“You’ve no doubt been to many specialists before coming all this distance,” said the doctor.
“No,” said Joe.
“At least your own family doctor, anyway—” said Dr. Abekian.
Joe shook his head.
“You haven’t taken this matter up with your own doctor?” said Dr. Abekian, unable to make sense of the fact. “No,” said Joe.
“May I ask why not?” said the doctor.
“You’d better ask my wife when she comes,” said Joe. “I’ve been after her to go to a doctor for years. She not only wouldn’t go—she made me promise I wouldn’t go, either.”
“This was a religious matter?” said the doctor. “Is she a Christian Scientist?”
“No, no,” said Joe. “I told you—she was a nurse.”
“Of course,” said the doctor. “I forgot.” He shook his head. “But she did agree to see me—under the impression that I was a famous specialist.”
“Yes,” said Joe.
“Amazing,” said Dr. Abekian softly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Well—since you haven’t even seen a general practitioner, there is a chance I can help.”
“I’m game—God knows,” said Joe.
“All right—fine,” said the doctor. “After Peter, then, comes you.”
When young Peter was gone, Dr. Abekian called Joe into his office. He had a directory open on his desk. He explained it. “I was trying to find,” he said, “somebody with a name remotely like mine—somebody who might be really famous for handling cases like yours.”
“What luck?” said Joe.
“There is Dr. Aarons—who’s done a lot with a psychiatric approach,” said Dr. Abekian. “His name is vaguely like mine.”
“Look,” said Joe, patiently, earnestly, “the name of the man we were coming to see, the name of the man who was going to do so much for us, the name wasn’t Aarons, and it wasn’t a name we could very well mix up with another name, because it was such an unusual name. My wife said we should come to Chicago and see Dr. Abekian—A-b-e-k-i-a-n. We came to Chicago, looked up Dr. Abekian—A-b-e-k-i-a-n—in the phone book. There he was—A-b-e-k-i-a-n—and here I am.”
Dr. Abekian’s sharp, gaudy features expressed tantalization and perplexity. “Tst,” he said.
“You say this Aarons uses the psychiatric approach?” said Joe. He was undressing now for a physical examination, revealing himself as a chunky man, with muscles that looked powerful but slow.
“The psychiatric approach is meaningless, of course,” said Dr. Abekian, “if there’s anything physically wrong.” He lit a cigarette. “I keep thinking,” he said, “this whole mystery has to have something to do with Cincinnati.”
“I’ll tell you this,” said Joe, “this isn’t the only crazy thing that’s happened lately. The way things have been going, maybe Barbara and I ought to go over and see Dr. Aarons no matter what the physicals turn up.”
“Barbara?” said Dr. Abekian, cocking his head.
“What?” said Joe.
“Barbara? You said your wife’s name was Barbara?” said Dr. Abekian.
“Did I say that?” said Joe.
“I thought you did,” said the doctor.
Joe shrugged. “There’s one more crazy promise down the drain,” he said. “I was supposed to keep her name a secret.”
“I don’t understand,” said the doctor.
“Who the hell does?” said Joe, showing sudden fatigue and exasperation. “If you knew all the fights we’ve had this past couple of years, if you knew how much I had to go through before she’d agree to see a doctor, to find out if there was anything we could do…” Joe left the sentence unfinished, went on undressing. He was quite red now.
“If I knew that?” said Dr. Abekian, himself a little restless now.
“If you knew that,” said Joe, “you’d understand why I promised her anything she wanted, whether it made sense or not. She said we had to come to Chicago, so we came to Chicago. She said she didn’t want people to know what her real name was, so I promised I wouldn’t tell. But I did tell, didn’t I?”
Dr. Abekian nodded. Smoke from the cigarette in his mouth was making one eye water, but he did nothing to remedy the situation.
“Well—what the hell,” said Joe. “If you can’t tell a doctor the whole truth, what’s the point of going to one? How’s he going to help you?”
Dr. Abekian responded not at all.
“For years,” said Joe, “Barbara and I were about as happily married as two people could be—I think. It’s a pretty town where we live, full of nice people. We’ve got a nice big house I inherited from my father. I like my job. Money’s never been a problem.”
Dr. Abekian turned his back, stared at a rectangle of glass block that faced the street.
“And this no kid thing—” said Joe, “much as we both want kids, not having ’em wouldn’t be enough to break us up. It’s this doctor thing—or was. Do you know she hasn’t gone to a doctor for any reason? For the whole ten years we’ve been married! ‘Look, sweetheart,’ I’d say to her, ‘if you’re the reason we can’t have children, or if I’m the reason—it doesn’t make any difference. I won’t think any the less of you, if you’re to blame, and I hope you won’t think any the less of me, if I’m to blame, which I probably am. The big thing is to find out if there’s anything we can do.’”
