as best he could. He was just mustering the courage to make an incision when Alison inquired, ‘Do you want to look at the book before you cut?’
‘No, thanks, I’m an ex-jock. We all know where the “pecs” are.’
All three were feeling the tension now.
‘Okay, Barney,’ Bennett whispered in uneasy encouragement. ‘Go for it.’
Barney hesitated for a millisecond. Until he realized that many of his classmates were already at the task. Indeed, at the very next table he saw Hank Dwyer cross himself and then swiftly move his scalpel downward. He wanted to look away, but knew Alison was studying him intently.
He lowered his hand and pierced Leonardo’s parchment-dry flesh just below the neck. It felt like cutting into a crunchy autumn apple.
There was no blood. In a way that made it easier. It helped to make Leonardo seem less human – more like a waxen facsimile of life.
‘Well done, Barney,’ murmured Bennett Landsmann at the very same time that Alison, on her own initiative, reached across the chest and with surgical tweezers began to fold back the skin and clamp it.
‘God,’ she muttered under her breath, ‘this is the slowest table in the room. Get with it, you two. The guys over there are already down to the muscle.’
Bennett took a quick glance to the right and then quickly corrected his partner. ‘Simmer down, Alison, they’re only at the axillary fascia.’
‘What makes you so sure?’ She challenged him in a surprised tone that seemed to insinuate that Bennett had done something treasonous – like take the course before.
But his response was merely to hold up their anatomical bible and say sweetly, ‘It’s all right here in Dr Gray, ma’am.’
Sensing that it would be wise to keep the peace, Barney held out the scalpel and said, ‘Here, Alison, you cut. Ben and I will just take notes.’
She took the knife and without another word began dissecting with a deftness and speed that would have been the envy of a senior surgeon.
‘God, Barney, you absolutely reek.’
It was three hours later and the anatomists, emotionally and physically exhausted, shuffled from the room.
‘To be frank, Castellano, you don’t exactly smell like a rose yourself.’
‘I know. I’d like to find a washing machine and stick my whole body in for an hour or two.’
‘Thank God for the smell,’ he confessed. ‘It knocked me for such a loop that I barely noticed I was slicing someone’s body.’
Just then the doors to the adjoining laboratory opened and another group of classmates emerged from first session. Among them was Grete Andersen.
‘Hey, Castellano,’ Barney whispered, ‘did you ever ask Grete why she didn’t show?’
‘No. She wasn’t there when I got back and I went right to sleep.’
‘Oh,’ said Barney, reliving his disappointment. ‘I guess she probably just forgot or something. I’ll go and ask her myself.’
‘Frankly, I think she’s bad news,’ Laura cautioned. ‘As my mother said when I was five and tried to touch the burners on the stove, “Cuidado, te quemaras.”’
‘Don’t worry,’ he replied complacently, ‘I’m too cool to get scalded.’
Just then the subject of the debate came up and joined them.
‘Hi, Barney,’ Grete said breezily. ‘How did you and your body get along?’
Shit, can’t this girl say anything that doesn’t have a sexual connotation?
‘Fine, fine,’ Barney answered. And then, as casually as possible, ‘I – uh – missed you last night.’
‘Oh yes, Barney, I’m really sorry about our not being able to get together. But I was – well, I guess waylaid is the best way of putting it – by this professor—’
Waylaid or just laid? Barney mused to himself.
‘and by the time I got up to my room, I had this terrible headache. I tried to call you—’
‘That’s okay,’ he replied. ‘We’ll just make it another time, that’s all.’
‘The sooner the better,’ Grete replied enticingly. But she could tarry no longer. For Professor Robinson, her Anatomy teacher, was striding by and Grete suddenly remembered some questions she had forgotten to pose to him. She excused herself and dashed down the corridor, with Barney’s eyes riveted on the spectacular movements of her gluteal muscles.
Laura watched him watch
Grete and quipped, ‘I think that formalin has gone to your brain. Let’s get these smelly clothes off and take a shower, huh?’
Barney was still distracted. ‘Christ, would I give anything to see Grete in the shower.’
‘Okay, Livingston,’ Laura answered sarcastically, ‘I’ll take Polaroid pictures and give them to you for Christmas.’
Barney had grown up with a religious belief in the unfailing efficacy of Lifebuoy soap. But dammit, he had been scrubbing for what seemed like fifteen minutes and instead of his body smelling like Lifebuoy, his soap was smelling like formalin!
