A Treasury of Doctor Stories

by Fabricant, Noah D. ; Werner, Heinz;

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  “You don’t look as if you’d got much sleep yourself,” the doctor said. “Oh . . . it’s just this heat.”

  “Got to break soon.”

  “Yes.”

  They were in a bowling alley, that was what it was, although she did not know where the bowling alley was or how she had got there. But the nurse was sitting on one of the wooden theatre seats behind her. She herself was standing, facing the alley with a bowl in her hand.

  She continued with the action that somehow she had begun. She neither felt the bowl with her hand nor felt the floor under her feet when she moved forward. It was like moving through air. She willed herself to make the gestures that somewhere inside she knew should be made now, and her body carried out the commands, but without sensation, without seeming to touch anything at all.

  It just shows what you can do by will power, she thought, surprised. I can do anything I will myself to do, even though I am moving in air.

  She let go the bowl and watched down the long straight alley where the bowl rolled, and heard the rumble of the falling pins.

  She watched as the three black bowls came rolling up the wooden trolley to the side, and came to a stop. She picked up one of them and although she had picked it up she felt nothing against her palm.

  It’s almost fun, she thought, seeing what you can do by will power.

  It was night, and suddenly she could not bear to lie in bed any longer. Since the nurse had stuck the needle in her arm the strangest energy and slow hope had begun in her.

  In the dim spaces of this room the nurse was moving about. She was taking off her cap.

  “I want to get up,” the woman said. “Can I get up? I want to talk.”

  The nurse turned and smiled.

  “All right,” she said. She pulled forward the big chair that was by the window, and helped the woman into it. The nurse sat down on a small straight chair and smiled at the woman

  “But were you going away . . .” the woman said, puzzled. Something stirred in her head, faintly remembered.

  “No,” the nurse said. “I haven’t anywhere special to go. I’d be glad to stay a little later, Mrs. Myles.”

  “You don’t know,” she said, “what hope can feel like. It’s like running water. I mean freedom. Oh, you don’t know what it’s like! To be able to see freedom. Even just a little bit.”

  “You’re going to have all the freedom in the world.”

  “I keep thinking of the loveliest things—long straight roads and driving along them fast in an open car. You don’t know what hope can feel like. It’s like the wind beginning to blow. Am I really going to be free?”

  Suddenly the words of something whose origin she could not remember came into her head and she began to repeat them aloud: “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth in freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  Shall not perish . . .

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “That’s the way it feels. I can’t remember but it wasn’t that way before, it wasn’t by the people, for the people, I mean as if I were the people, as if I were a nation. A woman like a nation.”

  “Yes,” the nurse said. “I know. Instead of under a dictator, you mean. It’s awful to live under a dictator and not belong to yourself any more, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently, pushing that part away from her, for now there was hope, forming like a five-petaled flower, like a star. Sitting forward on the edge of the chair in her excitement, she repeated the words again, whatever they were: “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth in freedom—and that government of the people .. .”

  And after some time the nurse went away and came back with a tall glass that was filled with sugared water, flavored deliciously with lemon, and the woman drank it.

  And on some mornings the doctor and the resident and three internes came into her room, and the resident carried the large syringe. He was always the one who inserted the needle into her vein. It was a thing that came suddenly on some mornings and it had to be faced, once more; endure, she thought, endure to the end. And always at the last she summoned to her the vision, with her eyes closed, of the candle flame, that companioned her through the darkness, through the bad days, through it all. It did not leave her, it remained to fortify her in the last extremity, when they came and the needle went into her arm and in her head spun the carmine circles and the world crashed, and then the dark. . . .

  “Don’t think she’ll have to have another,” the doctor said, as they watched the figure in convulsion on the bed. “This stuff certainly is magic in some cases.”

  On an afternoon in the yellow sunshine, suddenly she was sitting under an apple tree in the yard beside the hospital, and the nurse, Miss Percy, was sitting on the grass beside her. Mrs. Myles turned her head slowly and smiled. The heat had gone; it was a cool and lovely afternoon; the leaves rustled in the tree above her and from its branches came the smell of apples.

