Orphan #8

by Kim van Alkemade

  I went once, during nursing school, to help vaccinate children in a state orphanage. The conditions were so bleak they made me ill. I hadn’t realized, before, what advantages our wealthy donors had bought us: our teeth straightened, our health tended, our clothes washed, our educations secured, our stomachs filled. But did that mean they had the right to experiment on us, as Dr. Solomon had on me? I supposed it seemed fair—the use of our bodies in exchange for the keeping of them. All my life, I thought the poison of those X-rays was the price I’d paid to be cured of some disease. Now that I knew the truth, it seemed the cost of my childhood had been borrowed from usurers, interest compounding over the decades, the final tally perhaps too dear to pay.

  The shade was retreating with the shifting sun. I couldn’t sit on that bench forever. With a heavy sigh, I resigned myself to going home. I crossed Amsterdam, returned the foreman’s salute, turned the corner. As I followed the sloping street down to the Broadway line, I made a last survey of the Castle. Missing doors, broken glass, dangling gutters. Sky where there should have been a clock. The empty yard. The gateless hinges.

  I MANAGED, ON the long train ride home, to talk myself out of the inevitability of dropping dead from radiation cancer. Dr. Feldman’s article had sent my imagination leaping to conclusions. I was a nurse, for heaven’s sake. What I needed was a medical opinion, not the fevered suppositions of an addled brain. I’d seen in the author’s note that Dr. Feldman practiced in Manhattan, so the first thing I did, after grabbing the mail and letting myself into the apartment, was look up Dr. Feldman’s number in the city directory.

  “Let me see what I have for you.” The woman’s tone over the telephone—reminiscent of Gloria’s terse superiority—led me to assume she was Dr. Feldman’s nurse and not just his receptionist. I heard the rustle of turning pages. “His first openings are in September.”

  My casual attitude crumbled. “I couldn’t possibly wait until next month.”

  “I can give you the names of some other oncologists who might be able to see you sooner.”

  “It has to be Doctor Feldman. I was just reading his article, about the long-term effects of childhood X-rays?” I needed this nurse to realize I wasn’t an ordinary patient.

  “Yes, I’m familiar with his work.” She wasn’t prepared to give; I had to offer something more personal.

  “In the article, he cited an experimental study that was done at the Hebrew Infant Home by Dr. Solomon.” I paused for dramatic effect—if this didn’t sway her, I was afraid I’d never get the appointment. “I was one of the orphans in that study. I thought Dr. Feldman would be interested in evaluating me as soon as possible. For his work.”

  The silence on the line lasted long enough for the imperious nurse to decide her employer’s interest would, indeed, be piqued by my case. “He’s in surgery tomorrow morning and booked for the rest of the day, but there’s been a cancellation day after tomorrow. Can you be here at ten o’clock?”

  “I’m off that day, so that’s fine. I’ll be there.”

  “We’ll see you then.” The receiver clicked as Dr. Feldman’s nurse hung up. I kept the phone in my hand, ready to place a call to Florida. I was desperate to hear her voice, never mind the charges, but I needed to compose myself first. I wanted to tell her about Mildred Solomon, but that would lead to the Infant Home and the experiments, the medical library and Dr. Feldman’s article. I hesitated, adding up all the minutes it would take to tell her the whole story. Maybe I could cut it short, stop at Dr. Solomon arriving on Fifth?

  I hadn’t realized the line was still open until the operator spoke up, asking if I wanted to make another call. I wouldn’t say anything about anything, I decided, just be comforted by her voice in my ear. I asked for long-distance, gave the number in Miami, and listened to it ring. No one answered. Out by the pool again, or maybe at the beach? I pictured her gathering seashells on the sand, oblivious to my needing her. I’m not sure how long I stood there before I gave up and put down the receiver.

