Private Practices (31 page)

But in the elevator, leaving their apartment, he grew irritable again. “You still stink,” he muttered.

Sidney closed his eyes and held tight to the railing. Ben moved away from him and, when they left the elevator and emerged onto the street, walked a little in front of him. But he had decided not to try to prevent Sidney from operating this morning. Sidney seemed rational enough. He had remembered what had occurred between them last night and had even understood why Ben had been so tyrannical. There was no point in making an issue over each and every operation and delivery.

At the hospital, Ben parted from Sidney on the ob-gyn floor, letting Sidney head toward the operating suite while he set out to do his rounds. But after they had said goodbye, Ben turned for a moment and looked over his shoulder. Sidney was standing absolutely still, his legs not moving, but his arms shaking and shivering.

“What is it? What's the matter?” Ben said, returning swiftly to Sidney's side.

Sidney continued to shake. “I need more,” he whispered. “Right now. Or else I better reschedule.”

“Rescheduling at the last minute is crazy. You want me to take over for you?”

“No. I want to do it. But I can't move without shaking,” Sidney said worriedly. “Look.” He pushed a leg forward and Ben saw it quiver.

“C'mere,” Ben said, and grasping Sidney's arm propelled him into one of the public bathrooms opposite the elevator. Sidney began to fumble at once for his pills and Ben looked for a paper cup in the dispenser on the wall. Sidney got out two pills and Ben ran the cold water tap, filled the cup and handed it to Sidney.

Sidney swallowed, water cascading down the front of the borrowed suit jacket. Then he slumped down on one of the toilets.

Ben watched him, pacing up and down in the confined area. “How do you feel now?” he asked several times, but Sidney didn't answer. He leaned his head against the metal partition of the toilet. His arms continued to shake. Then at last, the movement of his arms stopped. “I'm all right,” he mumbled. “I'm all right now.”

“Let me see.” Ben stopped his pacing. “Let me see if you can walk straight.”

“Of course I can.”

“Let's see.”

Sidney got up from the toilet and began walking, concentrating on his steps, his eyes cast down.

“Yeah,” Ben muttered. “You're okay. But you've got to stand straight.”

Sidney was still peering at his feet. “Straighten up!” Ben ordered.

Sidney raised his eyes slowly, his shoulders still stooped. He looked birdlike, Ben thought. Ridiculous. Fisting a hand, he pummeled Sidney's stomach. Sidney doubled over, groaning in surprised pain. Ben grabbed him by the arm and, forcing him upright, slapped him hard across the face. He slapped him twice. Then he said, “Come on! Straighten up!” and Sidney did.

Emily sat restlessly in the Zaubers' waiting room and hoped she would be called into her doctor's inner office soon. There were fewer women ahead of her than there usually were, yet she could see from those who were there that it would be at least another half-hour before her own turn came.

Bored, she took a pencil and a small spiral notepad out of her handbag and began checking over the chores she and Philip still had to accomplish if they were to get the baby's room fully ready before her delivery date. They had ordered the linoleum for the floor, and she drew a line through that item on her list. They had selected the crib, a white one with a delicate tracing of flowers on its side, and had even, last Saturday, completed the painting of the walls, Philip boldly working the roller and she meticulously attending to the woodwork.

She drew two more lines, noticing as she wrote that there was still pale lemon paint under her fingernails. But the curtains still had to be decided upon, and the changing table, and the rocker. She knew exactly the one she wanted, a capacious rush-seated rocker with a high back that would cradle her as she cradled the baby and make her so cozy and snug that she could nurse without tension. Emily put an asterisk alongside the word
rocker
and, absorbed in her list, was surprised when at last the nurse at the reception desk, a new nurse she hadn't seen before, called out, “Mrs. Harper, you can go inside now.”

Dr. Zauber was on the telephone. She saw him pick it up just as she opened the door of his office and for a moment she hesitated in the doorway, unsure whether to remain standing or to proceed at once to the patient's, chair next to the desk. Telephone etiquette was years behind the technology itself, she thought, and wished the doctor would indicate what she ought to do with a glance or a wave of his hand. But he had a look of such intense absorption on his face that he seemed virtually unaware of her presence. “Yes, go right ahead,” he was saying. “Yes, I understand that the mother suggested you call me.” Emily decided to remain standing.

