Testimony Of Two Men (45 page)

“I’ve sent a scraping down to the laboratory,” said Jonathan.

“Scraping? Why? Oh, to show the fungi?” Dr. Hedler was relieved. He turned to Mrs. Holliday. “Nothing more serious than fungus, my dear. Like, er, like the blisters one gets on one’s feet. Nothing to worry about.”

But Mrs. Holliday was staring with large angry malice at Jonathan. “Look at him! He doesn’t agree with you, Louis! He’s thinking up something terrible about my boy! Something terrible. Stop him, Louis!”

“Now, Elsie. How can I stop anyone from thinking?” Dr. Hedler’s voice was like a sweet ointment. “Thinking doesn’t make a thing so, you know.”

“I believe it does!” said the hysterical woman with passionate emphasis. “You can do terrible things with your thoughts! I’ve heard you can even bring death—”

“Let’s not be superstitious,” said Louis. “Here, my dear, sit down. Do stop trembling.”

But Mrs. Holliday pulled her chair as far as possible from Jonathan and then reached out and took her son’s hand, her own cold and sweating. She said to her son, peering desperately into his face, “You mustn’t listen, my darling, you mustn’t listen! It’s a lie! You know what this man is, you -know what he is!”

“Mama,” said Jefferson.

Her voice rose almost to a scream. “Jefferson! Tell him to go away! Jefferson, you mustn’t listen! You must just laugh at him!” She laughed suddenly and fiercely and looked at Jonathan with ferocious hatred and mad scorn. She tossed her head at him, and bit her Up, and laughed again. “Louis! Make him go away!”

Louis Hedler was deeply disturbed. He could not upbraid Jonathan, remembering how he had saved the life of little Hortense Nolan only the day before, yet he could not offend Mrs. Holliday, to whom the hospital owed so much. He met Jonathan’s eye and saw his hard sympathy, and his plump cheek colored. He said, “In a moment, Elsie. We’ll just get the laboratory reports.” He said to Jonathan, “Can you tell me what you were looking for, Jon?”

“I’m not really looking for anything specifically,” said Jonathan. “I’m just trying to eliminate—something.”

Dr. Hedler was relieved. “What?”

“Let’s wait.”

“I was worrying about isolation,” said the older doctor tentatively.

“And the newspapermen coming any minute!” said Mrs. Holliday, with fierce pride. “To interview Jefferson! All the wonderful things he’s done in South America!”

Jonathan said, “They can’t come in here until we know.”

“Know what?” asked Dr. Hedler. He was newly dismayed, “You suspect contagion?”

“I’m not contagious!” said Jefferson, aghast. “Why, I’ve been with Elizabeth and her father for two weeks in New York, and months in South America! Contagion! My God, Jon, you don’t mean—an infection?”

“I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “Here’s Bob Morgan. Now well know for sure.”

But Robert did not enter the room. He merely stood on the threshold and all the color was gone from his fresh young face. He mutely gestured to Jonathan, and Jonathan rose easily and said, “Want to go outside with us, Louis?”

“Why? Why?” screamed Mrs. Holliday. She jumped up.
“I
won’t be cast aside! I want to hear! No one can stop me!”

Jonathan did not look at her. He went to the door, looked back. Louis was taking the trembling woman’s arm and bringing her forward. “Of course, Elsie, you must hear—”

“What about me?” asked Jefferson with irony. “I’m only the one most concerned. But don’t mind me, lads, don’t mind me.”

Jonathan stopped on the threshold. Then he slowly went to the middle of the room. He looked down at his friend. “You’re right, Jeff. You should know, above everyone else. I’m not the kind to keep news of any kind from a patient. Come in, Bob, come in. Let’s have a consultation.” Robert Morgan implored him with his eyes, but Jonathan obstinately looked away from him. “We have a grown and intelligent man, here, Bob,” he said. “A brave man. He should know, no matter what it is.”

“Indeed,” said Louis, lovingly forcing Mrs. Holliday back into her chair.

Robert Morgan came into the room, and his look was desperate. He spoke only to Jonathan. “There’s no doubt,” he said. “I’ve only seen slides before, but I’m sure.” He paused and again silently implored Jonathan. “Hansen’s disease.”

