Doctor Frigo (32 page)

I was still puzzling over this when the telephone rang again. This time it was Dr Torres speaking from the
General Hospital. He didn’t sound as if he had had time to read, or even glance at, newspapers.

‘Dr Castillo, I regret to trouble you, but a matter concerning your patient has arisen which we should discuss some time today. With your agreement I propose to change the physiotherapist assigned to your patient.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Pineda apparently got on well with the patient. May I know the reason for this change?’

‘Not over the telephone. Could you come here to the hospital?’

‘When?’

‘As you may have heard, we are overwhelmed with work here. Would five this afternoon be inconvenient? You could then instruct the new therapist and provide him with the pass which I understand is necessary. The name is José Bandon Valles.’

‘Very well. At five, Doctor.’

As I wrote down the name of the new physiotherapist I knew that I would have to give a false explanation for the change to Doña Julia and the security people before I got the true one from Dr Torres. Judging from his caution on the telephone it is likely to have a political basis. If this is later discovered by the security people, and I can be accused of having lied, the consequences may be serious.

So, Delvert will have to be told of the situation and be prepared to deal with it. Let him do some worrying. As far as I am concerned he is the person responsible. I telephoned the French embassy.

Counsellor Delvert was not available. I left a message for him to call me back and then got on to the Palace security man. He was inclined to be coyly chatty about my press coverage – ‘your face, Doctor, must be as familiar to the public today as Don Manuel’s – but I pretended not to have seen the newspapers. I told him, enunciating the words rather indistinctly, that the President’s masseur was suspected of having a streptococcal throat infection, and that for the President’s own safety the man had been replaced.
My idea was that, if later challenged, I could claim that I had been misheard, and that what I had really said was that the masseur had been suspected of political disaffection. I asked that a pass be made out for the replacement and delivered to me by shuttle. I would see that it reached him at the hospital. Meanwhile he should advise Doña Julia of the change.

He agreed immediately. Was there anything else he could do for me? There wasn’t, but his readiness to help interested me. I had already noticed that my telephone calls were now being dealt with efficiently. Newspaper publicity had its uses. For the moment I am a personage. I know that it won’t last, but while it does…

At midday a man telephoned from the French embassy to say that Counsellor Delvert was still in a conference with His Excellency the Ambassador, now happily recovered from his indisposition, but that he would be pleased to see me at seven o’clock this evening. His Excellency was giving a small cocktail party at which I would be most welcome. A formal invitation would be sent to me by hand. Could it be assumed that I would accept? It could.

Had lunch and wrote up the above notes. Wonder if I had been too frank in places – e.g. The attempt to deceive security man. Wouldn’t like him to read that. Still, can’t be bothered to rewrite, and, as my father used to say, ‘Never make alterations which can be seen unless you have a creditable and convincing explanation for them.’ I wouldn’t have. However, in this security-happy place you can’t be too careful. There is a shallow tray at the bottom of my medical bag. Shall hide all these pages under that. The bag has a combination lock intended to foil drug-thieves.

Have been sitting here for an hour trying to order my thoughts. No use. The only order that will hold good for more than a few minutes is that of events. Think I must be in what the psychiatrists call a state of ‘fugue’. Have never quite understood what they mean by it. A fugue is very far from being confused. They may not like it, but if there has to be an analogue to describe this state I would choose that of the recurring decimal – a longish one like the value of the constant, exact only at infinity.

Just the events then.

Went to the hospital at five in the afternoon to see Dr Torres.

About five years older than I am. Hair already beginning to grey slightly though. Long-nosed
peninsulare
features. No mestizo blood in
that
family. Grey eyes. A very handsome man and an utterly exhausted one. When I walked into his office the effort he had to make to get up out of his chair to shake hands was obvious, though he tried hard to conceal it. But if his body was exhausted his mind was functioning well enough.

