John Irving - The Cider House Rules

'Now, Doctor Larch,' Dr. Gingrich said softly, 'surely you know we don't think of you as doddering.'

'Sometimes I think of myself as doddering,' Larch said defensively. 'I suppose you might think so, too.'

'The pressure you must be under,' Dr. Gingrich said. 'Someone with all your responsibilities should have all the help he can get.'

'Someone with my responsibility should stay responsible,' Larch said.

'With the pressure you must be under,' said Dr. {333} Gingrich, 'it's no wonder you find it hard to delegate even a little of that responsibility.'

'I have more use for a typewriter than for a delegate,' Wilbur Larch said, but when he blinked his eyes he saw those bright stars that populated both a clear Maine night and the firmament of ether, and he wasn't sure which stars they were. He rubbed his face with his hand, and caught Mrs. Goodhall scribbling something on the impressively thick pad before her.

'Let's see,' she said-sharply, by comparison to Dr. Gingrich's wispy voice. 'You're in your seventies, now-is that correct? Aren't you seventy-something?' she asked Dr. Larch.

'Right,' said Wilbur Larch. 'Seventy-something.'

'And how old is Missus Grogan?' Mrs. Goodhall asked suddenly, as if Mrs. Grogan weren't present-or as if she were so old that she was incapable of answering for herself.

'I'm sixty-two,' Mrs Grogan said pertly, 'and I'm as lively as a spring chicken!'

'Oh, no one doubts you 're not lively!' said Dr. Gingrich.

'And Nurse Angela?' Mrs. Goodhall asked, not looking up at anyone; the scrutiny of her own writing on the pad before her required every ounce of her exhaustive attention.

'I'm fifty-eight,' Nurse Angela said.

'Angela is as strong as an ox!' Mrs. Grogan said.

'We don't doubt it!' said Dr. Gingrich cheerfully.

'I'm fifty-five or fifty-six,' Nurse Edna offered., before the question was raised.

'You don't know how old you are?' Dr. Gingrich asked meaningfully.

'Actually,' said Wilbur Larch, 'we're all so senile, we can't remember-we're just guessing. But look at you!' he said suddenly to Mrs. Goodhall, which did get Mrs. Goodhall to raise her eyes from her pad. 'I guess you have such trouble remembering things,' Larch said, 'that you have to write everything down.' {334}

'I'm just trying to get the picture of what's going on here,' Mrs. Goodhall said evenly.

'Well,' Larch said. 'I suggest you listen to me. I've been here long enough to have the picture pretty clearly in mind.'

'It's very clear what a wonderful job you're doing!' Dr. Gingrich told Dr. Larch. 'It's also clear how hard a job it is.' Such a warm washcloth kind of sympathy was leaking from Dr. Gingrich that Larch felt wet-and grateful that he wasn't sitting near enough to Dr. Gingrich for Dr. Gingrich to touch him; Gingrich was clearly a toucher.

'If it's not asking too much, in the way of your support,' Dr. Larch said, 'I'd not only like a new typewriter; I'd like permission to keep the old one.'

'I think we can arrange that,' Mrs. Goodhall said.

Nurse Edna, who was not accustomed to sudden insights-or, despite her years, hot flashes-and was completely inexperienced with the world of omens and signs or even forewarnings, felt a totally foreign and breathtaking violence rise from her stomach. She found herself staring at Mrs. Goodhall with a hatred Nurse Edna couldn't conceive of feeling for another human being. Oh dear, the enemy! she thought; she had to excuse herself-she was sure she was going to be ill. (She was, but discreetly, out of sight, in the boys' shower room.) Only David Copperfield, still mourning the departure of Curly Day, and still struggling with the language, spotted her.

'Medna?' young Copperfield asked.

'I'm fine, David,' she told him, but she was not fine. I have seen the end, she thought with an unfamiliar bitterness.

Larch had seen it, too. Someone will replace me, he realized. And it won't be long. He looked at his calendar; he had two abortions to perform the next day, and three 'probables' near the end of the week. There were always those who just showed up, too.{335}

And what if they get someone who won't perform one? he thought.

When the new typewriter arrived, it fitted-just in

time-into his plans for Fuzzy Stone.

'Thank you for the new typewriter,' Larch wrote to the board of trustees. It had arrived 'just in time,' he added, because the old typewriter (which, if they remembered, he wanted to keep) had completely broken down. This was not true. He had the keys replaced on the old typewriter, and it now typed a story with a different face.

What it typed were letters from young Fuzzy Stone. Fuzzy began by wanting Dr. Larch to know how much he was looking forward to being a doctor' when he grew up, and how much Dr. Larch had inspired him to make this decision.

'I doubt that I will ever come to feel as you do, regarding abortion,' young Fuzzy wrote to Dr. Larch. 'Certainly, it is obstetrics that interests me, and certainly your example is responsible for my interest, but I expect we shall never agree about abortion. Although I know you perform abortions out of the most genuine beliefs and out of the best intentions, you must permit me to honor my beliefs accordingly.'

And on and on. Larch covered the years; he wrote into the future, leaving a few convenient blanks. Larch completed Dr. F. Stone's training (he put him through medical school, he gave him fine obstetrical procedure -even a few variances from Dr. Larch's procedure, which Dr. Larch had Dr. Stone describe). And always Fuzzy Stone remained faithful to his beliefs.

I'm sorry, but I believe there is a soul, and that it exists from the moment of conception,' Fuzzy Stone wrote. He was slightly pompous-sounding, as he grew up, close to unctuous in his graciousness toward Larch, even capable of condescension at times-the kind of patronizing a young man will indulge in when he think;; he ha;; 'developed' beyond his teacher. Larch gave Fuzzy Stone an {336} unmistakable self-righteousness, which he imagined all supporters of the existing law against abortion would feel at home with.

He even had young Dr. Stone propose that he replace Dr. Larch-'but not until you're ready to retire, of course!'-and that by this replacement it might be demonstrated to Dr. Larch that the law should be observed, that abortions should not be performed, and that a safe and informative view of family planning (birth control, and so forth) could in time achieve the desired effect ('…without breaking the laws of God or man,' wrote a convincingly creepy Fuzzy Stone).

The desired effect'-both Dr. Larch and Dr. Stone agreed-would be a minimum of unwanted children brought forth into the world. 'I, for one, am happy to be here!' crowed young Dr. Stone. He sounds like a missionary! thought Wilbur Larch. The idea of making a missionary out of Fuzzy appealed to Dr. Larch for several reasons-among them: Fuzzy wouldn't need a license to practice medicine if he took his magic to some remote and primitive place.

It exhausted Larch, but he got it all down-one typewriter for Fuzzy that was used for nothing else, and the new one for himself. (He made carbons of his own letters and referred to his 'dialogue' with young Dr. Stone in various fragments, which he contributed to A Brief History of St. Cloud's.)

He imagined that their correspondence ended, quite abruptly, when Larch refused to accept the idea that anyone should replace him who was unwilling to perform abortions. 'I will go until I drop,' he wrote to Fuzzy. 'Here in St. Cloud's, I will never allow myself to be replaced by some reactionary religious moron who cares more for the misgivings suffered in his own frail soul than for the actual suffering of countless unwanted and mistreated children. I am sorry you're a doctor!' Larch ranted to poor Fuzzy. 'I am sorry such training was wasted on someone who refuses to help the living {337} because of a presumptuous point of view taken toward the unborn. You are not the proper doctor for this orphanage, and over my dead body will you ever get my job!'