Doctors (2 page)

“No, thanks,” she responded, “my father says I have an allergy to chocolate.”

“What’s an allergy?”

“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “We’d better ask my
papacito.
He’s a doctor.”

And then the inspiration struck her. “Hey, why don’t we play Doctor and Patient.”

“How does that go?”

“Well, first I ‘esamen’ you, then you ‘esamen’ me.”

“Sounds kinda boring.”

“We would have to take our clothes off—”

“Yeah?” Maybe this could be interesting after all.

Office hours were held beneath a venerable oak tree in the far corner of the Livingston garden. Laura instructed Barney to remove his striped polo shirt so she could establish that her patient’s chest was sound. This was accomplished by means of an imaginary stethoscope.

“Now take off your pants.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Barney, play the game!”

With some reluctance, he stepped out of his blue shorts and stood there in his underpants, beginning to feel silly.

“Take that off, too,” the young physician ordered.

Barney glanced furtively over his shoulder to see if anyone might be watching from the house and then removed his final garment.

Laura looked him over carefully, giving special attention to the tiny pendant between his legs.

“That’s my faucet,” he explained with a touch of pride.

“It looks more like a penis,” she replied with clinical detachment. “Anyhow, you’re okay. You can get dressed.”

As he eagerly obliged, Laura inquired, “Want to play something else now?”

“No fair—now it’s
my
turn to be the doctor.”

“Okay.”

In an instant she had disrobed completely.

“Wow, Laura—what happened to your … you know …”

“I don’t have one,” she answered somewhat wistfully.

“Oh gee, why not?”

At this moment a strident voice interrupted the consultation.

“Baaar-ney! Where are you?”

It was his mother at the back door. He hastily excused himself and peered around the tree trunk. “I’m here, Mom.”

“What are you doing?”

“Playing—with someone.”

“Who?”

“A girl called Laura from next door.”

“Oh, the new family. Ask her if she wants cookies and milk.”

An impish face popped out from its arboreal concealment. “What kind of cookies?” Laura asked cheerfully.

“Oreos and Fig Newtons,” Mrs. Livingston said, smiling. “My, aren’t you a sweet little girl.”

Theirs was a childhood paradise called Brooklyn, filled with joyous sounds: the clang of trolleys blending with the tinkle of the bells from the Good Humor Man’s chariot of frozen fantasies. And most of all, the laughter of the children playing stickball, punchball—even hockey games on roller skates—right in the streets.

The Brooklyn Dodgers weren’t just a baseball team, they were a cast of characters—a Duke, a Pee Wee, and a Preacher pitching on the mound. They even had a guy who could run faster than you said his name: Jack Robinson.

They gave their hearts for Brooklyn.

So who cared if they could never beat the New York Yankees?

But not in 1942, for the Americans were still waging war on three fronts: in Europe against the Nazis, in the Pacific against the hordes of Tojo, and at home against the OPA. This was the body President Roosevelt established to ration the civilian supply of essential items to make sure the GIs had the best of everything.

Thus while Field Marshal Montgomery was engaging Rommel at El Alamein, and Major General Jimmy Doolittle was bombing Tokyo, back in Brooklyn Estelle Livingston was battling to get extra meat stamps to ensure the health and growth of her two sons.

Her husband, Harold, had been called up one year earlier. A high school Latin teacher, he was now at a military base in California learning Japanese. All he could tell his family was that he was in something called “Intelligence.” That was very appropriate, Estelle explained to her two young sons, since their father was, in fact, very, very intelligent.

For some unexplained reason, Laura’s father, Dr. Luis Castellano, had not been drafted at all.

“Is Laura nice, Barney?” Estelle asked as she tried to coax yet another forkful of Spam into her younger son’s mouth.

“Yeah, she’s okay for a girl. I mean, she can even catch a ball. Talks kinda funny, though.”

“That’s because the Castellanos are from Spain, dear. They had to run away.”

“Why?”

“Because the bad people called Fascists didn’t like them. That’s why Daddy is in the Army. To fight the Fascists.”

“Does Daddy have a gun?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure if he needs one, President Roosevelt will see that he gets it.”

