Doctors (20 page)

One hundred and twenty-five right hands reached for the brows above them as they began to grope through a fog of recollection for the appropriate responses.

Somehow the hours passed. As most victims were handing in their exam papers and shuffling out, a few zealous obsessives still continued to scribble madly.

“Now, now,” Pfeifer said, as if chastising kindergarteners, “if you can’t say it in all that time, you probably can’t say it at all. Papers, please.”

Outside the lecture hall, expletives outnumbered the ions in the air.

“The guy’s a sadistic maniac!” was one typical hypothesis.

Peter Wyman viewed these reactions as sour grapes in the vineyard of medical ignorance.

“Come on, guys,” he said affably, “granted there was a lot of writing to do, but the questions were absolutely fair and square.”

“Shut up, Wyman,” snapped the normally placid Sy Derman, who just happened to hold a black belt in judo, “or I’ll permanently stop your basic oxygenation with my bare hands.”

“I think Wyman’s bluffing,” Barney suggested. “I mean, he was the last guy to hand in his paper—”

“Yeah,” Laura chimed in, “and you’re sweating like a pig, Peter.”

“Perspiration is the normal means of removing heat from the body, Miss Castellano,” he condescended. “The faster you think, the more calories you burn. I’d say I was putting out five joules per second—at the formula I2Rt.”

“Tell me something, Wyman,” she replied, “were you born obnoxious—or did you have to take lessons?”

“Listen, lady, as far as I’m concerned, this place started going downhill when they began admitting females.”

“
You
listen, kiddo,” she interrupted. “If I hear another molecule of sexual chauvinism, I’ll give you the old Brooklyn one-two.”

“Wow, you’d better be careful,” Barney warned. “Laura wields a pretty mean switchblade.”

“That I can believe,” Wyman sneered. But he nonetheless moved swiftly away.

“Who’s in favor of getting smashed?” Lance Mortimer inquired. There was near unanimity among the dozen or so freshmen who had clustered around Wyman. And they paraded off to Alberto’s Bar and Grille for a festival luncheon of beer and free peanuts.

For they indeed had something to celebrate: For the first time they had been stretched upon the rack of Torquemada and survived—at least to fight another day. A few brave souls sleepwalked back for the afternoon Anatomy section, but most staggered to their rooms and simply passed out.

In one sense, Harvard Medical School is still like the temple of Asclepius: deep scars can miraculously heal overnight. Thus it was that the next day there was no apparent disfigurement on the faces—and perhaps even the psyches—of the students who again gathered in Room C to hear Pfeifer recount the further adventures of the amino acid’s quest for the Perfect Protein.

He at once launched into the thrilling idiosyncracies of the amino acid arginine without so much as a passing reference to the previous session. He knew they were suffering, and they knew that he knew they were suffering. It only magnified the tension.

At last, with some thirty seconds remaining, Pfeifer took a breath and said quietly, “Uh—about the quiz. I’m very pleased to say that some of you did quite well. There were two ninety-eights and even one ninety-nine.” He then added with a smile, “On principle, I never give perfect scores.”

Pfeifer paused, inhaled again, and continued. “Of course there were those who—how shall I put it—still haven’t quite caught on. Indeed, the fact that the lowest score was eleven makes it perfectly clear. But suffice it to say, the majority of you seem to be crowded as it were around the fifty-five mark, and show every possibility of ultimately passing the course.”

Agitated murmurs filled the room. Then, as a valedictory, Pfeifer announced, “I will affix the grade sheet in the usual place early tomorrow morning. Good day, gentlemen.”

He turned on his heel and exited.

As the students started to follow Pfeifer out, Peter Wyman was heard to mumble audibly, “I wonder what I did to lose that point?”

*    *    *

It was Professor Pfeifer’s custom to arrive at the Medical School no later than 6
A.M
., so he could get in a few hours of research without the nuisance of having to talk to students. On the days when he had exam results, he would tack them on the bulletin board outside his teaching office—using only the students’ initials to preserve their anonymity—and then retreat off to his lab.

