His office is on the first floor of a well-kept building with grey marble in the hall. A pregnant woman walks out of the office, holding the hand of a little boy. Frieda waits for precisely two o’clock before opening the door.
The young blonde woman behind the counter looks up and says, “Surgery is closed for the day.”
“I’m not here for the surgery,” Frieda says. The woman watches her, waiting. Frieda forces herself to continue. “I’m a medical student. I need some advice from Herr Doktor Brenner.”
The woman hesitates. “Your name?”
“Frederika Eisenbaum.”
The woman stands up; the back of her head with its short blonde waves vanishes down the hall. Frieda hears her knocking, some words in low voices.
The woman reappears. “This way,” she says, leading Frieda down the hall where a door is open, waiting.
She steps through. Hans Brenner, in a white jacket, sits behind a desk, writing. When he looks up, his intense brown eyes register recognition. But whether it is welcome or not, she cannot tell. He is an ambitious man and is adept at hiding his feelings, a trait that will serve him well. He lays down his pen and stands up, coming around the desk. He leads with a strong chin; his mouth seems ready to smile, but doesn’t.
“Fräulein Eisenbaum, what a pleasant surprise.” He gestures her to sit in the chair near the desk, then closes the door his assistant has left open.
He steps around her and perches on the edge of his desk, watching her. His hair is longer than she remembers, not as severe. One of his legs swings inordinately close to hers.
She is at a loss, doesn’t know how to begin. “How is your mother?” she says, embarrassed.
His mouth lifts on an angle. “Deteriorating, as can be expected. It’s not good to get old. But you’re not here to talk about my mother.”
She looks down at her hands, one folded politely in the other. “I’m having a problem getting my certificate,” she says quietly. “I passed all my exams. All the documents were sent to the registrar — but they refuse to give me my certificate.” The room feels very hot suddenly. “I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits’ end.”
She closes her eyes, leans her forehead on one hand to keep from falling over. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well.”
He gets off the desk to stand beside her. He puts out a cool palm to feel her forehead. “You’re feverish. Come into the examining room.”
He leads her next door where she stands stupidly. The sun has moved behind a cloud outside the window. What is she doing here? He steps behind her, his warm hands lifting off her coat, laying it down on a chair. He smells of antiseptic soap.
She lies down on the leather examining table, her heart racing. He presses his stethoscope to her chest just inside the collar of her blouse. He is listening to her heart thumping, thumping. Does he know what is in it? Does she?
His murky brown eyes stare down at her beneath the lashes. “What do you want me to do?” he says.
The intimacy of his question pulls the muscles of her stomach taut. She bites her lip. “I don’t know.
He blinks, touches her mouth softly with his finger. “Shouldn’t bite your lips.”
She takes his hand in hers, holds it a moment, then moves it slowly to her breast. She hears the soft intake of his breath, the tiny sound in the back of his throat, more than a murmur, less than a groan. She recognizes his desire and rejoices.
A phone rings in the distance, a tinny, ordinary sound in this extraordinary moment. Then his assistant’s sensible shoes stepping down the hall toward them. The spell is broken. Awkwardly, he moves his hand away.
She gets up, puts on her coat while he watches wordlessly. As she steps toward the door he grasps her arm with some urgency and pulls her to his chest. Their faces are so close together she can feel his breath on her cheek. His skin is very close-shaven; she wants to touch it.
But his assistant is knocking on the door. “Herr Doktor Brenner, the hospital is on the phone.”
At the business-like voice, he lets Frieda’s arm go as if it were a lit match.
She walks out of the office under the gaze of the blonde assistant.
The following week, her medical certificate is delivered to her apartment by special messenger.
chapter nine
Atentative knock on the examining room door late Monday morning. Rebecca’s assistant, Iris, said through the closed door, “Dr. Forbes is on the phone for you.”
Rebecca excused herself to the mother and the little boy whose sore throat she was examining and stepped into her private office to take the call.
She pictured Pamela Forbes, the oversized glasses and wavy brown hair, unchanged since they’d been in school. When she was at her lowest, Rebecca had fleetingly considered calling her for the name of a psychiatrist. Fleetingly. But it was impossible. She was a doctor. She ought to be able to handle things on her own. She knew what to do. Didn’t she? Her mother had told her since she was a child that she wore a crown on her head. Well, the crown was getting cumbersome.
“I’ve just seen your sister,” said Pam. “She’s depressed and angry, but not suicidal. On the contrary, the rejection of the baby is a defence mechanism. She’s hardening her heart against the baby to protect herself. If she lets the baby in, she’ll lose herself again the way she did with the other children. She feels she’s lost her life to others and she’s angry about it.”
Rebecca took it in. “I can understand all that, but what about the baby? The baby needs her. Doesn’t she care about that?”
“She knows the baby will be looked after. No one will look after her if she doesn’t do it herself. She needs some time, Rebecca. She feels she’s trying to save her life. Is the father capable of taking care of the child?”
