Louise Erdrich - Four Souls

“Yes,” said Placide, rather strongly, “there is no crisis!”

“No propagative crisis,” said the doctor, making certain.

Placide must have nodded or made some sign, for she gave no verbal answer.

“Then my diagnosis is confirmed.” The doctor’s tone was rather grim. “The frustration of your husband’s natural discharge has resulted, I must say, in the most bitter penalty. Sit down, Mrs. Mauser. You will hear me!”

I heard the chair creak.

“In the beginning,” said the doctor, “your husband’s dulled eye, his sallow countenance, drawn features, and pained air of melancholy, as well as his insistence on social isolation, caused me to suspect that he suffered from one of the secret diseases.”

I gasped, rather loudly, and Placide said nervously, “What was that?”

“A secret disease,” repeated Dr. Fulmer, mistaking her suspicion for ignorance. “If I must be completely direct, so be it. I suspected the masked pestilence!”

But Placide must have still affected that blank sweetness one finds so frustrating.

“Gonorrhea!” he practically yelled. My glass shook and I believe I flushed to the roots of my hair. The doctor forged on. “His previous doctor must have suspected the same. For that reason, the patient was prescribed a diet absent of ales or malt liquors, coffee, salt meats, intense seasoning, and asparagus.”

“He was given no asparagus,” said Placide, meek now.

“For Chordee, which he suffered at night, he was of course advised to place his posterior against a cold wall.”

“He did that,” said Placide, “as far as I know.”

“His manservant also assisted in his nightly treatments.”

Placide must again have looked stupefied.

“Prolonged immersion of the”—here Dr. Fulmer struggled, but used the words—“male sexual member in hot water. I believe it was of some benefit. But when your husband did not respond to my colleague’s satisfaction, he was prescribed urethral injections of sulfate of zinc. Mrs. Mauser, those treatments had little or no effect. For that reason, I conducted today’s frank interview, which enlightened me to the extent that I have changed the diagnosis. Mrs. Mauser…” The doctor paused dramatically. “Your husband suffers from a locomotor ataxia and melancholic neuralgia complicated by a rare male chlorosis, all brought on by a damming of the sperm!”

“Oh!” Placide sounded quite shocked.

“Where do you think it goes?” asked Dr. Fulmer, rather savagely. I pictured him leaning forward, into Placide’s face, and tapping his head, “To the brain! To the brain!”

“I’ve heard enough.” Placide threw herself toward the door. Her heels skittered on the polished parquet. I quickly set my glass on the table and retreated to a chair, opened some book and pretended for some time to read, at first because I feared one of the two might enter and find me. But their steps retreated down the hall. As I mulled over what I had learned, I remained fixed in place with my eyes locked on the open pages of a book that made no sense, with a title I can’t remember. I couldn’t help it. Other pictures, other words made me splutter like a child. A laugh kept bursting out of me. I was helpless to hold it back. His posterior against a cold wall! No sooner did I succeed in pushing one picture from my thoughts than I imagined Fantan drawing that basin of hot water. I tried with all my might not to think of the immersion of the male part, but my defense failed. Another laugh assaulted me. I am ashamed to say it was at least half an hour before I could compose my features and calm my nerves sufficiently to leave.

THE LEECHES arrived the next day, an experimental procedure. Dr. Fulmer, his tiny mustache all aquiver, applied them directly to brother-in-law’s temples, where they would draw off an excess of fluid produced by the seminal overflow. Although I brought towels and attempted in my way to assist, I was soon barred from brother-in-law’s room and had to content myself by directing the preparation of invalid foods. I decided on chicken cream, lemon jelly, and peptonized beef tea. The last I prepared myself. I shredded the beef and set it in a saucepan of cold, salted water. I was heating the mixture gently, stirring out the juice, when Fleur came into the kitchen. Either she didn’t see me, or she acted entirely for my benefit.

“Hot water,” she ordered Mrs. Testor, setting down a basin next to the stove.

“Hot water yourself,” said Mrs. Testor, who was not to be ordered about by the likes of Fleur.

“Hot water!” I exclaimed, shocked that such a mission be entrusted to Fleur. “I hardly think that for you to bring the hot water is appropriate.” I shooed her off. For such an intimate procedure, I reasoned as I rushed up with the basin, better that a family member be in attendance.

“Thank you.” Dr. Fulmer accepted the basin at the door to brother-in-law’s room. I followed him in.

“I need assistance,” said Dr. Fulmer over his shoulder. “Will you kindly hold the basin, Miss Gheen? The patient is suffering acute neuralgic spasms characterized by twitching of the extremities. The force of his movements could very well tip the basin. Take the utmost precautions.”

I did so. Brother-in-law was sitting on the bed, quite limp, supported by Fantan. The leeches were blackly clustered at his temples and he was taking shallow breaths. His eyes were shut.

“Now put the basin on the floor directly before the patient and kneel there with your hands on the rim, Miss Gheen. Steady!”

Although I felt some trepidation regarding the procedure at this point, I took a deep breath and fiercely counseled myself to show but the most refined sense of disinterested compassion. I knew, of course, the location of the afflicted part. Yet I had not ever actually seen one. I couldn’t think how the doctor intended to immerse the necessary member while brother-in-law was in a seated position, but I knelt on the floor anyway. Fantan laid brother-in-law against some pillows, crouched beside me, removed John James Mauser’s socks and slippers. He then placed brother-in-law’s feet carefully in the basin. At that point I rose and left the room. His feet! I have never liked other people’s feet. I must confess it. Even as a girl I would avert my eyes when Placide took off her shoes. I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, wondering just what Dr. Fulmer took me for — a servant? Spinster handmaiden? My beef tea had boiled to a jelly meanwhile, too dark and rich for a weak constitution.

LATER, as I devoured the beef tea myself, I reflected. I realized that I missed being privy to brother-in-law’s treatments. For much of my life I was not acquainted with what may seem the obscure derivation of the adjective “sincere.” It is from two Latin words, sine , without, and cera , wax. What a rare thing it is to be treated without wax . My desire is always to conduct relationships based upon honest regard. As I sipped the last drops of beef tea I tried to enumerate moments stripped of pretense and all I could come up with was those efforts of mine, with brother-in-law, when he grasped my hand in desperate gratitude, unknowing, and allowed me to really see him. As I relived those moments of extremity, a strange thought met me unawares. Were I not to know him, or someone, some person, at this radical depth, I fear my time on earth would be hideous. I was surprised to think this. But it crossed my mind that to know others on a superficial level only is a desperate hell and life is worth living only if the veneer is stripped away, the polish, the wax, and we see the true grain of the other no matter how far less than perfect, even ugly, even savage at the heart.