‘I’m gonna be here forever,’ he complained half aloud.
‘It’s like Sophocles’ Philoctetes,’ said a voice in a nearby shower stall.
‘Explain the obscure reference,’ Barney shouted, anxious to take his mind off his odor.
‘I’m surprised at you, Barn, I thought you knew your classical mythology cold,’ Maury Eastman answered. ‘Philoctetes was this Greek hero in the Trojan War who had a wound that was so smelly his buddies couldn’t stand it. So they took him away and dumped him on a desert isle. But then a big-time prophet told them that without Philoctetes – stench and all – they would never take Troy. So they took him back. Pretty good allusion, huh?’
‘Not really, Maury – because around here everybody stinks.’
Back in the room, Barney stuffed his clothing into his trunk, determined to use the same garb for Anatomy as long as possible. But though he put on completely fresh garments and had carefully washed his hair, the formalin remained everywhere, floating above him like a malignant halo.
The odor had the paradoxical effect of bringing the freshmen together – for the simple reason that no one in the cafeteria would sit anywhere near them.
‘How much of that stuff are we supposed to remember?’ asked Hank Dwyer. ‘I mean, do you think it’ll be enough if we can just recognize the major muscle groups?’
‘This isn’t kindergarten, Dwyer. You’ve got to know every one of the three hundred named muscles, their origin, insertion, and action. Not to mention the two hundred and fifty ligaments, the two hundred and eight bones—’
‘Goddammit, Wyman,’ Barney snarled, ‘we’re in no mood to hear you tell us how stupid we are. If you don’t shut up, we’ll bring you up to the room and dissect you for practice.’
Barney forced himself to study till nearly eleven. Then he called over to the girl’s wing to see if Grete might be persuaded to have a quick cup of coffee. Laura answered.
‘Hi, Castellano, can I speak to Grete?’
‘If you can find her. I haven’t seen her since before dinner. Should I leave a message that her horny admirer phoned?’
‘No, she must have a thousand. I’ll just go downstairs, grab a bite, and go to bed. Want to have a cup of coffee or something?’
‘Too late, Barn. I’ve just washed my hair. But I’m touched that you still think of me at all.’ And then changing the subject, she inquired, ‘How’s the studying coming?’
‘So far it’s strictly Mickey Mouse – memorize, memorize, memorize. Am I really going to be a better doctor if I can remember the names of every micron of the body? Any fool could learn this crap by heart.’
‘That’s why there are a lot of foolish doctors, Barn – they know the names of everything and the meaning of nothing. The way I hear it, we won’t see an actual sick person for two years.’
‘Correction, Castellano. Meet me for breakfast tomorrow and you’ll encounter a genuine basket case.’
Barney wished her goodnight and walked downstairs to the candy machine, squandering eighty cents on Hershey bars, Milky Ways, Baby Ruths, and Peter Paul’s Coconut Mounds.
Ambling back down the corridor toward his cell, he heard the clickety-clack of typing. It could only be one person – the esthetic Maury, whose door was open to allow passersby a glimpse of the artist at work. Barney affected deep inner preoccupation as he passed Maury’s room.
But he did not escape.
‘Livingston!’
‘Oh, hi there, Maur. I was heading for the sack. I’m really crumped out from today—’
‘Emotionally drained?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Traumatized?’
‘I guess so.’
‘And yet deeply moved by our first encounter with a dead body.’
‘Well, frankly, I prefer encounters with live bodies.’
‘Hey, that’s good. That’s really good.’ As Maury began a frantic burst of typing, Barney tried to edge away.
‘Livingston – you can’t leave yet!’
‘Why not, Maur?’
‘You’ve gotta see what the first day at Med School’s really like.’
‘Are you serious? Where the hell do you think I’ve been?’
‘Come on, you have to see how vividly I’ve captured all the Sturm und Drang.’ He held out a sheaf of yellow pages, urging his visitor to take them.
Barney was in no mood for anything but sleep. And yet he detected a hint of panic in Maury’s voice.
‘Okay,’ he capitulated, flopping down onto Maury’s disheveled bed. ‘Let me see how life is transformed by art.’ He put down his collection of calorific delicacies.
‘Hey, fantastic,’ Maury remarked with glee as he reached for a Hershey bar and began to unwrap it. And then, turning to Barney, he asked, with his mouth full, ‘You don’t mind, do you, Livingston? I was so involved I didn’t go down for dinner.’
