She handed Barney a sheaf of yellowing lined paper. He scanned the first page, and read, ‘Llanto para un bijo nunca nacido.’ He looked up at her.
‘Elegy for an unborn son,’ she translated.
‘I understood that,’ Barney said softly. ‘I was just a little surprised that he carried his fantasies so far.’
‘It wasn’t a fantasy. It’s about a boy he had to abort from a woman …’
‘Your mother?’
She nodded. ‘It seems that she was pregnant when she was wounded – though neither of them ever bothered to tell me. And Luis had to sacrifice the child – his son – to save her life.’ In a futile attempt to shrug off this burden, she commented, ‘It’s pretty lousy poetry.’
Barney stood, took her hands, and led her to the chair. ‘Will you sit down, for chrissake?’
She obeyed him mutely. He tried to offer some mitigating insights.
‘This explains a lot of things, Castellano. I mean, not just his obsession with having a son, but the fact that I’ve always felt your mother was angry at him for something. Now we know why.’
She looked at him, dark rings around her wide blue eyes. ‘And what the hell good does knowing do? Luis resented the fact that I was alive and his “son” wasn’t, and she resents the fact that I’m alive and my sister isn’t. I feel like obliging both of them and jumping out the window.’
‘No way, Castellano. I can tell you from personal experience that a leap from this height will merely break your bones and send you to the loony bin. My professional advice is that you remain alive.’
‘And do what?’
‘Sit here and talk to me,’ he answered quietly.
He went to the door, replaced his DO NOT DISTURB sign, and returned to listen to Laura for the next three hours.
22
‘Suzie, what the hell happened to you last night?’
It was breakfast time. Suzie was sitting in a corner, now and then nibbling her blueberry muffin or taking a sip of coffee. But never looking Barney in the face.
‘Please, Suzie?’
Still averting her gaze, she said softly, ‘You made a fool of me.’
‘What?’
‘I know when I got to your room you had someone there already. That wasn’t very gallant of you, Barney. You should at least take a break – like a fighter between rounds.’
He sat down across from her and pleaded, ‘But you don’t understand, it was only Laura.’
‘What do you mean “only”? You had a beautiful girl in your room when you were supposed to be waiting for me.’
‘Please, Suzie, how many times do I have to tell you she’s just a friend?’
‘Then how come you didn’t answer when I knocked?’
‘I didn’t hear you. Maybe you just weren’t loud enough.’
‘Look, I didn’t want to make a French farce out of the whole thing, so I rapped quietly. It was enough humiliation for me to do that.’
Barney slapped his palm to his forehead in frustration. ‘Jesus, Suzie, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.’ He looked across the table, his eyes pleading. ‘Suzie, I love you. Haven’t I told you that a million times?’
‘Yes,’ she answered shyly, ‘and I wanted to believe it.’
‘I mean, I want to marry you,’ he blurted out.
There was a ripple of surprise in her otherwise impassive demeanor.
‘Do you?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes, Suzie, really. Really, really.’
‘I wish I could believe you,’ she said wistfully.
‘What the hell’s stopping you?’
‘You said “really” too many times. Like you were trying to convince yourself – not me.’
At which she rose, and gracefully left the cafeteria.
Barney sat there, his head in his hands. And, like a child being pacified, distractedly finished Suzie’s muffin and coffee.
He did love her, he assured himself. But then he was forced to concede that he didn’t really, really, really love her.
Clinical rotations began and the doctors-to-be were overjoyed at the prospect of working with patients in Harvard’s many teaching hospitals. They did not, however, realize that their duties would entail what was colloquially known as ‘scutwork.’ Unqualified as doctors – or as nurses – they were the lowest caste of all and therefore saddled with countless menial tasks. Like trudging back and forth from the patients’ bedsides to the lab with blood, urine, and other samples. When they were not occupied with such duties, they had to write up the case notes and – worst of all – deal with filling out the endless insurance forms. It didn’t take long for them to realize that they were paying thousands of dollars tuition for the privilege of saving the Med School money by doing unskilled labor for no salary at all.
