Doctors (26 page)

“Besides,” Bennett interposed, “what makes you think it’s going to be any different when we’ve got a human patient on the table?”

“Well, for one thing,
you’ll
be doing the job because you’re the one who’s going to be a surgeon. For another, you’ll
have a legitimate reason for operating in the first place. And most of all, your patient will be cared for twenty-four hours a day. I mean, there sure as hell aren’t any night nurses in the dog labs.”

“Don’t be childish, Laura,” Peter Wyman scolded. “Anyway, what’s the difference? Next Friday we saw open their ribcages, take out their hearts, and it’ll be all over.”

“I’d like to saw your heart open, Wyman,” Laura countered, “only I’d probably need a pneumatic drill.” She returned to her unhappy musings. “I wonder if our doggie knows what’s happening to her. Do you think they gave her something to sleep?”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Wyman declared to the universe, adding, “Castellano, I bet you even cried at
Lassie Come Home.
”

“Damn right I did, Wyman.”

“Ha—I thought you were the iron lady of our class.”

They soon disbanded to return to their book-lined cells. Laura remained, toying with her chocolate chip ice cream. She had barely eaten anything that evening.

“Hey, Castellano,” Barney whispered, “I know what you’re thinking.”

“You couldn’t,” she said, squashing the ice cream with her spoon.

“For chrissake, I’ve been able to read your mind since we were in the sandbox. You wanna go visit our pooch and see if she’s okay?”

She didn’t reply.

“Well?” he demanded.

Now she nodded and looked at him with doleful eyes. “And I know you want to come, too.”

The corridor was pitch black. Laura pulled out a pen-sized flashlight. Its intense pinpoint ray shone nearly the length of the corridor, lighting the final corner they would have to take.

“Hey, where did you get a neat thing like that, Castellano?”

“It was in my mailbox—present from one of the drug companies. Don’t they ever give you any goodies?”

“Yeah, but I never open them. They’re just cheap bribes.”

As they approached the laboratory they could hear sounds from inside—a soft cacophony of little barks and whimpers. The dogs
were
in pain.

“You were right, Castellano,” Barney admitted. “What do you think we should do about it?”

Before Laura could respond, they heard a muffled sound of footsteps padding toward them on the linoleum floor of the corridor.

“Shit, someone’s coming,” she hissed, immediately snapping off the flashlight. They both pressed themselves behind a column.

The footsteps came nearer. Now there was a silhouette visible against the frosted glass windows of the lab room door. As Laura and Barney watched breathlessly, the figure pushed open the door and glided inside.

A moment later the silence became so pronounced that Barney could hear the rapid pumping of his own heart. And then he realized what was happening.

“Castellano,” he whispered, “do you notice anything?”

“Yeah. It’s suddenly quiet in there.”

“Yeah, very very quiet.”

A split second later the figure emerged, went swiftly past them—this time at a jog—and disappeared.

“Okay,” Laura said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve had enough thrills for one evening.”

“You go back if you want to,” Barney replied. “But I’ve gotta see what the hell went on in there.”

“No way, I’m sticking with you even if you go to the boys’ room.”

They tiptoed the dozen or so steps to the lab doors, which opened noiselessly and swallowed them. Once inside they could hear a tranquil hum, which they easily recognized as the sound of animals sleeping peacefully. There was not a single murmur of pain or distress. Laura relit her flashlight and pointed it at the dogs’ cages. They all seemed to be slumbering comfortably. Yet in a few seconds the two realized that several were not moving at all.

“Look at Alison’s collie,” Barney whispered, pointing to the topmost row of cages. They both drew closer and Laura shone her flashlight into the dog’s eyes.

“Jesus, Barney—it’s dead.”

He nodded and then pointed to a cage below them to the right. “That one looks finished to me, too. Where’s our pooch?”

Laura’s narrow beam searched high and low.

“There she is—” They both knelt at their terrier’s cage. Barney quickly reached inside and touched its bandaged underbelly.

“Alive,” he murmured. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“You read my mind, Barney.”

*    *    *

When they were safe again among the living, Barney translated their mutual anxieties into words.

