Doctors

  ‘Forget the credentials. What did he do?’

  ‘Well, to put it mildly, what he shouldn’t have been doing with a patient. Your friend was very cool—’

  ‘– and brave,’ said another nurse.

  ‘She called a press conference at the Georgetown Hospital.’

  ‘She what?’ Laura asked, certain she was imagining all this. ‘Why the hell would the press come to listen to some surgical resident?’

  ‘First of all, she’s stunning,’ Nida answered, ‘and, most of all, they love this sort of juicy scandal. Anyway, she said that she’d gone to Himmerman for treatment and he’d ended up in bed with her.’

  ‘But how the hell could she prove it?’

  ‘Oh, that was the interesting part. At first this Doctor Himmerman – who’s incredibly handsome, by the way – spoke to the cameras and denied it all. He said it was some kind of paranoid delusion and that “the poor girl” should be in a mental institution. He was very convincing.’

  ‘I’ll bet he was,’ Laura muttered.

  Nida’s next words were a bolt from the blue: ‘Then he just turned and walked up the steps of his townhouse – a beautiful place in Georgetown, by the way – went upstairs, and swallowed all those pills.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Laura, now elated. ‘So the sonovabitch turned out to be his own worst enemy. Hurray for Andersen.’

  ‘Grete, are you okay? I’ve been trying to reach you for nearly two weeks.’

  ‘Sorry Laura, it’s just that I’ve had to move in with a girlfriend because my phone was ringing off the hook. I should have called you sooner – I’m sorry.’

  ‘Hey, how did you get the guts to blow the whistle on that unethical bastard? What made you do it?’

  ‘Somebody had to. Do you know that Andy swore he’d leave his wife and marry me? Then I found out he used that line about a million times.’

  ‘How’d you find that out?’

  ‘From none other than Mrs H herself. We met as I was coming out from my session. She looked me up and down and suddenly flew off the handle and said, “You must be Andy’s latest Barbie doll.” Then she stormed right into his office and started screaming. What happened after that will probably appear in the next National Enquirer.’

  ‘Oh, Grete, I feel so sorry for you. I hope this lousy experience doesn’t turn you off men in general.’

  ‘Well, to tell the truth, they’re not my favorite gender at the moment. And as for male doctors, they’re just about the lowest form of life. I’ll give you three guesses who has to get out of town as a result of this scandal.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well,’ Grete replied, ‘it seems the Surgical Department here thinks I’m not cutting it – to coin a phrase. So they’ve offered someone else the senior residency and informed me that, though I was “welcome to stay,” I wouldn’t have a stipend and I’d have to slog my guts out as a volunteer.’

  ‘In other words, they fired you.’

  ‘Well,’ Grete replied sarcastically, ‘you might say so. In fact, “fired” was the only word they didn’t use. These doctors are like a fraternity or some secret society. My sin apparently wasn’t that I allowed myself to be seduced, but that I told the press.’

  ‘Grete, I’m absolutely speechless. You mean that creep is gonna get away scot-free?’

  ‘Probably. I mean, naturally they’re going through the motions. He’ll have to testify before some County Board – in private, naturally. But he still maintains that I’m a hysteric who fantasized the whole thing. Anyway, I’m resigned to leaving, so I’m writing to practically every hospital from here to Honolulu. And if all else fails, I’ll join the Army.’

  ‘What?’ Laura said with incredulity.

  ‘I’m serious. They need surgeons badly. They would probably even ship me to Vietnam.’ And with the pain audible in her voice, she commented, ‘Frankly, Laura, if I got my head shot off it couldn’t hurt much more than it hurts now.’

  For the first time in their marriage, Laura and Palmer had almost identically punishing schedules. No longer did he complain when she came home at 4 A.M. For he himself was wide awake, having spent the midnight hours in the intensive study of Vietnamese.

  As she entered the room he removed his reading glasses, looked at her, and smiled. ‘You know, my darling, I’m beginning to have respect for what you’re going through. I mean, this lack of sleep is absolutely killing me.’

  ‘Actually, Palmer, it’s a tried and true technique for breaking prisoners of war. I’m told it’s very popular in Southeast Asia.’