Jonathan spread his legs and took a deep breath. His face was taut and bony. Mrs. Holliday looked malevolently from one face to the other and took her son’s hand. “What! What!” she cried. “What is that? Hansen’s disease. What is it?” Her glance was again full of hatred, directed at Jonathan. “What does this stupid, wicked man mean?”

Louis was bewildered. “Hansen’s disease,” he said slowly. He nodded his head. “I’m afraid— Jon, you are sure?”

“Bob is. I don’t think the laboratory should know— Nor anyone else. Do you understand me, Louis?”

The older man was baffled. He turned to Robert. “Hansen’s disease. I’m afraid I haven’t encountered it before,” he said. “Something new, tropical?”

“Something as old as hell,” said Jonathan. “Louis, do you want me to give you the old and ancient name of it?”

“No need at all!” said Louis with haste. “One understands. We can’t disturb patients, you know, Jon.” He saw Jonathan’s face.

“What I’d like to know,” said Jefferson, “is just what is Hansen’s disease.”

Jonathan said to Louis Hedler,
“I
wish you’d persuade Mrs. Holliday to go into the waiting room and have a cup of tea or something.”

“No!” shrieked Mrs. Holliday. “You are not,
I
say you are not going to lie about my boy, to kill him with fear, to lie, to lie, to he! You bad, wicked man! You—you murderer! Everyone knows what you did to your poor wife, everyone knows what you did to that poor little child, Martha Best, everyone knows-—”

“Mama,” said Jefferson.

She turned on him with white fire, then stood up and took him in her arms and pressed his face into her meager breast. Over that tawny head she glared at Jonathan and actually spat at him. “Go away, murderer!” she cried. “Go away!”

“Elsie!” said Louis Hedler.

“Oh, I’ll take him home, I’ll take him home!” groaned the woman. “Away from murderers! Louis, you’ll never see another penny of mine, not another penny!”

Then Jonathan went to her and took her away from her son, loosening her arms with controlled but steady violence. “Get away from him,” he said. “Don’t touch him.” He pushed her off, and she staggered
a
little, and Louis caught her arm.

“I don’t understand,” said Louis, jolted. “It can’t be that contagious, Jon. Elsie, do stop screaming. Please, my dear. Jon, it can’t be that contagious.”

Jonathan looked at him steadily in bitter silence. Then he said, “Louis, tell me. Do you know what Hansen’s disease is?”

“Certainly.”

“You lie,” said Jonathan. “I should have known. Take that woman out and put her somewhere, then come back.”

He turned to Jefferson, whose face had become strangely gaunt and still. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Jeff,” he said. “Tell your mother to leave, to let you alone for five minutes. Please, Jeff.”

But Mrs. Holliday had pulled herself away from Louis and was standing stiffly and hysterically in the center of the room, her hands clenched in fists at her side, her face thrust forward. “No one is going to put me out of this room so you can lie and lie, and kill my boy with fear! I am his mother, I’m going to protect him from murderers!”

Jonathan had been through too much the night before, and too much this morning, and the woman’s repetitious and even gloating epithet had reached him finally. He said to her with conscious cruelty, “Very well. I’ll tell you the ancient name of what your son has, Mrs. Holliday. He has—leprosy.”

“Oh, my God,” whispered young Robert, and turned aside. But no one heard him.

Louis Hedler goggled at Jonathan, and his whole body and

face became limp and flaccid. “Leprosy,” he said in a croaking voice.

“Leprosy?” said Jefferson Holliday. He bent his head and said nothing more.

Then a most terrible scream came from Mrs. Holliday. She flew at Jonathan. Her clawed fingers reached for his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth. One of them sank into his lip and tore. She breathed and gasped frenziedly. She fought with him as he tried to hold her, and to the dazed horror of old Louis Hedler she shouted obscenities he had never heard before. She struggled with Jonathan and panted. Finally he flung her from him and Robert caught her. But she was beside herself, mad, frightful as a holocaust. At last Robert dragged her from the room and was gone a little while.

“God help us,” said Louis Hedler, and watched Jonathan wipe the blood from his mouth. “Oh, Jon. It can’t be true. Pardon me. I do feel a little ill. I think I’ll sit down. Jefferson. We can’t be sure—” He started to reach out to take the stricken young man’s hand, then shrank and pushed his chair away.

