Random Winds (8 page)

What am I dreaming of?

In such limited free time as he had, Martin observed Dr. Albeniz. He went to his laboratory and to his clinic. With curiosity and fascination he followed some cases through surgery and into ultimate rehabilitation—or else to postmortem. He asked questions, but not too many.

Someone asked, “You going in for neurosurgery? That why you’ve been hanging around Albeniz?”

Not very likely! Who could afford to go in for graduate work? Only very special people, types who could drift through Europe from clinic to clinic, spending a half year here and a half year there with the great authorities of Germany or England, steeping themselves, acquiring knowledge and finally, a name. For that sort of thing you needed independent means. Certainly you needed time. Probably too you needed a mentor to foster and advise.

He was about to go off duty one afternoon when he was summoned to Dr. Albeniz’s laboratory. Perplexed by the summons, he went at once. The doctor was hanging up his lab coat.

“I was wondering whether you like Italian food. There’s a place just a few blocks down Third Avenue.”

“I’ve never had any,” Martin said.

“Good! It’ll be a new experience, and everybody likes Italian food, even Spaniards like myself.”

Outside on the windy street Albeniz explained, “In case you’re wondering about this occasion, it’s just because I like to talk to the rising medical generation now and then.”

“It’s very good of you, sir.” Martin hoped he didn’t appear as awkward as he felt.

When they were seated with a clean, darned cloth and a basket of bread between them, Albeniz asked, “Would you like me to order for you?”

“Please do.”

“All right then. Clams oreganata to begin. Pasta, of
course. Salad. Do you like veal? Veal pizzaiola, then. Isn’t it ridiculous to eat like this without wine? A fine, dry wine with the sunshine in it? You Americans are such Puritans with your Prohibition.” He sighed, rubbing his hands to warm them and was silent a moment. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“You know, I’ve been watching you watch me these last months. You find my work interesting, don’t you?”

“Yes, I—” Martin began, but Albeniz interrupted him.

“Tell me why you wanted to be a doctor.”

Martin said slowly, “It always seemed, as far back as I can remember, the most exciting thing I could imagine.”

“Yes?”

“And I was curious. It’s like solving puzzles. You want to go to the next one.” He stopped, feeling the inadequacy of his explanation.

But the other man smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t say to help humanity,’ or ‘because I love people.’ Some such rubbish. I hear young men say that and I don’t believe them.”

Martin was silent.

“Of course you rejoice when you’ve done something good for another human being! And of course you feel pity when things go wrong! But if you feel too much pity, you break your heart. Or you go crazy.” He waved an admonishing finger. “You have to be disciplined, controlled and expert, a puzzle-solver, as you just said. Then, when the mind is beautifully clear and very cool, then you can really do some good. Sometimes. You understand me?”

“I think so.”

The clams were brought. Albeniz took a mouthful, then laid the fork down. “We know so little. Take my field. It’s only for the last thirty years or so that we’ve dared to go very far into the brain. Neurosurgery is a new discipline and most of what we know we’ve learned since the war.” He paused, picked up the fork and put it down again.

“Although, taking another point of view, it’s very old. Ancient, in fact. The Egyptians trephined the skull four thousand years ago, using sharpened stones.”

With a clean fork, he pressed a diagram into the tablecloth.

“You were in the war, weren’t you, Doctor?”

“I worked in a British military hospital. My clinical training I had taken in Germany before the war.” Albeniz shrugged. “Medicine knows no politics, or shouldn’t. But that early work was crude. There were too many infections. We’ve come a good way since then.”

“I see that.”

“Did you know we’re going to have a separate department starting in September? At last we’ll be removed from general surgery. And high time.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, it’s just been decided. Of course, that will be only a start What we ought to have, what I dream of, is an institute where neurosurgery and neurology could be combined. Then we could truly study the whole brain: its function, pathology, even the tie-in with what is called ‘mental illness,’ which has, I’ve long been convinced, a physical cause. Perhaps God knows how many physical causes.” He sighed. “But, as I say, that’s only my dream. I haven’t the money or the influence to make it come true. I’m no good at medical politics. I’ll just be grateful for this little new department and let it go at that.” He made a small pyramid with his fingertips. “I’m talking too much. Tell me, what do you think about what I’ve just told you?”

