Theophilus North (42 page)

“Why, Doctor, I could take her to an excellent school we know in Arosa. Would you like that, Elspeth?”

“Oh, yes, Mother.” Her glance included me. “If you write letters to me there.”

“Indeed, we shall, dear. And I shall send Arthur over to you for the Christmas holidays.—Dr. Bosco, could I ask you to write Mr. Skeel telling him that you strongly advise this plan?”

“I'll do that.—Good afternoon again, Mr. North.”

“Good afternoon, Dr. Bosco.”

“Mrs. Skeel, Mr. North deserves some kind of medal. He asked me for five minutes of my time. He called on me and finished his business in three minutes. That has never happened to me in my long experience. Mr. North, I telephoned my wife that you were a good friend of our friend Dr. de Martel. She is fonder of Thierry de Martel than she is of me. She asked me to bring you home to dinner tonight.”

“Dr. Bosco, I told a lie. I have never met Dr. de Martel.”

He looked around the room and shook his head in amazement.

“Well, come just the same. It won't be the first time we've had liars to dinner.”

“But, Dr. Bosco, I'm afraid that I'd have nothing to say that could interest you.”

“I'm accustomed to that. Kindly be waiting at the entrance to this building at six-thirty.”

That stopped me. I had heard many stories of Dr. Bosco and I knew that I had received more than an invitation—a command.

When he had left the room, Mrs. Skeel said, “That's a great privilege, Mr. North.”

Elspeth said, “He's very interested in you,
monsieur le professeur
. I told him about your hands and how you had driven my headaches away and how wonderful you had been about Ada Nicois, and how people said that you cured Dr. Bosworth of cancer. I think he wants to know what you
do
.”

My eyes popped out of my head with horror, with shame. H
ELL AND DAMNATION
! . . . I had to get out of the building. I had to get by myself and think. I toyed with the idea of throwing myself into the Charles River. (It's too shallow; besides I'm an expert swimmer. ) I hastily shook hands with the Skeels, thanking them, et cetera, and wishing them many happy days in the Adirondacks. To Galloper I whispered, “Someday you'll be a great doctor; start learning now how to give orders like that.”

“Yes, sir.”

I walked the streets of Boston for two and a half hours. At six-thirty I was waiting as directed. An unpretentious car drove up to the curb. A man of fifty, more resembling a janitor than a chauffeur, alighted and crossing the pavement asked me if I was Mr. North.

“Yes. I'd like to sit up in front with you, if you don't mind. My name's Ted North.”

“Glad to know you. I'm Fred Spence.”

“Where are we going, Mr. Spence?”

“To Dr. Bosco's house in Brookline.”

“Dr. Bosco's gone home already?”

“On Friday afternoons he don't operate. He takes his students around the building and shows them his patients. Then I call for him at five and take him home. On Friday nights he likes a guest or two for dinner. Mrs. Bosco says she never knows what he'll bring home.” That “what” implied stray dogs or alley cats.

“Mr. Spence, I wasn't invited to dinner. I was ordered. Dr. Bosco likes to give orders, doesn't he?”

“Yes. You get used to it. The doctor's a very moody man. I take him to the hospital at eight-thirty and I take him home at six-thirty. Some days he don't say a word the whole time. Other days he don't stop talking about how everything's in bad shape and everybody's stupid. Been like that since he came home from the War. He likes his guests to go home at ten, because he has to write everything down in his diary.”

“Mr. Spence, I've got to take a train from South Station at ten-thirty. How'd I get there?”

“Dr. Bosco's arranged for me to drive you to Newport or to anywhere you want to go.”

“To Newport!—I'll be very obliged to you, if you'll drive me to South Station after dinner.”

Entering the house I was met by Mrs. Bosco—of generous proportions, gracious, but somehow impassive.

“Dr. Bosco would like you to join him in his study. He is making you one of his famous Old-Fashioned cocktails. He doesn't drink them himself, but he likes to make them for others. I hope you aren't hungry, because the doctor doesn't like to sit down to dinner until a quarter before eight.”

