Doctors (22 page)

“Jesus, Castellano,” Barney murmured admiringly as they left the classroom several hours later. “You sure showed up all the guys in the class.”

“It was nothing,” she replied. “Why the hell didn’t
you
speak up?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was afraid to stick my neck out.”

She fixed him with a mischievous gaze. “
Neck
, Livingston?” Her eyes twinkled.

Just then Grete joined them.

“Wasn’t that incredibly disgusting?” she asked with a frown.

“What’s the matter?” Laura inquired.

“All those innuendos, Lubar waving that thing around like it was some kind of holy object.”

“Actually,” Barney remarked casually, “it
was
to the ancient Greeks and Romans. They even worshiped it at festivals—”

“Please, Barney, I’ve had quite enough for one afternoon. Frankly, I think Professor Lubar is a … a …”

“A prick?” Laura suggested.

Grete stormed off, flushed with indignation and embarrassment.

If ever proof were needed that the Pilgrim Fathers were truly ascetic Puritans, one would only have to consider the Boston winters. For with the approach of Christmas, the countryside freezes and a merciless wind whips the inhabitants like a penitent’s lash. The Pilgrims could, after all, have landed on the temperate shores of Virginia instead of the harsh Rock of Plymouth
They could even, as other Englishmen did, have emigrated to the West Indies, cast off their tightly buckled shoes, and cavorted in the sand.

But the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted to suffer. And the New England weather gave them ample opportunity.

Even before the first blizzard, the residents of Vanderbilt Hall were snowed in by an avalanche of work. Time was reckoned not in “shopping days before—” but in hours till the first set of Finals—four of them, right in a row: Anatomy, Histology, Physiology, and the dreaded fourth horseman of the Apoplex, Biochem.

Every dormitory window blazed all through the night. Passersby might perhaps have misconstrued it as a ritual to mark the festivals of light, celebrated by cultures throughout the world at the time of the winter solstice—the darkest days of the year. But inside there was no merrymaking, no caroling, and, most importantly,
no sleep.

Things had come to such a pass that even Peter Wyman looked scared.

And Palmer Talbot, a medical student by association, also had to make sacrifices.

“Not even
Saturday
night, Laura?”

“Please try and understand. We’re “like a city under siege here. People are actually freaking out from the tension. Believe me, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

“Then why are you putting yourself through such torture, Laura? As far as I can see, everything you’ve done so far in Med School has been fraught with fear. Why would anyone in their right mind put up with it?”

“That’s just the way it is. Sort of the price I have to pay.”

“And
I
have to pay as well. How can you possibly expect to lead this kind of life and sustain a relationship?”

She sighed. “Palmer, right now the only relationships I can think of are between chemical compounds, cranial nerves, and histological specimens. All of a sudden I’m not a person, I’m a robot studying a human.”

“Well, if you hate it so much, why don’t you quit?”

“I never said anything about hating it, Palmer.”

Though it is a scientific fact that it is impossible for a human being to go without sleep and stay sane, the frenzied med
students pathologically ignored this reality. Caffeine helped, of course, and many measured out the nights in plastic coffee cups.

A few were able to avail themselves of recent pharmaceutical advances. If they were lucky enough to know any upperclassmen or—still better—an intern, they could obtain one of the new “pep pills,” amphetamine sulphates like Benzedrine to stimulate the nervous system and “conquer” sleep. They were too busy poring over other texts to peruse the small print on the labels. Even the fastidious Alison Redmond neglected to question the safety of the tablets that were, so she felt, keeping her “mind as clear as the sky.”

Barney Livingston marched to a different drummer. His own way of vanquishing slumber was with periodic sets of push-ups followed by cold showers. He was regarded as a lunatic by everyone else—except Bennett, whom he had convinced to try the same method.

Laura stuck to cola, and before heading for Barney’s room, would fill a large Thermos at the Coke machine. Outside in the corridor students paced up and down, frantically trying to cram the material on countless index cards into their weary, worried brains.

Only Hank Dwyer was oblivious to all the inhuman pressure. While his fellow classmates thought they were in hell, he felt like a purified soul, who in a few brief days would leave this transient purgatory and soar up to be emparadised in Cheryl’s arms.

