At the nurses’ office, they tell him that “that American girl” is looking for him, and he thinks they’re mocking him a little as they say it. She’s in the waiting room. She’s wearing a white wool sweater that almost covers her skirt. She does that smile of hers that wrinkles her whole face, and he smiles back at her. He’s glad to see her. He’s glad, too, that the girl seems pleased to see him.
The young woman’s the first to bend down and pick up the books that Abaitua knocks over when he reaches for the blue file folder. “I’m not what I used to be,” he says to himself. He congratulates her on her agility and asks her to excuse the mess. He thinks that disorder, like the inability to find one’s way, is the result of some psychological problem, some negligence linked to character, although generally people don’t frown on it so much when it comes to books and file folders. The young sociologist is now holding several copies of Céline’s Semmelweis in each hand, and she looks from one to the other, as if astonished they’re all the same book. He explains that he gives them out to young doctors when they join the hospital. It’s a very good book. The young woman looks at one of the copies, and he tells her to keep it. It’s a very interesting episode in the history of medicine. Semmelweis was a Hungarian doctor, a pioneering champion of antiseptic practices. While working at a hospital in Vienna, poor women who were going to give birth used to hide, so that they wouldn’t be taken to the hospital. They preferred to give birth anywhere other than the hospital, knowing as they did that they would be sure to die there afterward of puerperal infection. In one ward, the maternal mortality rate reached ninety-six percent, and Semmelweis was convinced that there was a connection between that high rate and the fact that the people in charge of the birthing process always came straight from dissection class. He determined that if they washed their hands with a simple sodium chloride solution, the maternal death rate plummeted. But most of the doctors at the time thought it was not only absurd but also humiliating. What was all this about having to wash your hands? They accused him of manipulating the figures and kicked him out of the birthing room, and then out of Vienna. The poor man went mad, and women went on dying of puerperal fever all over the world, until Pasteur’s discoveries finally proved his theory.
He’d say the young American finds what he’s telling her interesting, because she doesn’t take her eyes off his lips while she listens to him, though he makes himself take into account that it could be because she’s listening to a language that she doesn’t have a complete mastery of, and that’s something he’d understand. She still has the copies of Semmelweis in her hands, and he repeats that she should keep one for herself. She thanks him. Then she says, “Poor Semmelweis.” And, after a quick smile, “Hard times.” He answers that they really were hard times and that even though they’re now in the past, there are still some doctors who refuse to wash their hands with the sodium chloride solution. “So to speak,” he adds, as if he were explaining a metaphor. He regrets saying it, she might think he doesn’t trust her intelligence. As if that weren’t enough—“Of course, of course,” she says as she nods her head—he suspects that she must be very familiar with Semmelweis’s role in the history of medicine. So he apologizes for telling her about things she already knows, and although the girl shrugs her shoulders, it’s clear she does know them. The fact that he’s been surrounded by people like resident doctor Echevarría with a ch and a v recently has made him think that everybody’s like that. It’s also a matter of age. It’s started happening to him recently, particularly when he’s with young people. Almost everything makes him remember anecdotes, or want to give interpretations of things, prompts in him the need to unravel some memory, thinking that others—and here’s the vanity of senility—will surely find it of interest. He tells her this as he’s thinking it, rather ashamed, and the girl laughs. His memories, in any case, can’t be as old as all that, because if she’s not mistaken, poor old Semmelweis must have died toward the middle of the nineteenth century. They both laugh at that. No, he isn’t quite that old, but he’s old enough for her not to speak to him in Spanish with the more casual tú form of address. You only talk to people who are over a hundred with the more formal pronoun.
He has the blue folder in his hands. His idea had been to say that he’d opened it to figure out, by the contents, who it belonged to and that upon seeing that it was a novel—and a novel, what’s more, in which one of the characters has her same name—he hadn’t been able to resist reading it. He’d also planned on making the joke that people named Lynn seem to be forgetful. But now he decides to keep quiet, he doesn’t want her to take him for an old gossip as well as an old bore, or, worse still, a dirty old man, because bringing up the story of the girl leaving her lighter on the bedside table could be understood as the old gynecologist trying to compare himself to the writer in the book. Also, it was very obvious that the file was hers, because she’d kept it hugged to her chest almost the entire time she was with him, and it wouldn’t have been possible for someone not to notice that. So she’s come to get her file back, and he’s wasted her time telling her stories she knows only too well. He apologizes.
The girl’s way of protesting that there’s nothing for him to say sorry about might be considered excessive—she holds an open hand out to Abaitua and claps the other to her mouth. She says she felt moved by seeing him identify so much with the unlucky Semmelweis and display his indignance about his colleagues’ cruelty. That’s why she didn’t want to tell him that she was already familiar with the book.
