Doctor Frigo (26 page)

‘By me, Doctor, with nothing. I am merely explaining the circumstances.’

‘But I have resigned.’

‘I’m hoping you will reconsider that decision.’

‘And if I don’t what will they do?’

He sighed. ‘Revoke your permits to reside and practise medicine on French territory for a start.’

‘But only for a start?’ I think I spoke calmly but it was quite an effort to do so. I could only hope that my intestinal reaction was not audible.

‘I explained,’ he went on apologetically, ‘that a Spanish-speaking doctor with your qualifications would have no difficulty at all in moving to Mexico or South America to practise. They said that, since they could and would arrange to have your present passport made invalid at the earliest possible moment, that might not be as easy as I thought. They know, of course, that you could probably buy a passport which would be valid in Colombia or Ecuador, but the fact of your being a deportee would make it expensive. I can’t, of course, place myself in the position of criticizing my superior officers, but I must admit that they can on occasion be quite ruthless.’

Elizabeth gave a short laugh. ‘That trick of uttering threats while pretending to disapprove of them,’ she said, ‘is known as the Delvert technique. You play the threats down in order to give them maximum force.’

Delvert went white and for a moment I thought he was going to do something violent; but he managed to control himself and took a sip of wine before he answered her.

‘Would you please leave us, Elizabeth?’

‘No.’

‘Then perhaps the Doctor and I should leave you.’ He felt for his briefcase.

I said: ‘Personally I find Elizabeth’s comments quite helpful.’

He hesitated then sat back again. ‘As you please. We will be silly little gentlemen in the great lady’s salon.’

Elizabeth refilled his glass. ‘Knowing how to accept defeat gracefully, Armand, was never one of your accomplishments. Always the lapse into heavy-footed sarcasm.’

His ignoring of her now required an obvious effort. ‘Very well,’ he said to me briskly, ‘we must try to pick up the pieces. The situation we are now faced with is that Dr Frigo, in a fit of pique, has decided to abandon his patient.’

I wasn’t having that. ‘Oh no, Commandant. The situation is that Dr Castillo has declined to be used as a political pawn and that the patient is being removed, or is removing himself from the place where Dr Castillo can have access to him.’

‘You were appointed his physician. You accepted the post and its responsibilities.’

‘I was given no choice. Commissaire Gillon instructed me to accept. As for the responsibilities, there was no thought then that he might actually be in need of a doctor. I was put in there as a part-time spy by Gillon and because you and the patient thought that I might turn out to be of some political use.’

‘We won’t quibble over words, Doctor.’

‘Nor distort the facts, please.’

‘All right.’ His patience was being sorely tried. ‘Dr Castillo, in a fit of wholly understandable pique, has decided to abandon his patient. Is that more to your taste?’

‘I am not
abandoning
the patient.’

‘Oh but you are. I have conceded that neither your professional nor your personal sensibilities have been given the consideration they deserve. There should have been more delicacy, more tact. You were entitled to your moment of annoyance. But why inflict it on your patient?’

‘I am not inflicting anything on him.’

‘No? Let me ask you this. Have you thought about a possible successor?’

We were getting on to ground that I suddenly realized
was slippery. ‘Any competent Spanish- or English-speaking man will do. Finding him is your business.’

‘And of course you would give him the facts of the case.’

‘The medical facts, of course. Where the political aspects of it are concerned, those explanations will be for you to give, or withhold as you see fit.’

‘And you would then just retire from the fray.’

‘From the case, yes.’

He shook his head wonderingly. ‘Do you really believe what you are saying, Doctor? I find it hard to credit.’

‘That patients sometimes change their doctors?’

‘No. That a doctor with a patient who is mortally ill, but doesn’t yet know it, can calmly wash his hands of the case and walk away.’

‘Commandant, you talk as if my staying with him could save his life. If Grandval’s diagnosis is correct – and I don’t think anyone’s going to get a second opinion which says it isn’t – nothing can. It is simply a question of how long the disease takes to kill him.’

