Coma (27 page)

Mark didn’t answer. He was wondering exactly how he was going to try to talk Susan out of the whole business. He was also concentrating on the salad dressing, his culinary specialty. When he reopened the kitchen window, the cold wind brought in the sizzling aroma of the cooking steaks. Susan leaned against the doorframe, watching him. She thought about how marvelous it would be to have a wife, to be able to come home and have a wife keeping the house in order, the meals on the table. At the same time it seemed ridiculously unfair that she could never have a wife. It was a mental game that Susan played with herself, always to the same impasse, at which time she would simply deny the whole problem or at least postpone it
until some indeterminate future date.

“I called the Jefferson Institute today.”

“What’d they have to say?” Mark handed Susan some plates, silver and napkins, and pointed toward the onyx table.

“You were right about it being difficult to visit,” said Susan, carrying the material to the table. “I asked if I could come out and visit the facility because I wanted to see one of the patients. They laughed. They told me that only the very immediate family can visit and only on prearranged, brief visits. They said that the mass methods of taking care of the patients is generally unacceptable, emotionally, to the families, so they have to make special arrangements for them to visit. They did tell me about the monthly tour you mentioned. My being a medical student counted about the same as a wooden nickel, so far as making them alter their routine. Actually the place sounds interesting, especially since, as you say, the concept has been successful in keeping chronic cases from taking up acute-care beds in the local hospitals.”

Susan finished setting the table, then returned to staring into the fire. “I’d really like to visit, though, mostly to see Berman once more. I have a feeling that if I saw him again that I’d probably be able to ease up on this . . . crusade, as you call it. Even I realize I’ve got to get back to a semblance of normality.”

Mark straightened up from his activities in the kitchen at this last sentence, entertaining a ray of hope. He turned the steaks over again and closed the window.

“Why don’t you just show up there? I mean, it must be like any other hospital when it comes right down to it. It’s probably as chaotic as the Memorial. If you acted like you belong, probably nobody would even question you. You could even wear a nurse’s uniform. If anybody came into the Memorial dressed like a doctor or a nurse, they could go anywhere they chose.”

Susan looked back at Mark, who was standing in the kitchen door.

“That’s not a bad idea . . . not bad. But there’s a catch.”

“What’s that?”

“Simply that I wouldn’t know where the hell I was going even if I were able to walk into the building. It’s hard to look like you belong when you’re totally lost.”

“That’s not an insurmountable obstacle. All you’d have to do is visit the building department in City Hall and get a copy of the building plans or floor plans. There are plans on file of all public buildings. You’d have yourself a map.”

Mark returned to the kitchen to get the steaks and the salad.

“Mark, that’s ingenious.”

“Practical, not ingenious.” He brought the food into the room and served up the steaks and a generous helping of salad. There were also asparagus with hollandaise sauce and another whole bottle of red Bordeaux.

Each thought the meal perfect. The wine tended to smooth any potential rough edges, and the conversation flowed freely as each learned bits and pieces of the other’s background to fill in the gaps of the personality mosaics each was constructing of the other. Susan from Maryland, Mark from California. There was little intellectual common ground, for Mark’s education had been severely skewed in the direction of Descartes and Newton, while Susan’s tended toward Voltaire and Chaucer. But skiing emerged as a love of both, as well as the beach, and the outdoors in general. And they both liked Hemingway. There was an awkward silence after Susan asked about Joyce. Bellows had not read Joyce.

With the dishes cleared, they settled on a random grouping of pillows before the fireplace at the far end of the room. Bellows put on some additional oak logs, turning the smoldering embers into a crackling blaze. Grand Marnier and Fred’s Home Made vanilla ice cream made them quiet for some moments, both enjoying the peaceful and contented silence.