  On the grass farther away some internes were playing baseball. Their voices shouted to one another, and the ball could be heard smacking their cupped palms. A breeze trickled along the air. The shadows were beginning to lengthen from the wall of the hospital, and in that light the internes, in their white clothes, ran and shouted. From a grass bank on the other side of the road from the hospital a bird called, suddenly, sweetly.

  “Hello,” Mrs. Myles said.

  “Hello, dear. You’re feeling much better, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. Things were swimming back into her memory, the buildings here were taking their places in the world. And everything was very calm, very peaceful; there was no hurry. It doesn’t matter.

  She looked at the nurse, who had been there all the time. In the darkness and the long confusion, in that strange land where she had been, the nurse had been with her all the time. She studied the dark, smooth hair, the oval face, and the long, dark blue, quiet eyes.

  “How is Dave?” Mrs. Myles said.

  “You’re remembering, aren’t you?” the nurse said, without looking at the patient. “I think he’s fine. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  “But . . .”

  That did not fit. She stayed silent for a little time, while the remembrances slowly rearranged themselves within her head.

  “But, you’re in love with him,” she said slowly. “It was you both. You are in love with each other.”

  “Well . . . You see, we aren’t going together any more.”

  Something was wrong. Wait while the sifting memory slowly settled. Her own life was dead, somehow she had learned that, someone had taught her that in the strange, twilight land. She knew that she had been reborn and that this was a new life. She could never have the things of her own old life, for they had gone and they were dead. But one thing only . . . a candle burning down a vista, some constant star that had companioned her through the dark valleys of the land she had left. . She remembered two figures standing in a doorway.

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” the nurse said. She looked tired. They stared at each other and then a new and curious thing happened, a wave swept upward and from her eyes the woman felt tears falling. It was not despair. It was only deepest sadness. The last thing had gone out of the old life. Now the past was wiped black and she was all alone and beginning a new life, reborn alone. The purest, quietest sadness swept her and she could not halt the tears that fell and fell.

  “You mustn’t mind at all, dear,” the nurse said. But their eyes kept meeting: the nurse’s quiet and dry, the woman’s full of tears.

  The baseball game had broken up and a young interne came strolling by the apple tree, and looked down at the two who sat upon the grass. His face Mrs. Myles knew. It had looked at her on many mornings.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Myles, Miss Percy,” the interne said, and then stopped in embarrassment at the tears on the woman’s face.

/>   “Well . . .” he said. “Seems fine to have a good cry, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, crying quietly, for all that was dead, now, forever, and could never be brought back. And it was fading fast. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget what thou among the leaves hast never known. It was all over; it was finished; the fight with death and sin, the wandering in the strange lost land. It was all gone, and love was gone too, and the candle flame had silently gone out. Above their heads where they sat upon the grass the little leaves in the apple tree whispered. It was all gone, and from now on the world was new, a page unwritten.

  Dr. Mahony

  HENRY HANDEL RICHARDSON

  THAT night a great storm rose. Mahony, sitting reading after every one else had retired, saw it coming, and, lamp in hand, went round the house to secure hasps and catches: in a recent deluge the girl Ellen had been almost drowned in her bed, through neglecting to fasten her door. This done, he stood at the window and watched the storm’s approach. In one half of the sky the stars were still peacefully alight; the other was hidden by a dense cloud; and this came racing along, like a giant bat with outspread wings, and devoured the stars in its flight. The storm broke; there was a sudden shrill screeching, a grinding, piping, whistling, and the wind hurled itself against the house, as if to level it with the ground; failing in this, it banged and battered, making windows and doors shake like loose teeth in their sockets. Then it swept by to wreak its fury elsewhere, and there was a grateful lull, out of which burst a peal of thunder. And now peal followed peal, and the face of the sky, with its masses of swirling, frothy cloud, resembled an angry sea. The lightning ripped it in fierce zigzags, darting out hundreds of spectral fangs, in its craving to reach earth.—It was a magnificent sight.