They began to regard the task of drawing blood as a rare privilege. And sometimes in the middle of the night they were awakened to be accorded the dubious honor of reinserting an I.V. needle. But that was because the upperclassmen were too smart to get out of their beds for something so trivial.
The clinical rotations were to acquaint them with the major specialties of the healing art so they could choose which path (or pathology) they would ultimately follow.
Surgery and Internal Medicine were obligatory. After that there was a broad spectrum of specialties and subspecialties like Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Neurology, Ophthalmology, Urology – even, for those so inclined, Proctology.
The once more-or-less cohesive class was now fragmented into tiny groups. Whereas before they had been able to take some solace in the fact that all one hundred and twenty of them were suffering at the hands of tyrants like Pfeifer, they now had to face the equally formidable physicians in groups of two to ten.
Barney and Bennett counted themselves lucky that they were assigned to the Brigham. For although more often than not they would go on different ward rounds with their respective clinical instructors, they were at least in the same building and could enliven each other’s drudgery. Barney devised an entertainment which he dubbed ‘the Schleppers’ Olympics’. It involved several unusual disciplines, all of which forbade the use of the hospital elevator.
First there was the four-floor dash with hands free. Then followed sprints carrying various implements, samples, etc. And Bennett devised a ‘mini javelin contest’. The challenge was how many patients’ veins you could get into on the first shot with your needle and draw blood. The loser had to pay for dinner, during which they would discuss that week’s ‘accomplishments.’
Though they were on the same Internal Medicine rotation, it was impossible to believe they were doing the same tasks. For they had diametrically opposed views of them.
‘There’s no action, Barn,’ Bennett complained. ‘No wonder the internists are called “fleas”. They just crawl around on the outside, peeking into little corners. I mean, I can’t see spending a lifetime hypothesizing about what may or may not be happening inside a person’s body.’
‘I think it’s fascinating,’ Barney rebutted, ‘the detective work involved in putting little clues together to solve a mystery. Why not go in for Radiology, Landsmann? Then you could spend all day alone in the dark with x-ray eyes.’
‘No thank you, Dr Livingston. I’m for surgery, the real vita activa.’
‘Well,’ Barney remarked, ‘you know the old chestnut about the different kinds of doctors: The fleas know everything and do nothing, the surgeons know nothing and do everything.’
‘Yah – and psychiatrists know nothing and do nothing.’
Barney laughed. Bennett followed up his thought. ‘Why are you bent on spending the rest of your life in an easy chair acquiring adipose tissue on your ass and telling people they shouldn’t love their mothers?’
‘Come on, Ben, there are literally millions of walking wounded out there who need help. Sometimes I think we should all be institutionalized.’
‘And indeed we have been, Doctor,’ Bennett chuckled. ‘We’re all in the h
ospital already.’
They had both come off duty at 5:30 p.m. and were not expected in the hospital until seven the next morning. And as they were ambling slowly back to Vanderbilt Hall in the gathering twilight, Barney risked a question.
‘Ben, you’ve never really told me what made you go into medicine. I mean, you once said your dad was a shoemaker. Was it a kind of dream of your folks that you go into a profession?’
‘No,’ Bennett answered, ‘they didn’t push me in any direction. I just decided to go into something that might make the world a little better.’
‘Come on, Landsmann. I’m not interviewing you for admission. I’m your buddy. Can’t you come up with a more plausible reason? God knows I’ve bored you with the details of my Brooklyn youth. And I’ll bet your childhood is a helluva lot more interesting.’
‘Okay, Livingston.’ Bennett smiled. ‘As a special favor to you, I’ll search my soul right here in the middle of the street. I guess the reason I went into medicine is because a young doctor – actually, he was only a med student – saved my mother’s life.’