In the afternoon, in his white coat, he had the head of a lean Roman senator; in a dark suit his features were more delicate and ascetic—the vicar-general of a religious order, perhaps. He shook hands in silence and returned to the matter that was occupying him. He was making me an Old-Fashioned. I got an impression of a crucible, a mortar and pestle, some vials—Paracelsus making an alchemical brew. He was totally absorbed. I was not asked if I wished an Old-Fashioned nor was I asked to sit down.

“Try that,” he said finally. It was indeed rich and strange. He turned and sat down—with a plan in his head, as though conversation were also a totally occupying discipline.

“Mr. North, why did you represent yourself as a friend of Dr. de Martel?”

“I felt that it was urgent that I have a few minutes of your time. I felt that you should know
one
of the reasons for Miss Skeel's migraines—a reason that no one in the family was in a position to tell you. I felt that a great doctor would want to know every aspect of the case. I have since learned that you had already recommended her removal from her home and that my call on you was unnecessary.”

“No. It opened my eyes to the part that her father was playing in her depressed condition.” He passed his hand wearily over his eyes. “In my field of work we often tend to overlook the emotional elements that enter into a problem that faces us. We pride ourselves on being scientists and we do not see how science can come to grips with such things as emotions. . . . Apparently
that
is an aspect of these problems that you have interested yourself in.” I pretended not to have heard him, but there was no evading any step in the conversation that Dr. Bosco had planned to pursue. “You
do
engage in healing?”

“No. No, Dr. Bosco. I have never made claim to any capacity for healing. Some
children
have talked some nonsense about my having ‘electric hands.' I hate it. I don't want to have anything to do with it.”

He gazed at me fixedly for a moment. “I am told that you enabled Dr. Bosworth to leave his house for the first time in ten years.”

“Please change the subject, Doctor. I just talked common sense to him.”

He repeated thoughtfully, “Common sense, common sense.—And this story about a girl Ada—Ada somebody—who struck her head against a post?”

“Doctor, I'm a fraud. I'm a quack. But when a person is suffering right under your eyes what do you do? You do what you can.”

“
And what is it that you do?
You hypnotized her?”

“I never saw a person hypnotized. I don't know what it is. I merely talked soothingly to her and stroked the bruise. Then I carried her to the superintendent of the Casino who has a lot of experience in first-aid. There was no real concussion. She came back to class two days later.”

“If I ask Mrs. Bosco to join us, will you tell us the full story of Dr. Bosworth's recovery? There's still half an hour before dinner.”

“There are some homely vulgar details connected with it.”

“Mrs. Bosco is used to such details from me.”

“I am a guest in your house,” I said discouragedly. “I shall try to do what you wish me to do.”

He refreshed my glass and left the room. I heard him calling, “Lucinda! Lucinda!” (It was not an invitation but an order.) Mrs. Bosco slipped into the room and sat by the door. The doctor sat at his desk.

“All right,” I said to myself, “I'll give him the works.” I gave him the background of the Death Watch, my first interview with Mrs. Bosworth, our readings in Bishop Berkeley, my increasing awareness of a “house of listening ears,” the family's efforts to persuade him that he was condemned and going crazy, my trip to Providence disguised as a truck driver, the attempt on my life.

Toward the end of the story Dr. Bosco had covered his face with his hands, but not in boredom. When I had finished, he said, “No one tells me anything. . . . I am the specialist who is called in at the end of the game.”

A servant appeared at the door. Mrs. Bosco said, “Dinner is ready.”

Dinner was delicious. The doctor was silent. Mrs. Bosco asked me, “Mr. North, would it bore you to tell us the story of your life and interests?”

I spared them nothing—Wisconsin, China, California, Oberlin College, Yale, the American Academy in Rome, the school in New Jersey, then Newport. I mentioned some of my interests and ambitions (omitting the
shaman
).

“Lucinda, I shall ask Mr. North to join me in my study for coffee.”

It was a quarter before ten.

“Mr. North, at the close of the summer I wish you to come to Boston. I am appointing you to be one of my secretaries. You will accompany me on my rounds. I shall tell each patient that I have full confidence in you. You will visit them regularly. You will report to me on each patient's intimate life-story, and on any strains he or she may be living under. Get to know them by their first names. I have seldom known a patient by his or her Christian name. What is yours?”