  Polly came running to see where he was, the child cried, Miss Tilly opened her door by a hand’s-breadth, and thrust a red puffy face, framed in curl-twists, through the crack. Nobody thought of sleep while the commotion lasted, for fear of fire: once alight, these exposed little wooden houses blazed up like heaps of shavings. The clock-hands pointed to one, before the storm showed signs of abating. Now, the rain was pouring down, making an ear-splitting din on the iron roof, and leaping from every gutter and spout. It had turned very cold. Mahony shivered as he got into bed.

  He seemed hardly to have closed an eye when he was wakened by a loud knocking; at the same time, the wire of the night-bell was almost pulled in two. He sat up and looked at his watch. It wanted a few minutes to three; the rain was still falling in torrents, the wind sighed and moaned. Wild horses should not drag him out on such a night! Thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his dressing-gown, he threw up the parlour window.—“Who’s there?”—The hiss of the rain cut his words through.

  A figure on the doorstep turned at the sound. “Is this a doctor’s? I wuz sent here. Doctor! for God’s sake . . .”

  “What is it?—Stop a minute! I’ll open the door.”

  He did so, letting in a blast of wind, and a rush of rain that flooded the oilcloth. The intruder, off whom the water streamed, had to shout to make himself audible.

  “It’s me—Mat Doyle’s me name! It’s me wife, doctor; she’s dying. I’ve bin all night on the road. Now, for the love of—”

  “Where is it?” Mahony put his hand to the side of his mouth, to keep his words from flying adrift in the wind.

  “Paddy’s Rest. You’re the third I’ve bin to. Not one of the dirty dogs’ull stir a leg! Me girl may die like a rabbit for all they care.”—The man’s voice broke, as he halloed further particulars.

  “Paddy’s Rest? On a night like this? Why, the creek will be out.”

  “Doctor! you’re from th’ ould country, I can hear it in your lip. Haven’t you a wife, too, doctor? Wud you want to see her die? Then have a bit O’ mercy on mine!”

  “Tut, tut, man, none of that!” said Mahony curtly. “You should have bespoken me at the proper time to attend your wife.— Besides, there’ll be no getting along the road to-night.”

  The other caught the note of yielding. “Sure an’ you’d go out, doctor dear, without thinkin’ to save your dog if he was drownin’. I’ve got me buggy down there; I’ll take you safe. And you shan’t regret it; I’ll make it worth your while, by the Lord Harry, I will!”

  “Pshaw !”—Mahony opened the door of the surgery, and struck a match. It was a rough grizzled fellow—a “cockatooer,” on his own showing—who presented himself in the lamplight, and told his tale. His poor wife had fallen ill that afternoon. At first, everything seemed to be going well; then she was seized with fits, had one fit after another, and all but bit her tongue in two. There was nobody with her but a young girl, whom he had fetched from a mile away. He had intended, when her time came, to bring her to the District Hospital. But they had been taken unawares.—While he waited, he sat with his elbows on his knees, his face between his clenched fists.

  In dressing Mahony reassured Polly, and instructed her what to say to people who came inquiring after him; for it was unlikely he would be back before afternoon. Most of the regular patients could be left till then. The one exception, a case of typhoid in its second week, a young Scotch surgeon, Brace, whom he had obliged in a similar emergency, would no doubt see for him—she should send Ellen down with a note, the first thing.—And now, having poured Doyle out a nobbler, and put a flask in his own pocket, Mahony reopened the front door to the howl of the wind.

  The lantern his guide carried shed only a tiny circlet of light on the blackness; and the two men picked their steps gingerly along the flooded road. The rain ran in jets off the brim of Mahony’s hat, and trickled down the back of his neck. Did he inadvertently put his foot in a hole or a deep wheel-rut, the water splashed up over his jackboots.