“Ben’s a good father, but he has three other kids at home. In Montreal.”
“The baby will be in an incubator for at least a month anyway. Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. A lot of things can happen in a month. She needs support from the people around her. Moral and practical. I gave her a prescription for Elavil, but I don’t think she wants to take it.”
Susan never liked taking medication. She probably wouldn’t touch antidepressants.
“I appreciate your seeing her so fast, Pamela.”
“I’ll send you a written report and check on her tomorrow. The social worker will probably be in to see her later.”
When Rebecca dropped into the hospital to see Susan on her way home, her father was sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed. He did not look happy, but when he saw Rebecca, his tanned face lit up. He stood to embrace her.
“How was your flight?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Where’s Mom?”
His head motioned toward the curtain, still pulled completely around Susan’s bed. He whispered to her, “What the hell happened to your sister? It’s as if aliens swooped down to kidnap her and brought back the wrong Susan.”
She couldn’t help smiling, though sometimes her father’s humour irritated her. It was the way he dealt with everything, including trouble. She suspected he didn’t know any other way. But this time there was no mirth in his face, only confusion. When was the last time she’d seen him confused? When David died.
“Where’s Ben?” she asked.
“Told him to go to the cafeteria for a bite. They’ve got some kosher stuff. He needed a break.”
She took her father’s arm and guided his tall, thin frame past Susan’s roommate, who was finishing off her dinner from the hospital tray. Her husband perched on the edge of her bed, munching on some chips from a bag. Rebecca smiled and nodded at them as she pulled her father from the room.
“You’re looking well,” he said, making a point of examining her from top to bottom. “Are you feeling better?”
They both knew what he meant. She shrugged and managed a noncommittal smile.
“Still trim, I see.”
She had lost weight after
David died, though she didn’t need to. Now she was on the thin side, which she knew was fashionable. But she didn’t feel particularly healthy at this weight, as if she’d lost the fat that had insulated her from the vagaries of the weather, both outside and in.
“New sweater?” she said, eyeing the stylish grey cable-knit sweater her father wore over his shirt. It went nicely with his short grey hair.
“Your mother’s favourite pastime when we’re in California. Shopping for schmatas. After she buys a whole bunch of stuff for herself, she feels guilty and has to buy something for me.”
They strolled arm in arm down the hall. “Have you seen the baby?”
One side of his narrow mouth arched up. “She’s a little pitchek! I stood beside the incubator and she looked up. I swear. I think she recognized me. Is she going to be all right?”
“She’d be a lot better if Susan ...” She glanced sheepishly at her father. “No, that’s not fair. It’s not Susan’s fault. She’s very distraught, Dad. She’s going to need our help.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” he said without missing a beat.
She hoped it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction while everyone was upset. They were all going to have to pull their weight to get Susan out of the mire she’d found herself in.
Ben walked toward them from the elevators, his head down. He had shaved, but his hair looked straggly under the skullcap.
“How’s the cafeteria food?” her father asked, getting Ben’s attention before he passed by.
He stopped awkwardly, shrugged his narrow shoulders, more stooped than usual. “Not very hungry.”
“Miriam’s doing fine,” Rebecca said.
As well as could be expected, the nurse had said. Rebecca understood the subtext: without a mother.
Ben nodded absently. They walked toward the preemie unit.
“I’m at the end of my rope,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. The doctor said Susan needs some time to herself. Dr. Forbes wouldn’t tell me much since I seem to be the enemy. I don’t get it. But that doesn’t really matter. What about the baby? She needs a mother. And what about the boys in Montreal? They need a mother. I can’t help feeling she’s being selfish ...”
Rebecca held back her temper. “You’re going to have to be more understanding. She’s deeply depressed. She needs your help, not your disapproval.”
He looked away, eyelids lowered, then nodded toward the door of the preemie unit. “That’s who needs my help.”
Rebecca pictured the skinny pink body in the incubator. She felt guilty for agreeing.
Tuesday morning Rebecca moved around quietly in her bedroom getting ready for work. She wasn’t used to having company and didn’t want to wake Ben in the spare room. He’d said he was going to the hospital later in the morning since there wasn’t much for him to do there: Susan wouldn’t talk to him and the baby slept most of the time. What would they do when Susan was discharged from the hospital tomorrow?
Rebecca did rounds, visiting two patients who had undergone surgery. She made her way to Susan’s floor by eight. But on reaching the room, she became disoriented at the change. Susan’s roommate stood in her housecoat looking out the large window, now open to view because the curtains around Susan’s bed were pulled back all the way. The secret tops of buildings lay exposed in a panorama framed by the window. Susan’s bed was made up, but there was no sign of her.
“Good morning,” Rebecca said to the roommate, who turned around and smiled. “Have you seen my sister?”
The smile went flat. “She left. Really early. The nurse asked about her, too.”
Rebecca opened the closet door. Susan’s clothes were gone.
“You saw her go?”
The woman nodded. “I was half asleep, but I thought someone was picking her up.”
