Tender Victory

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  The doctor laid down a heavy brown-paper parcel of X rays. He lit one cigarette after another, his big face moving, his eyebrows jerking, his mouth pursing. Johnny waited, his hands clenched on his knees, praying for some hope in the older man’s verdict. But the doctor continued to sit there, dropping ashes on his thighs, muttering in his squeaky voice, scratching his ear. Four hospital calls had come in for him, but he had snarled into the telephone and had suggested aspirin or “a jolt of morphine, and tell him to shut up,” and he still sat there, the mound of ashes increasing on his soiled light suit. There were sweat marks under his monster arms, and his shirt collar had become gray.

  Then he said, “This is a hell of a thing.”

  “No hope, then?” said Johnny with despair. He tried to take the X rays away, but the doctor squealed at him, “Let ’em alone, confound you! I’m going to study them some more. That kid’s shoulder—the upper arm. Hell, you’ve probably learned enough anatomy by now without my going into details. How he ever got even partial use of his shoulder and arm again, and his leg, is beyond me. The leg especially. Why, the damned leg is a mess all by itself. Talk about miracles! You’ve got one on your hands now, without asking for another. Show the average bone feller those X rays and he’ll tell you it isn’t possible for the kid to walk, or use his arm at all! And you ask for miracles!”

  “Jean is in almost constant pain,” said Johnny hopelessly. “He’s learned to bear it without complaining. That’s the worst part of—”

  “Good God, we all have pain,” said the doctor with contempt. “Every man jack of us—one way or another. Love to hear these psychiatrists talk about happy adjustment and healthy integration, and other tripe! What they mean is faceless and contented idiots. That’s their aim for most people,” he added darkly. “But take normal people. Even little kids, babies. Pain. A growl here, a colic there, imperfect eyes, imperfect hearing even in the best of ’em. Take kids in the teens. Aches. By that time they’ve got mental aches too. Natural. We don’t lead normal lives; nature never intended us to be civilized, to walk on our hind legs. Now, don’t start talking soul to me. Gibberish. Pain; we’ve got aspirin and codeine and morphine and everything else, but pain lurks right there in the background. A saber-toothed tiger, waiting. And when we’re men and women, the pain, physical and mental, gets worse. Why do you suppose doctors’ offices are crowded? Don’t be a fool.”

  He looked sourly at the package of X rays. “Don’t wonder that kid has more pain than most. I’ll admit that. And it’ll get worse as he grows older. Bones all shattered, originally. How they even knitted as well as they did I don’t know! Against all laws, as we know ’em.”

  “Something must be done,” said Johnny, with more despair. “You see, I practically promised that God will cure him.”

  The doctor grinned evilly. “Why don’t you take him, then, to one of those Papist shrines? Heard they do miracles there.” He shook his head. “But not in this case. Just plain, damned, broken, shattered bones that got healed in a hit-and-miss fashion, and I don’t know how!”

  Johnny waited. Somehow, and he did not know why, his own pain for Jean lessened. The doctor shook a dirty finger in his face. “Wheel chair for that kid, in a year or two, for the rest of his life. Then come the painkillers; work for a while. Then he’ll curse the day you ever rescued him. What do you do then?”

  Johnny said quietly, “You won’t let that happen.”

  The doctor was infuriated. “You parsons! Haven’t a brain in your skulls. Remember my father, face all lighted, talking about the mercy of God. What mercy? Tell me that, boy. What mercy let that kid get kicked almost to death anyway? What about those six million Jews in the crematoriums? And the slave-labor camps in Russia? Tell me where your God is, and was. Tell me that, and I’ll believe in miracles too.”

  Johnny said, and there were white lines about his month, “That’s one of the things I can’t understand. But there must be a meaning to it all.” He clasped his fingers together tightly. “I think of God’s reply to Job’s anguished reproaches. ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.’”

  “If God said that, then He is the biggest sophist of them all,” said the doctor.

  He roughly opened the package and looked at the X rays again. He shook his head. He muttered, as he turned the plates over and over. “Look,” he said, “I’m a general surgeon. I operate on anybody, from a thyroid to gangrene of the toes. You’re supposed, these days, to quarter every section of the body, and just operate on that particular quarter that belongs to you. Damned nonsense. I leave out eyes; that belongs to another field, and I’ve got too much respect for eyes to touch ’em. But the rest of the body—why, a man of sense can go anywhere into it, even the brain or heart. It’s expensive to the public to be a specialist, especially a surgical specialist. But never saw a bright kidney feller who couldn’t take out an appendix, or sew up a hole in the belly or do a rectal job.”