At three in the morning before “Inquisition I” (Anatomy A) Laura and Barney agreed on a five-minute break. They lifted his window to invite the cold air to slap them awake and then opened the door to accelerate the breeze. The waking dead paid them no heed and continued to march, mumble, and memorize. March, mumble, memorize.

“I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” said Barney hoarsely. “This is just the way people move in a psycho ward.”

Neither of them laughed. They were too busy trying to remember the origin, insertion, and innervation of the bulbo-cavernosus muscle.

The tests themselves proved anticlimactic. And a kind of relief, since the freshmen were so exhausted after taking them they would grab a bite, go back to their rooms, and fall into deep and dreamless sleep. On the morrow they would walk into the exam rooms like automata and confront new examinations whose
questions would make them so queasy that—almost as a reflex—they would regurgitate information.

At last, with only four shopping days left until Christmas, they were liberated. As she had promised, Laura spent the time at Palmer’s place on Beacon Hill. Although she wondered what joy she could bring him by sleeping eighteen hours a day, he seemed delighted to have her to himself—if only as an immobile object.

Meanwhile, Hank Dwyer became the first man in history to fly home on a bus. For he was en route to seventh heaven.

Grete bade farewell to everyone in the Deanery and hurried to the airport to board a student charter to the great Northwest. In the concluding days of the semester she had subtly hinted that there was Somebody Special waiting for her in Portland. This offered a possible explanation for her coyness and coquetry: she had just been practicing. No doubt her beau was tall, muscular, and Nordic and probably named Lars or Olaf. What need for an Eastern Adonis if you have a West Coast Thor?

Bennett came up to say goodbye to Barney the evening after their last exam.

“Have a good holiday, Landsmann,” Barney said. “I suppose you’ve got a different Cleveland beauty for every night of the twelve days of Christmas.”

“I’m not going home, actually. I’ll be meeting my folks for a fortnight on the slopes.”

“Aha, you mean
le ski
?”

Bennett nodded. “And
l’après ski
, which of course is the best part.”

“Christ, Bennett, that probably means you’ll have
two
girls a day. Whereabouts are you doing your snow jobs?”

“Montana.”

“That’s pretty far.”

“Well, after all, Livingston, I’m a far-out guy.”

Peter Wyman’s plans were the most ambitious of all. He was remaining in Boston to do lab research with none other than Professor Michael Pfeifer.

At seven on the evening of December twenty-third, Palmer drove Laura to Logan Airport where Barney was waiting to join her for the Eastern Airlines shuttle to New York (only fourteen bucks for a mere hour’s aerial roller coaster ride through the turbulent December winds between Beantown and Gotham).

Palmer embraced her warmly, reminded her to choose an
early train to join him for the Hunt Club’s New Year’s Eve fete, and then zoomed off himself toward the ski trails of Vermont where, as he had told Laura, he would sublimate his need for her by schussing himself to exhaustion.

As Laura held their place in the serpentine queue of students waiting to board the flight, Barney excused himself and dashed to the newsstand to buy a
Sports Illustrated.

He did not sprint back. Instead, he walked slowly in a state of mild shock. Only Laura’s voice roused him to action.

“Shake ass, Livingston. We’re going to miss the goddamn plane.”

He broke into a trot for the last fifty or so yards and joined her just as their turn came to hand their chits to the gate attendant.

“What’s the matter with you?” she inquired as they pushed their way into the crowded cabin.

“Nothing, nothing. I guess I’m a little out of shape, that’s all.”

They found two seats together on the far right aisle, squeezed into them, and began to buckle up. Barney was strangely silent, merely staring at the bald spot of the man in front of them.

“Livingston,” Laura persisted, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have—sort of.”

Just then the Lockheed Electra’s propellers emitted a deafening roar.

Laura fidgeted nervously as the plane sped down the runway and then lifted up over Boston Harbor into the wintry sky. At last the engine noise abated and Laura could again press for information.

“What the hell happened, Barn?”

He shook his head in utter consternation. “I was just getting near the magazine racks when I saw Bennett standing in line for a flight.”

“So?”

“He was traveling First Class.”

“Hey, we know he’s got bucks. It’s obvious by the way he dresses. What’s such a big deal?”