Needless to say, there were numerous early risers the next morning. In fact, while the sun was still a faint semicircle on the eastern horizon, half a dozen visitors had gone to what, in recent years, had come to be known as the “Wailing Wall.”

Also part of the tradition was the practice of students—even nonsmokers—after they had seen their grades to cauterize their initials with the tip of a lighted cigarette.

Barney arrived at seven o’clock. Bennett was already waiting.

He was not smiling.

Nor, on the other hand, was he frowning.

“What’s the score, Landsmann?”

“Livingston,” his friend replied somberly, “for us it is neither the best of times nor the worst of times. Voilà.”

He pointed to the list and indicated the six names already scorched into oblivion. The recipients of the majestic ninety-nine and the brace of lordly ninety-eights had come and gone. And there were still wisps of smoke emanating from the eleven and the two middle-of-the-roaders who had notched a forty-seven and a fifty-six.

“When did you get here, Ben?”

“I arrived at quarter to and these holes were already here. In fact, you and I seem to be following the essence of Greek philosophy, ‘
meden agan
,’ nothing in excess. I got seventy-four. And you got seventy-five.”

“How do you know? It occurred to me on the way over that we both had the same initials.”

“No sweat. I used my full name for the exam—Bennett
A.
So I’m the seventy-four.”

Barney’s face suddenly lost some of its indoor pallor. “Hey, Landsmann, we’re pretty hot stuff. But how are we gonna obliterate our identities?”

“I’ve got the traditional implement.”

“But you don’t smoke.”

“Of course not, but sometimes I take out unenlightened young ladies who do.” He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a silver cigarette case. Removing a long, thin cigarette, he
lit it with a matching silver lighter. Both were monogrammed—or at least bore a seal.

“Hey, that’s a neat case, Ben. Can I see it?”

He tossed it to Barney. The cover was embossed with a circular crest bearing a silver “A” in a field of bronze.

“What is this?”

“Oh, it belonged to my dad. He was an officer in Patton’s Third Army.”

“Extremely cool,” Barney admired. “My dad served in the Pacific and he didn’t get anything like this. What did your father—”

“Hey, come on,” Bennett interrupted, “it’s breakfast time—eradicate our names and let’s split.”

He handed him the cigarette.

As Barney went to work on their identities, he quickly scanned the grade sheet for Laura’s initials.

They were not there. Which is to say no longer there. Thus she had either done spectacularly well or bombed out.

He would not know what to say if she turned out to be at the bottom. On the other hand, if she were at the top (and, Laura being Laura, this was not impossible), he would not know how he’d feel.

“H
ow did your Biochem test go, Laura?”

“Not bad.”

“Does that mean you did well?”

“No, it simply means what I said—not bad.”

“Come on, we shouldn’t have secrets between us. I’m your future husband, after all.”

“Just for the record, Palmer, I haven’t given an official answer to that one either.”

“Okay, Doctor, okay, I capitulate. Now, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“Studying, what else?”

“That goes without saying. But you’ve got to take some sort of a break. I mean, even prisoners on Death Row eat turkey on Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, I’m sure the dining room will come up with a reasonable facsimile—even if it’s cellophane with plastic stuffing.”

“Then I’ll come and eat ersatz turkey with you.”

“But what about your parents? Won’t they be disappointed not to see you?”

“Not as disappointed as I’ll be at not seeing
you.
”

Palmer then had a sudden disquieting thought.

“Or did you make other plans?”

“Well, actually, I just assumed that Barney and I—”

“Ah, the good Dr. Livingston—” he interrupted.

Laura frowned. “As I was saying,” she continued pointedly. “Barney and I and a few of the first-year chain gang were gonna set up a big table in the cafeteria and pretend we were a family. But there’ve been a few last-minute defections.”

“Namely?”

“Well, Bennett’s flying home to Cleveland for the day to be with his folks—”

“That’s rather extravagant. He must be well off.”

