Ice Carnival

by Spaeth, Janet

  Mr. Lawrence took a breath and stopped as a cough burst out.

  “That’s fine. Let’s try this then,” Isaac said. “Breathe in as rapidly and deeply as you can.”

  Mr. Lawrence tried it, and only at the end did he cough.

  “Good! I’m not saying you can breathe like that all the time—it’d be a neat trick if you could, but you’d end up so light-headed you might faint—but I’d say every couple of minutes, if you could do that, your body would appreciate it.”

  For a few minutes, the two men breathed together, the strong lungs and the weak lungs, in unison as if one could lend the other some of his vigor.

  “I do feel a bit better,” the patient said at last.

  Isaac laughed. “I’m not surprised. Our bodies need oxygen. It feeds our brains and our blood and our muscles. I wish I had some way to pipe it into you, but I don’t.”

  As he settled the man into an upright position, pointing out that he’d be more likely to breathe better if he were sitting up straight, he talked to him about his illness.

  “You have heavily congested lungs. I’d like to dry them out, but that very act of drying them out will cause increased coughing, and you’re quite cachectic.”

  “Of course I am,” Mr. Lawrence said with a little smile. “What on earth does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry,” Isaac answered, mentally reviewing one of the lessons of medical school, that a doctor should speak using words that the patient will understand and avoid terminology that is specific to physicians. “I mean simply that your body as a whole is suffering.”

  It wasn’t a true definition. What it meant was that the patient was wasting away. His skin was thin, only a loose covering over his skeleton. He was so gaunt that every bone showed. There was no muscular definition.

  It was the circular dilemma of a major illness. Because he was sick, his body was atrophying. And because it was atrophying, he couldn’t fight the illness. He didn’t have the strength.

  “Your uncle and I have talked quite a bit about death. He has told me I’m dying.” Mr. Lawrence’s voice was reedy, like a child’s.

  “He did?” Isaac stopped midmotion. In his studies, he had been taught that one should never tell a patient that he was dying. One reason was that it might not be true, and the other was that patients often simply gave up upon hearing the news.

  Mr. Lawrence’s chuckle sounded like wind through dry grasses, and he stopped for a paroxysm of coughing. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I’ll have to do that inhalation business you showed me.”

  Isaac nodded. “Indeed.”

  “You seemed surprised that your uncle was blunt with me. Am I right?”

  Isaac pondered how to respond. He didn’t want to make Uncle Alfred look bad in the eyes of his patient, but he was curious as to why he’d said such a thing. “You and my uncle go back quite a ways, I understand,” he said at last, opting for a nonanswer.

  “We do. I’ve got some illness in my lungs, and it’s got one of those names that I couldn’t pronounce for the life of me, no pun intended. But here’s what else I know, and what your uncle knows. I’m eightysomething—I quit counting birthdays long ago—and I’m looking at heaven. As a matter of fact, I’m right at the gate. I can even peek through the slats and see the other side.”

  Isaac smiled at the old man’s imagery.

  “Everybody my age is nearing the end anyway, but when you’re my age and sick. . .” Mr. Lawrence shrugged, and a round of coughing took over. “Your uncle is younger than I am, but he and I did indeed discuss being at our stage of life, when our bodies fail. We’re like old wagons. Oh, maybe our wheels don’t fall off, but the axle sure gets cracked. At some point, we’re past the point of repair.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that,” Isaac said heartily. “Medicine is doing quite a bit of wonderful things and soon—”

  “Soon we’ll live to be as old as Methuselah? What does the Bible say? How old was he?”

  “Nine hundred sixty-nine years.” Isaac grinned. “Everybody back then lived for a long time. Jared was 962 years old when he passed on. Lamech was 777 years old when he died.”

  Mr. Lawrence waved it away. “Older than I’d want to be. Can you imagine what a thousand-year-old man would look like? What could he do? Do I want a couple hundred years of mashed food?”