“Susan, getting to know you just a little better, and liking every minute of it, makes me even more motivated to urge you to forget this coma problem,” said Mark, after a while. “You’ve got an enormous amount of learning to do, and believe me, there’s no place better than the Memorial. In all likelihood this coma problem will be around for some time, plenty of time for you to begin again when you have a real background in clinical medicine. I’m not trying to suggest you cannot contribute; maybe you can. But the chances of making a contribution are small, just like in any research project, no matter how well conceived. And you have to consider the effect your activities will undoubtedly have, in fact already have had, on your
superiors. It’s a poor gamble, Susan; the odds are stacked against you.”

Susan sipped her Grand Marnier. The viscous, smooth fluid slid down her throat, and sent warm sensations down her legs. She took in a deep breath and felt a certain levitation.

“Being a female medical student must be hard enough,” continued Bellows, “without adding a further handicap.”

Susan raised her head and looked at Bellows. He was staring into the fire. “Exactly what do you mean by that statement?” asked Susan with a sudden slight edge to her voice. Bellows was suddenly brushing against sensitive areas.

“Just what I said.” Bellows did not look up from the fire. The dancing flames had captured his attention. “I just think it must be particularly difficult being a female medical student. I never really thought too much about it until you forced me to come up with an alternative explanation for Harris’s behavior. Now, the more I think about it, the more I think I am right because . . . well, to be truthful, I can’t say I reacted to you as a medical student first. As soon as I saw you, I reacted to you as a woman, and maybe in kind of an immature way. I mean I found you immediately attractive—not seductive.” Bellows added the last comment quickly and turned to make sure Susan appreciated his reference to their previous conversation in the coffee shop.

Susan smiled. The defensive attitude, which Bellows’s initial statement had rekindled, had melted.

“That was why I reacted so foolishly when you walked into the dressing room yesterday and caught me in my shorts. If I had thought of you asexually, I wouldn’t have budged. But it was pretty apparent that was not the case. Anyway, I think most of your professors and instructors are going to react to you first as female and only second as a student of medicine.”

Bellows looked back into the fire; he almost had the attitude of a contrite sinner who has confessed. Susan felt a resurgence of the warmth she had begun to feel toward him. She felt again the urge to give him one of her people hugs, as she thought of them. In truth Susan was a physical person, although she did not show it often, especially since entering medicine. Even before applying to medical school, Susan had decided that the physical aspects of her personality had to be suppressed if she was going to make it in
medicine. Now instead of reaching for Mark, she sipped her Grand Marnier.

“Susan, you are very apparent in any group and if you don’t show up at my lecture, I’m going to have to account for you.”

“The luxury of anonymity,” said Susan, “has not been something I could enjoy ever since I started medical school. I understand what you are saying, Mark. At the same time I feel I need just one more day. One more.” Susan held up one finger and tilted her head in a coquettish fashion. Then she laughed.

“You know, Mark, it is reassuring to hear you say that you think being a female medical student is difficult, because it is. Some of the girls in my class deny it, but they’re fooling themselves. They’re using one of the oldest and easiest defense mechanisms; get around a problem by saying it’s not there. But it is. I remember reading a quote by Sir William Osler. He said there were three classes of human beings: men, women, and women physicians. I laughed when I read that the first time. Now I don’t laugh anymore.

“Despite the feminist movement there still lingers the conventional image of wide-eyed feminine Naiveté and all that bullshit. As soon as you enter a field which demands a bit of competitive and aggressive action, the men all label you as a castrating bitch. If you sit back and try to use passive, compliant behavior, you find yourself being told that you can’t respond to the competitive atmosphere. So you’re forced to try to find your own compromise somewhere in the middle, which is difficult because all the while you feel like you’re on trial, not as an individual but as a representative of women in general.”

There was silence for a few moments, each digesting what had been said.

“The thing that bothers me the most,” added Susan, “is that the problem gets worse, not better, the farther into medicine one goes. I cannot imagine how these women with families do it. They have to apologize for leaving work early and then they have to apologize for getting home late, no matter what time it is. I mean, the man can work late, no problem, in fact it makes him seem that much more dedicated. But a woman physician: her role is so diffuse. Society and its conventional female mores make it very difficult.