Laura nodded. “I guess so. From the looks of his wardrobe, I’d say he singlehandedly keeps Brooks Brothers solvent. And then Livingston’s finked out as well.”

“Returning to the family seat in Brooklyn?”

“He didn’t say. In fact, he’s been acting kind of strangely for the last week or so.”

“Why—is he angry with you for some reason?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so, unless he’s pissed off because I wouldn’t tell him how I did on the Biochem exam.”

“How did you do, by the way?” thrusted Palmer, trying to catch her off-guard.

“I told you, Palmer,” she riposted, “not bad.”

Barney kept the car radio tuned to WCRB as long as their signal held out. They seemed to be the only station in all of New England that had not already begun to sing Christmas carols on Thanksgiving Day. Since he was all alone in one of Lance’s
Corvettes, he could sing aloud the “Hymn of Thanksgiving,” which he remembered with fondness from his high school days.

Interstate 86 South was virtually empty. Most travelers had reached their destinations and were already sitting at festive tables. To spend Thanksgiving alone was a fate even worse than a solitary Christmas, he decided. Because outside of Macy’s parade on television, there was nothing to do except join your near and dear ones and stuff your face.

Barney’s would be one of the few unstuffed faces. He’d had to disappoint his mother, who had naturally expected him to return to Brooklyn. Moreover, all he had offered by way of explanation was that he had to visit a “friend in trouble.”

(Curiosity had forced Estelle to ask, “Is it a girl?” Barney had merely replied that it was “nothing to worry about.”)

On the northern outskirts of Hartford, he turned off the highway and headed down a series of roads that grew progressively narrower and more primitive. Finally, he squeezed through a narrow dirt path framed by leafless trees, and suddenly emerged into a vast open space. About a hundred yards away was an opulent house in the French style. A small brass plaque at the large wrought-iron gates read:

Barney thought for a moment of its colloquial sobriquet: “Château Loco.” For here dwelt the aristocracy of the mad. Or at least the plutocracy. Rumor had it that the residents paid nearly a thousand bucks a week.

Christ, he thought to himself, for that money their strait-jackets ought to be cashmere. He understood why he was telling himself such feeble jokes. For he had always been told of the paranoia people feel when visiting someone in a mental institution. Even the most confident feel an irrational anxiety that they will be unmasked—and therefore not allowed out.

When he pulled up at the booth to identify himself, he saw that the guard was munching on a turkey leg and looking perfunctorily at a flickering TV screen. He thumbed his clipboard, adding a spot of grease on every page.

“Uh hunh.” He nodded. “Dr. Livingston to see Mr. Eastman. Go right in.” (Barney had merely said on the phone that he was “calling from Harvard Medical School,” but it clearly enhanced his acceptability.)

At the heavy wooden front door he was met by a cherubic
matron who politely offered holiday greetings and, somehow assuming Barney was familiar with the institute, indicated that “the Eastman boy” was taking some air on the back lawn, and “Dr. Livingston” was welcome to seek him there.

Barney nodded and started down the long, high corridor.

Unfortunately, he took a wrong turn and found himself standing before a white metal door that was firmly locked. He peered through the rectangular window of wired glass and saw a phantasmagoric collection of patients shuffling, stretching, groaning, each evidently in his own private world, apparently unwilling or unable to acknowledge the presence of anyone else. It reminded him of a Fellini film. Only
this
unreality was real. Jesus, he thought, is Maury in there?

“May I help you?” called a stern female voice. He turned to find a Valkyrie in nurses’ garb.

“May I help you?” she repeated an octave lower.

“I’m … from Harvard Medical School to see the Eastman boy.”

“Well, he’s certainly not in there,” she protested.

Thank God, Barney thought. “I was told he was on the back lawn. Would you direct me, please?”

She pointed in the proper direction. Barney nodded and hurried off, hoping the fright he felt didn’t show on his face.

He found Maury sitting alone on a large, empty stone terrace overlooking a vast, manicured garden. He seemed to be watching the sun descend behind the rim of the Taconic Mountains.

“Hi, Maury,” Barney said quietly.