‘Now we’re cooking,’ Barney replied passionately. ‘What happened? Was she in an accident?’
‘No,’ Bennett said quietly. ‘Not unless you call Hitler an accident. One of the Fuehrer’s medical apostles used her for a human guinea pig.’
‘Holy shit,’ Barney whispered under his breath.
‘When the Allies liberated the camp, my mother was in the terminal stage of an acute endometrial infection. This British med student did emergency surgery in the most primitive conditions and saved her life.’
‘Jesus!’ Barney exclaimed. ‘But hey, I never knew there were blacks in the concentration camps.’
‘My mother is Jewish,’ Bennett replied.
‘Ah,’ said Barney, smiling, ‘now it all comes clear. Let me conjure up the rest of the romantic tale. Your father – obviously with Patton’s Third Army, since you’ve got that cigarette case with his insignia – liberated the camp and they fell in love. Right?’
‘Half right.’
‘Which half?’
‘This is going to confuse you, Barney. My father liberated my parents.’
‘Hey, wait a minute, Ben, I’m lost. Can we start with first principles – like birth? Who the hell is your father?’
‘My father was Colonel Lincoln Bennett, Senior, U.S. Army, deceased 1945, My “parents” are Herschel and Hannah Landsmann of Berlin, Nordhausen Concentration Camp, and, currently, Cleveland, Ohio. You see, Hannah was in really bad shape and it was my natural father who browbeat the doctors into trying to save her life. But then, ironically, he died of typhus. When they got to America the Landsmanns tracked me down and, to make a long story short, when they adopted me I took Bennett as a first name.’
‘Okay, I think the pieces are starting to fit. Now do I take it that it’s Mr Landsmann who’s the shoemaker?’
Bennett nodded.
‘By the way you dress and jet-set around, I guess he must have a pretty successful store.’
‘Well actually, the shoes are made by his factories. His “shop” is called Royal Leathercraft.’
‘What a story,’ Barney murmured. Then the thought struck him. ‘But what about your natural mother? Where is she in all this?’
Bennett’s face tightened. ‘I don’t know, Barn. I don’t have a single memory of the woman.’
‘Well, you’re luckier than most. You’ve actually got three parents that you’re proud of. Most people don’t even have any.’
Bennett laughed and put his arm around his classmate. Barney was touched by this unprecedented demonstration of affection.
Laura was doing her Internal Medicine rotation at the Mass General. Running in the pony express between patients and lab, learning how to take pulse, blood pressure, and palpate the major organs for anomalies – and taking endless medical histories from new patients.
She was already encountering the difficulties of being a woman in a man’s profession. When she tried to record medical details from a construction worker with kidney stones, she found him less than cooperative about discussing anything below his navel.
‘But sir,’ she protested, ‘I’ve got to write this up or you’ll never have your operation. Do you want those kidney pains forever?’
‘Look, lady, I got nothing to hide, but if I gotta talk about personal things like passing water and private parts, I’ll tell it to a doctor, not some blond nurse.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she retorted. ‘I take umbrage at that.’
‘The hell you will,’ he responded. ‘The only thing I’ll let you take is my pulse.’
Grete was not having it any easier. Yet her worst experience came from a doctor, not a patient.
She had chosen Surgery as her first rotation and was doing the usual scutwork: holding retractors to keep wounds open while the Big Knife himself entered the body in order to, as they always put it, ‘cut to cure’.
On rare occasions some of the more advanced students were allowed to put in the final sutures. And Grete got her chance when Dr Malcolm McBride invited her to join him in sewing up. In good pedagogical fashion, he took each of her hands in his, helped her grasp the needle in her right and move along with him down, through, and up in order to close the incision.
Grete immediately began to sense that something was wrong, for not only could she feel the surgeon’s body behind her but, with every movement of his arms, he was brushing by her breasts.
Did anybody notice what he was doing to her? Did they notice that their teacher’s breathing had become more rapid? Or were they mesmerized by the suturing hands?