  ‘Oh? Who told you that?’

  ‘The New York Times.’

  ‘And you believe that Commie rag?’

  ‘My God, Palmer,’ she remarked, only half in jest, ‘sometimes you make Barry Goldwater sound like a Berkeley radical.’

  Laura poured herself a glass of orange juice, sat down wearily, and mused, ‘I’d like to know just what the hell it is about you men that makes you go on having wars and killing one another. Maybe it’s all that testosterone – I mean, the androgen’s a potent stimulant.’

  ‘I just thought that it stimulated sex,’ Palmer said, smiling.

  ‘Well, there’s always been a vague connection between love and war, hasn’t there? Take Helen of Troy—’

  ‘At this point, I’d rather take you,’ said Palmer, rising from behind his desk.

  ‘Do you think tonight was the night?’ he asked.

  They were lying side by side in bed, relaxing drowsily.

  ‘Palmer,’ she replied sleepily, ‘if Medical Science had invented a machine that could pinpoint ovulation I would have sneaked it home from the hospital under my raincoat.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it’s not necessary,’ Palmer reasoned. ‘I mean, if we do it every night we’re bound to catch the right time, aren’t we?’

  ‘Speaking professionally, Palmer, it takes the average “Olympic” couple, as they call them, four to six months to conceive a baby. And sometimes longer if you’ve been on the Pill.’

  ‘I think a lot of it is psychological,’ he commented. ‘If you really put your mind to it, I’m sure you could succeed straight away. Take my own parents – I doubt that they’ve made love more than half a dozen times in their entire marriage, but they’ve got me and my sister to show for it. Anyway, what do you think we should call him?’

  ‘Him? Who’s him?’

  ‘Our child – my son. The one that we’re busily conceiving.’

  ‘How about Miraculous?’ she asked. ‘It would be very appropriate.’ Then she quickly added, ‘And Miracula if it’s a girl.’

  ‘It won’t be a girl,’ Palmer assured her.

  ‘It may not be anything at all,’ Laura said.

  ‘Well, I’ll face that problem when I have to,’ Palmer answered. ‘Meanwhile, you don’t mind these little exercises in procreation, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’d prefer to think of what we’re doing as making love.’

  ‘Of course we are. That’s the beauty of the whole exercise.’

  Laura paused for a minute. She was happy for the first time in a long while and did not want to break the mood. And yet she could not keep from asking, ‘Palmer – why this sudden urge to procreate? I mean, it’s too late to keep you from going to Vietnam …’

  ‘That’s just the point, darling,’ he replied. ‘To be brutally frank, I’m frightened about not coming back.’

  A fortnight later, Laura was driving him to the airport.

  ‘You know, you still haven’t explained to me exactly what you’ll be doing over there.’

  ‘Because I honestly don’t know, Laura. That’s why I’m going for a week of briefing in Washington. Outside of Washington, actually – at the fabled estate of Senator Sam Forbes. There – I shouldn’t even have told you that much.’

  ‘Forbes is a Hawk’s hawk,’ she commented.

  ‘I knew you’d say that. In any case, please keep it confidential. We won’t even be allo
wed to call out.’

  ‘Oh – and will his lovely debutante daughter Jessica be there as well?’

  ‘Darling, she’s an empty-headed social butterfly – a two-watt bulb.’

  ‘Yeah. But how are her other assets?’

  ‘I won’t even dignify that with a reply, Laura.’

  They rode on in silence for a while, reaching the end of Storrow Drive and plunging into the Callahan Tunnel. In the midst of what seemed an endless, dimly-lit tiled bathroom, he returned to the most pressing issue of the day.

  ‘Can we name him Palmer?’

  Laura nodded. ‘Only if it’s a boy,’ she said blankly.

  Flight 261 to Washington was already boarding. There was only enough time for a hasty goodbye, a final exchange of thoughts.

  ‘Laura, tell me again – did you really stop taking the Pill?’

  ‘Yes, I swear.’

  He smiled, turned, and strode onto the plane.