“He told me he was going skiing in Montana,” Barney replied. “But that sure as hell isn’t where he’s going. I mean, Castellano, the guy was getting on a
Swissair flight to Zurich
! Don’t you find that a little strange?”

“No,” she replied. “I find that extremely strange.”

T
he Swissair stewardess came by, offering champagne and hors d’oeuvres to the First Class passengers. Bennett Landsmann welcomed the caviar, but politely declined the beverage.

“
Danke, ich werde vielleicht später mit dem Abendessen ‘was trinken.
”

“You speak German very well,” said the bejeweled gray-haired woman sitting next to him. “Where are you from?”

“The exotic city of Cleveland, Ohio, madame.”

“But surely you were not born there?” she continued, obviously fascinated.

“No, I lived the first ten years of my life in a little town called Millersburg, Georgia.”

“And are you going to Zurich for the holiday?”

“Not really. I’ll be meeting my parents to go skiing in Crans-Montana.”

“In Valais? Oh, it’s a beautiful spot.”

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it.” He shut his eyes and continued the dialogue with himself. I may ski in Europe, but I’m sure as hell not German. In fact I’m not even Bennett Landsmann. That is to say, it isn’t the name I was born with.…

It was April 1945. The Allied forces had crossed the Rhine and were advancing toward the heart of Germany. With the Red Army on the outskirts of Vienna, it was clear that the Nazis could not avoid defeat.

On April fourth the all-Negro 386th Tank Battalion of Patton’s Third Army under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Lincoln Bennett entered the peaceful village of Ohrdruf.

On the outskirts of the picturesque German hamlet, they came upon a deserted Nazi labor camp. That is, deserted of life. Gruesome piles of contorted, emaciated corpses were strewn everywhere. The bodies were rotting, filthy, crawling with lice, entwined into knots so tight they could hardly be separated.

Colonel Bennett’s men had been among the first black soldiers to see frontline duty in Europe. They had landed on the beaches of Normandy the previous June, part of the Allied High Command’s desperate rush for replacements to meet the enemy’s massive Ardennes offensive. They had seen heavy combat in the fog-rimmed valley of the Meuse River. As a “reward” for their success, they had been transferred to George Patton’s Third Army, joining the battle for every inch of icy ground on the push eastward through the Siegfried Line into Germany.

They had seen close friends wounded or killed. They had learned to harden their hearts. But now even the strongest of them were unable to restrain their feelings of revulsion. Some could not keep from vomiting. The stench of death and decay polluted their every breath.

Shocked and disoriented, Colonel Bennett ordered his staff photographer to record the ghastly scene. He was determined to send the photographs to General Eisenhower so that Ike could see this obscenity with his own eyes.

As the tall, heavyset commander stood staring at the carnage, one of his lieutenants approached hesitantly to report. “Sir, we’ve found sort of a mass grave outside the camp. There must be thousands of bodies. Some are only half buried. Uh—what do you think we oughta do, sir?”

Linc struggled to regain his powers of speech.

“See that they’re interred properly, Lieutenant,” he answered crisply. “I intend to make a personal inspection.” Then he added softly, “And have the chaplain say some prayers.”

They remained in Ohrdruf for more than a week, while Linc personally supervised almost all of the “proper” burials. Occasionally when the chaplain’s voice began to falter, he would read the prayers himself.

During that whole period, Linc was unable to sleep. The fever and cough that had been plaguing him all through the damp and freezing winter had returned with a vengeance.

Though he had spent many nights sweating and gasping for breath, whenever he thought of seeing a medic he convinced himself that it was just a lousy little flu.

Finally, on the morning of April fourteenth, three other of Patton’s units arrived, the first bearing a welcome directive to press northward. Tired as they were, his men quickly assembled, anxious to leave the atmosphere of this slaughterhouse.

By twilight, as they were moving on the road toward Gotha, small clusters of strange wraithlike figures began to materialize by the sides of the road. One of them, a skeleton who had once been a man, pointed tremulously at the white star on the flag of Colonel Bennett’s jeep and called in a hoarse, quavering voice, “
Amerikaner! Die sind Amerikaner! Wir sind gerettet!
”