  Aristotle, who’d been sleeping through most of the ministrations, woke up and flew across the room, raucously shrieking as he barely missed Isaac’s head.

  “And besides, unless my dear Aristotle can live long, too, why would I want to?”

  Mr. Lawrence was smiling when he said it, but Isaac knew how attached he was to his bird. And the heart, when it lacked a reason to go on beating, often simply stopped.

  “I reminded your uncle that although I may not last here on earth much longer, I have a home awaiting me in heaven,” Mr. Lawrence continued. He wheezed and coughed, and Isaac knew the discussion was wearing him out. But it was all right. He needed to say what he was saying.

  “That’s very true.”

  “Is the minister’s wife in the kitchen? Is that her I hear rattling around in there?”

  “She and Ruth Everett are both in there.”

  “Will you ask Sarah to come out here?”

  Isaac stood and went into the kitchen.

  “How’s he doing?” Mrs. Everett asked.

  “He’s very sick, but I think we can make him comfortable. He needs to have some nutrition for one thing, so if you could make some broth to start, that would be great. Of course, the steam pots will help clear the congestion, too.”

  “I can do that. I’ll run home and get that chicken and start stewing it,” Ruth said. “It’ll make good stock and some healthy soup when he’s up for it.”

  “That sounds good. Meanwhile,” he said to Christal’s mother, “he’s asking for you.”

  “For me?”

  She took off her apron and hurried into the parlor. “John, what can I do for you?”

  “You’re a Bible-toting woman.”

  “I believe you could call me that.” She looked at Isaac, her eyes brimming with amusement. “Just as you’re a Bible-toting fellow.”

  “I am, but I’m too spent at the moment to locate what I want to hear now. Can you find me that part about what heaven is like? You know, the verses about our future homes being mansions?”

  “ ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions’?”

  “That’s the one. You don’t need the Bible for this one, do you?”

  “I don’t. It’s a beautiful passage. It’s from John 14. ‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.’ ”

  “I’m going there—you know that, don’t you?” he asked.

  Isaac stood off to the side, wanting to be respectful.

  Mrs. Everett touched Mr. Lawrence’s arm. “Oh, John, I hope we all are. We just arrive at different times.”

  “I’ll be there before you.”

  She fussed with the cloth of his sleeve. “Maybe. God will take us when it’s our time to go. Until then, though, we need to live as fully as we can here on earth.”

  Mr. Lawrence coughed, and Isaac reached out to give him his medicine. Mr. Lawrence held up his hand in objection.

  “The medication will give you relief from the coughing,” Isaac said.

  “It makes me sleepy. I take it, and almost immediately I fall asleep.”

  “Yes, it will do that,” Isaac answered. “It’s formulated for that very purpose. It has an ingredient that lets you sleep.”

  “Lets me sleep? Makes me sleep!” Mr. Lawrence’s words were grumbling, but a small smile twitched at the edges of his mouth.

  “You need to rest.” Isaac offered the spoon again, and the patient shook his head
.

  “I’ll make sure he takes it,” Christal’s mother said.

  “I’m going to get lectured, aren’t I?” Mr. Lawrence asked mournfully.

  “You are. You need to do exactly as the doctor orders. Take your medicine now. Later Ruth will bring you some broth, and I will sit here myself and make sure you drink it. After the broth, we’ll graduate you to soup.”

  “And from there, on to pork chops!” Coughing caught at the laughter and stopped it.

  “Yes, pork chops.”

  There was nothing more for Isaac to do at the moment. With the medicinal syrup at work in Mr. Lawrence’s exhausted system, he’d soon sleep. Already the man’s eyes were hooded with fatigue, and his breathing, with the coughing spasms eased, was regular and, Isaac was gratified to see, deeper, getting oxygen to his starved cells.

  “You can go,” Mrs. Everett said at last. “I’ll stay with him.”

  “Thank you.”

  He knew that John Lawrence would be in good hands with her at his side. The woman had the soul of a saint. She could handle any emergency that came her way.

