Private Practices (22 page)

It occurred to Ben that he ought to say something, but afraid to challenge Sidney further, he remained silent. Sidney put the vial away and leaned his head back against the top of the chair once again, swiveling slightly so that he could put his feet up on the desk. “Don't worry,” he repeated. He sounded calm again.

His drugged serenity wouldn't last long, Ben thought. When the pills began to wear off he would start feeling agitated. Or perhaps it would happen while the drug was still in his system, its chemical interacting erratically with the brain's own, as the English study was showing. Then Sidney would want more of the drug. And he would take it. Despair and self-doubt had never been part of his emotional makeup. As a result, he would be unable to tolerate the way they inevitably followed in the wake of the drug's initial soothing effects. It would make him strive perpetually to attain additional surcease from anxiety.

Such grasping had never been part of his own addiction. He had been cautious, never having considered himself sufficiently worthwhile to deserve even drug-induced happiness. Sidney, on the other hand, had always considered himself deserving of everything. It was ironic, Ben reflected, but in some mysterious fashion the very weakness of his ego had served to protect him while the grandeur of Sidney's was conspiring to betray him.

“You've got to cut down,” he said firmly, suspecting the futility of his argument but hoping, still, that he might prove effective. “Take the Deutsch Foundation. What are you doing about Neville? His paper'll be out in August and you haven't even gotten in touch with the Deutsch people about it yet.”

“I will. I will. Stop worrying all the time. Stop being such an old maid.” Sidney swung his feet off the desk and leaned toward Ben, punching him playfully on the upper arm.

Ben stood up, annoyed. He was getting nowhere.

Sidney rose too and began to walk Ben to the door, his arm around his shoulders. “I appreciate your concern. And in case I forgot to mention it, I'm proud of you. Proud you got off the pills. I'll do it too, as soon as I'm ready. But in the meantime, not to worry. I'm not likely to do anything disastrous.”

Ben twitched his shoulders, trying to dislodge Sidney's arm. He always found that embrace of Sidney's patronizing, confining. But he realized, as soon as Sidney released him, that Sidney's arm had felt considerably lighter than usual.

“Something splendid?” Philip asked dreamily. Emily's head lay cushioned on his stomach as the two of them sprawled on the rich park grass under a spectacle of cherry blossoms. “Like Constantine or Leopold or Maximilian?” he suggested.

“Eugenie,” Emily said. “But pretty is better than splendid for a girl.”

“Bella, Bellissima, Beldam,” Philip chanted.

“That means an old witch.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. But anyway, what about something flowery, to remind us always of today?” He curled a lock of her hair around his fingers.

“Like Blossom?” Emily asked.

“Yes, or Rose or Lily or Daisy. Or not a flower. Just something natural. Fern, Heather, Brooke.”

“Rivulet,” Emily invented, and thought how playful Philip was these days. He had always been fun to be with, although the amusement he provided tended to be informational, instructional. But lately he had put his pedantry aside, as if her pregnancy had given him the confidence to take life more lightheartedly.

“Sweet little, dear little Rivulet.” Philip half-sitting, reached out, and patted Emily's stomach.

“No! Too French,” Emily said, feeling giddy and pushing Philip back down. “And
too
long.”

“You're right,” Philip said. “Ada, then, if it's a girl. Or Abe, if it isn't. Those are definites, you hear?”

“Aba, Agha, Ama, Ana, Asa, Ava,” Emily singsonged.

“Eben, Ibn, Ian,” Philip countered.

Emily shook her head and said soberly, “The name isn't everything, you know.”

“But it's half of everything,” Philip said. “I mean, if we want him-her to go into journalism, we're going to have to do a last name first. Make it Trussel Harper or Ketcham Harper. And if he-she is going to make us proud by being in the arts, we ought to do something a little foreign—but not French, of course. Pablo Harper or Nokomis Harper or Kikuyu Harper.”

“Kiki, Gigi, Fifi, Mimi, Lili,” Emily rattled off.

“Lilly, Willie, Millie, Tillie, Billy,” Philip intoned.

