Random Winds

by Belva Plain

  “Remember what Wong Lee used to tell us? You can’t crusade against the world, Tom. You’ll only bang your head on a stone wall.” Perry stood up. “Listen, I’ve got to pick up my girl. Do you mind if I run? I’ll just make it.”

  Martin looked at his watch. “I ought to be going soon, too. By half past, anyway.”

  They watched Perry stride across the grass to his car and drive away.

  “Salt of the earth,” Martin said.

  “Always was.”

  “He’s rising to the top, too. One of the best anaesthesiologists around. You feel secure with him there.”

  “Listen,” Tom said abruptly, “I want you to do me a favor. I’ve got a three-year-old boy I’d like you to see. I could have him over now. They’re only a few blocks from here.”

  “Tom,” Flo protested, “it’s a holiday! You’ve no right to put Martin to work.”

  “Martin’s a doctor, and this might save these folks a trip into the city.”

  When Martin had examined the boy and the parents had taken him away, Tom asked, “Well, what do you think?”

  “There’s a positive Babinski on the right. There’s got to be some sort of lesion in the cerebral cortex.” He paused, collecting his impressions. “It could be a tumor, a congenital defect in a blood vessel or—”

  Tom interrupted. “In any case, you ought to see him this week.”

  Martin hesitated and Tom urged, “No delays, Martin, please.”

  “Of course not … They’ve got no money, I suppose?”

  “Hardly! The father delivers for a laundry.”

  “Eastman would see him as a clinic patient, then. Or I would, since he’ll be away for the next few weeks.”

  “So?” Tom waited. “You can handle it, Martin.”

  Something in Tom’s voice and his respectful silence while the little boy had been examined touched Martin poignantly. Here in this simple office, so like Pa’s except for more modern furniture—a flat-topped desk and leather chair, an electrocardiograph and sterilizer—stood the friend who had started out with him, who had done just as well as he had and who must now turn anxiously to him for help. It made him feel apologetic about knowing more. He hoped Tom had no such feelings about it.

  “You know,” Martin said, “between ourselves, I’d rather you sent him to Albeniz’s clinic than ours.”

  “For Pete’s sake, why?”

  “Maybe this is disloyal of me, but I owe you the best, and I can talk honestly to you. Eastman’s clinics are perfunctory. He’s in too much of a hurry to do a real job. The private practice is just too big, and that’s the fact of it.”

  Tom shook his head in disapproval.

  “I can’t complain because—well, I can’t.”

  Tom’s eyes seemed to bore into him. “You were saying about the clinic?”

  “I was saying—Tom, send the kid to Albeniz! People come from all over the city to present cases and ask questions. He’s a teacher”

  “Do you ever go there anymore yourself?”

  “Not for the last year or so. It’s impossible for me. We’re too busy—” One day on impulse he had made what he told himself was a social visit to Albeniz; in truth he had some vague hope that Albeniz might offer him an association. But Albeniz worked alone in his modest office, which had never been very busy. Money, apparently, didn’t interest him that much—

  “Gosh, look at the time! Let me just say thanks to Flo and then I’ll rush.”

  Tom followed him to the street. “Oh, you’ve traded in for a Nash! Rumble seat and all! This is a nice little boat.”

  “Don’t use it much in town. Got it mostly for when I run out to see you.”

  Tom’s hand went to Martin’s shoulder. “There’s a lonely look about you, Professor.”

  Martin smiled. “I know. I ought to get married. You are, and Perry will be next month and everybody is. You’ve been telling me that since the first year in med school.”

  “Yes. And you don’t listen.”

  Martin wiped the smile off. “You’re forgetting, I’ve been married.”

  “But that’s over,” Tom said gently.

  “Well, I’ll give it some thought one of these days. My love to the kiddies.”