Martin shook his head. “I haven’t any right to think. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Well spoken! I like that! I detest these fellows who go on rounds and wisely nod their heads, pretending to know, when they haven’t the slightest idea what it’s all about. How do you like the veal?”

“Oh, great! Some change from the cafeteria!”

“I should hope so. Tell me, what are you planning to do when you finish in June?”

“Work with my father. He’s got a general practice upstate.”

Dr. Albeniz studied Martin. His austere face softened.

“Are you happy about it?”

No one had ever put the question like that. People assumed he was happy. You finished your internship; then you went into practice, and if you had one already waiting
for you, why then, you were just very, very lucky indeed! So he waited a moment and then, for the first time, expressed the truth.

“No sir, I don’t think I am.”

“I see.”

“I guess I haven’t wanted to admit it, even to myself.”

He turned away, looking at an amateurish painting of Italy, candy-pink roses against a white wall and a gaudy blue sky.

“Have some more pasta. You’re thin enough to afford it.”

“Thank you, but I’m not all that hungry.”

“I’ve upset you with my questions, haven’t I?”

“A little, maybe.”

“More than a little. You know, or maybe you don’t know, that I’ve been observing you? Ever since that time you sewed up the girl’s face. It’s strange that you should have come to my attention through work that’s not in my field, but I knew that the hands which could do that without having been taught could do much more.”

Martin waited. He became conscious of his heartbeat.

“And then you began coming to watch me, and you came to the lab and you asked intelligent questions.”

The beat accelerated.

“You’re aware, of course, that you’ve earned a reputation this year?”

“Well, I—”

“Come, come! Dr. Fields tells me you’re the best intern he’s had in his service in ten years.”

“I didn’t know that, sir.”

“Well, you know it now. So hear me. I’m coming to the point. In this new service that I’m to have, I can train two young men. I already have one coming from Philadelphia in the fall. I’m asking you to be the other.”

Martin looked at him dumbly.

“You understand what I’m driving at. I wouldn’t have to waste words with you. I’m doing a lot of talking now, but the fact is, I don’t talk much when I’m working. I’m an impatient man and I need people around me who grasp my meaning quickly. I could work with you, Martin.” He
paused, then added thoughtfully, “I want a man who will grasp the whole concept of the brain, not just a skillful surgeon-mechanic. I want someone who has curiosity. That’s the key word, curiosity. What do you say?”

“Forgive me. I’m stunned.”

“Of course, it’s a new idea for you! This would be another world from the one you had been planning on—sore throats, measles and cut fingers. Not that we don’t need good men who’re willing to do that Men like your father. What do you think he will say to this?”

“Hell be terribly disappointed, I’m afraid.”

Sick over it. Dread sank in Martin like a stone.

“Yes, I can imagine. I’ve never had a son, but I can imagine your father would want you to come home. Still,” Albeniz said quietly, “there are always some who have to break the soft family ties no matter how it hurts. In a way it’s like being a soldier or a monk. I was forty before I got married. In Europe men marry later; it gives them time to develop. My wife knew she would come second to my work. Late at night, on Sundays if need be, I’m at the hospital. It is my devotion. Perhaps I express it badly, English not being my native language.”

“No, sir, you express it very well.”

“You think so? Yes, well, devotion, then. Look. I move my finger. An electrical impulse in my brain provides the energy with which I move the finger. Simple, eh? You think so? Of course you don’t! What if the signal is given and the finger refuses to move? What if a finger moves when the brain doesn’t want it to? These are the tantalizing mysteries. We still know nothing. Nothing. Talk of exploring the poles! Here’s exploration for you!” He broke off abruptly. “You have a girl?”

Martin flushed. “Yes … No … I mean, there’s nothing official, but—”

But her face floats over the pages of my textbooks and no matter what else I’m thinking of, part of me is always thinking of her.