He waved my apologies aside. ‘I didn’t suppose, Dr Castillo, that you were calling upon our services to save yourself trouble or for your own convenience. As it happens our physiotherapists are among the least burdened of the staff here at the moment. Until yesterday we were using them as nursing auxiliaries.’

‘You had over a hundred casualties I hear.’

‘Is that what they told you? We have at least double that number and more coming in all the time – those who went into hiding and are now too far gone to stay there. I suppose
I shouldn’t be telling you that.’ He rubbed his unshaven chin as if it itched.

‘My function here is purely professional.’

‘Is it? Well, I suppose one shouldn’t believe newspapers, even when they print pictures.’ He caught the stiffening of my face and managed to smile. ‘They’re in there,’ he said and pointed down to the waste-basket by his desk.

‘I’m afraid I’m wasting your time, Doctor.’

‘Yes, but I’m letting you waste it. Frankly, I haven’t sat down for so long that, now that I
am
sitting, I’m taking any excuse I can find to stay in this chair. I’ll try not to waste
your
time though. The problem with Paz is what interests you.’

‘Yes.’

‘By easy stages then. Paz is somewhat older than he looks. He is also a highly qualified man. After preliminary training in Mexico City he spent a year at the University of California medical school at San Diego. He could have remained there. He chose to return. He likes his own people. I told you that he was the best I have. He is.’

‘But?’

‘He was told that your patient is suffering from fibromyositis. Having seen and treated the patient, he does not agree.’

I could feel the blood moving into my face. ‘I asked for a physiotherapist, Doctor, not a diagnostician.’

He pulled out a bundle of cigarillos from his desk drawer. ‘I made a small bet with myself that you would say that, Doctor. In your place I would have said it myself.’ He held out the cigarillos. ‘I don’t suppose you use these things.’

‘No.’

‘Your loss.’ He extracted one from the bundle and lit it. ‘You received your medical education in Paris I think.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wanted to go to London. My father decided otherwise. He is one of those men who remain permanently convinced that the more a thing costs the better it must be. No use
explaining that it is as possible to get inferior medical training in the United States as anywhere else. If the student’s cost of living is higher, then so is the standard of his tuition. I was cunning though. I showed him on a map how near Baltimore was to Washington DC and that clinched it. I went to Johns Hopkins.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘My point is, Doctor, that, barring certain minor differences between us in medical mores, and the fact that you are primarily what in the United States is called an internist while I am primarily a surgeon, our professional outlooks have much in common.’

‘I suppose they have.’

‘Particularly, I imagine, on the subject of primitive medicine as practised by the devotees of voodoo, vodun, santeria, orisha, obeah and suchlike beliefs.’

‘Witchcraft, you mean.’

‘Or old religion. The name is unimportant. Naturally, I am aware, as you must be, that many of our colleagues, especially those in the psychosomatic field, have studied those things very seriously and perhaps usefully. As practical men working with patients most of whom need to be weaned from superstition rather than encouraged in it,
we
have to be more hard-headed.’

‘Yes.’

‘That said, I must tell you that Paz’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all, when they were alive, renowned here as witch-doctors.’

‘Oh. Arawaks?’

‘Arawaks or their mixed descendants and I am obliged to you for not laughing aloud. The Church called what they practised “brujeria”. I don’t know what the Indian word was. Paz is shy about it, as you would expect a technician to be, and dislikes discussing the subject. Nevertheless, he seems to have inherited, or in some other way acquired, powers which I can only describe as insights of a special kind. You may laugh now if you wish.’

‘I’m not laughing, Doctor. I’ve heard of similar cases among the Caribs. Does he claim healing powers?’

‘He doesn’t claim anything. That’s the whole point. I used the word “insights” and that’s what I meant. I have nine carefully documented cases of this. He has treated hundreds of patients since he came to us, always conscientiously, carefully and strictly according to the book. Just once in a while he has approached the man in charge of the case with questions. There is no challenge, no lip-chewing. You have met him. He is a gentle, polite man. And in these cases I have referred to he has politely posed questions. Not necessarily about the wisdom of the treatment he has been instructed to give, but about the true nature of the patient’s illness.’