“How did you get me on this platform?” asked Susan suddenly, realizing the vehemence with which she had been speaking.

“You were just agreeing to my statement that being a female medical student was difficult. So how
about agreeing to the last part, about not taking on any more handicaps?”

“Shit, Mark, don’t push me right at this moment. Obviously you can see that once I got involved in this thing, I probably need to resolve it somehow. Maybe it’s related to my feeling like I’m on trial for women. God, I’d like to show that Harris where to get off. Maybe if I can see Berman again, I’ll be able to give up without any loss of intellectual face or . . . what should I say, self-image or self-confidence. But let’s talk about something else. Would you mind if I were to give you a hug?”

“Me, mind?” Bellows sat up quickly but slightly flustered. “Not at all.”

Susan leaned over and gave him a squeeze with a force that surprised him. Instinctively his arms went around her and he felt her narrow back. Somewhat self-consciously he patted it, as if he were comforting her. She pulled back.

“I hope you’re not waiting for me to burp.”

For several moments they studied each other in the firelight. Then tentatively their lips sought each other, gently at first, then with obvious emotion, finally with abandon.

February 25

5:45 A.M.

The alarm jangled in the darkness, making the air in the room vibrate with its piercing sound. Susan sat bolt upright from a dead sleep. At first she wondered why her eyes wouldn’t open; then she realized that they were open. It was just that they could not pierce the utter blackness in the room. For several seconds she had no idea where she was. Her only thought was to try to find the alarm clock and deaden its awful nerve-shattering noise.

As suddenly as it had started, it stopped with a metallic click. At the same time Susan became conscious that she was not alone. The memory of the previous evening swept over her, and she remembered that she was still at Mark’s apartment. She lay back, bringing up the covers to cover her nakedness.

“What in God’s name was that noise for?” said Susan to the blackness.

“It’s an alarm. I suppose you’ve never heard one before,” said a voice from beside her.

“An alarm. Mark, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Like hell it is; it’s five-thirty and time to get rolling.”

Mark threw back the covers and put his feet onto the floor. He turned on the lamp next to the bed and rubbed his eyes.

“Mark, you’ve got to be out of your squash. Five-thirty, Christ.” The voice was muffled; Susan had her head underneath the pillow.

“I’ve got to see my patients, grab a bite to eat, and be ready for rounds at six-thirty. Surgery starts at seven-thirty sharp.” Mark stood up and stretched. Disregarding his nakedness and the coldness, he started for the bathroom.

“You surgical masochists defy imagination. Why don’t you start at nine or some other reasonable time? Why seven-thirty?”

“It’s always been seven-thirty,” said Bellows, pausing in the doorway.

“That’s a great reason. It’s seven-thirty because it’s always been seven-thirty—God, it’s that type of reasoning that’s so typical in medicine. Five-thirty in the morning. Shit, Mark, why didn’t you tell me about this when you invited me to stay last night? I would have gone back to the dorm.”

Bellows walked back to the bedside, looking down at the mound of covers indicating Susan’s body. The pillow was still over her head.

“If you’d take your surgical rotation a bit more seriously, I wouldn’t have to tell you what is the normal modus operandi. Time to get up, beauty queen.”

Bellows grabbed the edge of the blankets and, with a forceful jerk, pulled all the covers from the bed, leaving Susan bared to the elements, except for her head, still concealed by the pillow.

“Some hospitality,” said Susan, jumping up. She grabbed a blanket and twisted herself into an instant cocoon, then collapsed back onto the bed.

“Ah, but today is the first day of your new leaf. You’re going to be a normal medical student.”

A tug of war ensued with Susan’s wrapping.

“I need one more full day, just one. Come on, Mark, one more. You can understand that it’s important for me. If I don’t get the charts today, which I think I won’t, then it’s all over. Besides, if I can see Berman, I’ll probably give up. Then you’ll have your normal medical student. But I need one more day.”

Bellows let go of the blankets. Susan fell back, one breast exposed in a fetching Amazonian way.