The nurse comes in after knocking on the door but, as usual, without waiting for a reply, and Abaitua gives the girl the folder, but too quickly, which he then regrets; it looks as if he’s trying to cover up something he’s done wrong. “Here’s your carpet,” he says as he hands it to her. The nurse opens and closes a few drawers in the table and the filing cabinet and, after complaining about the untidiness, finally says, “I’m off.” So it’s not long before her shift is over. He isn’t wearing a watch. He always takes it off for examinations, in line with the regulations, setting it down any old where. He tells the girl that, as well, instead of just asking her the time. It’s two o’clock. The girl opens the folder, and when he sees that, Abaitua wonders if he should tell her that he didn’t just look at the sheets in it, he also photocopied them, and he decides to admit that he read them. He didn’t know that they were hers, of course. But when he saw that there was a character in the novel with her same name, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity. But he doesn’t tell her he also photocopied them. The girl asks if he liked it.
He doesn’t know what he can say to match the degree of curiosity evident in her question. He says he only read bits. He could easily go on to say he likes the naturalness of the relationship between the young woman and the old writer at the beginning—a relationship that the narrator of the novel thinks “has no future” and is “blameless”—but he doesn’t think that would be appropriate. So he just says that he liked it a lot—though he does stress the “a lot”—and that he was very surprised to see a character with her name appear in it; when he was reading, he got the impression at times that he was reading about her, because she’s the only Lynn he knows. The girl looks at him with amusement, she rests her chin on the folder, which she’s holding against her breast. “So now you know the tricks we Lynns use,” she says. And Abaitua is extremely disconcerted by the joke that, shortly before, he himself had thought it would be inappropriate for him to say.
He says he’s late and looks at his watchless wrist. It only remains for him to hang up his coat and close the window. Keeping the window open for a bit was a necessary hygienic measure after the last patient. The girl waits for him in the corridor, and she makes that gesture of hers, brusquely shaking her head to rearrange her ponytail, the same way as described in the book, and she also tucks her loose hair behind her ear, which he thinks is what she does when she’s going to make a decision. He doesn’t know what decision she’s made.
Right now she still has her hand on her ear, holding her hair, and she says that it’s nice to have shared reading a good book with someone. And then she laughs.
That short laugh of hers that wrinkles up her whole face.
They’ve both read two books, the photocopied novel and Céline’s Semmelweis, but Abaitua feels more secure talking about the latter. If he had to criticize the Budapest doctor for anything, he says, it would be for not knowing that it isn’t enough to be right about something if you want a new idea, even if it’s a good idea, to take hold. Scientific talent alone isn’t enough. A few additional gifts are needed, as well. He feels well placed to talk about this, about how the idea of going straight for an objective is naïve, and he turns to the clichéd example of a whaler—which he says he came across in one of the few books on management techniques he’s ever read—explaining that this type of sailor doesn’t go straight for what he’s aiming at but instead has to zigzag around depending on the wind. He discovered this concept quite late in life, and because of that, he explains it to his son every time he gets the chance to see him. But what leads him to mention it now is pride; he wants to make it clear that if he isn’t the head of the department, or even the director of the entire hospital, it isn’t because of any intellectual or scientific shortcomings but rather because he didn’t meet the wind he was up against with sufficient flexibility. A dumb thing to say, a sign of his need for limitless recognition.
When he suggested driving her home, the young sociologist said no, it wasn’t worth it, she lived very close by. But he insisted, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm, and in the end she accepted. Now, as they’re arriving at “the witch house,” after what would have been around ten minutes on foot, he thinks that perhaps she would have preferred to walk back by herself and he should have accepted her decision, both out of politeness and because he’s supervising her research work. He also realizes that he hasn’t stopped talking since the moment she came to his office, and he remembers what the writer says at the beginning of the book of Lynn’s that he photocopied: whenever he likes a woman, he thinks he becomes a bore all of a sudden. However, he can’t say that he’s particularly attracted to the girl sitting next to him with the blue file folder on her thighs and her thin fingers resting on top of it. He doesn’t even think she’s especially beautiful, but he still gets the feeling that he’s being a bore. Another thing the writer says: he finds that always remembering something or other gets in the way. He himself has the same problem. Too many images, too many memories that keep piling up around what he wants to say, that he thinks might be meaningful, appropriate, or at least curious but which distract him from the heart of the matter and put him out on a limb all the time. He keeps on repeating the expressions “because of that,” “in fact,” and “with regard to that” as if they were a chorus. Now he recalls Doctor Cordoba, who they used to call “caldo de gallina,” not because of anything having to do with chicken stock, as the phrase might seem to suggest, but because it was also, in somewhat older-fashioned parlance, a nickname for loose-leaf tobacco, which the man smoked—Ideales brand—never removing his hand-rolled cigarette from his lips, even when he was assisting at a birth (which would be unbelievable for the young American), and being hand-rolled, ash and sparks continually fell from these cigarettes of his onto his lips and his now hole-filled shirt, and because of that, he kept on moving one of his hands around as if he were playing the guitar. And that leads him to recall that when he was a child, a man once sent him to buy a packet of “stock” for him—that was what it was like in his neighborhood back then, any grown-up could tell any child to go and do things for them—and then almost slapped him when he came back with a packet of Maggi-brand instant bullion cubes; any adult could also slap any child back then. Recently he’s been thinking that telling people his memories is a sign of senility, or pre-senility; he suddenly wonders whether it’s an attack of logorrhea and shuts up. But for some reason or other, he’s convinced that the young American’s interest is more than just politeness. She’s paying so much attention to what he says—he’s sure now that she isn’t looking at his lips because of any difficulty in understanding him—that he feels encouraged to go on talking, and naturally, her happy open laughter when he says anything with a possible double entendre or touch of irony also makes him keep talking. Irony, in fact, is something that Pilar usually finds so confusing—she’ll stare at him to work out if he’s joking or whether he’s being serious—that it often ends up making her angry.
