The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice

BOOK: The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice
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Contents

The Physician

Part One: Barber’s Boy

1: The Devil in London

2: A Family of the Guild

3: The Parceling

4: The Barber-Surgeon

5: The Beast in Chelmsford

6: The Colored Balls

7: The House on Lyme Bay

8: The Entertainer

9: The Gift

10: The North

11: The Jew of Tettenhall

12: The Fitting

13: London

14: Lessons

15: The Journeyman

16: Arms

17: A New Arrangement

18: Requiescat

19: A Woman in the Road

20: Caps at Table

21: The Old Knight

Part Two: The Long Journey

22: The First Leg

23: Stranger in a Strange Land

24: Strange Tongues

25: The Joining

26: Parsi

27: The Quiet Sentry

28: The Balkans

29: Tryavna

30: Winter in the Study House

31: The Wheat Field

32: The Offer

33: The Last Christian City

Part Three: Ispahan

34: The Last Leg

35: Salt

36: The Hunter

37: Reb Jesse’s City

38: The Calaat

Part Four: The Maristan

39: Ibn Sina

40: An Invitation

41: The Maidan

42: The Shah’s Entertainment

43: The Medical Party

44: The Death

45: A Murdered Man’s Bones

46: The Riddle

47: The Examination

48: A Ride in the Country

49: Five Days to the West

50: The Chatir

Part Five: The War Surgeon

51: The Confidence

52: Shaping Jesse

53: Four Friends

54: Mary’s Expectations

55: The Picture of a Limb

56: The Command

57: The Cameleer

58: India

59: The Indian Smith

60: Four Friends

Part Six: Hakim

61: The Appointment

62: An Offer of Reward

63: A Clinic in Idhaj

64: The Bedoui Girl

65: Karim

66: The Gray City

67: Two Arrivals

68: The Diagnosis

69: Green Melons

70: Qasim’s Room

71: Ibn Sina’s Error

72: The Transparent Man

73: The House in Hamadhān

74: The King of Kings

Part Seven: The Returned

75: London

76: The London Lyceum

77: The Gray Monk

78: The Familiar Journey

79: Lambing

80: A Kept Promise

81: The Circle Completed

Acknowledgments

Shaman

Part One: Coming Home

1 Jiggety-Jig

2 The Inheritance

Part Two: Fresh Canvas, New Painting

3 The Immigrant

4 The Anatomy Lesson

5 The God-Cursed District

6 Dreams

7 The Color of the Painting

8 Music

9 Two Parcels

10 The Raising

11 The Recluse

12 The Big Indian

13 Through the Cold Time

14 Ball-and-Stick

15 A Present from Stone Dog

16 The Doe Hunters

17 Daughter of the Mide’Wiwin

18 Stones

19 A Change

20 Sarah’s Suitors

21 The Great Awakening

Part Three: Holden’s Crossing

22 Cursing and Blessings

23 Transformations

24 Spring Music

25 The Quiet Child

26 The Binding

27 Politics

28 The Arrest

29 The Last Indians in Illinois

Part Four: The Deaf Boy

30 Lessons

31 School Days

32 Night Doctoring

33 Answers and Questions

34 The Return

35 The Secret Room

36 The First Jew

37 Water Marks

38 Hearing the Music

39 Teachers

40 Growing Up

41 Winners and Losers

42 The Collegian

43 The Applicant

44 Letters and Notes

Part Five: A Family Quarrel

45 At the Polyclinic

46 Heart Sounds

47 Cincinnati Days

48 The Boat Ride

49 The Contract Surgeon

50 A Son’s Letter

51 The Horn Player

52 Troop Movements

53 The Long Gray Line

54 Skirmishing

55 “When Did You Meet Ellwood R. Patterson?”

