Doctors (80 page)

Laura’s commitment to Pediatrics was genuine. But it was a measure of how estranged she had become from her own motivations that she failed to recognize that it also demonstrated a
powerful maternal instinct. And she was thirty-six years old. Time on her biological clock was running short.

She began to have terrible nightmares. Though she had no idea where Palmer and Jessica were now living, she was aware that in the same year she and Palmer were divorced, unto them a child was born. A little “preemie”—miraculously weighing in at a hefty eight pounds. Her nightmares re-enacted fantasies of meeting the new Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, seeing their child, and crying out “No, no, no, he’s mine! That baby is mine!”

Yet despite Barney’s badgering, she was reluctant to seek psychiatric help. For she was terribly afraid of many things: of letting it be known around the Institutes that she was anything but Wonder Woman, or
El Peñon
—that rock of rocks, Gibraltar. And, more importantly, she was afraid to confront the desperate conflicts in her own mind. She even had bizarre dreams in which she had played two roles: she was her own mother cursing and castigating herself as “Little Laura” for being too unworthy to survive an angel like her sister.

In her waking life there was only one Laura Castellano she had any respect for at all. The one who, along with her supervisor, Dain Oliver, had a paper accepted by the
American Journal of Pediatrics
before her first Christmas at NIH. (Even by sprinting superbrains this was considered a fast start.) Moreover, she would get to read it at an international congress in Mexico City during the third week of January. As she told Barney on the phone, “I’m flying!”

At least she admired her own academic achievements.

T
he first International Conference of Neonatologists was scheduled for Mexico City from January seventeenth through twenty-fifth, 1974. From all indications it would be an important event. When it comes to saving babies, there are no political divisions East or West. There is no Third World, just one single global
family. No country had an infant mortality rate of zero; which meant there were battles yet to be won.

The group from NIH came close to being the official “American Delegation,” and all of them were staying at the Maria Isabel Sheraton, where the general meetings were to be held. All during the flight Laura sat next to Dr. Oliver and coaxed her kindhearted director into listening to her fifteen-minute paper again and again.

“You’ll be fine, Laura, you’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “You don’t have to memorize it—after all, you’ll have the text right in front of you.”

“I know, Dain, but I keep having this terrible premonition that I’ll get up there and suddenly forget how to read.”

Oliver laughed. “I hardly think that’s likely, Laura. Just remind yourself of how far you’ve come since the first grade. But I can understand your panic. I still remember being unable to keep my breakfast down the day I read my first paper.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about
that
,” Laura replied. “I don’t intend to eat any.”

Just then the plane descended from the halo of smog that constantly crowned La Cuidad de Mexico and began its final approach.

There was a polyglot hum in the crowded hotel lobby. Stretched above the elegant marble registration counter was a banner reading ¡
BIENVENIDO A LOS SALVADORES DE NINOS
! Under which was the same welcome to the English, French, and Russian guardian angels of children.

Like her other colleagues from NIH, Laura was preregistered—one of the few real benefits of working for the government, she told herself. There were two messages for “La Doctora Castellano.” One was a telegram whose contents she intuited before opening: good wishes from Barney in some macaronic approximation of broken Spanish, which concluded, “
Buena suerte y Breaka un leggo.
”

The second message came in a handwritten envelope on hotel stationery. She had been looking forward to seeing some old friends from Boston and assumed this was a harbinger of those reunions. Instead it was an astonishing communication.

“What’s the matter, Laura?” asked Dain, who was standing in line behind her. “You’re pale. Is it bad news?”

She shook her head, unable to respond.

“It must be the altitude,” Oliver concluded. “It takes a while to get used to it. Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll take care of the bureaucracy for you.”

She nodded gratefully and looked for the nearest chair in the lobby. As soon as she was seated she tried to assemble her thoughts. What the hell is my father doing here?

How would she get through the hours between now and eleven-fifteen tomorrow morning when she was scheduled to speak? As soon as she got to her room she tried to call Barney—without success. Why tonight of all nights did her workaholic friend not answer his home phone? She called his office—maybe for some reason he was still there.

But all she got was his answering service. “Is this an emergency?” they inquired solicitously.

No, she thought to herself, I can’t have them page him. Forget it—take a couple of those tablets you prescribe for yourself and go to sleep.

She was slightly dizzy the next morning—but that could have been the pills, the altitude, or even the
came asado
she had tried to eat for dinner. She revived herself with coffee and gave herself a special dispensation to add sugar—which as a doctor she knew was unhealthy and therefore normally eschewed.

Where would her father be sitting, she wondered. This wasn’t the U.N. after all. The physicians from any one country might be sitting together, but not necessarily in alphabetical order. Luis might be far away. Or be waiting right inside the door closest to the podium, waiting to pounce on her with a huge embarrassing paternal hug.

In any case, it was too late for speculation. She could hear the public address system quite clearly from outside; the speaker preceding her had finished answering his final question from the floor.

The chairman of the morning session was a ruddy-cheeked Rumanian who insisted upon making his introductions in French (one of the official languages of the congress). It was the first
time she had ever heard herself referred to as “
Docteur
Laura Castellano.”

She gathered her courage and headed for the podium, eyes downcast, looking neither left nor right. Though the whole purpose of her many hours of rehearsal with Oliver had been to be able to make visual contact with the audience, she read her paper in a hasty monotone, never once looking up from the text.

Chairman Ardeleanu thanked her in florid French and then turned to the audience to ask if there were any brief questions. He recognized a youngish Latin physician who, according to protocol, first identified himself and his provenance: “Jorge Navarro,
Faculdad de pediatría, Universidad Popular de Havana.
”

Laura had been forewarned. The State Department had told them they could expect some provocation from “the usual leftist political plant.” But she had never in a million years imagined that the stooge would be directing his fire at
her.