“Good—then he can shoot all the bad guys in the penis.”

A librarian by profession, Estelle was all in favor of enriching her son’s vocabulary. But she was taken aback by his newest verbal acquisition.

“Who told you about penises, dear?” she asked as matter-of-factly as she could.

“Laura. Her dad’s a doctor. She doesn’t have one, though.”

“What, dear?”

“Laura doesn’t have a penis. At first I didn’t believe her, but she showed me.”

Estelle was at a loss for words. She merely stirred young Warren’s cereal and wondered how much
he
already knew.

With time, Barney and Laura went on to better games. Like Cowboys and Indians or GIs and Jerries (or Japs), democratically changing from goodies to baddies with each passing summer day.

A year went by. The Allied troops were now invading Italy and the Yanks in the Pacific were reconquering the Solomon Islands. Late one night Barney’s brother, Warren, woke up screaming, with a fever of a hundred and three. Fearing the worst—the dreaded summer scourge, infantile paralysis—Estelle quickly wrapped the perspiring little boy in a bath towel and carried him down the front steps and over to Dr. Castellano. Barney, confused and frightened, followed a step behind.

Luis was still awake, reading a medical journal in his cluttered little study, and rushed to wash before beginning an examination. His big hairy hands were surprisingly swift and gentle. Barney watched in awe as the doctor looked down Warren’s throat, then listened to his chest, all the while trying to calm the sick child.

“Is okay,” he kept whispering, “just breathe in and out for
me, yes
niño
?” Meanwhile, Inez Castellano hurried to fetch cold water and a sponge.

Estelle stood mute with terror, Barney clinging to the folds of her flowered bathrobe. She finally found the courage to ask, “Is it—you know … ?”

“
Cálmate
, Estella, is not polio. Look at the scarlatiniform eruption on his chest—and especially the enlarged red papillae on his tongue. Is called ‘strawberry tongue.’ The boy has scarlet fever.”

“But that’s still serious—”

“Yes, so we must get someone to prescribe a sulfa drug like Prontosil.”

“Can’t you—?”

Clenching his teeth, Luis replied, “I am not permitted to write prescriptions. I have no license to practice in this country. Anyway,
vámonos.
Barney will stay here while we take a taxi to the hospital.”

During the cab ride, Luis held little Warren, dabbing his neck and forehead with a sponge. Estelle was reassured by his confident manner yet still puzzled by what he had told her.

“But Luis, I thought you
were
a doctor. I mean, you work at the hospital, don’t you?”

“In the laboratory—doing blood and urine tests.” He paused and then added, “In my country I
was
a physician—I think a good one. Five years ago when we first came, I studied English like a crazy man, reread all the textbooks, and passed the examinations. But still the State Board refused to license me. Apparently, to them I am a dangerous alien. I belonged to the wrong party in Spain.”

“But you were fighting against the Fascists.”

“Yes, but I was a Socialist—something also
sospechoso
in America.”

“That’s outrageous.”

“
Bueno
—it could be worse.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I could have been caught by Franco.”

At the hospital, Luis’s diagnosis was immediately confirmed and Warren given the medication he suggested. Nurses then bathed him with alcohol-soaked sponges to bring down his fever. By 5:30
A.M.
, he was pronounced well enough to go home. Luis escorted Estelle and the boy to a cab.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“No.
No vale la pena.
I am due in the lab at seven. I will just stay here and try to take a nap in an on-call room.”

“How did I get in my own bed, Mom?”

“Well, darling, when we got home it was very late and you were asleep on the Castellanos’ couch, so Inez and I carried you and Warren back.”

“Is Warren okay?” Barney had not yet seen his brother.

Estelle nodded. “Thank God for Dr. Castellano. We’re very lucky to have him as our neighbor.”

For a split second Barney felt a pang of envy. Laura’s father was home. Sometimes he missed his own dad so much it really hurt.

He vividly remembered the day his father had left. Harold had picked him up and hugged him so closely he could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. Often now just watching someone light up a cigarette made Barney feel lonely.

