Richard Brautigan - The Abortion - An Historical Romance 1966

Then he said something to the boy in Spanish and then the girl said something in Spanish to the doctor: who said something in Spanish to both of them.

Everything was very quiet for a moment or so in the operating room. I felt the dark cool of the doctor’s office on my body like the hand of some other kind of doctor.

‘Honey?’ the doctor said. ‘Honey?’

There was no reply.

Then the doctor said something in Spanish to the boy and the boy answered him in something metallic, surgical. The doctor used the thing that was metallic and surgical and gave it back to the boy who gave him something else that was metallic and surgical. Everything was either quiet or metallic and surgical in there for a while.

Then the girl said something in Spanish to the boy who replied to her in English. ‘I know,’ he said.

The doctor said something in Spanish.

The girl answered him in Spanish.

A few moments passed during which there were no more surgical sounds in the room. There was now the sound of cleaning up and the doctor and the girl and the boy talked in Spanish as they finished up.

Their Spanish was not surgical any more. It was just casual cleaning-up Spanish.

‘What time is it?’ the girl said. She didn’t want to look at her watch.

‘Around one,’ the boy said.

The doctor joined them in English. ‘How many more?’ he said.

‘Two,’ the girl said.

‘ ¿Dos? ’ the doctor said in Spanish.

‘There’s one coming,’ the girl said.

The doctor said something in Spanish.

The girl answered him in Spanish.

‘I wish it was three,’ the boy said in English.

‘Stop thinking about girls,’ the doctor said, jokingly.

Then the doctor and the girl were involved in a brief very rapid conversation in Spanish.

This was followed by a noisy silence and then the sound of the doctor carrying something heavy and unconscious out of the operating room. He put the thing down in the other room and came back a moment later.

The girl walked over to the door of the room I was in and finished opening it. My dark cool office was suddenly flooded with operating room light. The boy was cleaning up.

‘Hello,’ the girl said, smiling. ‘Please come with me.’

She casually beckoned me through the operating room as if it were a garden of roses. The doctor was sterilizing his surgical instruments with the blue flame.

He looked up at me from the burning instruments and said, ‘Everything went OK. I promised no pain, all clean. The usual.’ He smiled. ‘Perfect.’

The girl took me into the other room where Vida was lying unconscious on the bed. She had warm covers over her. She looked as if she were dreaming in another century.

‘It was an excellent operation,’ the girl said. ‘There were no complications and it went as smoothly as possible. She’ll wake up in a little while. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

The girl got me a chair and put it down beside Vida. I sat down in the chair and looked at Vida. She was so alone there in the bed. I reached over and touched her cheek. It felt as if it had just come unconscious from an operating room.

The room had a small gas heater that was burning quietly away in its own time. The room had two beds in it and the other bed where the girl had lain a short while before was now empty and there was an empty chair beside the bed, as this bed would be empty soon and the chair I was now sitting in: to be empty.

The door to the operating room was open, but I couldn’t see the operating table where I was sitting.

The door to the operating room was open, but I couldn’t see the operating table from where I was sitting. A moment later they brought in the teenage girl from the waiting room.

‘Everything’s going to be all right, honey,’ the doctor said. ‘This won’t hurt.’ He gave her the shot himself.

‘Please take off your clothes,’ the girl said.

There was a stunned silence for a few seconds that bled into the awkward embarrassed sound of the teenage girl taking her clothes off.

After she took off her clothes, the girl assistant who was no older than the girl herself said, ‘Put this on.’

The girl put it on.

I looked down at the sleeping form of Vida. She was wearing one, too.

Vida’s clothes were folded over a chair and her shoes were on the floor beside the chair. They looked very sad because she had no power over them any more. She lay unconscious before them.

‘Now put your legs up, honey,’ the doctor was saying. ‘A little higher, please. That’s a good girl.’

Then he said something in Spanish to the Mexican girl and she answered him in Spanish.

‘I’ve had six months of Spanish I in high school,’ the teenage girl said with her legs apart and strapped to the metal stirrups of this horse of no children.

The doctor said something in Spanish to the Mexican girl and she replied in Spanish to him.

‘Oh,’ he said, a little absentmindedly to nobody in particular. I guess he had performed a lot of abortions that day and then he said to the teenage girl, ‘That’s nice. Learn some more.’

The boy said something very rapidly in Spanish.

The Mexican girl said something very rapidly in Spanish.

The doctor said something very rapidly in Spanish and then he said to the teenage girl, ‘How do you feel, honey?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, smiling. ‘I don’t feel anything. Should I feel something right now?’

The doctor said something very rapidly to the boy in Spanish.

The boy did not reply.

‘I want you to relax,’ the doctor said to the teenage girl. ‘Please take it easy.’

All three of them had a very rapid go at it in Spanish. There seemed to be some trouble and then the doctor said something very rapidly in Spanish to the Mexican girl, He finished it by saying, ‘ ¿Como se dice treinta? ’

‘Thirty,’ the Mexican girl said.

‘Honey,’ the doctor said. He was leaning over the teenage girl. ‘I want you to count to, to thirty for us, please, honey.’

‘All right,’ she said, smiling, but for the first time her voice sounded a little tired.

It was starting to work.

‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…’ There was a pause here. ‘7, 8, 9…’ There was another pause here, but it was a little longer than the first pause.

‘Count to, to thirty, honey,’ the doctor said.

‘10, 11, 12.’

There was a total stop.

‘Count to thirty, honey,’ the boy said. His voice sounded soft and gentle just like the doctors. Their voices were the sides of the same coin.

‘What comes after 12?’ the teenage girl giggled. ‘I know! 13.’ She was very happy that 13 came after 12. ‘14, 15, 15, 15.’

‘You said 15,’ the doctor said.

‘15,’ the teenage girl said.

‘What’s next, honey?’ the boy said.

‘15,’ the teenage girl said very slowly and triumphantly.

‘What’s next, honey?’ the doctor said.

‘15,’ the girl said. ‘15.’

‘Come on, honey,’ the doctor said.

‘What’s next?’ the boy said.

‘What’s next?’ the doctor said.

The girl didn’t say anything.

They didn’t say anything either. It was very quiet in the room. I looked down at Vida. She was very quiet, too.

Suddenly the silence in the operating room was broken by the Mexican girl saying, ‘16.’

‘What?’ the doctor said.

‘Nothing,’ the Mexican girl said, and then the language and silences of the abortion began.

Vida lay there gentle and still like marble dust on the bed. She had not shown the slightest sign of consciousness, but I wasn’t worried because her breathing was normal.