56 Across the Rappahannock

57 The Full Circle

Part Six: The Country Doctor

58 Advisers

59 The Secret Father

60 A Child With the Croup

61 A Frank Discussion

62 Fishing

63 The End of the Journal

64 Chicago

65 A Telegraph Message

66 The Elmira Camp

67 The House in Wellsburg

68 Struggling in the Web

69 Alex’s Last Name

70 A Trip to Nauvoo

71 Family Gifts

72 Breaking Ground

73 Tama

74 The Early Riser

Acknowledgments and Notes

Matters of Choice

Part One: The Throwback

1 An Appointment

2 The House on Brattle Street

3 Betts

4 Moment of Decision

5 An Invitation to the Ball

6 The Contender

7 Voices

8 A Jury of Peers

9 Woodfield

10 Neighbors

11 The Calling

12 A Brush with the Law

13 The Different Path

14 The Last Cowgirl

Part Two: The House on the Verge

15 Metamorphosis

16 Office Hours

17 David Markus

18 A Feline Intimacy

19 The House on the Verge

20 Snapshots

21 Finding Her Way

22 The Singers

23 A Gift to be Used

24 New Friends

25 Settling In

26 Above the Snow Line

27 The Season of Cold

28 Rising Sap

Part Three: Heartrocks

29 Sarah's Request

30 A Small Trip

31 A Ride Down the Mountain

32 The Ice Cube

33 Inheritances

34 Winter Nights

35 Hidden Meanings

36 On the Trail

37 One More Bridge to Cross

38 The Reunion

39 A Naming

40 What Agunah Feared

41 Kindred Spirits

42 The Ex-Major

43 The Red Pickup

44 Early Concert

Part Four: The Country Doctor

45 The Breakfast Tale

46 Kidron

47 Settling In

48 The Fossil

49 Invitations

50 The Three of Them

51 A Question Is Answered

52 The Calling Card

53 Sunshine and Shadows

54 The Sowing

55 Coming of Snow

56 Discoveries

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright page

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THE PHYSICIAN

by Noah Gordon

With my love
for Nina,
who gave me Lorraine

Fear God and keep his commandments;

for this is the whole duty of man.

—Ecclesiastes 12:13

I will give thanks unto Thee,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

—Psalms 139:14

As to the dead, God will raise them up.

—Qu’ran, S. 6:36

They that be whole need not a physician,

But they that are sick.

—Matthew 9:12

PART ONE
Barber’s Boy

1

THE DEVIL IN LONDON

These were Rob J.’s last safe and secure moments of blessed innocence, but in his ignorance he considered it hardship to be forced to remain near his father’s house with his brothers and his sister. This early in the spring, the sun rode low enough to send warm licks under the eaves of the thatched roof, and he sprawled on the rough stone stoop outside the front door, enjoying the coziness. A woman was picking her way over the broken surface of Carpenter’s Street. The street needed repair, as did most of the small frame workingmen’s houses thrown up carelessly by skilled artisans who earned their living erecting solid homes for those richer and more fortunate.

He was shelling a basket of early peas and trying to keep his eyes on the younger children, his responsibility when Mam was away. William Stewart, six, and Anne Mary, four, were grubbing in the dirt at the side of the house and playing secret giggly games. Jonathan Carter, eighteen months old, lay on a lambskin, papped, burped, and gurgling with content. Samuel Edward, who was seven, had given Rob J. the slip. Somehow crafty Samuel always managed to melt away instead of sharing work, and Rob was keeping an eye out for him, feeling wrathful. He split the green pods one after another and scraped the peas from the waxy seedcase with his thumb the way Mam did, not pausing as he noted the woman coming directly to him.

Stays in her stained bodice raised her bosom so that sometimes when she moved there was a glimpse of rouged nipple, and her fleshy face was garish with cosmetics. Rob J. was only nine years old but a child of London knew a trollop.

“Here now. This Nathanael Cole’s house?”

He studied her resentfully, for it wasn’t the first time tarts had come to their door seeking his father. “Who wants to learn?” he said roughly, glad
his Da was out seeking work and she had missed him, glad his Mam was out delivering embroidery and was spared embarrassment.

“His wife needs him. She sent me.”

BOOK: The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice
11.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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