‘Does he offer to diagnose?’

‘Only in a vague way. It is something to do with his physical contact with the patient. In effect, he says, and most apologetically, “I will do as I am told, but I don’t think the patient will receive any benefit.” With some members of my staff he is not, as you may imagine, very popular. He has so often been right.’

‘I can imagine. I gather that he doesn’t think that Don Manuel would benefit from his ministrations.’

‘No, Doctor, he doesn’t.’ He crushed out his cigarillo. ‘And neither do I.’

‘Paz’s insight?’

‘Paz thinks he’s going to die soon and is distressed at the prospect. Distressed he can become fanciful. But he is also a trained technician. He said that when he treated your patient both deltoid muscles were fibrillating. No insight or fancy required to observe that. I thought it as well, in view of the circumstances, to give you another therapist.’

‘I see.’

‘I hope you do, Doctor. This is your country too, I know, but your formative years as an adult have been spent in exile.’ He forced himself up out of the chair, then sat
down again abruptly, took his shoes off and began to massage his feet.

‘I belong here though,’ he said after a while; ‘and to a family with heavy debts to pay to our people. I saw and heard your patient speak last night. Platitudes but with light behind them. The future beckons. We have won a prize in an international lottery, we have struck oil. Nothing is too good for us. The United States, or those acting for them, may even allow us a government of liberal tendencies as long as we behave ourselves. I know all this. But we have been cursed in the past with too much sickness, Doctor, most of it mental.’

He stood up again and flexed his toes. ‘I make no apology for speaking to you in this way. At a guess I would say that you didn’t really
like
your father – I don’t say love, that’s for children – that you didn’t really
like
him as a man any more than I like mine. I may be wrong, but I will say it. This country has a chance of a kind, a hope, perhaps the last. But we cannot allow ourselves any more to be led by half-men, by senile reactionaries or by anachronisms such as my father. Nor can we afford many of the ready alternatives – opportunists of your father’s stripe to brash messiahs from the far Left. Above all we cannot afford sick men, sick in mind or sick in body. At all costs we must have stability and with it continuity.’ He perched himself on the corner of his desk. ‘It isn’t fibromyositis at all, is it?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve had a consultant to see him?’

‘Professor Granval of Paris.’

He hobbled over to a bookcase and found the reference book he wanted. After a minute or so he shut it with a snap. He had his clue – a neurologist.

‘Muscular dystrophy?’

‘That was a possibility, yes.’

‘We don’t see much of it in this part of the world. Paz wouldn’t know what to make of it.’ And then he realized
what I had said. ‘
Was
a possibility, eh? The consultant finally rejected it?’

‘Yes.’ I would hate to be cross-questioned by Dr Torres when he wasn’t tired.

After a moment he eased himself back into his chair. ‘I presume you know what sort of game you’re playing, Doctor?’

‘I regret to have to tell you that I do.’

‘You’ll find your new therapist downstairs.’

I was dismissed, but I stood my ground a little longer.

‘Does Paz gossip? Is he indiscreet?’

‘No. But he is completely honest, and also extremely tenacious when puzzled and searching for the truth. Of course he lacks certain of our skills. He cannot reassure our patients with falsehoods. That, in some cases, can be highly dangerous. I’m sure you agree.’

‘I asked because the excuse I gave the Palace of Justice for the change was that Paz has a strep throat. If I had known what you have just told me, of course …’

‘You would have invented a different excuse. Don’t worry, Doctor. I’ll remember if I’m asked. I’ll remember everything.’

His contempt for me was now complete.

I found the new therapist and the shuttle car I had arranged for him, gave him the pass that would admit him to the patient and told him what to do. When he had gone I went searching for my own car and driver.

The General Hospital is a rambling place, some of it quite old, most built in the twenties. More recent additions have encroached on the original interior courtyard. The result is that there is no one clear parking place, but four or five, none of which can be seen until you get to it.