  Christal’s aunt came to the door between the living room and the dining room. “Isaac, I hate to take you away from the business of doctoring, but I’d like to get the chicken soup started so it’s ready when John wakes up. Everything is here except the chicken.” She chuckled. “It’s pretty important to have chicken in your chicken soup. If you wouldn’t mind, could you go to our house and pick up the chicken? Oh, and a few more potatoes and carrots. John’s produce bin is looking a bit spare. Christal’s home. She’ll put it all in the stockpot for you.”

  Isaac’s heart lightened. He knew what awaited him at the Everett house. Christal’s buoyant good spirit, her indefatigable joy of living, and her bright happiness with life in general lifted his mood every time. After a struggle like today, he needed her effervescence.

  He hurried his way there, smiling as he imagined her shining face.

  At the house, he knocked on the door and waited, tapping his fingers against each other in anticipation.

  There was no answer.

  He knocked again. Still, no one came to the door.

  His disposition lost its glow. She must have left the house.

  Still, the chicken was needed. Perhaps she hadn’t locked the door when she left? He turned the handle of the heavy door cautiously, and it swung open.

  Immediately he reeled at the smell. It hung in the air, acrid and sharp. Something had been on fire.

  “Christal? Christal?”

  He clapped his hand over his nose and mouth and tried to breathe shallowly, which was nearly impossible in his abrupt state of panic.

  “Christal?” he called again, and then, with more urgency, again. “Christal!”

  His heart leaped into his throat and beat rapidly. Christal hadn’t come to the door. Could it have been because she was unable to?

  The thought stabbed him, and he nearly doubled over from the pain. But a rush of sudden energy gave wings to his feet, and he sprinted through the house, following the bitter cloud that hovered over his head. Within seconds he was at the source of the smell.

  A haze hung in the kitchen, and the odor was dreadful. Christal stood at the counter, her hair sliding out of the braid at the back of her neck. Her apron was festooned with multicolored stains, and a smudge of black ran across her nose. A curl of carrot peel was stuck over her ear, and shreds of potato skins lay scattered around her feet.

  At her side in an instant, he enveloped her in his arms, carrot peelings and all, and buried his face against the top of her head. “Christal, you’re not injured, are you? Was there a fire? Were you burned? If you are, I could, you know, I’m a doctor, or almost, and—oh, my dear, my dear, my dear.”

  He knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t stop. If anything had happened to her—it was too much to even consider.

  “I’m fine.” She sniffled against his chest.

  Relief mingled with love, he murmured wordlessly as he held her against him. His mouth moved over her head in a series of kisses that flowed like water.

  Dear God, thank You! She isn’t injured, she isn’t burned, and she’s in my arms. Dearest God, thank You!

  The smell was distinct around her, and even more so as he buried his lips into her hair.

  “What’s burned?” he asked, pulling back a bit. “It smells like—it smells like hair! Like burned hair!”

  “It might be.” Christal sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving yet another dark smear.

  “Is it—your hair?” Isaac asked cautiously. The kitchen was a terrible mess. Bits and pieces of food were everywhere, and water pooled on the floor in front of the stove. And above it all, the sharp reek of burned hair permeated the air.

  “Yes.”

  She turned and showed him the awful truth. A section of her hair, over her left eye, was singed off. A short bit, perhaps an inch and a half, stuck straight out, the ends ragged and uneven where they’d been burned.

  “I made a little mistake. I’m not sure exactly how.”

  “Here, sit down.” He guided her to the little table at the end of the counter and pulled out a chair for her and one for himself. “Can I get you a drink of water?”

  She nodded and waved toward the counter. “I was going to make some tea.”

  “Did you burn your hair then?” he asked, getting up to find an empty cup and a tin of tea next to it. The water was hot on the back of the stove—probably, he thought, a way of keeping the room warm at the same time—and he opened drawers until he found a tea ball. He made a pot of tea and then poured them both cups.