“Phily!” Emily said. “Oh, Philip, I'm happy. I really am, these days. Even though the world doesn't need any more children. And even though I'm scared.”

“Still scared of having it?” Philip asked, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

“Not that anymore. Of other things. Suppose it grows up hating me?”

“I won't let it.”

“I positively loathed my parents till I was eighteen.”

“But they didn't loathe you.”

She listened to him and nodded. “That was so wise, darling. I see what the whole point is now.”

He tickled her ear with a strand of grass and said, “Stop making fun of me.”

“No, I meant it. It's not my being loved that counts in this, but my being able to love.”

Philip hadn't followed her but suddenly she didn't want to talk. She had felt a tickle in her stomach, a strange gliding sensation just below the surface of her flesh. Her hand flew to the spot. But the sensation had ceased. Sitting up, she waited for it to return, her forehead wrinkling with concentration.

Philip sat up too. “You felt it again?” he asked dubiously.

She nodded and a moment later reached out for Philip's hand, pressing it triumphantly against her stomach.

Ben was in the park that Sunday morning too. Naomi and Petey were visiting the zoo and he had promised to join them there before noon if he didn't get tied up at the hospital. Naomi was bringing sandwiches and after seeing the animals, she and Petey were going to picnic under some big, leafy tree in the meadow.

He hadn't been near the park since the day he had walked alongside it with Claudia after Mulenberg's funeral. The spring had come and flourished and he had been indoors most of the time, preoccupied with his practice and patients and the increasingly disturbing condition of his brother. But the past week had been particularly beautiful, the sky cloudless, the winds gentle, the air soft, and it had filled him with the classic longings and dissatisfactions of spring fever.

He had wanted to get out of the city and drive to the country or to a beach, but unfortunately he had committed himself weeks before to cover for Herron on the weekend. As a pallid substitute, Naomi had suggested the picnic and the park, from which, by virtue of his intercom, he would be as accessible as he would be at home or in the office. But now, just after he had negotiated the milling crowds around the seal pond and was about to mount the stairs in front of the cafeteria, he found himself turning and walking stealthily away from the zoo.

The park belonged to him and Claudia. He didn't want the vividness of his vision of her under the trees destroyed, and it would be if he sullied his memory by spending time with Naomi in the same setting.

He left the zoo and started out of the park, intending to go home and rest. Naomi would assume that he hadn't been able to break free in time and would call him after the picnic. Perhaps then she and Petey would come over to his place and watch the ball game on TV. It was not that he didn't want to see Naomi anymore. No, he still wanted her. Still needed her. Still found her terribly useful in fending off his feelings of difference and isolation. It was just that these days there were some places in which he did not want to see her.

He had meant to go home and await her call, but on Fifth Avenue he began walking uptown instead of east toward his apartment. The street was festive with balloon vendors and girls in pastel dresses. He walked slowly, enjoying the atmosphere, and only after ten minutes of strolling realized he had come to the corner on which Sidney and Claudia lived. He glanced across the avenue, surprised to discover he was opposite their building.

Certainly he hadn't planned to walk in their direction. He had no expectations of seeing them. They were away for the weekend, visiting Claudia's mother outside Boston. Yet he knew at once why he had come to their corner. He stood there a few moments indulging himself in fantasies about Claudia, envisioning her leaning out of one of the tenth-floor windows of their vast, sprawling apartment to ascertain what kind of weather it was, imagining her emerging through the brass-trimmed doors of the building in a flimsy linen dress and waving a polite goodbye to George, the sallow-faced elevator man who lazed now under the canopy, sneaking a cigarette. But the windows of Sidney and Claudia's apartment were closed, the blinds drawn, and no one emerged from the building. The elevator man tossed away the butt of his cigarette and lit another.

Annoyed at how puerile the spring day had made him, Ben forced himself to turn away from the building and start downtown again. If he haunted Claudia's habitat, like some romantic adolescent, he would miss Naomi's call.

He walked half a block and then paused for a moment for a farewell glance at the deserted-looking tenth-floor apartment. Just then he saw Sidney on the far side of the avenue. Tall, expensively suited. He and Claudia must have changed their plans. Decided to stay in town. “Hey!” Ben called above the traffic. “Hey, Sid!” He flung his voice out over the fast-moving cars and buses. But Sidney didn't turn around.