  It was just as well. I didn’t want to worry her with my wild speculations—better to wait until after my appointment, when I’d have something definitive to say. I grabbed some leftover tuna salad, reminding myself to stop at the grocer’s. Sitting at the kitchen table, I sorted through the mail: a bill from New York Telephone, a statement from her bank, a flyer from the furniture store down the block, and an invitation addressed to me from Mr. and Mrs. Berger of Teaneck, New Jersey. Tearing open the envelope, I saw Vic’s son, Larry, was having his bar mitzvah. After three girls, no wonder they were making it a big occasion. They must be inviting everyone they’d ever known to have gotten to my name in their address book—since Vic’s mother died, we’d exchanged cards at Rosh Hashanah, but nothing more.

  I was stuffing the invitation back into its envelope when I saw Vic had scribbled something on the RSVP. Hope you can come, too bad Sam couldn’t be there. Nothing about her. If I’d been married, of course my husband would have been included. Vic knew who I lived with, even if he had no idea what it really meant. It was the same at work. The other nurses pitied me for being alone, a spinster, an old maid. It rankled that I couldn’t correct them. The lounge echoed with their ceaseless talk about husbands or boyfriends while I swallowed my words, unable to say I know how you feel, we had a fight last night, too, or I’m so excited to get home, it’s our anniversary. They yammered and complained while I feigned interest and shared nothing. When I saw them meet their men on the street, lips turned up for a kiss in front of all the world, I hated them all a little. I might have come to hate myself, too, if I didn’t have someone of my own to come home to.

  Or maybe Vic did know, or at least suspect, his exclusion an intentional rebuke. The thought made me bitter. I’d send a check with my regrets—that’s all they were really after. I’d spare myself suffering through that celebration, the single friend seated with married couples and their boisterous children, odd one out at the round table.

  I set up a fan facing the couch and turned on the television, hoping a soap opera would help me pass the time. The program was irritating, all scheming wives and cheating husbands. I began nodding off. I was so tired—tired from remembering, from feeling betrayed, from being afraid. From the heat. From loneliness. No wonder I acted like a character in a paperback and kissed that librarian. I was a drowning woman flailing for anything to keep my head above water. For as long as Deborah’s mouth was on mine, I could forget about Dr. Solomon and what she’d done to me. Now it invaded every thought. I imagined myself in the X-ray room, my little body strapped to that table, the radiation penetrating my cells.

  It was ridiculously early for bed, but I just wanted this day to be over. I went in to take a shower before putting on my pajamas. Standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, there was no more avoiding it. I raised my arm above my head and felt that twinge. I’d been skirting it all summer, favoring my other arm or keeping the elbow low when I sprayed on my deodorant. With shaking fingers, I followed the line of muscle down from my armpit and across my chest.

  Only a willful act of ignorance could have prevented a nurse from diagnosing a condition so evident. How could I have been so blind? It must have been growing secretly for months, even years. But never having felt it before—the tumor, pinched between my fingers, was big as an acorn—it seemed to me it had manifested overnight, conjured into existence by Dr. Solomon’s arrival on Fifth.

  I took a sleeping pill to kill the hours until morning. Getting into bed, I tried not to obsess over it, tucked my hands beneath my hips to keep from groping myself. Women had lumps all the time—benign tumors, fluid-filled cysts. I had my appointment; best to put it out of my mind until Dr. Feldman could render his verdict.

  There was too much light in the room. I pulled a sleeping mask from my nightstand and settled it over my eyes. Better. Hopefully, the next thing I knew it would be morning and I could set my course for the Old Hebrews Home. I pictured my patients, how helpless they were, how they count
ed on me to keep them clean and safe, to take away their pain. How would one of them feel—how would Mildred Solomon feel—if I treated her like a laboratory animal instead of a person? She had a lot to answer for. What would she say, I wondered, when I confronted her with what her experiments had done to me? She’d have to be apologetic; sorry, at least, for not knowing then the harm X-rays could do. They thought radium would be a cure for cancer, not the cause of it. But once she saw how she had damaged me, what choice would she have but contrition?

  I was imagining our conversation until I remembered that, at her prescribed dose of morphine, she’d be too incoherent to understand, let alone speak. I still had that vial in my pocketbook from the morphine I’d held back. I would have to hold back more if I wanted to prod her into consciousness. I’d never gone against a prescription before yesterday—even when I knew a doctor was wrong, I always followed orders. The idea of toying with Mildred Solomon’s dose gave me a secret sense of power. Instead of counting sheep, I fell asleep figuring out how to adjust her dose to get what I wanted from her. It would be my own little experiment.