‘I can’t go back into that room. I just can’t.’
As soon as she returned to Vanderbilt Hall, she had rushed to tell Laura.
‘What should I do?’ she asked tearfully. ‘Besides rubbing my breasts with his arms, he was pushing his … inguinal area against my backside. I felt like stabbing him with the needle.’
‘You should have,’ Laura replied.
‘That’s easy to say,’ Grete protested. ‘But would you risk flunking Surgery for something no one else could see?’
The question gave Laura pause. No, she probably wouldn’t have done anything if the guy had stopped short of rape.
‘Think of it this way, Grete,’ she said reassuringly. ‘It’s just a lousy little “feel”. I mean, if the guy’s so twisted that he’s satisfied with that kind of cheap thrill, have pity on him. I mean, we’ll be damn lucky if we get through the next two years with nothing more than this.’
‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Since my last confession, I have committed fornication.’
‘Yes, my son.’
‘And often lately.’
A pause.
‘First there were those girls in the Med School class. Grete – and then Laura. I feel worst about her, Father, because she’s a Catholic, too. Actually, we’ve even prayed together in this church. What shall I do, Father?’
‘My son, we must all be careful to avoid the occasions of sin and particularly the sins of the flesh. But above all you must endeavor to uphold the teachings of the Catholic faith. Pray for strength, my son, and I will pray for you.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘For your penance, say The Stations of the Cross three times. Now make a good Act of Contrition … Absolvo te in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.’
‘But Father – I’m still scared.’
‘Of what, my son?’
‘These were only fornications in my mind. I’m scared I might actually do it.’
There was no reply from the other side of the confessional box.
Hank Dwyer left the cathedral, his soul cleansed and his spirit renewed.
Laura hated Surgery.
Not just for the more obvious blood-and-guts aspect but because it was so physically exhausting to stand guard on a retractor for two or three hours – as vessels or viscera were detached, resected, ligated, or removed
. She had seen enough of the ‘heavy work,’ too: broken leg bones being repaired like pieces of wood by a carpenter, then everything stitched over with materials as varied as nylon, kangaroo gut, and silk. It somehow seemed like an assembly line in Detroit.
She felt more at home talking to pre-op patients, trying to calm their dread and watching them surrender to the anesthetic with the help of her tranquilizing words.
The post-op room was harrowing. Now and then she had the joy of seeing a patient to whom she had spoken revive smiling, happy, and on the way to health. But usually, even if the procedure had been successful, they were in considerable pain and nothing in her vocabulary could relieve their distress.
And then, of course, there were those who did not wake up at all …
She would return from the hospital each evening well after dinner, and barely have the strength to go down to the sandwich machines.
Almost every day there was a letter waiting from Palmer. Or ‘Second Lieutenant Talbot’ as he now sometimes referred to himself.
God, she thought, why did I push that guy away? Here he is going to exotic places in the Pacific, probably meeting dozens of pliant, nubile maidens. Though his letters vowed fidelity and implied celibacy, she was sure he was really having a hot time.
For her part, she maintained her sexual independence and had a couple of desultory affairs with interns that did not amount to much. And, after incessant pressure, she even gave in to the importunate Gary Arnold, the narcissistic neurosurgeon back in Boston for an interview.
But their second encounter was equally short-lived. Gary had an irritating tendency to pontificate.
Late one Sunday evening, as they were lying in bed, he stared up at the ceiling and murmured, ‘You don’t like sex, do you, Laura?’
‘What?’ She had been half-asleep.
‘I simply observed that you don’t seem to enjoy making love.’
‘Are you implying that I’ve got a problem, Gary?’
‘Well, to be perfectly honest, I think you should perhaps talk to someone about it some day.’
‘You know,’ Laura replied, gradually growing more and more awake, ‘you may have a point there. The more I think of it, the more I realize that sex isn’t all that much fun—’