“I’m not sure, Castellano. But I’d guess that someone in our class feels pretty strongly about euthanasia.… I think there’s an argument for calling it humane.”

“Yeah, but there’s also an argument for calling it weird.”

The next afternoon, Professor Cruikshank frowned as he addressed the class. “I’m sorry to have to say that many of you have not shown appropriate care in performing these surgical procedures. We lost nine experimental animals overnight and that means I’ve had to supply nine new ones just for the final vivisection of heart and lungs.”

“But, sir—”

All eyes turned to see who had dared to voice dissent.

“Yes, Mr. Landsmann?” asked the professor.

“Wouldn’t it be more economical—and in a way kinder—if the people who lost their dogs joined other tables?”

“I don’t think so,” the professor responded. “It’s too crucial a part of your medical education. No one should miss his own exploration of living vital organs. This is an aspect you can never get in books—or even as a spectator.”

Bennett nodded. In any case the whole question was academic, since the animals had already been shackled and anesthetized in submissive anticipation of the explorers’ knives.

It had been a strange Christmas for Laura and Barney. They had begun a voyage that was changing their perspective on life. What meager knowledge they now possessed had already begun to set them apart from laymen whose apprehension of the awesome machinery of life was, literally, skin deep.

Still it was wonderful to luxuriate in the amniotic warmth of familial surroundings. Parents were not merely agglomerations of cells, molecules, and tissue, they were embodiments of love and affection. Watching his younger brother gobble sixteen pancakes at breakfast, Barney marveled at the fact that Warren never gave the slightest thought to the effect the glycogenic process he was inducing would have on his metabolism. And it was sheer joy to have conversations that did not require the regurgitation of facts, formulae, or chemical structures.

Warren seemed to have grown in confidence—although that may just have been the impression given by his new mustache.
In any case he had admirably filled the role of man in the family during Barney’s absence, helping Estelle with the preparations for the inevitable sale of the house and her southward move. Law School was still two years off, but both mother and son had already left Brooklyn—in fantasy.

With his newly honed powers of observation Barney could discern things that he had never noticed before. Like the creaks in the steps to the second floor.

Clearly the house was entering old age. Even the basketball hoop on the oak tree had been shorn of its net during October’s hurricane and was corroded by more than a dozen years of winter weather. Rust, dust, creaky boards. Brooklyn itself seemed to be growing tired. So many of their friends had already moved away.

Luis had changed, too. He still described himself as
El Peñon, La Roca de Gibraltar.
But there were deeper furrows in his brow and he was now somewhat disinclined to make house calls at all hours of the night.

Lack of dedication? Lack of energy? If asked directly he would have explained it as a lack of time. His eyes that once would barely glance at calendars were now affected by the movements of the hourglass. He now longed for the weekend. Since he had taken in a Puerto Rican fireball to share his practice, he had let the younger man take Saturdays and Sundays. Meanwhile Luis sat alone in his study, aimlessly skimming through the journals, with the television tuned to whatever football game was being played, as a kind of background music.

And the glass by his side was never empty.

Sunday had ceased to be a special day for Inez Castellano, but only because she now spent every day of the week in penitent prayer.

The already burning zeal had lately intensified, thanks to the advent of Father Francisco Xavier, a charismatic refugee from Castro’s Cuba.

“Thank God,” she told Luis, “he came in time to save our souls.”

“Not mine,
querida
,” he had scoffed, “my soul’s well past saving. You can have Francisco Xavier verify it in his next chat with the Almighty.”

But he was relieved—if not delighted—that although she talked of hellfire, she at least was
talking.
Better auto-da-fé than autism.

Luis’s gentle mockeries had no effect upon Inez’s ardor.
When not in church confessing or reciting Hail Marys, she would read her Spanish Bible.

“Your mother’s studying to be a nun,” Luis remarked, his little smile unable to belie the touch of irritation in his voice. Indeed, from what Laura saw, there was more truth to it than jest.