  Chapter Nine

  THE NIGHT BEFORE THE PURIM DANCE, THE GIRLS IN F5 all washed their hair—except, of course, for Rachel. No matter they’d have to sit up late in the underheated dormitory while it dried, or sleep with pin curls pricking their heads. It was thirty minutes before Last Bell and the monitors hurried them along. Naked under the steaming showers, the prospect of dancing with boys led the adolescent girls to assess one another with a competitive eye. These hundred girls had been showering together and using the toilets in front of each other as far back as any of them could remember. They saw each other change, felt themselves changing. They knew when one’s monthlies started, saw when another sprouted hair between her legs, envied those who filled out early, at fourteen or fifteen already with the figures of women.

  Rachel, however, seemed barely to have matured: nipples still inverted, hips slim, skin smooth as wax. Unlike Amelia, whose beauty had deepened from oval-faced childhood to round-breasted adolescence. She had become a queen among the F5 girls, casually accepting the tributes of her coterie—messages delivered from boys, extra portions of dessert, homework answers, hair ribbons. Now legendary in length, Amelia made her hair more alluring by wearing it braided and pinned in a romantic swirl. Most of the girls had their hair bobbed short, the Home’s barber encouraging the simple style with magazine pages cellophaned to his wall. But Amelia refused the barber, instead visiting Mrs. Berger every few months for the slightest trim.

  Rachel, with her bald scalp and looming eyes, was in a category by herself. Not that she had no friends; there was a companionship of sorts among the misfits, loose alliances that splintered into small subsets of girls in corners of the play yard. Various slurs had been flung at her over the years—mummy, Martian—but only Egg had stuck, repeated so often it had long ago lost its sting. Because Rachel didn’t try for any prizes, no one was jealous of her excellent grades. While other girls learned to sew or took up the violin, Rachel spent Club Bell in the Home’s library, losing herself in the pages of a book. Her favorites were biographies of courageous explorers; she had no patience for fiction.

  Rachel’s connection to Sam and Vic, two of the most popular boys in the Home, afforded her some dignity. Vic, clever and outgoing, was involved in every activity and backed by his mother’s access to the superintendent. Sam had grown handsome and tall, his storm-cloud eyes threatening to boys and irresistible to girls, lauded star of the baseball team, ready to raise a fist at the slightest challenge.

  Naomi had remained an ally. Though Rachel could never be her equal—a monitor’s authority depended on her prestige among her peers—Naomi kept a protective eye on Rachel, stepping in with a smack if someone shoved her on the stairs or tossed a handful of gravel at her in the yard. Rachel understood Naomi’s protection was funded by Sam’s tributes, slices of bread replaced over the years by pilfered coins and stolen magazines, but by demanding nothing from Rachel herself, Naomi seemed more confederate than mercenary.

  In the Home, everyone did a thing or no one did, so Rachel also showered the night before the Purim Dance. Near her was a novelty—a girl new to F5, just come over from Reception that morning, the loss of her parents a fresh wound. The girl’s baldy haircut and pockmarked cheeks were already drawing insults. At first, she’d thought Rachel was also new and lined up next to her for the showers. Close up, the smooth sheen of Rachel’s scalp showed that her hair hadn’t simply been shorn. When Rachel hung her towel and stepped under a showerhead, the new girl realized with a thrill she’d spotted something more valuable than an equal: someone worse off than herself.

  “Are you some kind of fish? What do you have, scales instead of skin?” She glanced around the shower to gauge the others’ reactions. A few were giggling; it had been a long time since their attention had been drawn to Rachel’s body. Still, they hesitated to join in.

  It was Amelia who picked up the thread. “She’s not a fish, she’s an Egg, like a lizard’s egg. When it hatches, she’ll come slithering out from under a rock.” The giggles turned into laughter. Amelia approached Rachel, wet hair flowing down her elegant back. “I hope you’re not counting on getting asked to dance tomorrow. No boy’s going to be interested in you.”