  He turned the little car toward the George Washington Bridge. The weekenders had departed long since from the city and traffic was light. He drove slowly. A sudden tiredness, wholly emotional, washed over him. Visits to the Honraths were usually an antidote to the weariness which could befall a man who had to grind through a heavy routine week after week. In their simplicity, Tom and Flo gave comfort They were bread and butter; they nourished and soothed. Their house was a cheerful place, with its heartening, practical bustle and no time or need for introspection. This time, though, the visit had not quieted him. Leaving them, he had felt a kind of evanescent melancholy in the region of the chest.

  Envy of Tom? No, no! He would require, when at last he should be settled in life, something quite different from what he imagined Tom and Flo possessed in one another. And he wondered as he crossed the bridge, where the river ran silver under the evening sky and the downtown towers were pink and all the city’s scruffy soil was concealed for the night, whether Tom might ever feel he wanted more or whether everything had indeed turned out as neatly as he and Flo had planned and packaged it.

  So it might have been for me, he thought with sudden wrenching, if it hadn’t been for Mary. Mary Fern. In England now, the sun would soon be rising. And probably rain would fall before the day was over. It almost always did. She would collect her paints and easel and go inside. She would stand at the door, taking delight in the sound and smell of the rain.

  Swerving, he missed an empty hearse by inches. An omen or a warning? Smiling wryly, he pulled himself back to the present time and place. He had come full circle now, back to the days of Greenwich Village and the Harriets. He wondered where his particular Harriet might be. A respectable wife and mother, he supposed, home in Wilmington, North Carolina, and remembering Martin only vaguely, if she did at all.

  Now there were others. There was Muriel, who taught school and was separated from her husband: no entanglement there. There were Rae, a clever girl who called herself modern—meaning without illusions—and Tina, supervisor at a hospital far out in Queens. One never got involved where one worked.

  Once last year he had come close to another sort of girl, very young and cheerful, with charming freckles on her nose. He could perhaps have committed himself, if her parents hadn’t objected because he was divorced and had a child. So it had ended before it had begun, which was just as well because he hadn’t really wanted it very much, anyway.

  Surgery began at seven. When, in the early afternoon, Martin and Eastman got back to the office, the waiting rooms were already crowded. Three secretaries juggled appointments at the telephones. The examining rooms were filled. Records and files in their manila envelopes were piled on the desks. The patients, terrified under brave, assumed calm, were led in.

  O Excalibur, the magic sword! He carried the magic sword, and it was knowledge.

  Turning the car left off Riverside Drive, he drove eastward past the brown, Romanesque monument which was the Museum of Natural History. Now the city’s poor were ambling homeward from their holiday in the park. A beggarly decade, this of the thirties, a time of meagerness and grief. He wandered whether the forties would be any better: they were always saying prosperity was just around the corner.

  Yet, in medicine, the thirties would be remembered as years of rich discovery. The pace was accelerating, as his father had predicted it would. Already the sulfonamides and penicillin had changed the face of disease and routed the horror of infection in surgery. He could feel a palpable excitement on entering an operating room, knowing how greatly increased was the chance of success. A patient wheeled in on the stretcher was an unopened gift package, he thought suddenly. A preposterous concept? Not at all! For if one could send that patient home, able to walk and to talk, his words co
ming sensibly and clearly, why then, wasn’t that a gift to yourself, the doctor? The most splendid gift of all? There was nothing like it, nothing in the world!

  He was fortunate to be working with Eastman. The man’s technique and speed were marvelous. And Eastman liked him. There was, of course, no reason why he shouldn’t, for Martin not only worked well, but he worked hard. Still, those qualities were no guarantee of anything. Many an association broke up because of nothing more than some obscure difference of personality. He remembered that year in medical school when it had seemed that Dr. Humphrey, the anatomist, had been his enemy from the very first day in the classroom. Just didn’t like the cut of my jib, Martin thought. It was hard when, very young, you first learned that there were people in the world who didn’t like you. But then, there were people you didn’t like! Women with nasal whining voices; all people who lick their lips between words, their wet tongues slipping in and out like snakes’ heads; sloppy people who forget things and come late.

  We’re all hard on each other, he reflected. Jessie’s father never liked me. He used me. I never liked him, either, although for a while I tried to. And! suppose you might say I used him, too.

