Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

He carried the baby into the other room. The baby was listless now, no longer crying. Overhead a light sign flashed on and off. “If you have any questions, please be seated at one of the desks.” He sat down.

“Yes, Mr. Tillich.” It was a young man, an orderly, or nurse, not a doctor.

“Why has his classification been changed? What does the new number and designation mean? Why is his next appointment a year from now instead of six months?”

“Hm. Out of infant category, you see. There will be medication. You can pick it up at pediatrics dispensary, a month’s supply at a time, starting tomorrow. Twenty-three allergens identified in his blood. Anemic. Nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Tillich.”

“What does the ‘R/MD one nine four two seven’ stand for? He’s retarded, isn’t he? How much?”

“Mr. Tillich, you’ll have to discuss that with his doctor.”

“Tell me this, would you expect a P/S four two nine eight MC to be able to care adequately for an R/MD one nine four two seven?”

“Of course not. But you’re not . . .”

“His mother is.”

“Why did you decide to come, after all?”

“I don’t know. I guess because you look so miserable. Lonely, somehow.” She stopped, looking straight ahead. A young couple walked hand in hand. “You do see people like that now and then,” she said. “It gives me hope.”

“It shouldn’t. Norma was twenty-two before she . . . She was as normal as anyone at that age.”

She started to walk again.

“What’s your name?”

“Louisa. Yours?”

“David,” he said. “Louisa is pretty. It’s like a soft wind in high grass.”

“You’re a romantic.” She thought a moment. “David goes back to the beginning of names, it seems. Bible name. Do you suppose people are still making new names?”

“Probably. Why?”

“I used to try to make up a name. They all sounded so ridiculous. So made-up.”

He laughed.

“You turn off here, don’t you? Good-bye, David.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Norma slept. The baby lay quietly; he didn’t know if it was asleep. He remembered laughing in the park. The sun shone. They walked not touching, talking fast, looking at each other often. And he had laughed out loud.

“No one came,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. His voice rose. “No one came. They know I need a nurse. It’s on my card. I signed over my pension so they’d take care of me. They agreed.”

“Can I do something?”

“No!” he said shrilly. “Don’t touch it. You know how long I’d last if an infection set in? Call them. Give them the numbers on my card. It’s a mistake. A mistake.”

Tillich copied the numbers, then went out to make the call. The first phone was out of order. He walked five blocks to the next one. Traffic was light. It was getting lighter all the time. He could remember when the streets had been packed solid, curb to curb, with automobiles, trucks, buses, motorbikes. Now there were half a dozen vehicles in sight. He waited for the call to be completed, staring toward the west. One day he’d make up a little back-pack, not much, a blanket, a cup, a pan maybe, a coat. He’d start walking westward. Across Ohio, across the prairies, across the mountains. To the sea. The Atlantic was less than five hundred miles east, but he never even considered starting in that direction.

“Please state patient’s surname, given name, identification number and purpose of this call.”

He did. There was a pause, then the same voice said, This data has been forwarded to the appropriate office. You will be notified. Thank you for your cooperation. This is a recording.” So no one would argue, he knew. He stood staring westward for a long time, and when he got back to his building, he went directly to his own rooms.

“And so he died.”

“He didn’t just die. They killed him. I killed him. They were smart. They saw to it that he had a full week’s supply of those pills. He took them all.”

“I guess most of them had saved enough pills or capsules, same thing.”

“So now they can claim truthfully that everyone who needs home nursing gets it” He kicked a stone hard. She walked with her head bowed.

“If they had known about you, your daily visits to the old man, probably they would have discontinued his nursing service sooner.”

“But I’m not trained to insert a drainage tube.”

“You learn or you lose whoever needs that kind of care.”

He looked at her. She sounded bitter, the first time he had heard that tone from her. “You had something like that?”

“My husband. He needed constant attendance after surgery. On the sixth night I feel asleep and he hemorrhaged to death. I had learned how to change dressings, tubes, everything. And I fell asleep.”

He caught her hand and held it for a moment between both of his. When they started to walk again, he kept holding her hand.

“When I get well, we’ll have a vacation, won t we? We’ll go to the shore and find pretty shells. Just us. You and me. Won’t we?”

“Yes. That would be nice.”

“Will they hurt me?”

“No. You remember. They’ll look at your throat, listen to your heart. Weigh you. Take your blood pressure. It won’t hurt.” He held the baby because he hadn’t dared leave it. They might be there all day. The baby cried very little now. It slept a lot more than it used to and when it was awake it didn’t do anything except suck its fingers and stare fixedly at whatever its gaze happened to focus on. Tillich thought he should cut down on the medicine for it, but he liked it better this way. He didn’t know what the medicine was for, if this effect was the expected one or not.

“You’ll stay with me! Promise!”

“If I can.”

“Let’s go home now.” She jumped up, smiling brightly at him.

“Sit down, Norma. We have to wait.” The waiting room held over a hundred people. More were in the corridor. In this section few of the patients were alone. Many of them looked normal, able, healthy. Almost all had someone nearby who watched closely, who made an obvious effort to remain calm, tolerant, not to excite the patients.

“I’m hungry. I feel so sick. I really feel sick. We should go now.” She stood up again. “I’ll go alone.”

He sighed, but didn’t reply. The baby stared at his shirt. He moved it. One eye had crossed that way. She went a few feet, walking sideways, through the chairs. She stopped and looked to see if he was coming.

“Don’t shriek,” he prayed silently. “Please don’t shriek.”

She took several more steps. Stopped. He could tell when the rush of panic hit her by the way she stiffened. She came back to him, terrified, her face a grey-white.

“I want to go. I want to . . .”

Over and over and over. Not loud, hardly more than a whisper. Until her number was called. They didn’t admit him with her. He had known they wouldn’t. She could undress and dress herself.

The trains came in from Chicago; from New York; from Atlanta. Fruit from the South. Meat from the West. Clothing from the East. A virulent strain of influenza from the Southwest. Tillich had guided it in.

“Cleanliness and rest, nature’s best protection.” The signs appeared overnight.

“If it gets worse,” the superintendent said, “well have to quarantine our people here at work.”

“But my wife is sick. And my child.”

The superintendent nodded. “Then you damn well better stay well, don’t you think?” He stomped off.

He thought of Louisa at the dispensary, in constant face-to-face contact with people. After work he was shaking by the time he reached gate ninety-six, and saw her standing there. He began to run toward her. She came forward to meet him. She looked frightened.