Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

Nor was this simply an awareness of her surroundings. This was, instead, a yearning to absorb every sight and smell and sound. Something had happened to her on the drive through the Alps and the magnificent descent through the Rhone Valley to Brig. The same Julia Regan got off that train in Domodossola, but it was a Julia Regan who had been purged somehow. A film had been removed from her eyes, her ears had been unstoppered, her tongue thrilled to new tastes, her fingers explored surfaces, the earth was suddenly thronged with exciting possibilities she had never before considered. She tried to file them away as facts, but there were too many to record, and the strict dividing line between reality and fantasy, the staunch wall of disbelief began to crumble. Everything was real, everything was believable, everything was new for her to discover and hoard. Except, paradoxically, the never-before-questioned foundations of her normal existence. The only unrealities to Julia now seemed to be the things she had earlier accepted as basic facts: her life in Talmadge, her husband, her son.

She felt no guilt.

She had been born again with shining eyes and smooth skin and questioning hands. She heard new sounds and spoke a new melodic tongue, and everything, everything was a delight.

The Venetian doctor was a part of this make-believe world that had suddenly donned the believable garments of reality. In another time, in another place, the doctor would have been summarily rejected, flatly refused as a figment of her imagination. But he swept into the hotel room now as if he had always existed, and despite her nausea and her fever, Julia felt a new thrill of delight, something new was happening, her eyes shone in her pale face. She caught her breath and waited.

Her ailment, she knew, was the usual tourist’s complaint. She should not have drunk the water, should not have sampled so generously the new foods that tempted her eye and her tongue. She tried to tell Millie this was nothing to worry about, but Millie — whose life had been lived in the constant presence of medical men — insisted on calling a doctor, and the hotel had promised to send one within a half hour.

And here he was, and Julia held her breath as he came into the room, the secret delight reaching for her face, setting her eyes aglow. He was a tall thin man with a balding head. He wore a gray silk suit and an outrageous summer tie. He carried a small black bag in his right hand, and he clicked his heels and bowed the moment he was inside the door, first to Millie, and then to Julia, who lay on the bed with the sheet to her throat.

His eyes searched her face. And then his head fell to one side as if it had been suddenly robbed of its supporting bones and muscles; a look of utter tragedy turned down the corners of his eyes, his eyebrows, the ends of his mouth; he hunched his shoulders slightly, he bent one arm at the elbow, the hand opened in mute supplication as he approached the bed. His tragic pose was complete. Julia fully expected him to begin weeping.

“Oh, madama!” he said in English, his voice breaking as he moved swiftly to the bed, lifted Julia’s hand to his lips, and quickly kissed it. He clung to her hand, pulling a chair from behind him with his free hand, sitting beside the bed, leaning over her, his face still wearing the tragic mask, every muscle in his body conveying sympathy and grief and continental courtesy. “Oh, madama, I am so sorry, you do not feel good?” he asked.

“Well...”

“Ah, madama,” he said understandingly, and stuck a thermometer into her mouth. Julia stifled a giggle. Millie looked at her reprimandingly and the doctor rose suddenly from the side of the bed and walked to where she was standing and asked, “She has been sick long?”

“Since this morning,” Millie said.

“Tch, tch, tch,” the doctor said, casting a baleful eye at Julia and then turning his sympathetic attention back to Millie. “She has vomit?”

“Yes.”

“She has evacuate?”

“Yes.”

“Tch, tch, tch,” he said and whirled again to the bed. With the skill of a swordsman drawing a rapier, he swept the thermometer from Julia’s mouth, studied it, sighed deeply, cocked his head to one side, put the thermometer back into its case, back into his bag, put the bag down beside the chair, sat in the chair, suddenly pulled the sheet off Julia, and picked up her hand by the wrist. For a moment, Millie looked shocked. Then she realized that Julia was wearing a cotton gown that covered her to the shins, and the doctor was only taking her pulse beat. Julia, at the same time, wondered why it had been necessary to pull down the sheet in order to pick up her wrist, but she watched the doctor with a mixture of anticipation and delight, like a child watching a magician, and she would not have halted the proceedings for her life.

“We’re supposed to go on to Bologna tomorrow,” Millie said.

“Tch, tch, tch,” the doctor said, and he shook his head, and dropped Julia’s wrist, and then suddenly reached for the hem of her gown and pulled it clear up over her naked breasts. Julia was too startled to speak. Millie made a small stifled animal sound and then stood watching him with her mouth open, motionless. Swiftly, efficiently, the doctor put his head on Julia’s chest and began listening. She realized all at once that the man was his own stethoscope, and she almost burst out laughing. He kept his balding head cushioned on her left breast for at least a full minute, and all the while she fought to control her laughter, afraid her strenuous preventive efforts would lead him into thinking she was a convulsive. He pulled back his head quickly, drew her gown down in one short snapping motion of his wrist, barely looking at her, and then he lifted her hand again, holding it like a loving uncle, and a look of utter serenity crossed his face, the sweetest look Julia had ever seen on a man’s face, consoling, strengthening, sympathetic, assuring, the look angels surely wore. “Madama,” he said, “you will be okay,” and he dropped her hand abruptly and began writing a prescription.

“What is it?” Millie asked. “What’s wrong with her?”

“ Un disturbo di stomaco ,” the doctor said. “She eat, she drink...” He shrugged. “She will be okay. I promise!” He nodded his head in emphasis.

“Can we go to Bologna tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, no. The day after tomorrow. I promise!”

“But...”

“I promise!” He turned back to the bed again. “Ah, madama, I am so sorry. But you will be okay.” He sat by the bed again and picked up her hand. The tragic mask returned. He said, “Oh, poor madama, my poor madama, you feel bad? You feel no good? Tch, tch, tch,” and Julia fought desperately to keep the laughter from overflowing, biting her lip, her abdomen aching with the effort. The doctor rose. “I will leave this at the desk for to fill.” He waved the prescription in the air to dry the ink. “One pill every three hours!” He clicked his heels and bowed to the bed and to Julia. He clicked his heels and bowed to Millie. Then he came to attention and waited.

“Ah, how much is that?” Millie asked.

“A hundred and seventy lire,” he said airily. “That is all.”

Millie signed a traveler’s check for ten dollars, and the doctor bowed again, walked to the door, paused, and said, “If you are trouble some more, call me. But you will be okay. One pill every three hours. It is on the bottle.” He clicked his heels again. “Madama!” he said sharply. Then he smiled briefly, semitragically, opened the door, and was gone.

Julia fell into a fit of convulsive laughter the moment the door closed.

“What...?” Millie said. “Julia, he was a madman!”

“Oh, Millie, he was marvelous!” Julia said. “Oh, Millie, I have to go to the bathroom! Oh, Millie, I’m so very very happy.”