“Why did you become a gynecologist, Doctor Abaitua?” The young sociologist asks direct questions unexpectedly, sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English. In the novel, the writer, too, thinks that the girl asks questions in a strange way. “As if it were a survey” Abaitua thinks is how he puts it. In this Lynn’s case, that would be understandable; when it comes down to it, she is a sociologist, after all. What’s more, he reckons it’s usual to ask questions when you go abroad. Out of respect, because you want to show that you’re interested in the customs, for instance, but she asks other kinds of questions, as well, more personal ones, questions that someone from your own country would never ask you in your own language.
“¿Por qué se hizo ginecólogo?”
“YOUR WIFE IS A DOCTOR, TOO, ISN’T SHE?”
“¿Cuál es su especialidad?”
“WHEN DID YOU GET MARRIED?”
He sometimes gives different answers to the question about why he became a gynecologist, depending on the situation and on his mood. “To get to know women better” is something he’s often said, but he thinks that too flippant an answer to come out with now. Saying that it was a matter of chance is quite appropriate in many situations, and as such, it fits now, as well. When he was a resident doctor and visiting different services, the head of Gynecology was competent and friendly. They got on well, liked each other, and he let Abaitua do some real work. He thought it was an interesting specialty, among other things because it didn’t involve only surgery, and they accepted him into the service. He doesn’t know to what extent Pilar’s father having an obstetrics practice influenced him—his firm decision not to work with him, the desire to make it very clear that he wasn’t going to sell himself out. He knows it was tough on the old man, who loves him and trusts him, probably more than he does his other sons-in-law. So he chose the specialty that should have been Pilar’s, and she, probably as an act of rebellion, chose something more prestigious, something that few people did at the time: neurosurgery.
Abaitua has to ask the American girl several times what they were talking about.
In his opinion, and to the contrary of what the young woman and many other people think, neurosurgery is not more difficult than other specialities, but be that as it may, it certainly isn’t an appropriate speciality to practice in a small clinic, and Pilar has never made much of an effort to find work elsewhere, either. He’s sure she’s a good professional, even though she’s never been ambitious. She sometimes complains—he thinks rather opportunistically—about the obstacles she’s had to face as a woman. That hasn’t helped her, of course, and she often accuses him of not being supportive (she had to look after their child and the home by herself). She hasn’t had very good luck, either. Her brother-in-law’s always kept her in the background, and she found it easy to get used to that subordinate position. He thinks that she’s skillful and responsible in her work and that she does what she knows how to do very well. That’s what he thinks about Pilar. And he says it without being very sure that the young American will understand him.
He stops right up against the house’s iron gate, in order not to hold up traffic. He doesn’t know whether to turn the engine off or not, and in the end he doesn’t. He just puts on the handbrake and keeps both hands on the steering wheel, pleased that the Volvo has such a quiet engine. The situation is becoming awkward for him, even though it was he who created it. The girl doesn’t move, either, or make any sign of opening the d
oor, but finally she breaks the silence. She says he has surgeon’s hands. He has surgeon’s hands, or at least that’s what she thinks surgeon’s hands should look like, and when he hears that, Abaitua crosses his arms, which is something he seldom does, and hides his hands in his armpits. They could be the hands of a pianist, of some type of artist in any case. He should be used to being told that he has beautiful hands. Pilar herself has told him. They’re strong, with clearly-visible veins and long fingers. He takes good care of them, although he’s only ever had a couple of manicures. In hotels. In Rio once. He doesn’t feel at ease with his hands hanging over the arm of a hairdresser’s chair and a girl at his feet almost kneeling down. He waves the fingers of his right hand in the air. “Don’t you believe it—I’m losing my skill in this hand.” She doesn’t believe him. She hasn’t seen him operate, but she’s seen that he’s good at drawing. She knows that quite well—she sees him drawing in meetings all the time. But only anatomical sketches, he never does artistic drawings during work hours, he jokes. He doesn’t deny that he’s good at it. He says he has a friend he goes hiking with and that sometimes they take watercolors along with them, to paint. In fact, although they have said they’ll do it again, Kepa and he have only done it once, but he doesn’t feel any need to correct the fib. He also tells her something he’s heard Kepa say: he doesn’t really see things until he draws them. The girl turns right around and tucks her legs under her on the seat with a quick movement. “And do you paint portraits?” He paints incredible portraits, he says, carrying on with his joke, and of course, she asks if he’ll paint her. Any time. And the girl asks him to promise it, which he does, solemnly, a hand on his heart. “I promise you.”
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