“It really wouldn’t make any difference?” said Dr. Abekian, his back still to Joe.
“All I can speak for is myself,” said Joe. “Speaking for myself—no. The love I’ve got for my wife is certainly big enough to rise above something accidental like that.”
“Accidental?” said Dr. Abekian. He started to face Joe, but changed his mind.
“What the heck is it but an accident, who can have kids and who can’t?” said Joe.
Joe came closer to Dr. Abekian and the glass block window, was surprised to see in every dimple of every glass block a tiny image of his wife, Barbara, getting out of a taxicab. “That’s my wife,” said Joe.
“I know,” said Dr. Abekian.
“You know?” said Joe.
“You can get dressed, Mr. Cunningham,” said the doctor.
“Dressed?” said Joe. “You haven’t even looked at me.”
“I don’t have to,” said Dr. Abekian. “I don’t have to look at you to tell you that, as long as you’re married to that woman, you can never have children.” He turned on Joe with startling bitterness. “Are you a marvelous actor, Mr. Cunningham?” he said. “Or are you really as innocent as you seem?”
Joe backed away. “I don’t know what’s going on, if that’s what you mean,” he said.
“You came to the right doctor, Mr. Cunningham,” said Dr. Abekian. He gave a rueful smile. “When I told you I wasn’t a specialist, I was very much mistaken. In your particular case, I’m as specialized as it’s possible for a man to be.”
Joe heard the sharp heels of his wife as she crossed the waiting room outside. He heard her ask someone else out there whether the doctor was in. A moment later, the buzzer rang in the back of the house.
“The doctor is in,” said Dr. Abekian. He raised his arms in mock admiration of all he was. “Ready for anything,” he said.
Out in the waiting room, the door to the back of the house opened. The baby was still crying. Dr. Abekian’s wife was still harassed.
Dr. Abekian strode to his office door, opened it on Barbara and his wife. “The doctor is in, Mrs. Cunningham,” he said to Barbara. “He can see you right away.”
Barbara, a little woman, a glistening trinket brunette, walked into the office, looking at everything with great curiosity. “You finished with Joe that fast?” she said.
“The faster the better, wouldn’t you say?” said Dr. Abekian tautly. He closed the door. “I understand you haven’t been quite honest with your husband,” he said.
She nodded.
“We know each other, you see,” Dr. Abekian said to Joe. Joe licked his lips. “I see,” he s
aid.
“You now wish to be completely honest with your husband?” Dr. Abekian said to Barbara. “You want me to help you achieve that honesty?” he said.
Barbara shrugged weakly. “Whatever the doctor thinks best,” she said.
Dr. Abekian closed his eyes. “The doctor thinks,” he said, “that Mr. Cunningham should know that his wife, while a student nurse, was pregnant by me. An abortion was arranged for, the job was botched, and the patient was made sterile ever after.”
Joe said nothing. It would be some time before anything coherent came to him.
“You went to a lot of trouble to bring this moment about,” said Dr. Abekian to Barbara.
“Yes,” she said emptily.
“Is the revenge sweet?” said Dr. Abekian.
“It isn’t revenge,” she said, and she went over to look at the thousands of identical images in the glass blocks.
“Then why would you go to so much trouble?” said the doctor.
“Because you were always so much better than I was at explaining why everything we did was all for the best,” she said, “every step of the way.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mouth Full of Marbles, copyright © 2004 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Homage to Leonard Baskin, copyright © 2000 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
April, copyright © 2004 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Strings, copyright © 1996 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Helen, copyright © 1995 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Identical Twin, copyright © 1996 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Don’t Spoil the Party, copyright © 2006 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
A Tree Trying to Tell Me Something, copyright © 2006 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
May I Have This Dance, copyright © 2004 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Good News, copyright © 1994 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Be-Bop, copyright © 2003 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
Saab Business Man, copyright © 2006 Kurt Vonnegut/Origami Express, LLC
www.vonnegut.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KURT VONNEGUT was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America’s attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him, in the words of The New York Times, as “a true artist” with the publication of Cat’s Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, “one of the best living American writers.” Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.
Aside from Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to Walter Miller, Look at the Birdie is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, fictional and factual, are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The writings by Kurt Vonnegut in this collection have been edited only minimally from the originals. Typographical and minor factual errors have been corrected.
Copyright © 2009 by The Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Trust
Foreword © 2009 by Sidney Offit
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Copyright © 1997 Kurt Vonnegut/
Origami Express, LLC. www.vonnegut.com
For complete credits for the original illustrations by Kurt Vonnegut
contained in this work, see Illustrations page.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33877-2
www.bantamdell.com
v3.0
Look at the Birdie Page 21