“Why did you think that?”
“She made a phone call. She was telling someone a time. I just assumed ... I’m sorry, maybe I should’ve called the nurse.”
Rebecca hurried to the nursing station. The night nurses were just finishing their shift and putting on their coats. She recognized a stout black nurse from the other day.
“Excuse me. My sister, Susan Cohen, the one with the preemie — did you see her leave?”
“She your sister? She getting me in trouble running out like that. No one see her go, she just up and leave while we looking the other way. She shoulda waited to be discharged. Something happen to her, we in trouble.”
The nurse began to walk away, then turned back to Rebecca. “And she just leave her little baby? What’s the matter with her?” She shook her head gravely, heading toward the elevators.
In case of an unlikely possibility, Rebecca ran back to the room to call her parents.
“What’s up, dear?” said her mother. “Are you at the office?”
“Did Susan call you?” Rebecca asked.
“No. Why? Where are you?”
“It’s nothing. Got to run. I’ll call you later.” No need to alarm them. Yet.
The roommate was sitting on the edge of her bed watching Rebecca.
“Did you hear anything my sister said on the phone? The name of the person she was talking to?”
The young woman stared into the air, thinking. “Like I said, I was half asleep. And she was talking really quietly. I think she said something like, ‘It would be nice to see you again, after all this time.’ And I heard her say something about the back of the hospital. I guessed she meant that was where she wanted to be picked up.”
“What time was it?”
The woman looked at her watch. “It must’ve been five. Maybe five-thirty. I’m sure you’ll find her. She wouldn’t leave her baby.”
Rebecca turned toward the window, away from the roommate. She called her own number and waited for Ben to answer.
“What’s up, Rebecca?”
“I don’t want to alarm you ... Susan’s left the hospital.”
“What do you mean? Where’d she go?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where she went? How’s that possible?”
“No one really saw her leave.”
“That’s unbelievable! Doesn’t anyone work at that hospital? Didn’t they try to stop her? She just walked out? Unbelievable!” His voice wavered with anger.
“Did she keep in touch with any of her friends here? Is there someone she might’ve called?” When there was no response, she said, “Didn’t she have a friend, Diane, in high school? She used to see her sometimes when she came into town.”
No response.
“Ben?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think. Yeah, Diane.”
“What was her last name?”
“Diane ... Diane ... Starts with an L I think. Can’t remember. This is insane, Rebecca. How can she just walk away? What am I supposed to do? I can’t stay here indefinitely. I’ve got to get home. The boys need me. We better call the police.”
“The police?”
“She’s missing, isn’t she?”
“She left of her own free will, Ben. Nobody forced her. So the police won’t get involved. As much as she’s distressing us, she hasn’t broken any laws.”
Usually when Rebecca got to the office, she spent an hour before patients arrived doing the paperwork that was the bane of a doctor’s life: workmen’s compensation forms, insurance forms, notes for missed work, and on and on. This time, however, she called her parents’ house. Her mother answered.
“Do you remember the name of Susan’s friend from high school? Diane something?”
“That’s a strange question at this time of the morning. Why don’t you ask Susan?”
Rebecca took a breath. “She left the hospital.”
“Left? What do you mean left?”
“Her roommate said she left early this morning.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
“Oh God! I thought I made her fe
el a little better yesterday. I guess I saw what I wanted to see. Diane Lipman. It was Diane Lipman. From high school. But she’s married now — her last name is Rolf. I’ll look up her number for you.”
Rebecca remembered Diane from high school, a short, pretty girl with big black hair and very white skin. She was in Susan’s class, two years behind Rebecca, and sometimes came to the house.
“Hi, Rebecca, long time no see,” said Diane when Rebecca called. “How are you?”
When she explained she was looking for Susan, the woman went quiet a moment. Not an awkward quiet; a thinking quiet.
Then she said, “I haven’t seen her.”
Rebecca didn’t know if she had the patience to be diplomatic. “You two were good friends, I know that. She probably told you not to say anything. But her husband’s very upset. She has three children in Montreal ...”
“I really haven’t seen her. But she did call.”
All right. “Do you know where she is?”
“I can guess. She asked me for a number. Someone we went to school with.”
“Can you give me her name?”
“Look, I don’t want to make any trouble for her. She called me in confidence.”
“I understand. But I need to speak to her and find out if she’s okay. She just had a baby and she’s very depressed. I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
“She didn’t sound good. I’ve never heard her like that before.”
“What’s the woman’s name?”
Diane was thinking.
“Can I have her number?”
The woman thought another moment. “It’s not a her. His name is Jeff.”
Rebecca’s stomach dropped. “Her old boyfriend?”
“Jeff Herman. I told her she could come here, but she insisted on calling him.”
“Thanks, Diane.”
Rebecca felt her anxiety rising as she dialed the next number. Her little sister. Falling apart.
“Is this Jeff Herman?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if you remember me. It’s Rebecca Temple, Susan’s sister.”
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 66