‘And to what extent his sufferings can be relieved?’

‘Yes.’

‘You spoke earlier of supportive therapy. You described it as being, in this case, no more than a kind of medical deceit. Who, do you think, would be better qualified to practise that deceit effectively in the early stages of the disease? A doctor the patient knows, likes and trusts, or a complete stranger?’

‘That question is unfair!’ Elizabeth said sharply. She was drinking quite a lot of wine I noticed.

‘What’s unfair about it?’ He was answering her, but he kept his eyes on me. ‘If he prefers not to answer let him say so.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind answering,’ I said. ‘The patient knows me, yes. But whether or not he likes and trusts me is debatable. I’m my father’s son so it is obviously politic for him to
seem
to like me and appear to trust me. When he
knows the extent of his illness, he may well prefer a stranger.’

‘Then tell me this. Do you believe that it’s truly kinder and more humane to postpone the evil day at this stage than to be brutally frank?’

‘Yes.’

‘And medically acceptable to do so?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what would be wrong with telling him in two months’ time that you, his doctor, are dissatisfied with his progress and want a second opinion?’

‘Nothing. It would be one way of preparing him for the bad news. You should propose it to his new doctor.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘There is going to be no new doctor. There is no need for one.’

‘I disagree.’

‘There is no need for one, because I am not prepared to accept your arbitrary decision to abandon your patient simply because you don’t like the way Gillon and I are obliged to do our duty.’

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept it.’

‘No. There is only one condition upon which I would be prepared to do that.’ He paused. ‘If you were to give me a positive, categorical assurance that you believed, for good and sufficient reasons, that this man Villegas played a decisive part in bringing about your father’s assassination.’

‘Infamous!’ said Elizabeth. She was refilling her own glass again.

‘Infamous? I disagree.’ Delvert had found his smile again. ‘I don’t think that any man, even a doctor, should be asked to give aid and comfort on a permanent basis to his father’s murderer.’ He picked up his briefcase again and began to pat it gently as if it were a small pet animal. ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘it is possible that Villegas may have some residual sense of unease, a feeling that he may not have done enough to
prevent
the assassination from taking
place, but that surely couldn’t amount to a presumption of guilt, could it Doctor?’

He was still patting the briefcase and his eyes looked into mine. I knew at that moment that my conversation with Rosier had not been the only one monitored. There had been a “listening device” in the examination room when I had seen Villegas. He knew exactly what had been said by the patient, and, if I wanted to argue further, he had a transcript of the interview there in his trusty briefcase.

I suppose I could have flown into another rage, denounced him and the entire French government and again resigned. I didn’t because I was tired and because I felt suddenly that in all this Villegas is as much a victim as I am.

I still have that feeling.

‘No, Commandant,’ I said, ‘it couldn’t amount to a presumption of guilt.’

‘Well then …’

‘Ernesto, stop!’ Elizabeth had risen to her feet and was waving an empty bottle at me. ‘You are submitting to trickery!’

‘Trickery?’ Delvert managed to look utterly astounded at the idea. ‘If the Doctor decides, as a reasonable and honest man, that he should follow the dictates of his professional conscience as he sees them, where is the trickery in that? What
can
you be talking about?’

She pointed the bottle at him like a fat accusing finger. ‘About Dr Basch,’ she said.

We both stared. This seemed to incense her.

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ she snapped. ‘Everyone knows. Dr Basch was sent by the Imperial court at Vienna as physician to the Emperor in Mexico. Not that there was anything physically wrong with Maximilian. It was thought proper that all persons of exalted rank should have their personal physicians. I admit that this Basch, a German, was a fool and that he allowed himself to be used disgracefully by those intriguing against his patient, but not even poor
Max’s worst enemies, not even Schmerling or those vile Bonapartes, would have refused Dr Basch his proper compensation, his modest fee.’

