Joseph Caldwell - Lazarus Rising

Today was moving day for Doctor Norstar. It was after office hours, but she had phoned Dempsey and had told her to come anyway, as long as she did not mind the mess and the distractions. The office was being moved to larger quarters upstairs in the same building, quarters Doctor Norstar would share with Doctor Willens. Doctor Willens looked after Doctor Norstar’s patients when she wasn’t available—and she looked after his in similar circumstance. The two of them were practicing in similar areas and doing research that was always being compared and discussed, so they’d decided to combine forces more completely and, in the process, share the rent.

The tone of Doctor Norstar’s voice when she’d called had let Dempsey know something was going on, and the doctor’s directive to come that day after the office had closed had confirmed the impression of urgency. The doctor would say no more until they’d met. The implication was that something terrible was happening, or about to happen, and Dempsey must be told. That was why the doctor had sent for her; she had to be given the news in person. Dempsey had been expecting this. There had been a flurry of activity these past few weeks. The bloodletting had had to be repeated because of continuing errors in the lab. Twice she had gone back to the clinic and given more blood. From the blood and the urine, the doctor, almost in a panic, had gone to vaginal smears, then, of all things, saliva. When asked again the reasons behind all these inconveniences, the doctor would only say, “Something’s wrong. I have to find out what it is. As soon as I know, I’ll tell you. Try if you can to stop asking.” She then ordered samples extracted from the lymph nodes. Then a spinal tap that would give specimens of cerebral fluid. (None of this had Dempsey mentioned to Johnny. He would only become more impatient and anxious than she. All appointments were deliberately scheduled for those hours when he’d be on duty, and Dr. Norstar had complied. Dempsey would find out what was happening, then tell him. Maybe.)

By now, Dempsey had managed to feel an even greater sympathy for Doctor Norstar. At times the woman seemed more confused, more exhausted than Dempsey herself. The phrase polymerase chain reaction was mentioned. Retrovirology lab was also mentioned as well as amplified DNA. Doctor Norstar was searching for something, something that frightened her. But when Dempsey, as casually as she could, asked for explanations, the doctor would beg her not to ask—just yet. Nothing could be said. Dempsey wondered if she had been selected for experiments that would locate and possibly correct some appalling flaw in medical procedures. She had not volunteered, but neither had she refused. She liked Doctor Norstar; she felt she owed her something for not having taken the medicines the doctor had prescribed. It had occurred to Dempsey that the testing bore some relation to the absence of medication in her system. Then considered that she was being punished for her refusals, for her obstinacy. Doctor Norstar would keep testing her, continue draining her blood, collecting her urine, her saliva, subjecting her to vaginal probes and spinal inflictions, until she would finally admit she hadn’t been taking her medicine.

At some moments, Dempsey feared that a new strain of the virus had surfaced in her system, an even more insidious mutation of the already fatal infection. This would account for the doctor’s fearful reluctance to report her findings. At other times, Dempsey would scoff at the doctor’s concern. There could hardly be much that the virus—or its mutant—could do to her that wasn’t already being accomplished. She was already receptive to any microbe that might cross her path. She was already gathering to herself more ailments than she would be given time to handle. No infection was turned away unaccommodated, no bacterium was refused her readied hospitality.

After the phone call earlier that day, Dempsey had been relieved, then jittery, then resigned, then angry for what she was being put through. If she could just hang on to her anger, she’d be all right. If she was furious enough, she could be told anything. She must concentrate on her grievances, the pains, the indignities, the pricks and pokes and stabbings—all practiced on her hapless, unasking person. She must dwell on the stupidities, the misjudgments, the indifference, the hidden crimes of the medical profession. She must prepare the speech she’d make to Doctor Norstar. She must rehearse the invective, she must heighten the indignation. The speech must be ready for immediate delivery, the withering response that would reduce Doctor Norstar to a state of suppliant apology. Doctor Norstar must be made to pay for her failures, for her ineptitude, her ignorance. That all the testing would result in no particular treatment made no difference. Ultimately, whatever would be prescribed or suggested would be refused.

And yet Dempsey still demanded of Doctor Norstar that she be prescient and informed. Dempsey had continued coming to her even after she had stopped taking the medicines because the doctor’s interest in her condition remained independent of the treatments the condition might require. Doctor Norstar had become, for Dempsey, something of a psychic, a fortune-teller. She would predict what was yet to come; she could provide specifics that would help Dempsey prepare for what lay ahead. So it was this withdrawal of prediction that enraged her now. That the psychic should lose her powers was not permissible, that her prophecies should be withheld was not allowed.

When Dempsey, walking briskly up Sixth Avenue to Doctor Norstar’s office that afternoon, had come to Houston Street and was waiting for the light to change, she found her mind’s eye glaring down at a cowering Doctor Norstar, she decided she’d just wait and hear what the good doctor had to say and determine then what she might do in response. To simply nod in recognition and acceptance of the doctor’s words would probably be the most appropriate thing to do.

The first mover passed again, this time carrying a painting of what appeared to be flowers, but flowers of the artist’s own creation, exploded orchids showing great bursts of orange and blue, a carnage of color blaring out from behind the glass. Dempsey had looked at it—and the other paintings in the doctor’s office—for longer periods of time than she’d given to most paintings by other artists. Directly behind Doctor Norstar’s desk—a point of refuge for anyone not wanting to look directly at the doctor—had been another painting by the same artist—this one not an explosion outward, but—in greens and blues—a screen of leaf-shaped flowers that seemed to invite the viewer to enter and be refreshed, to wander and be at peace. Dempsey had assumed that Doctor Norstar had a good eye and the requisite spirit to choose her office decor wisely, but when she’d asked about the paintings on an earlier visit, the doctor all but dismissed them. They had been painted by one of her patients and accepted in place of payment. The doctor had deliberately put them in the office so the artist could see them up there on the wall. He’d painted them because he was dying. Then he’d died. She’d left them where they were because she’d forgotten they were there.

After Dempsey learned about the artist, she avoided looking at the paintings. She considered them a rebuke, their insistence on the flourishing and the beautiful. The artist had chosen to bless when he’d been given an opportunity to curse. The paintings had a charity that the artist could have resisted. But he hadn’t. In Doctor Norstar’s office Dempsey would turn away from the paintings toward the airshaft window, where she could give her full attention to the gray brick wall five feet away.

After reviewing several pages and charts in the folder, Doctor Norstar began shuffling faster. Then she started again at the beginning, again increasing her speed the deeper she got into the file. Both movers went past now, carrying a metal cabinet. Doctor Norstar put her fist on the file. “Wait here a minute,” she said. “I need another folder. I hope they didn’t take it upstairs.” She put the folder on the table next to the couch again—the coffee table had already been removed—and went down the hall into her office. Dempsey saw her name on the tab sticking out of the file, “Coates, Dempsey.” She was tempted to take the folder, open it, and try to discover what all the fuss was about. It would tell her what was happening. She could prepare herself for what Doctor Norstar was about to say. It was, after all, her file.