  He had been hoping to “use” Dr. Eastman, not for any benefit to himself, but for that idea which was coming to seem more and more imperative of late. Working in the laboratory on cell pathology and neuroanatomy, he became aware that the idea was never absent from Ids thinking. So on a resplendent spring afternoon, walking from the hospital to the office, he had spoken of it to Eastman.

  “We’ll never abolish useless, even dangerous surgery, until the surgeon knows more neurology. In England Mr. Braidburn’s been trying for years to found his own separate institute. Unfortunately, they can’t raise funds over there. But in this country, Depression or not, it seems to me there’s still a lot of untapped wealth. One only needs to get the right people together.”

  “I daresay. Raising funds is a hard business. I’m afraid I’m too middle-aged, too busy and tired to embroil myself in it,” Dr. Eastman answered, fending Martin off.

  He had persisted. “Dr. Albeniz used to talk about it when I was in med school. About true progress coming only when all the neurological specialties are joined in one discipline under one roof.”

  “Albeniz is a fanatic, Martin. He’s exceptionally talented and as fanatic as a monk. For him there’s no world beyond the hospital.” Eastman laughed. “I believe he’d sleep there if he could and if his wife would let him.”

  It seemed to Martin that Eastman had spoken too carelessly, as though the subject were of small importance. That anyone should speak so lightly of a man like Albeniz astounded him.

  Eastman, reading disapproval in Martin’s face, had admonished him good-humoredly.

  “Don’t be so solemn, Martin! You’re advancing and making a damn good living. What more do you want? Leave well enough alone.”

  Yes, he was advancing. He owed no man! Donald Meig had got every cent back with interest. A check went out each month to his mother. He lived in an excellent small apartment, halfway between the office and the hospital. There he had everything he wanted—four walls of books, green plants and some Shaker furniture. Pure lines, no clutter, only space and quiet and a good record player. He had surprised himself with how little he had wanted after all.

  Yes, he was fortunate. He had a coveted place and no right to feel unrest.

  After putting the car in the garage he walked home through a gritty, warm night breeze, telling himself how fortunate he was. When he entered the apartment, the telephone was ringing. Over the wire came the familiar, short command.

  “Dr. Farrell? You’re wanted in emergency.”

  “An auto accident way out on Long Island,” the resident reported. “A young girl. They’re bringing her in now.”

  Rows of heads in the emergency waiting room turned curiously, and he lowered his voice.

  “It was a wedding party, riding from the church to the reception. The girl was a bridesmaid, the bride’s sister, I think.”

  Martin grimaced. “A rotten memory to keep!”

  “They ought to be here soon. We’d been trying you for half an hour before we got you.”

  “Sorry. You tried Dr. Eastman? He mightn’t have left yet.”

  “Yes, he had. We called you next.”

  The wait took Martin back through years to his own stint in emergency. Hurried, harried nurses and interns kept method and order. Two little boys, wounded by firecrackers, were brought in. A mother with a sick, swaddled baby expostulated in an unknown, foreign tongue.

  The ambulance wailed, and Martin started up while the doors swung open, and a stretcher rushed past carrying a blue-gray man, having a heart attack. Not for him. Then the siren wailed again, and this time it was for him.

  From under the blanket trailed the blue silk skirt of a summer dress made for rejoicing. The contrast of this dress with the bloodied young, blond head of its wearer was outrageous and obscene. And he thought how absurd it is that in one careless, brutal instant a life can be deflected from its peaceful course.

  Having made his light-fingered, swift examination, and ordered X-rays, he stepped out into the corridor, still sick with this absurdity, which had never struck him so forcefully before.

  A man wearing striped trousers and a dark coat with a carnation in the lapel, some proper uniform that was not a part of Martin’s life, came up to him.

  “My daughter,” he began and stopped.

  Martin took his arm and led him to a bench. He looked into an anguished face.

  “Mr.—”

  “Moser. Robert Moser.”