  He thrust the X rays back into the package with scorn. “Send that kid to me tomorrow and I’ll take my own pictures. I’m not promising miracles, remember that. But maybe I can do something about his pain. Cut a few nerves here and there. More than that I’m not giving you any hope.”

  He blinked morosely at Johnny’s sudden brilliant smile. “Damned fool,” he said.

  He dropped his cigarette on the fiber rug and deliberately ground it out there, to Johnny’s alarm. “Don’t worry; it won’t catch fire.” He lit another cigarette; he was addicted to one of the stronger varieties. “Rumors getting around you can get a fine case of cancer of the lungs from cigarettes. More damned nonsense. How do they explain the thousands of babies born with cancer? I can explain it, but they won’t listen. Industrial gases and smoke. Pittsburgh did something about it; why can’t other cities?

  “I’ve got another thing to talk about. You’re crazy. I gave you six months to stay here this afternoon. You won’t last two weeks. Better write Frank Stevens to look around for a new parish for you. Wait until this congregation finds out you’re going to really preach the Word of God!” His squealing laughter filled the room. He slapped his thigh. Then he stopped all at once, and squinted at Johnny. “Poor, damned young fool,’’ he said soberly.

  Dr. McManus’s offices were huge and disorderly, with two nurses and a receptionist who seemed to adore the indomitable old man in spite of his curses and abuse. But his examination rooms were bright and shining. “Sol Klein and the other Jewish boy come in two afternoons a week and help,” he explained to Johnny. “And two Catholic boys I’ve got my eyes on, and three young fellers from the Lutheran Hospital. No regular assistants, though, with good sound salaries. Makes ’em lazy. Just pay my boys so much a case; keep ’em hustling. Well, let’s get those X rays now. It just happens Sol Klein is here. Want him to take a look at this kid.”

  Jean said coldly, “God will cure arm and leg.”

  “Oh, sure, sure!” said Dr. McManus, waving his hand. “But maybe we can help Him out, eh? Never heard He was graduated from a recognized school, though.”

  Dr. Klein was a slight, competent, blond young man who apparently took life very seriously. His blue eyes were steady and sharp, though kind, behind thick glasses. His white coat, unlike that of Dr. McManus, was severely clean and well-fitting. “Like this boy?” Dr. McManus asked of Johnny, putting his meaty hand on the younger doctor’s shoulder. “He isn’t afraid of anything, and that’s what pleases me. That’s why I have him. He’ll go in with a scalpel where the New York specialists wouldn’t go with an X ray, or a barium meal. Had a woman two months ago with cancer of the uterus; spread to surrounding tissues and glands. Turned down in New York. Sol took a chance; she was almost moribund, anyway. And know what? She walks out of the hospital five weeks later; gained ten pounds, recovering. Cured? Don’t know. But shouldn’t wonder.”

  Dr. Klein surprised Johnny with a furtive wink. “He forgets to tell you she comes in three times a week for supplementary
X-ray treatments.” He looked down at Jean, and his narrow face tightened. “So this is the boy who was in a concentration camp. So God is going to cure you, I hear.” He smiled, and his smile was sweet. “We doctors can help a little, or give medicine, but in the end, Jean, it is God who really cures. You understand?”

  “Yes,” said the boy. He stood still while the young doctor’s slim hands moved expertly over his arm and leg. Johnny watched anxiously. Dr. Klein’s face told him nothing; it had gone remote and expressionless. Jean was led into the X-ray room, and Johnny waited in the somewhat disorderly waiting room, filled to the very door with patients. They gazed at his clerical black and his collar, and he gave them shy and tentative smiles. Some returned his smile; some averted their eyes bitterly. He understood, and sighed. The nurses, coming and going, beamed at him encouragingly.

  Dear Father, he prayed silently, let there be a way to cure this child, Thy child. A miracle. A miracle, Father, please.