  The small apartment was more crowded than ever. Not only had the Panthers gained some new recruits, but others had flocked there on learning that the principal speaker would be the Yale ‘Soul Surgeon.’

  Bennett’s heart was pounding. He was not even sure how he would begin until he was actually standing in front of them. But an almost supernatural voice brought forth the words.

  ‘I believe that every black man in America should get a square deal and a fair deal. As the Constitution says, “all men are created equal.”’ He now approached the minefield. ‘But equal does not mean superior. We are no worse than any other people – but we are no better, either.’

  ‘What the hell you talkin’ ‘bout?’ a voice called.

  ‘That rag you call our paper blames the black man’s troubles on so-called “Jewpig Fascist Zionists”.’

  Cheers of approbation. ‘Right on, brother!’ ‘Kill the Jews!’

  Bennett tried to remain calm. ‘Just why exactly have you singled out this ethnic group for annihilation?’

  ‘Oh, man, don’t you dig?’ called out another angry voice from across the room. ‘The Jewpig is the slumlord, the pawnshop owner, the man who takes your car away if you’re a little late in making payments—’

  Bennett all but lost control.

  ‘Now hold it right there, brother!’ he shouted angrily.

  His outburst brought a sudden silence to the room. But a silence that crackled with electricity.

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ Bennett began. ‘Some Jews may be slumlords but, goddammit, so are some blacks. And there are plenty of Jews helping our cause. How about Goodman and Schwerner, those two kids who got killed by the Klan in Mississippi?’

  There was universal agitation.

  ‘Doctor Landsmann,’ Chairman Simba said with deliberate formality, ‘I don’t think the brothers know where you’re coming from.’

  Bennett was drenched with sweat as he tried to continue.

  ‘My father fought and died in World War Two because he had respect for what this country stood for. And he had to take more shit than any of you guys could ever dream of. Not just segregated units, or “colored only” bathrooms – but if one of his soldiers got shot, the Red Cross had to give segregated blood.

  ‘Yet he could write me the day before he died that he had seen atrocities more terrible than anything our people have ever known. He saw the Nazi death camps—’

  He was cut off by buckshots of abuse. ‘That’s a load of shit,’ and even ‘Hitler didn’t kill enough!’

  Bennett was quickly losing all control. But he had to finish.

  ‘After my father died I was adopted by a Jewish couple who were both survivors of those camps. With their own eyes they saw their little daughter taken to be gassed and the rest of their family burned in ovens. Has anybody here gone through that?’

  Mouth parched and cheeks wet, he nonetheless managed to conclude.

  ‘I came here to tell you that we blacks don’t have a franchise on suffering. And that every Jew is not our enemy. Because if we believe that, we become our own worst enemy.’

  He paused and then said quietly, ‘Just think about that, brothers.’

  Bennett let his eyes come into focus, looking at the spectators for a reaction. They were immobile. In fact, the only movement in the room came from his own hands, now trembling with emotion.

  The chairman, in an expressionless voice, asked, ‘Are there any comments?’

  A man in the back raised his hand.

  ‘I would like to say to our distinguished visitor: Fuck the Jews, and fuck you.’

  Though the crowd remained motionless, Bennett was suddenly frightened. He had an eerie sense of otherness that made him feel he was seeing all this through distorted mirrors.

  As he began walking toward the door, a path of people split before him like the Red Sea.

  Barney first learned the news when he arrived at the hospital. John Warner, one of his junior residents, came rushing toward him shouting, ‘Livingston, have you seen today’s Times?’

  ‘No,’ replied Barney dryly. ‘Have we set some new record for napalming children?’

  John, a hawkish Republican, ignored Barney’s jibe.

  ‘Didn’t you go to school with Peter Wyman?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Barney replied, ‘but it’s not something I like to boast about.’

  ‘You will now,’ the resident asserted. ‘Look.’

  He handed Barney the paper. In the lower left-hand corner was a picture of Peter in a white coat. He had the usual smug smile on his face, although fewer hairs on his head.

  The story announced, ‘New Clue to Cancer Structure Found’ and the subheading ‘Young Harvard researcher invents pioneering technique in genetic engineering.’