  Having climbed into the buggy, they advanced at a funeral pace, leaving it to the sagacity of the horse to keep the track. At the creek, sure enough, the water was out, the bridge gone. To reach the next one, five miles off, a crazy cross-country drive would have been necessary; and Mahony was for giving up the job. But Doyle would not acknowledge defeat. He unharnessed the horse, set Mahony on its back, and himself holding to its tail, forced the beast, by dint of kicking and lashing, into the water; and not only got them safely across, but also up the steep sticky clay of the opposite bank.—It was six O’clock and a cloudless morning, when, numb with cold, his clothing clinging to him like wet seaweed, Mahony entered the wooden hut, where the real work he had come out to do began. . . .

  Later in the day, clad in an odd collection of baggy garments, he sat and warmed himself in the sun, which was fast drawing up, in the form of a blankety mist, the moisture from the ground. He had successfully performed, under the worst possible conditions, a ticklish operation; and was now so tired that, his chin sinking to his chest, he fell fast asleep.

  Doyle wakened him by announcing the arrival of the buggy. The good man, who had had more than one nobbler during the morning, could not hold his tongue, but made still another wordy attempt to express his gratitude.—“Whither me girl lives or dies, it’ll not be Mat Doyle who forgits what you did for him this night, doctor!” he declared, as he slashed out unavailingly at one of the many “skeeters” that annoyed him. “An’ if ever you want a bit O’ work done, or some one to do your lyin’ awake at night for you, just you gimme the tip. I don’t mind tellin’ you now, I’d me shootin’-iron in here”— he touched his right hip—“an’ if you’d refused—you was the third, mind you!—I’d have drilled you where you stood, God damn me if I wouldn’t!”

  Mahoney eyed the speaker with derision. “Much good that would done your wife, you fathead. . . . Well, well, we’ll say nothing to mine, if you please, about anything of that sort.”

  “No, may all the saints bless ’er and give ’er health! An’, as I say, doctor. . . .” In speaking, he had drawn a roll of banknotes from his pocket, and now he tried to stuff them between Mahony’s fingers.

  “What’s this?—My good man, keep your money til
l it’s asked for!” and Mahony unclasped his hands, so that the notes fluttered to the ground.

  “Then there let ’em lay!”

  But when, in clothes dried stiff as cardboard, Mahony was rolling townwards—his coachman a lad of some ten or twelve, who handled the reins to the manner born—as they went, he chanced to feel in his coat pocket, and there found five ten-pound notes, rolled up in a neat bundle.

  The main part of the road was dry and hard again; but all dips and holes were wells of liquid mud, which bespattered the two of them from top to toe as the buggy bumped carelessly in and out. Mahony diverted himself by thinking of the handsome present he could give Polly with this sum. It would serve to buy that pair of gilt cornices, or the heavy gilt-framed pierglass, on which she had set her heart. He could see her, pink with pleasure, expostulating: “Richard! What wicked extravagance!” and hear himself reply: “And pray may my wife not have as pretty a parlour as her neighbours?” He even cast a thought, in passing, on the pianoforte, with which Polly longed to crown the furnishings of her room—though, of course, at least treble this amount would be needed to cover its cost.—But a fig for such nonsense! He knew of but one legitimate use to make of the unexpected little windfall, and that was, to put it by for a rainy day. “At my age, in my position, I ought to have fifty pounds in the bank!”—times without number he had said this to himself, with a growing impatience. But he had never managed to save a halfpenny. Thrive as the practice might, the expenses of living held even pace with it. He had to keep up appearances, too, nowadays; his debts of hospitality had doubled; nor did it do for his name to be absent from charities and subscription-lists. It was a guinea here, two guineas there, while the new saddle and the medical books he needed, were struck off the list.—And now his brain, having got its cue, started off again on the old treadmill, reckoning, totting up, finding totals, or more often failing to find them, till his head was as hot as his feet were cold. To-day, he could not think clearly at all.