Barney began to read. Maury had gotten the feelings, all right, the fear and trembling, the thrill of watching a human body being opened to disclose its mysteries. He even had the humorous touch – a student fainting and the compassionate narrator hastening to revive him. But in a not-very-subtle transposition of character, Maury was the one observing Lubar with intense excitement, while the fainthearted student was none other than Barney!
Maury leaned over him, a strange grin on his face. ‘Good stuff, huh?’
Barney felt ill at ease. Why had this guy distorted the truth?
‘Your pages, Maury. They’re not very explicit about the thoracic cavity …’
‘This is a literary book, for God’s sake. For the general reader.’
‘I know. But somehow the general reader doesn’t get the impression that you even looked—’
‘I looked,’ he protested almost frantically.
‘Then how come you didn’t even describe the goddamn heart? Even the literati would groove on that.’
‘Livingston, you’re rapidly becoming a pain in the ass.’
Barney let this remark sail over his head, like a boxer ducking a punch.
‘Listen, Eastman, I want you to give me a straight answer. Did you go back to your table after you … were sick?’
‘What are you driving at?’ Maury answered uneasily.
‘I mean, were you there for the rest of the Anatomy lab?’
Maury’s eyes had the look of a frightened owl. ‘You don’t understand, Livingston. They were all laughing. You were even laughing with the others.’
‘What others?’
‘You heard them. Everybody in the class was mocking me.’
Barney was growing increasingly anxious. He edged closer to Maury and asked gently, ‘Would you like to talk about what’s worrying you?’
‘Fuck you, Livingston, you’re not my shrink!’
‘Do you have a shrink, Maury?’
‘None of your business – just get the hell out of here and leave me alone.’ He buried his head in his hands and began to sob.
Barney understood all too well that this was a plea for him not to leave. Yet he also knew that Maury had to get real help pronto.
‘I’ll leave if that’s what you want,’ he said softly. ‘But then I think you should call the Health Service.’
‘I can’t,’ Maury answered with a manic chuckle. ‘My father doesn’t believe in shrinks.’
‘How come?’
‘He is one.’ And then, almost as a non sequitur,
he blurted, ‘My father hates my guts.’
‘Why?’ Barney asked with outward calm, while feeling desperately out of his therapeutic depth.
‘Because I killed my mother,’ Maury answered matter-of-factly.
‘Oh’ was all Barney could manage.
‘I didn’t really,’ Maury explained. ‘I mean, I was only two years old when she took all those pills and died. But my father thinks it’s all my fault.’
Barney knew there was no more time to waste.
‘Look, I’ve got to go to the john for a second. Then I’ll be right back.’
As Barney turned to leave, Maury’s tone suddenly became threatening, ‘But you better come right the hell back.’
There was a phone at the end of the corridor near the stairwell. Barney was out of breath from running when he asked to be connected with Student Health.
A Dr Rubin was on duty. His voice sounded calm and reassuring, so Barney gasped out the essential details of his friend’s plight.
‘So what should I do?’ he asked urgently.
‘I’d suggest you come downstairs so we can continue talking,’ the doctor replied.
‘But can’t I leave him with you now? I mean, I’ve still got a load of studying—’
‘Please, Livingston,’ Rubin replied compassionately, ‘you don’t have to keep up this charade about a “friend of yours.” There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve already seen several of your classmates tonight with your same … difficulties.’
‘No, no, Doctor. You don’t understand!’
‘But I do, I do,’ the physician insisted. ‘Would you feel better if I came upstairs to see you?’
‘All right,’ he capitulated. ‘Could you meet me at the third-floor stairwell – as soon as possible?’
Rubin agreed. Barney hung up and, now feeling the strain of the past hour, shuffled slowly back to Maury’s room.
He was not there.
And the window was open.
10
Barney was struck by the swiftness of what followed. And by the uncanny lack of noise. No panic, no sirens, no shouts. Nothing that would attract attention.
Dashing out of Maury’s room, he had practically collided with Dr Rubin in the corridor. After a split second’s explanation, the doctor ordered Barney to call the university police, then grab some blankets and meet him outside. Barney had reacted in motions so frantic that he felt part of a speeded-up movie: he had telephoned, stripped Maury’s bed, raced down the stairs trailing sheets and blankets, and sprinted out to the side of the building under Maury’s window.