  Rachel couldn’t hide the blush that colored her neck and cheeks. The new girl, wanting to be accepted by Amelia, joined in. “No boy would want to dance with a hairless freak!”

  The monitor watching the showers called Naomi over. She ignored the new girl and grabbed Amelia by the arm, pulling her out from under the shower. “Go dry off.”

  “I’m not done yet,” Amelia said.

  Naomi slapped her face. Amelia’s friends bowed their heads at her misfortune. The new girl slunk away before she, too, could be struck. “You’re done when I say you’re done.” Naomi shoved a towel at Amelia and pushed her away. Her friends hurried after her, wrapping her in comforting arms. Rachel kept her back to the commotion, grateful and embarrassed.

  “Finish up now, girls!” the shower monitor yelled. “One more minute!” They hastily rinsed the soap from their hair. The monitor turned the tap, and the sizzle of a score of showers became a forlorn drip. The girls grabbed their towels and filed back into the dorm, the monitor following.

  Rachel, wrapped in a towel, left last. Naomi, too, hung back. Placing a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, Naomi said quietly, “Don’t listen to that bitch. I think you’re real pretty. Always have.” Rachel dropped her eyes as a different kind of blush crept up her face. She waited for Naomi to lift her hand before walking away.

  At her bed, Rachel dried off quickly and pulled on her nightgown. The shower monitor was pushing the laundry cart through the dormitory. As Rachel held out her towel, the monitor leaned in and whispered, “I’d watch out for Naomi, if I were you. She’s not a normal girl. You know what I mean? She’s not natural.” Rachel looked confused. “Just don’t say no one warned you.” The monitor grabbed the towel, threw it in the cart, and continued down the row.

  Rachel curled up on her mattress and pulled the blanket over her head. She’d heard the accusation leveled before but wasn’t sure what it meant. She’d heard it said about girls whose close friendships were intense and dramatic, but Rachel wasn’t even sure if Naomi was her friend or just her protector. The way Naomi never seemed afraid of anyone wasn’t normal, not at the orphanage. How nice she was to Rachel might seem unnatural to anyone who didn’t know Sam paid her for it. But he didn’t pay Naomi to tell Rachel she was pretty, did he?

  When Naomi made her rounds before Last Bell, telling girls to quiet down, she paused near Rachel’s bed. “Night, Egg,” she whispered. Rachel, pretending to be asleep, didn’t answer.

  THE NEXT DAY was infused with excitement for the Purim Dance. The children too young to attend were animated by jealousy; those twelve and up fidgeted through the school day, their minds on the coming evening. Dinner was eaten in fewer minutes than usual an
d everyone hustled out of the dining hall so preparations could be made for the dance: tables moved, benches stacked, decorations hung.

  In their dormitory, the F5 girls spent the hour brushing their hair, trading ribbons, sharing tubes of contraband lipstick, and doing what they could to make their clothes special. Rachel changed into a clean dress and stockings, then pulled her cardboard case from under the bed and studied the wig.

  “Why don’t you put it on?” It was Tess, whom Rachel numbered among her friends.

  “It itches my head, and besides, it hasn’t been brushed out in forever.”

  “Try it on, let me see you.”

  Rachel reluctantly pulled the wig on her head. It was snug—because she hardly ever wore it, she hadn’t been given a new one since F3.

  “You look wonderful, Rachel,” Tess said. “Here, let me brush it for you.” She sat on the bed behind Rachel and began running her brush through the wig’s hair, but she tugged too hard and it shifted. “Sorry! You better hold it.” Rachel pinched her fingers at the temples and held the wig in place. Tess brushed it until the dark hair shone.

  “Doesn’t she look swell?” Tess asked Sophie, whose bed was next to Rachel’s.

  “Let me have a turn,” Sophie said. Tess surrendered the brush. “Here, tie this around it.” A ribbon appeared and was looped around Rachel’s head, a bow knotted at her crown. The girls appraised their work.