“Hypotonic?” Zauber said into the phone, his forehead furrowing. “But isn't it a bit early to be sure?” He kept the mouthpiece close to his lips. “Ah, I see. Yes, of course. It's the diminished visual pursuit and the poor vocalization that are so pronounced.” Zauber shut his eyes. When he opened them again he looked right at Emily but she felt he was looking through her. “Poor Mrs. Kinney,” he said, sighing. “Yes, of course I remember the circumstances. No, there were absolutely no prenatal complications.”

Growing tired, Emily shifted her weight and at last made up her mind to sit down whether Zauber signaled her to the chair or not. She moved forward. Then she heard a change in the doctor's tone that startled her. His voice had grown deeper, angry. “We did everything that could have been done. Started oxygen therapy immediately. Had to keep it up for thirty-six hours.”

Zauber sounded so harsh that Emily retreated again. “Sure I have a theory about it. We had a screwball on duty that night. A kid named Diehl. He did the initial exam and then forgot all about her. Didn't even inform me she was in the hospital until she was ready to deliver.”

Now Zauber laughed, but his laugh was brittle. “Yeah, I guess you've had your problems with residents too. Well, thank you, Doctor. Let me know the results of the neurological workup.”

When Zauber hung up the phone he had such a scowl on his face that for a moment she hardly recognized him. Nor did he seem to recognize her. “Mrs.—Mrs.?” he said, looking at her and then shuffling through the manila folders on his desk.

“Mrs. Harper,” she said brightly, but she felt hurt.

“Oh, yes. Mrs.
Harper
.” He emphasized her name, as if to imprint it. Then he half-smiled and said, “Emily. Of course. How goes it?” and she forgave him his momentary lapse of memory. But all through their talk at his desk, and even when he examined her, she felt his mind was elsewhere. Frequently when she asked him a question he failed to respond, or looked up at her, startled, as if he had forgotten she was still there. His inattention upset her, but she chided herself for being overly demanding. Clearly he had many important things to worry about.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AUGUST

In August, so subtly that he was barely aware of it at first, Ben lost interest in exercising restraints over Sidney. For several weeks the city had been sweltering under a thick, gray cloud that seemed never to shift but to sit ominously overhead, clamped tight like the lid of a stone-gray coffin. It was difficult to breathe, let alone to be constantly alert and supervisory. He began to monitor Sidney less closely, and imagined that this change in behavior was due to lassitude. But gradually he recognized that he had been affected by more than summer doldrums.

For several weeks he had derived great pleasure from discovering that his physical power was greater than Sidney's. Using that discovery, he had prevented Sidney from performing surgery or delivering babies when he was heavily sedated. And he had seen to it that when he deemed him lucid and permitted him to go to the hospital to perform his medical duties, he showered, dressed presentably, and walked with a minimum of shuffling and daydreaming. He'd even managed to halt, if not reverse, his dangerous weight loss by kicking and slapping him to get him to chew and swallow at mealtimes.

But the thrill of pummeling Sidney into obedience was disappearing. What was the point? He had, after all, proven to Sidney which of the two of them was the more powerful. One evening late in August, when the telephone rang and a breathless resident asked for Sidney because one of his patients was getting close to delivery, he knew even before he looked in on his brother that he was going to allow him to handle the birth.

He told the resident to hang on and made his way down the corridor to Sidney's room, shaking his head as he did so. It was astonishing that Sidney still had patients. True, he hadn't many. Most of them, especially the gynecological ones, had been warned off by his peculiarities of appearance and behavior. But a tiny handful of women still insisted on his services. They were chiefly women who had been infertile before coming to Sidney. Pregnant at last, they clung to him with an almost superstitious loyalty. As if it were he, and not his science, that had made implantation possible.