Inez spent her time atoning for sin—her own, her family’s, the world’s. At first Luis had tried to go to church with her, to sit with her at prayer. But even when her earthly body was mere inches away, her soul was in another world. Their younger daughter was with God already. And his wife was clearly praying for the day that she would join her.

Almost the moment the Castellanos and Livingstons finished Christmas dinner, Inez rose from the table and started to put on her coat and scarf. She could not be late for Vespers and Benediction.

“Let me go with you,” Estelle insisted.

“No, no, please don’t feel obliged.”

“Honestly, I’d enjoy it. The choir is always so beautiful—and I love the sound of Latin—”

She did not add that hearing Latin always brought back memories of Harold, who—especially at this time of year—was very much a living presence in her psyche.

“All right, Estelle, but let us hurry. Father would not be happy if we were late.”

“My mother’s gone completely bananas,” Laura declared to Barney as the two of them began to clear up the dishes from the dining room table.

Warren had decamped for yet another “heavy date.” Dr. Castellano had already escaped to the sanctuary of his study.

“Can’t Luis do anything about it?”

“What do you want him to do, Barn—give her electric shock treatments?”

“That’s not a joke, Laura.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. I really think she’s heading for some sort of breakdown.”

She fell silent for a moment, merely stacking plate upon plate. And then she blurted out, “What’s wrong with me, Barney? My own mother barely acknowledges my existence. My father’s a certifiable alcoholic. It hurts me so much I’m almost beginning to—”

He understood the rest of her unspoken thought.

“I can’t help it. I know I should be more understanding. I mean, professionally speaking.”

“Yeah, there’s the bitch of it, Castellano. You can never be professional about your family. I mean, even if you become dean of the Med School, around here you’ll always be treated like an adolescent.”

“I know,” she acknowledged sadly. “And what’s worse, it makes me
feel
like an adolescent. To be honest, since I see you all the time up in Boston, there’s no real reason for me to come home anymore.”

The next morning Laura sat silent as Barney drove her along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to LaGuardia in the Castellanos’ venerable Studebaker.

Finally he said, “Cheer up for chrissake, Castellano. In less than two hours you’ll be in Boston and—as the poet Milton put it so well—‘emparadised’ in your beloved’s arms. Why the hell aren’t you glowing?”

For a moment, she did not reply. And then, just before the Grand Central Parkway exit to the airport, she said, already holding back the tears, “Look at me—two useless parents—one drunk on God, the other on C
₂
H
₅
OH.”

Barney did not return to Brooklyn, either. Instead he drove back across the Triborough Bridge, then over the George Washington and onto the Jersey Turnpike to begin his long journey toward Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where, the following morning, Hank Dwyer and Cheryl De Sanctis would be consecrated man and wife.

The nuptial Mass was celebrated in St. Anthony’s Parish Church, in the center of America’s industrial heartland. The relatives on both sides of the chapel seemed to be either miners or steel workers.

The reception in the local Knights of Columbus hall featured such diverse delicacies as mozzarella in carozza, lasagne verde, not to mention turkey, ham, and Irish stew for Hank’s relatives. The three-foot-tall wedding cake had the traditional figurines of bride and groom but with a sophisticated difference. For the tiny replica of Hank was also dressed in white, as suited a future doctor, with a miniature marzipan stethoscope around its neck.

But perhaps the most delicious items were the bridesmaids—Cheryl’s sister and three friends—all as voluptuous as the bride herself. And Barney’s endocrine system suddenly reminded him that he had been celibate since the previous summer.

He therefore decided to try his charm on the prettiest of them, who had the evocative name of Gloria Cellini.

“Any relation to Benvenuto?” he asked, attempting to see if flattery would get him anywhere.

“Yes,” she answered, “he’s one of my Chicago cousins.”

Barney was bewitched and bedazzled by her deep brown eyes, the ivory teeth, and the cleft between the two Italian marble spheres that lay below. For a moment he thought he would make medical history and become the first man to die of unrequited lust.

The five-piece orchestra began playing “Fly Me to the Moon.” Barney was already there.

“Are you a doctor, too?” she asked.

“If it will impress you, Gloria, yes. If not, I’ll be a lawyer, Indian chief, or whatever you like.”