“I’m sure,” said Jefferson, and his voice was very quiet. “I should have known. I saw the child— It isn’t very rare down there. Not down there. Not as bad as in Africa and Asia, but bad enough.”

He looked at the photograph on the table, then took it in his hands. He began to cry. “Elizabeth,” he said. “Dear Elizabeth.” Then he replaced the photograph and looked at Jonathan.

“What do we do now?” he asked. “But, first tell me. Is there any danger to Elizabeth?”

“No,” said Jonathan. “It takes prolonged association, intimate association. Jeff, you have the nodular type. Sometimes it takes a rapid course, sometimes it goes on—for years. The sooner you are treated for it, the better.”

He could not look at his brave friend, but he had heard, for the first time, the hoarseness in his voice and he knew that the disease had invaded his throat. He said, “I’ve seen two cases, in New York. It isn’t as rare as we like to think, in America. But the old terror of it persists, and perhaps rightly so. Jeff, in Louisiana there is a sanitarium. You must go there at once. There’s an old Indian drug they are using now— chaulmoogra oil. It often arrests the disease. There’s no known cure yet, Jeff, but they may find it. You must go quietly. Some way, you’ll have to keep your mother quiet.

I’m sorry.
I
lost my head and told her, and that’s inexcusable. But there were too many things—I’m sorry. You’ll have to silence her one way or another. You know how people are. There’d be a panic in this town, and we can’t have it, and hysteria in this hospital. People are ignorant. They don’t know that Hansen’s disease is only very mildly contagious, and only after prolonged contact. We can’t have panic. Did you ever see a mob?”

“Yes. Often.” Jefferson spoke indifferently, too overcome by his personal tragedy to feel deeply as yet. “I know what mobs are. I saw them in various parts of South America.” He squeezed his eyelids together. “What shall I tell Elizabeth?”

“You could tell her the truth.
I
hear that people can go to Louisiana to be near those who have—what you have—even to see them and visit them. If she cares enough about you.”

“And we can never be married.”

Jon hesitated. “I’ve heard of arrested cases. Not many, but a few.”

Jefferson lifted his head. “No, I can’t do that to Elizabeth.
I
can’t ask her to waste her life with me. No. I’ll write to her
—I
‘ll tell her anything but the truth. I hope she hates me. It’ll help her.”

Jonathan went to him then and put his arm about his friend’s shoulders and bent over him. Jefferson laughed a little. “What should I have? A bell? ‘Unclean, unclean!’ Jon, aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things,” said Jonathan. “I’m just beginning to find out. But this isn’t one of them.”

“I’m afraid, too,” said Jefferson. “I’m afraid of this.
A
leper. Isn’t that enough to make you laugh?”

Louis Hedler had recovered his wits. He said, “Jon, it’s not that I’m disputing, but shouldn’t we have a consultation, with Philadelphia or New York doctors? It isn’t possible to believe —a leper. A leper! What is to become of this hospital when it is known?”

“Have as many consultations as you wish,” said Jonathan. He was surprised by the other man’s docility. “I’m afraid there’ll just be confirmations. But let me write to a friend in New York, an expert on tropical diseases, though God knows this disease is more widespread in America than we dare admit. Then we can arrange for Jeff to go to Louisiana, where they are treating scores of these cases. Don’t let anyone in this hospital know, Louis, or tell anyone in this town, not even doctors. Just imagine the newspapers!” y

“Where shall I go? What shall I do?” asked Jefferson, totally desolate.

“You can go home at once,” said Jonathan. “Don’t be afraid, Jeff, don’t be afraid. You can’t infect anyone. Wait for us to tell you when to leave. Keep your mother quiet, Jeff. We have a whole town, a whole state, to think about.”

“I’ve never been able to keep her quiet yet,” said Jefferson.

He lifted his hand and Jonathan took it and held it, and Jefferson began to cry again, deep dry sobs of complete anguish. He stammered. “Will I have much pain?”

“Probably,” said Jonathan. “Nerve pain. For
a
While.
I
won’t lie to you, Jeff.”

“And I’ll be isolated from everyone forever,” said his friend.