Outside the door to Sidney's room he paused, his nose assaulted by the odors from within. Although Sidney hated to sit down for proper meals, and had to be forced to consume meat or vegetables, in his bedroom he often devoured fruit, candy bars and sweet drinks. He never cleaned up afterward. The floor of the room was piled high with old newspapers and magazines he didn't want to discard, and on top of these was a second edifice of sticky candy wrappers, toppled soda cans, and rotting fruit peels. Worse, he had begun to urinate in his sleep, soiling both his bed and his deep armchair. Ben inhaled deeply through his mouth before turning the knob and entering.

Sidney was slumped in his armchair, staring quiescently at the ceiling despite the blaring TV. He was hugging his stained blue jacket tightly across his chest. He looked like a drunk. Or one of the ambulatory schizophrenics that roamed the poorer areas of the city. “Phone for you,” Ben said. “About a Mrs. Stephens. I told the resident to hold on.”

Sidney ran his hands across his chest, as if seeking assurance about his substantiality. “Do you think I ought to go?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Sidney seemed pleased. He pulled himself up from the armchair and balanced himself cautiously, his feet spread wide apart, before starting to walk in an unsteady broad-based gait to the hall telephone.

“Should I shave?” he asked when he had hung up the phone.

Irritably, Ben shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Is there any change?” Claudia's voice on the other end of the wire that night sounded blue although she was packing for the long-awaited visit to St. Louis for the opening of Bootie's art show. Ben supposed the trip was making her nostalgic. She had mentioned once that she and Sidney had gone to every one of Bootie's exhibits, even the first one, in a storefront.

“No. No change,” he murmured.

“Does he ever ask about me?”

Annoyed, he answered her with a curt “No.” She was really impossibly neurotic. She refused to see Sidney, but she also refused to stop romanticizing her past with him. The one refusal made the other possible.

“Oh, Ben. It's so disheartening.” She was quiet for a while and then she added, “But you will keep working on him, won't you?”

“Of course, I will.”

“Maybe after the baby is born he'll see things differently. See he has a future after all.”

“Sure,” Ben said. He spoke halfheartedly. He wished she'd be more realistic. Sidney was increasing his barbiturate consumption rather than curtailing it. Most likely he'd never be able to give up his habit. All they could really hope for was that he didn't take so much of the drug that he overdosed.

He longed to say this to Claudia. To make her comprehend exactly how deteriorated, how detestable Sidney was. But Claudia had become so friendly. She called so often. And once they'd even had dinner together. Her interest in him might vanish if she ceased believing that, adoring Sidney, he would somehow salvage him for her. “You'll get him to come 'round,” she was whispering. “I haven't given up hope.”

He said, “Me either.” But afterward he added hesitantly, “Though if you'd seen him lately, you might not be so hopeful. Sometimes I think he looks almost like a derelict.”

“You're exaggerating,” Claudia protested at once. “Sidney could never! You're being cruel. It's not like you.”

He pondered her remark. He no longer knew what was and wasn't like him.

“It was fine. I was fine,” Sidney mumbled, returning home an hour later and standing in the doorway of Ben's room.

Ben's eyelids flickered. “No problem?”

“No. You were right about my being able to go tonight.”

Ben didn't tell him that he had decided to let him go no matter what his condition. He couldn't even explain his new callousness to himself, let alone hope to make it comprehensible to Sidney.

Sidney accompanied Ben to the office the next morning although it was Saturday and his appointments calendar was blank. Walking alongside him, Ben felt embarrassed. Sidney shuffled and stumbled and occasionally stopped moving altogether to enter upon an intense, mumbled conversation with himself. But fortunately the neighborhood was deserted. Everyone who could afford the time and money to flee the polluting clouds and debilitating humidity seemed to have done so, leaving the usually bustling side streets abandoned and strangely quiet. Only the avenues were busy, laden with shoppers and traffic. Ben slowed down to keep pace with Sidney on the side streets but at each crossing he walked slightly ahead of him.

He missed Claudia's presence in the city. He found this surprising and tried to analyze why. After all, he saw so little of her, even when she was in town. Their relationship was chiefly electronic. She rarely wanted to see him face to face. Indeed, she rarely wanted to see any man. Although she was separated, she still seemed to be preserving herself for Sidney, and fantasizing their reunion. It was unlikely that she would seek any emotional or sexual liaison until she gave up her fantasies. Saw what Sidney looked like these days.