  “I’m Dr. Farrell, Mr. Moser. You want to know what we found,” Martin said gently.

  “I want you to answer one question, Doctor. Win she live?”

  “Well do everything we can to see that she does.”

  “I’m a man who wants the truth, Doctor. No soft soap.”

  “Well, Mr. Moser, we’re doing X-rays now, but I can tell you already that your daughter’s skull is fractured in several places. And there’s almost certainly extensive pressure on the brain. Just how much damage, we can’t tell until we look.”

  “Then you’ll have to operate?”

  “Yes. Right away.”

  “There wouldn’t be time to get my wife here? She—they’ve given her a sedative, and my chauffeur is driving her in. I came in the ambulance, but she would want to see Vicky.”

  “I don’t think we ought to delay. We’ve got to relieve the pressure.”

  “I see.” Mr. Moser stared at the floor. His lip went twitching toward his left cheek. He looked up.

  “Dr. Eastman should be here any minute, shouldn’t he?”

  “No sir. Dr. Eastman’s out of town. I’m his associate, and I’ll be taking charge.”

  The twitching ceased and the lips firmed. “You’re very young. How long have you been with Dr. Eastman?”

  “Four years. Before that I trained in London. I’m perfectly qualified, I assure you.”

  “Excuse me, but your assurance won’t be enough. This is my daughter’s life. You’re positive you can’t reach Dr. Eastman?”

  “Positive. He’s gone to Maine. He’s a sailor and will be gone for two weeks.”

  Mr. Moser stood up. He was of equal height with Martin. They were almost toe to toe, as in a confrontation.

  “Maine isn’t the moon. He could come back.”

  “Not in time, Mr. Moser.”

  “I’m a trustee of this hospital, do you know that?”

  “I didn’t know it.”

  “I want an experienced man. I’ve no wish to insult you, Doctor, but I’ve no time to waste on the amenities, either. I ask you to give me a list of neurosurgeons on a par with Dr. Eastman.”

  “We don’t have yardsticks to measure doctors,” Martin said, and immediately regretting the hot-tempered reply, amended it. “But I can name some competent surgeons for you. There’s a Doctor Florio on the staff, and there’s a Dr.
Harold Samson.”

  “I’ll call them.”

  “I can do it for you.”

  “I’ll do it myself.”

  Martin waited. He could see Moser in the telephone booth, dialing, hanging up and dialing again. He felt a strong current of compassion and at the same time anger, at the stinging rejection. What did the man think he was doing on Eastman’s service? Polishing shoes?

  Mr. Moser came back. “Neither one of them is home. What do you doctors do, abandon the city because it’s a holiday?”

  Martin didn’t reply.

  “That’s all there are? There must be dozens of neurosurgeons around!”

  “You said you wanted the best.”

  “Well, give me second best, then.”

  “You’re looking at one right now.”

  “You’re pretty damned impertinent, you know that? Dr. Eastman ought to be told about you. I asked you for an ether name, or I’ll call my internist and ask him, although God knows where he is tonight.”

  Martin controlled his anger. “There is a man … He doesn’t work here at Fisk, but he has privileges here, and I believe he’d come.”

  Mr. Moser sank onto the bench. He looked as though he had used his last strength.

  “His name is Albeniz. It’s in the book.”

  “Damned foreign name. I can’t think how to spell it You call him for me.”

  Dr. Albeniz listened to Martin’s brief summary. “I would come for you,” he said, “but it’s impossible. I’m in bed with a cold and fever. Why don’t yon do it yourself?”

  “I’m willing to, but the father wants someone better-qualified.”

  “You’re perfectly qualified, Martin.”

  “Not well enough, he thinks.”

  “Well, if he can’t find anyone better and won’t accept you, you have no more responsibility in the case. Tell him so and let him go where he wants.”

  “I’ll do that,” Martin said.

  When he came back from the telephone, Mr. Moser had put his head in his hands and his shoulders were shaking. Martin stood over him.

  “I can’t get Dr. Albeniz,” he said quietly. “He’s ill.”