  He glanced at his wrist watch. The church board and the Ladies’ Aid were giving him a “welcome” dinner tonight. He was apprehensive. He must tell them all, tonight, about Jean and Pietro and Max. It was only fair to give them an opportunity to make up their minds as to whether they would retain him as their pastor. He prayed again: Father, if it be Thy will, let them know, and understand. It is so terribly necessary that they understand.

  He thought of his church, which he had seen this morning. Small, dark, drab, though very clean. There was not an inspirational feature in it, however, and the cheap stainedglass windows had admitted little light, though the morning had been vivid with sun. It had been explained to Johnny that once there had been a cross on the altar; but many of the parishioners had begun to object. A cross on the steeple, yes, but not on the altar! There had even been a quarrel about candles—their amount, size, and position. The “conservatives” had prevailed. Two candelabra on the altar, with small white candles. But nowhere else. A long chandelier, converted twenty years ago from gas to electricity, hung from the steeply pitched oaken ceiling. This was always ostentatiously turned on when the candles were lighted. Johnny thought of the early Christians, who carried lanterns in their hands through secret, smoky caves, and the cross which was always with them, even if only two rough sticks fastened together with hide or rude nails. He sighed.

  The rooms reserved to him in the church were so small that he had barely space to move. His choir? Dr. McManus had chortled over this. Six persons, all mature men. No boys. Why? Popery, of course. There was not even a female singer. “But this sounds worse than any backwoods church of a century ago!” Johnny had exlaimed to the sympathizing Mrs. Burnsdale.

  The automobile furnished him by the congregation was at least seven years old, but it was bravely polished, and a parishioner who owned a small garage and was a fine mechanic had put it in excellent condition. The children had admired it. It was theirs, and therefore finer than Dr. McManus’s limousine. The younger four had cheered on the sidewalk when he had driven off with Jean this morning in a cloud of exhaust and with a brave explosive sound.

  Johnny smiled, remembering. Then a nurse was beckoning to him and he jumped up eagerly and followed her into an examination room. Jean was painfully getting himself into shirt and coat, and the two doctors were watching him in a silence Johnny thought too clinical. “Well, well?” he cried, his voice trembling. Dr. McManus scowled at him. “Oh, it’s you,” he mumbled. “Sit down; you’re not taking off just now.” But Johnny turned to Dr. Klein, imploringly. The young doctor carefully lit a cigarette, his eyes half shut in thought. When Jean, with a dexterity he had agonizingly learned, flipped his coat quickly over his shoulder, Dr. Klein nodded, as if pleased at some confirmation of his diagnosis. Then he said to Johnny, “I say operate, as soon as possible. It’ll be a long business, resetting, patching, and it won’t be comfortable.” He sat down and faced Jean, and he took the boy’s hand. Now his face had a quiet bitterness in it, though his voice was gentle. “Jean, you’ve told me your—father—said God will cure you. God has already performed a miracle for you; He let you live; He sent the minister, here, to you. Now you must have an operation. Hospital. Nurses. Do you know what I mean?”

  Jean stared at him mutely, with pale and rebellious eyes. He answered after a moment, “God will cure.”

  Dr. Klein nodded. “Of course He will. Don’t ever doubt it. You see, we doctors couldn’t cure a single pain without God. We couldn’t help anybody without God.”

  Johnny put his hand on Jean’s stiff shoulder and turned the boy to him. “Jean,” he said urgently. “Look. Do you see my hands? They move, pick up things, work, write. What makes them do these things?” Jean turned his stare to the young minister. Johnny tapped his own forehead. “My brain, in my head. Without my brain my hands couldn’t move at all. Jean, God uses men as we use our hands. We are His instruments, He the Mover. When a doctor, like Dr. Klein here, works to cure people, God is with him. Sometimes God cures all at once, but more often He uses men for His miracles. See, dear?”

  Jean still stared at him remotely, and the three men waited. Then the pale eyes slowly and wisely warmed, and Jean took the minister’s hand, comfortingly. “Papa is miracle,” he said. And for a moment he leaned his head against Johnny’s black sleeve. Man and boy stood closely together, and Dr. Klein smiled again.

  Dr. McManus said, “I think the kid’s right, at that.”