  Barney studied the paper and thought, He kept telling us how bright he was. Maybe we should have believed him. After all, it says here he’s already published sixteen papers and a zillion abstracts.

  But he sure likes publicity. I mean, his findings won’t be published for another six months. So is this press conference just to give the Nobel people more time to get familiar with his name?

  Anyway, he rationalized, Peter’s not got everything. I mean, there’s no mention of a wife or kids.

  But then Barney’s superego challenged him. Who are you to throw stones, Dr Livingston? Where are the wife and kiddies waiting in your glass house? To which his ego responded, give me time, I’ve got to finish this residency, start up a practice. Besides, I’m almost married.

  Barney was intending to bring the subject up with Emily that evening.

  Theirs had been a whirlwind courtship that had traveled the whole spectrum of American sporting life: football, basketball, boxing, baseball, hockey, tennis, and track and field in Europe. (That August during a meet at Malmö in Sweden, he was even able to spend two days interviewing the retired ‘Ironman,’ Emil Zatopek, for the final chapter in his book.)

  They were synchronized, they were symbiotic, they even jogged at the same pace.

  If this was not the kind of match made in heaven, it would at least be as durable as Astroturf.

  Barney was weary of merely helping other people achieve happiness and decided it was time to try it himself. After all, he had endured much ribbing the year before, at his brother Warren’s wedding to Bernice (‘Bunny’) Lipton – who was halfway to being a lawyer herself.

  During the reception an uncle from Houston even castigated him, demanding, ‘When can we expect to get some pleasure from you, Barney?’

  At the time he had been tempted to say, speaking as a psychiatrist, that if all marriages were as idyllic as his uncle painted them, his couch would be empty save for the occasional schizophrenic.

  Indeed, as he himself had written in the Journal of Modern Psychiatry, during these troubled times the marriage relationship had almost come to mirror the malaise of the external world. But, as the unprofessional side of him well knew, marriage was best described by Dr Johnson as ‘the triumph of hope over experience.’

  In any c
ase, he and Emily would be different. They had a wonderful relationship, open and aboveboard. And though happy in each other’s company, they each had a life beyond the household. It would bring that perfect equilibrium that marriage seeks but rarely finds.

  He broached the subject to her over a late dinner at her apartment after they had seen the Lakers make mincemeat of the Knicks. The menu consisted of Zabar’s finest take-away delicacies. Which meant that all Barney had to do was chill the wine and open it. After filling her glass and then his own, he raised a toast.

  ‘To happily ever after – or more appropriately – Emily ever after.’

  ‘After what?’ she smiled.

  ‘After marriage,’ he replied.

  Her glass stopped halfway to her mouth. And though she tried to hide it, Barney caught a hint of melancholy in her expression.

  ‘What’s the matter, Em? Did I say something wrong?’

  She nodded. ‘“Marriage”—’

  ‘– is the wrong word?’ he finished her thought.

  ‘It is for me. I think you’d make a lovely husband.’

  ‘Well, then, why can’t I be your lovely husband?’

  Her eyes were downcast and she was shaking her head.

  ‘No, Barney, no,’ she repeated, ‘it just wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Is there someone else?’ he asked, the frightening thought just occurring to him.

  ‘No, no,’ she protested.

  ‘And don’t you at least care for me?’

  ‘Of course. Do you even have to ask?’

  ‘Then why, Emily? Why?’

  She took a sip of wine and answered. ‘I can’t be a wife. I’m ruthless, selfish, and ambitious.’

  But now the girl who had just referred to herself as insensitive and hard was weeping copiously. ‘You deserve better, Barney.’

  ‘That’s crap.’

  ‘No, it’s true.’

  Barney felt like a man who had gone out to plant a rosebush, put his shovel in the luxuriant soil, and suddenly struck a piece of unyielding stone.

  There was no mistake about it. Emily’s ‘no’ meant absolutely not.

  ‘Hey, look, forget my whole proposal. I withdraw it. This offer is void where prohibited, which happens to be everywhere. But might I ask you for something on a less contractual level?’