And yet there was one small source of consolation: A small rectangular flag bearing a blue star in a white field trimmed with red hung proudly in the Livingstons’ front window. This told every passerby that their family had a member out there fighting for his country (some households had banners with two, and even three stars).

Late one December afternoon, as the brothers were returning from the candy store with a nickel’s worth of Tootsie Rolls, Warren noticed something surprising in Mr. and Mrs. Cahn’s front window—a flag that bore a star of gold.

“Mom, how come theirs is so fancy?” Warren complained as they were having dinner.

Estelle hesitated for a moment, and then answered quietly, “Because their son was … especially courageous.”

“Do you think Dad will win a star like that one day?”

Though she could feel her face turn pale, Estelle endeavored to answer matter-of-factly, “You never know about these things, darling. Now come on, eat your broccoli.”

After she had put the boys to bed, it suddenly struck her that Barney had been silent through that entire conversation. Had he perhaps understood that Arthur, the Cahns’ only son, had been killed in action?

Later, sitting alone at the kitchen table, doing her best to pretend her cup of Postum was real Brazilian coffee, Estelle kept reminding herself of Harold’s frequent protestations that he would
be in no danger. (“Translators don’t get shot at, hon.”) But then didn’t security rules forbid him from disclosing exactly where he was—and what he was doing? A day never passed without some family in Brooklyn receiving one of those dreaded telegrams.

Then she heard her older son’s voice. It was affectionate and reassuring.

“Please don’t worry, Mom. He’s gonna come back.”

There he stood in his Mickey Mouse pajamas, all of six and a half years old, yet taking the initiative and trying to console his mother. She looked up with a smile.

“How could you tell what I was thinking?” she inquired.

“Everybody in school knows about Artie Cahn. I even saw one of the teachers crying. I didn’t say anything because I thought it would’ve scared Warren. But Dad’ll be all right, I promise.”

“What makes you so certain?” she asked.

He shrugged and confessed, “I don’t know. But worrying would make you sadder.”

“You’re right, Barney,” she said, hugging him tightly.

At which point, her comforter suddenly changed the subject.

“Would it be okay if I had a cookie, Mom?”

1944 was a banner year. Rome and Paris were liberated, and FDR was elected to an unprecedented fourth term. Some time after the Americans retook Guam. Harold Livingston telephoned his family all the way from California to announce that he was being sent overseas. He couldn’t specify where, only that it would be to help interrogate Japanese prisoners of war. His next communication would be by V-mail—those barely legible miniature letters, photographed on microfilm and printed on slimy gray paper.

The year was also a milestone for Luis Castellano. The State Medical Board reversed its decision and declared the Spanish refugee fit to practice medicine in the United States of America.

Though feeling pleased and vindicated, Luis knew they were moved not merely by the merits of his case, but by the fact that nearly every able-bodied doctor had been conscripted by the military. He and Inez quickly transformed their front ground-floor bedroom into an examination room. He received a loan from The Dime Savings Bank to buy a fluoroscope machine.

“What’s that for,
Papacito
?” three-year-old Isobel asked
her father as the quartet of young spectators watched the apparatus being installed.

“I know,” Barney volunteered, “it’s for looking inside of people, isn’t it, Dr. Castellano?”

“You are right, my boy,” he nodded, patting Barney on the head, “but good physicians have already a machine for looking at their patients’ insides.”

He then pointed to his temple. “The brain is still the greatest diagnostic tool a man can use.”

Luis’s reputation—and his practice—quickly grew. King’s County offered him hospital privileges. Now he could send specimens to the laboratory where formerly he washed test tubes.

Sometimes, as a special treat, the children were allowed to visit his medical sanctum. Barney and Laura could touch some of the instruments and peer into their younger siblings’ ears with the otoscope, provided
they
would then allow Warren and Isobel to listen to their chests with a stethoscope.

They had almost become a single family. Estelle Livingston was especially grateful. The only other relative she had was her mother, who—when other babysitters were not available—would take the subway from Queens to stay with Warren while Estelle worked in the library.

But she knew that boys needed a masculine figure in their lives and understood why Barney and Warren had grown to worship the rugged bearlike physician. For his part, Luis seemed to revel in the acquisition of two “sons.”