  Dr. Klein walked to the outer door with Johnny and Jean. He shook Johnny’s hand. “Old Al told me about the children and you,” he said. He took his cigarette from his mouth and gazed at it contemplatively. “Somehow, you make me think of our old rabbi—I’ve come to the conclusion none of us deserve our pastors. We’ve got a fine police force in Barryfield, and a good chief. We pay them better than they’re paid in any other city in the state, just to protect our property and our lives.” His thin mouth twisted. “But we pay our pastors much less, for protecting our—shall I say spiritual welfare? Perhaps we think that’s less important.” He threw the cigarette from him, down the white steps of Dr. McManus’s clinic. “I think your coming here wasn’t just an accident, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “Thank you,” said Johnny gravely. “I believe that too.” He hesitated. “Jean, run down and get in the car, will you?” Jean obeyed at once, running down the steps sideways, to help his lame leg. Johnny’s eyes smarted. “Three weeks ago he would contest everything I asked of him, and worse. Now, he’s my right-hand man. Doctor, can you cure him?”

  “Why not?” asked Dr. Klein carelessly. But his smile was quick, if brief. “After all, isn’t—God—on your side?” He nodded, turned, and went inside rapidly. But Johnny swung about, catching up with him. “Just a minute, doctor.” He swallowed hard. “I haven’t much money. What I have was given by good men who had even less, for the children. By soldiers. I do have a check from Dr. Stevens—my superior—and that is also for the children, in equal parts. So I can’t pay very much for the operation. Perhaps, time payments—”

  Dr. Klein regarded him with cold surprise. “Was a fee mentioned?” he asked, and walked off angrily. Johnny watched him go.

  On the way home Johnny explained the operation to Jean, who listened in silence. “So, say next week, Jean. It won’t be very comfortable. But you’re a brave boy. You want a miracle from God, and you are going to get it. God sent us to this city; God sent us to Dr. McManus, and Dr. Klein. Yes, God could cure you all at once. But think a minute. Maybe it was necessary for these doctors to know you, to bring them back to God. By curing you they will cure some sickness of the heart in themselves. Do you understand?”

  Jean’s mouth was tight, his eyes fixed. Then he said, “Yes. I know. Jean and Papa are miracles from God, to doctors. God makes miracles for many.”

  Johnny pressed the boy’s thin fingers. But he said to himself, It’ll be a miracle, indeed, if my congregation accepts me—after tonight.

  When they reached home they found the bleak little house vibrating with excitement. Mrs. Burnsda
le could hardly speak for joy; she tugged at Johnny’s hand and led him like a child into the kitchen. Then she pointed, proudly. The kitchen swarmed with children, who circulated, with exclamations, about a gleaming new white stove and a refrigerator. Tall cartons of pans and dishes stood upon the counters and the table, a wonderful new table of yellow plastic and chrome, complete with matching chairs. A plumber had taken away the ancient sink; another was being installed, the color of honey, gay with chrome fixtures. The plumber glanced over his shoulder at Johnny and grinned. “It’ll be all ready in about ten minutes more, sir,” he said. “Got to hurry, so hope you won’t mind my not getting up from my knees. By the way, I belong to your congregation. Can’t wait to hear your first sermon Sunday.”

  The children crowded about Johnny, screaming with exclamations. “Upstairs, too!” shouted Pietro, pointing at the ceiling. “Pretty colors. Two, Papa!”

  “Quiet now,” said Mrs. Burnsdale firmly. “Go on. Scat. Into the dining room for your lunch. Jean, march those boys off first, to wash their hands, and Kathy, you take Emilie, and comb her hair too. Step!”

  The children quieted immediately, and went off. Mrs. Burnsdale smiled fondly after them. “Wish our own kids had as much sense,” she said, “and knew how to obey grownups. We’re lucky, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “Yes,” said Johnny. He regarded the new furnishings in astonishment. “Dr. McManus must have gotten busy at once. Probably last night, after he left here. He seems to think that we’re not going to be sent away by this congregation. I wish I felt so sure.”

  “You’re sure, sir, about everything but yourself,” said Mrs. Burnsdale in a stern, maternal tone. “Now I want to know, is that right?”

  The plumber glanced curiously over his stout shoulder. “First time old Al ever did anything for any minister, sir. Without the rest of us putting up half right away. Told my wife about it. She couldn’t believe it. Sure we want you. Any parson who can get old Al to do something for him is the kind of parson we want. Yes sir.”