Albeniz smiled. “Well, you’ll work that out. There’s always a way.” He stood up. “You will get twenty dollars a
month and your keep. You will live penuriously, unless, of course, your family has money.”

“Oh no!”

“Then you will live penuriously. There are worse things. In time, you’ll be rewarded for your work with some of life’s comforts, but you will deserve them then, which is more than can be said for a lot of people who live in comfort. Well, I’m going back to the lab for an hour and then home.” He shook Martin’s hand. “The next time we come you’ll try the spaghetti carbonara.”

Martin was halfway back to his room before he realized that Albeniz hadn’t even waited for his acceptance. He had simply taken for granted that no young man could do anything other than accept. And of course, he had been right!

There was such a beating and fluttering in his chest that he couldn’t shut himself indoors just yet; he had to move, to walk. He went rapidly across town. Past Fifth Avenue, where the great stores were shut for the night. Past Sixth Avenue, where the last late workers were leaving the office towers. Westward and southward through shoddy streets. Blowing papers wrapped themselves around his ankles. A luncheonette released the smell of frying grease. Near Times Square a Chinese restaurant wore a garish red-and-gold faked pagoda front The lights of a dance palace blinked in and out. “Fifty Gorgeous Girls. Fifty.” And it was beautiful. Everything was beautiful.

After a long time, he turned back. He felt like shouting out his glory. Remembering his father, he pushed the thought away, knowing that he would handle things somehow because, as Dr. Albeniz had said, there’s always a way.

Then he thought of Mary. She would be home soon and he would talk to her. How foolish of him not to have told her how he felt before she left! Not that she hadn’t known! He smiled to himself. Well, in another month he would put everything into words; he’d buy her a little ring; the three years wouldn’t be all that long to wait. Her father—there was another problem, of course, but not insurmountable, either. Donald Meig’s displeasure was hardly the end of the world!

He sat down at the desk and began a letter. He thought of asking her then and there to marry him, but the words looked either too stark or too florid and he decided he’d rather wait to speak them aloud and hear her answer. For the present he would only describe the marvel that had occurred tonight.

When he had finished he stood for a while looking out of the window. The soft, cold air of February, faintly damp with the nearness of spring, washed over him. A light went on in the wing of private rooms across the street. An ambulance, its tires making a small sigh on the pavement, rounded the corner. He took a long breath and spoke to his empty little room.

“I am going to be a great doctor.” It was half a declaration and half a wondering question. “I am going to be a great doctor.”

By two o’clock in the afternoon of the following day everybody knew about Martin. He was the only intern in the program who would be going on to specialize. It was something to talk about, to be envious of or impressed by. Tom puzzled over it.

“Oh, it’s a stupendous opportunity,” he admitted. “But I don’t know, Martin, it’s a depressing specialty. The patients are all strangers, people you’ll never see again. And most of them die, you know they do.”

“But if we take that attitude, they always will. The idea is to keep them from dying, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t wait to get out on my own. Beats me how you can even think of another three years.”

Tom and Florence were to be married in July and he was to set up practice in Teaneck, New Jersey, with three thousand dollars borrowed from their families. The early marriage Martin could understand and envy, but not the haste to leave the hospital.

I love it here, he thought. For me it’s the heart of the world.

Never before had he experienced such euphoria, such joy. Everything blossomed. He found himself singing as he moved around his room in the mornings. All the faces on the street were friendly. He wanted to walk up to people,
grasp them by the buttonhole and shout at them: Isn’t it a wonderful life? There’s so much you can do with it! So much work, so much love—if only there were more time! Yes, it’s so wonderful and there’ll never be enough time for it all!

Then one day he decided to tell Tom and Perry about Mary. Their goodwill, their good wishes for him brought the usual tears to his eyes and their usual jokes about those foolish tears of his; they knew each other well!

Tom asked, “Have you told your father yet about Albeniz?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m a coward, I guess. But I’ll do it when I go home next month. When Mary gets back.”