Delvert started to say something. He got no further than, ‘My dear Elizabeth, I really don’t see …’

‘Filthy, penny-pinching blackmailers!’ She was brandishing the bottle like a club now. ‘With one hand they offer the most infamous threats, with the other they offer what? A free charter-flight trip with a dying man to the country of his birth – a horrible place at the best of times – and the possibility of an official welcome of machine-gun bullets!’

‘I don’t think the Doctor will have to worry about bullets,’ Delvert said mildly.

‘Because he will be too busy dodging the hand grenades and mortar shells or because they are such bad marksmen there? That wasn’t his father’s experience. It is a disgraceful proposal. This is an exemplary service he is being asked to perform. Do you deny that?’

‘In a way it is exemplary, yes. But …’

‘Then it should be rewarded in an exemplary fashion. A million francs would not be excessive compensation in the circumstances.’

‘My dear Elizabeth …’

‘Oh yes, I know! You are not empowered to authorize expenditures of that order. It would have to be referred to Paris for a decision.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Exactly! But –’ she pointed the bottle again and glared at him over the top of it through narrowed eyes – ‘you
are
empowered to dispense certain sums on your own authority. Up to one hundred thousand I believe. Don’t dare to deny it because I know the way the Department works in these matters.’

‘You know something about the way it used to work, I regret to say, yes.’ He did not seem unduly concerned.

‘Ah, then it’s more than a hundred thousand now, eh?’

He glanced at me. ‘Would you consider fifty thousand an adequate fee, Doctor?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘But now that Elizabeth has thought for you …?’

‘Penny-pinching and niggardly!’ She had put the bottle down and was reaching into the cupboard for yet another. ‘Fifty thousand is absurd.’

He stood up. ‘Doctor, may I take it that you will visit Les Muettes tomorrow?’

I shrugged. ‘Rather than be deported, yes.’

‘And that you will accompany your patient next week?’

‘If he wishes me to.’

He turned and bowed. ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Elizabeth.’

She took no notice. She was opening the new bottle of wine.

I went down to see him out. At the door he paused.

‘I hope you will forgive a grave impertinence, Doctor, but it seems possible that you may at times have seriously considered the possibility of marriage with Elizabeth.’

‘Unfortunately she is already married.’

‘This morning she signed the papers necessary for her to obtain a divorce. That was why she was at the hotel when you telephoned. The legal process should not take long. I thought you might like to know.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘A further presumption. May I suggest that marriage into the Hapsburg family, even a remote branch of it, can never be a simple undertaking?’

‘I am well aware of that.’

‘I thought you would be.’ He opened the door. ‘Other men in your position might feel that, all things considered, it would make sense to leave things as they are.’

With a nod he was gone. He had been grossly impertinent. I just hadn’t been quick enough to tell him so.

I went back upstairs. Elizabeth had made a start with a larger glass on the new bottle of wine.

Only once before have I had to put her to bed. That was on the night her mother left after a two-week stay.

Tonight was the second time.

Word has got around that I am to take a leave of absence. Had to put up with some ill-natured remarks from some colleagues, especially the married ones. The leave roster has been rearranged forcing postponement of two family vacation trips to France. The official explanation for my absence – urgent personal and family business – is plainly absurd; staffroom murmuring, only half-jocular, about my sinister influence over Dr Brissac tempted me at one point to tell them the truth.

Temptation resisted, but I was almost glad, on telephoning Les Muettes, to receive not only an appointment with Don Manuel for noon but also an invitation to stay on for lunch.

There was still a double guard over the gate. My friend Monsieur Albert was one of them, however, so I was able to ask, without seeming improperly inquisitive, about the guests.

‘All gone, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Taken away last night in an army truck I’m told. Glad I wasn’t on duty. That priest, I hear, was so drunk they had to carry him.’

Had to run the gauntlet of Doña Julia and Uncle Paco before I saw my patient. Both were looking tired but calm; after four days of Father Bartolomé their ability to tolerate the more conventional anxieties must have increased considerably.

I am not a skilful liar, but when the person you are lying to wishes to believe, not much skill is necessary. The robust
matter-of-fact approach which I had decided upon worked well with Doña Julia.