Why was it, asked the good Dr. Navarro in rapid Spanish, that in the United States, infant mortality for blacks and Hispanics was higher than for whites?

There was a muttering in the audience, some cries of encouragement but mostly groans of distress and disapproval. Even among those of Navarro’s political persuasion there was some dissent at his ungallant choice of an obviously naive young woman as his propaganda target.

“Do I have to answer that?” Laura asked the chairman. “I consider it to have nothing to do with my topic.”

The Rumanian either did not know English or pretended not to. He bowed slightly and said, “
Madame peut répondre.
”

Okay, thought Laura, her anger at being singled out momentarily overcoming her stage fright, I’ll answer this dogmatic little schmuck with some sophistry of my own.

She responded to the Cuban in the language of his question—indeed, the pure Castilian version. Where did he happen to run across such statistics? Did he know that the black birth rate was twice as large as the white—and that Hispanics had the largest families of any ethnic group in the United States? (She was careful to avoid using the term “America” to refer to her country—which
Latin
Americans always deemed arrogant.)

She lambasted him with excruciating politeness, humbly asking if “our distinguished colleague from the Republic of Cuba could possibly explain the reason—if not the relevance—for his inquiry.” No mere straw man, Navarro rose to the task.

“In a so-called developed country, the rate of infant mortality
is an unerring reflection of its attitude toward the future generation—and especially to ethnic minorities.”

The audience was warming to the debate and the chairman saw no reason to deprive them of this unexpected entertainment by enforcing the five-minute limit on discussion.

“I find that an interesting philosophy, Dr. Navarro,” Laura said, taking time to formulate her reply. “And I sympathize with the
Cuban
mothers who suffer an infant mortality exactly
double
that of ours in the U.S. But then of course you are an evolving nation” (she was careful not to say “underdeveloped”) “and we hope that scientific exchanges at congresses like these will help rectify the situation as soon as possible.”

She paused to take a breath, during which time the irrepressible Navarro interrupted, “You are avoiding my question, Doctor.”

“Not at all,” Laura responded calmly. “You were stating the belief that infant mortality rate reflects the majority’s attitude toward minorities. Am I not correct?”

Navarro smiled and folded his arms with satisfaction. “That is indeed the question, Doctor.”

“Well then, how would
you
explain, Dr. Navarro, that your patrons in the Soviet Union—I hope you do agree that Russia is a developed country with innumerable ethnic groups—have a mortality rate more than
three
times as high as the United States’. In fact, it is even fifty percent higher than Cuba’s.”

The air was filled with the silent shouts of “Olé” as Navarro, a wounded bull indeed, sank back in his chair.

Though at this point few still remembered the content of Laura’s actual paper, she left the platform to a warm round of applause.

Dain Oliver rushed up to offer her a hearty handshake and a proud pat on the back.

As she glanced over the shoulders of the congratulating colleagues who had surrounded her, she saw him.

Or at least she saw a gaunt, bony man who vaguely resembled her memories of Luis. But once he caught her eye, there was no longer room for doubt. Still he did not move forward and merely waited till she could break free and come to him.

Moments later Laura moved through an ocean of people, wondering how she should act toward her—long-lost? one-time?—father.

If he opened his arms with paternal affection, should she respond? If he merely offered his hand, should she take it as if
meeting a stranger? Even in these fleeting seconds she realized that the issue was wholly up to him.

Thus, almost as an act of self-preservation, she stopped short several feet from where he was standing.

He smiled warmly. And the look in his eyes left her in no doubt as to the pride he felt.

When he realized she would come no closer, Luis spoke quietly in Spanish.

“Dr. Castellano?” he asked.

“Yes, Dr. Castellano,” she replied.

“How are things?”

“Not bad,” she answered. “You’ve lost weight, Luis.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “That is my only criticism of Cuban democracy—all you can get to drink is rum and I somehow got bored with it. Besides, all civil servants have compulsory exercise. And it hardly befits a member of the Ministry of Health to be drunk or obese—”

“The Ministry of Health?”

“Don’t be impressed, Laura. I’m just a functionary. I mostly translate medical articles. I’ll print yours if you like.”

They were interrupted by Chairman Ardeleanu’s voice through the loudspeaker delivering a grandiloquent introduction for the next participant, a professor from Milan.

“Shall we have a cup of coffee, Laurita?” Luis asked.

He’s using the old affectionate diminutives, she thought.

“Why not?” she replied blankly.

They turned and left the auditorium together, she still not believing that this was really happening.

“The coffee shop is downstairs,” she said, motioning the way.

“Are you crazy?” Luis remarked. “They charge three dollars a cup here! Let’s go somewhere and mix with the people.”

They walked along the Paseo de la Reforma and after a few minutes turned down what was probably the only street in the
zona rosa
shabby enough for her proletarian father. She was right, and they sat on rickety chairs at one of the outdoor tables.

Luis made some cryptic motions to the owner perched by the till behind his laminated counter. The man waved back in what Laura took to be a gesture meaning, “Got it, Luis.”

“That’s my old pal Jaime. He’s deaf. He likes me because I take the time to ‘talk’ to him. Also he’s very sympathetic to the Revolution.”

Luis was looking her over—as if about to begin a complete examination.

“You, too, have lost weight. Are you dieting?”

“No.” She smiled. “I’ve discovered a foolproof method for weight loss—it’s called insomnia.”

Suddenly, Luis leaned across the table—closer to her than he had been in all these years. He whispered, “Laura, I must know—please tell me—” He paused and then added anxiously, “Am I a grandfather?”