Darting forward, he tried to cross and catch up with his brother. But the traffic was too heavy, and he had to step back toward the curb and wait for the light to change. As soon as it did, he ran across the street, but Sidney was no longer in sight. He had gone into his apartment building. George had gone inside, too.

He followed them, hurrying to the back of the lobby, hoping to catch up to Sidney in the elevator. But the elevator doors were closing even as he scuttled through the lobby. He pressed the buzzer firmly to make sure George came down again immediately, and a moment later George was sliding open the mahogany doors.

“Dr. Zauber,” George said, recognizing him. “Nice to see you. Nice day, isn't it?”

“Sure is.” Impatient, Ben stepped inside the elevator and waited for George to close the doors and push down on the old-fashioned lever that ran the elevator. But George, his hand on the lever, didn't move. “No one's home,” he grunted.

“Of course someone's home. I just saw my brother go up.”

George looked away, his eyes cast down at the lever. “Can't be,” he said, shaking his head. “He and Mrs. Zauber are away for the weekend.”

“I just saw him,” Ben insisted. “You just took him up.”

Again, George stubbornly shook his head.

Ben tried to catch his eyes but George wouldn't look at him. His sallow, skinny face was tilted down toward the elevator lever. Ben looked there too, and saw, peeking between George's thumb and his fisted fingers, a crumpled five dollar bill.

On Monday morning Ben confronted Sidney about the incident, hurrying across the waiting room as soon as Miss Palchek notified him that his brother had arrived. There was only a handful of patients sitting on the waiting room couches and loveseats, and all of them were Ben's. Sidney did his elective surgery on Monday mornings and rarely got into the office until early afternoon. He must have had some cancellations, Ben thought as he tapped on his door; it was only eleven-thirty.

Although there was no sound from within, he pushed open the door anyway. Sidney was standing just inside. He was still wearing his street clothes, although his white lab coat was across his arm, and Ben saw at once that Sidney's expensive blue wool suit was the same one he had been wearing on Sunday. It was crumpled and stained now, as if Sidney had spent the night in it. “Were you in town yesterday?” he asked Sidney outright, as Sidney struggled out of his jacket.

“Yes.” Sidney tossed the creased jacket onto his couch, on top of the mail, but he didn't put on the lab coat.

“You didn't go up to Boston with Claudia?”

“No. She went alone. She's still there.”

“I thought I saw you. In fact, I was sure I saw you. I was across the street from your building. I called out to you. And later I phoned you half a dozen times.”

Sidney, still holding the lab coat, sat down heavily in his desk chair. “I know.”

“Then why didn't you turn around when I called you?” Ben expostulated. “And why did you tell George to say you weren't home? And why the hell didn't you answer the phone?”

“I needed to be alone,” Sidney's voice was hoarse and his face so haggard that for a moment Ben was sorry for his outburst. But he couldn't control himself.

“Why? What got into you?”

“I lost my grant. Layton called me Friday evening.”

Ben looked at Sidney in confusion. One part of him wanted to say, “I told you so,” and another counseled him not to be so small-minded, so petty, when obviously Sidney was in need of commiseration, not rebuke. For a moment he couldn't speak at all. Then at last he managed, “Oh, Christ, I'm sorry. How did it happen? What'd they say?”

“That the pill was going to be too controversial. That if I'd let them know earlier they might have advised a different way of handling Neville. That I ought to work up something else.”

Once again Ben resisted the temptation to admonish Sidney and said, “Well, that's good, isn't it? I mean, they didn't cut you off completely, right? They suggested you come back to them with a different formula?”

“Yeah.” Sidney sounded desolate.

“Well, you will!” For a moment Ben wished that Sidney were standing. If he were, he might clap him on the back in the hearty, brotherly fashion Sidney himself always relied upon to suggest support or concern. But Sidney was slouched in his desk chair, his head bent over his fingertips. “No,” he was saying. “I spent a lifetime developing that pill.”