  She wrapped her hands around the cup as if seeking the warmth.

  “What happened?” he asked again.

  She looked at him, her blue eyes filled with tears. “I was burning the feathers off the chicken.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. “Christal,” he began, realizing he was in uncharted waters, “this chicken had feathers?”

  “All chickens do,” she said. She stared at him, as if he had taken total leave of his senses.

  He tried to redeem himself. “Well, I know they start with feathers. I understand, however, that one plucks a chicken rather than burning the feathers off.”

  She nodded.

  “And,” he continued, “I don’t know anything about cooking a chicken, but I’m pretty sure they come with their feathers already off. This one didn’t?”

  “Most of them. But my mother always burns off the pinfeathers,” she said. “I’ve seen her. She singes them off.”

  “How?” He almost dreaded the answer.

  “She uses a match.”

  “And you caught your hair on fire doing that?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Then how did you do it?”

  She sighed. “I had peeled the potatoes and scraped the carrots. I was going to put them in the stockpot, but then I remembered that I’d done it backwards, that Mother always started the chicken first. So I pushed them aside, and I got the match, and I singed off the pinfeathers just fine.”

  He rested his chin on his hand. He adored this woman, but she was taking forever to get to the point. “And the fire?” he prompted.

  She shrugged. “I got too close to the match, and the next thing I knew, I was on fire.” She looked sadly at the disarray around her. “I made a mess—a mess of the kitchen and a mess of myself. And everything smells really bad, doesn’t it?”

  “I am not going to lie to you,” he said, smiling at her. She really looked pitiful, sitting at the table, trying to stick her singed hair back into place and being quite unsuccessful. “Yes. Burned hair is quite, um, aromatic, shall we say?”

  As much as he would have liked to linger and talk with her, he had a mission to fulfill—getting the chicken for Christal’s aunt to make soup with. He spoke to her of it.

  “Take it,” Christal said, pushing the stockpot toward him. “You’re lucky you got
here when you did, or it would have been ruined.”

  He glanced inside and saw a sad-looking chicken, its skin charred here and there, evidence of her failed culinary efforts.

  She sat up suddenly as the grandfather clock in the parlor chimed. “Oh, no! Papa will be home in minutes, and look at this place! Look at me! Nothing is ready for him to eat!”

  She leaped to her feet and began sweeping up the mess on the kitchen floor. “Put the vegetables in the pot and run the chicken to Aunt Ruth, please, and let me get this place put to rights!”

  He took the heap of scraped carrots and potatoes, added them to the pot, and put the lid on the top. His muffler had gone awry, and he began to straighten it, turning to say good-bye to her.

  She was on her knees on the floor again, trying to scoop up the fallen potato peelings, and from the audible sniffling, he knew she was crying again.

  “Let me help.” He dropped to the floor beside her and gathered up the scrapings for her.

  “I wanted to help,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “That’s all I wanted to do today was help. Nobody wanted my help. Not you, not your uncle, not my mother, not my aunt, nobody. So I tried to do something on my own, something that would be helpful, and look what I did! And now you want to help me? I can’t do anything on my own.”

  He took her hands in his, ignoring the stray peelings and scrapings that adorned their wrists and fingers. “Christal, it’s a matter of learning,” he said, “and that in itself has its own run of fits and starts. You’ll learn to cook by your mistakes as well as your successes. I’m sure that’s how your mother learned. We all do.”

  “My mother’s perfect.”

  He chuckled. “She may be, but I suspect that she had her trials along the way, too. She has, I’m sure, burned toast and oversalted stew.”

  “Maybe,” she said, her voice brimming with doubt, “but when I compare myself to her. . .”

  He stood up. “I have to get this chicken to the Lawrence household, but before I go, I want to remind you that comparing yourself to your mother is probably not the best idea. She has much more experience than you do. I suspect that what makes us all better at everything we do is actually doing it, getting the experience.”