“Theophilus.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. That is a beautiful name. It carries connotations that were once real to me; I wish they were today. Are you returning to Newport tonight?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I have arranged that Fred Spence will drive you there.” (It was an order.) “Here is a five-dollar bill you will give him at the end of the journey. It will make you feel more comfortable about the trip. Do not answer now about the proposal I have laid before you. Think it over. Let me hear from you by a week from today. Thank you for coming to dinner.”

I said good night to Mrs. Bosco in the hall. “Thank you for coming and for bringing those soothing hands with you. The doctor's not often as patient as he's been tonight.”

I slept all the way home. At Mrs. Keefe's door I gave Fred Spence the honorarium and climbed up my stairs. Three days later I wrote Dr. Bosco—with many expressions of regard—that my return to Europe in the autumn would prevent my accepting the position that he had offered me. I thought the whole damnable
shaman
business was at an end, but ten days later I found myself in a mess of trouble.

I rejoiced in my apartment, but I was seldom there. My daily work became more and more difficult and I spent many evenings at the People's Library preparing for my classes. At midnight I found notes under my door from my good landlady: “
Three ladies and a gentleman called for you. I let them wait for you until ten in my sitting-room, but I had to ask them to go home at ten. They did not wish to leave their names and addresses. Mrs. Doris Keefe.”
On another night, the same message speaking of eight people.
“I cannot have more than five strangers waiting in my sitting-room. I told them they must go away. Mrs. Doris Keefe.”

Finally on a Thursday evening I was at home and received a telephone call from Joe (“Holy Joe”), the supervisor at the Y.M.C.A. “Ted, what's going on? There are twelve people—mostly old women—waiting for you in the visitors' room. I told them you didn't live here any more. I couldn't tell them your new address because you never gave it to me. . . . There are some more coming in the door now. What are you doing—running an employment agency? Please come over and send them away and tell them not to come back again. There've been a few every night, but tonight beats everything. This is a young men's Christian association, not an old ladies' home. Come on over and drive the cattle out.”

I hurried over. The crowd now overflowed the visitors' room. I recognized some of the faces—servants from “Nine Gables” and from “The Deer Park” and even from “Mrs. Cranston's.” I started shaking hands.

“Oh, Mr. North, I suffer from rheumatism something terrible.”

“Oh, Mr. North, my back hurts so I can't sleep nights, not what you'd call sleep.”

“Mr. North, look at my hand! It takes me an hour to open it in the morning.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am not a doctor. I don't know the first thing about medicine. I must ask you to consult a regular practicing physician.”

The wails mounted:

“Oh, sir, they take your money and do nothing for you.”

“Mr. North, put your hand on my knee. God will reward you.”

“Sir, my feet. It's agony to go a step.”

I had spent a part of my childhood in China and was no stranger to the unfathomable misery in the world. What could I do? First, I must clear the lobby. I rested my hand here and there; I grasped an ankle or two; I drew my hand firmly down some spines. I gave particular attention to the napes of necks. I made a point of
hurting
my patients (they yelped, but were instantly convinced that that was the “real thing”). Gently propelling them to the front door, I planted the heels of my hands on some foreheads, murmuring the opening lines of the
Aeneid
. Then I said, “This is the last time I can see you. Do not come back again. You
must
see your own doctors. Good night, and God bless you all.”

I returned to my own address and dispersed a group that had gathered there.

I dreaded the following Sunday night and had reason to. I made my way to the “Y” and from afar I could see that they had all come back and brought others; a line extended from lobby to sidewalk. I called them all together and held a meeting in the middle of the street. “Ladies and gentlemen, there's nothing I can do for you. I'm as ill as you are. Every bone in my body aches. Let us shake hands and say good night.” I hurried back to Mrs. Keefe's house where another crowd had gathered. I dismissed them with the same words. Mrs. Keefe was watching us from a window. When the strangers had gone she unlocked the front door to me.