Private Practices (21 page)

He was enjoying being with her. She was still as graceful as ever and he was aware as they walked uptown that women as well as men turned and appraised her admiringly. She moved like a dancer and was clearly sturdy and strong, but her pale skin and reserved manner gave her a quality of noticeable and haunting vulnerability. He liked wondering if the people who looked at her thought she belonged to him.

And then, all too soon, they were across the street from the photography museum, waiting to cross. The branches of a tree overhead fluttered and cast delicate shadows across Claudia's cheeks. He saw them as tiny scratches marring her beauty and grew excited at the notion. He wanted to touch the marks, to trace them with his fingers. He understood for a moment why Sidney tyrannized her. She looked vulnerable, yet she was impervious. One could never really hurt her because one could never really get inside her.

Then the traffic light changed and Claudia took his arm. Her thigh brushed against his and she gave him a sidelong glance. A moment later, in the middle of the crossing, she did it again, and this time she hesitated for a moment so that he had to grasp her arm more tightly if they were to get to the other side of the street before the cars started moving again. When he touched her, his penis came erect.

“I excited you, didn't I?” Claudia said as they stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the museum. Her eyes moved down to his groin. “Just like that?” she added, in a cool, distant voice.

He thought of denying it, but it would have been like denying his own name. “Yes,” he confessed. “I'm sorry. I was thinking about how beautiful you are.”

Claudia laughed. “Don't be sorry. It's flattering. I'm glad to know that men still find me desirable.”

He smiled and for a moment she seemed to sway toward him. Then she pulled away and darted up the marble steps of the small mansion in which the museum was housed.

Naomi was already at his apartment when he returned home from the office that evening. He had long ago given her her own set of keys to his place as, ever since he had offered to help her out with babysitters' fees, she spent almost as many nights in the week with him as she did at home with her son. He went into the living room and saw her curled up in her usual position on his couch, a book in her hand and a gin and tonic in a tall glass on the cocktail table beside her. But for the first time since he had started sleeping with her, it did not delight him to come home and find her waiting for him. Still, he bent over her and kissed her and remembered to ask her how her consultation with the analyst had gone.

“It was marvelous to see him again,” Naomi said. “I wish you knew him. You'd like each other. I told
him
that, too. In fact, I told him all about you.”

Her final remark made him acutely nervous. Although he had encouraged her appointment, he didn't much like the idea of a stranger's passing judgments on him. He supposed that was why he had offered to pay. Naomi might have scraped together the money for the consultation sooner or later; his paying for it, which surely she would have mentioned to the analyst, might have given the man a favorable outlook toward him. But he couldn't be sure. There was so much about himself that he disliked that the fact of being evaluated by others alarmed him.

As if reading his mind, Naomi said, “He said you sounded very good for me.”

Relieved, he sat down opposite her. “What else did he say?”

“He thought your willingness to have me see him was a particularly good sign. Hal used to try to discourage me from going and refuse to pay the bills.” Naomi sighed in remembrance and then went on. “Anyway, my shrink thinks that I really ought to give our relationship a chance by considering marrying again, since marrying seems to be what you want. He said that just because people have had one bad experience in marriage, it doesn't mean they need to fear they're going to make the same mistake next time.”

He smiled and in response she stood up and came over to his chair, settling down on the floor, her cheek against his knees. “He said that a good man is hard to find.”

He stroked her hair.

“And you are a good man,” Naomi continued. “I used to think you were too reserved, too distant for me. But you've been getting so much better lately. You've really been trying hard. And you've been wonderful about Petey.” She looked up at him, her expressive face appreciative. She was perspiring. The humidity in the air had brought beads of perspiration to her olive-toned forehead and was making her hair more curly and frizzy than usual. “I guess I could sublet my loft when the school term ends and we could try living together for the summer and then, assuming it works out, we could get married in the fall.”

Out of force of habit, he embraced her, pulling her up toward him and pressing his lips to her warm, moist forehead, but all the while he was thinking of Claudia's cool, mysterious pallor.

“When is the end of the school term?” he asked at last.

“The end of June. I could sublet my place as of July first.”

“Okay.”

‘Is that all?”

“I mean wonderful. Fantastic.”

“That's better.”

CHAPTER SIX

JUNE

The following morning, true to his promise to Claudia, Ben tersely instructed the nurse who had replaced Cora to tell Sidney that he wanted to see him. The nurse was young and plump and pretty, with a freckled face and a full-lipped, pouting mouth. Sidney had hired her, saying she had excellent recommendations, but Ben missed the less-attractive, more-mature Cora, whose efficiency and maternal ways had been comforting to him. “Let me know as soon as my brother's free, Miss Palchek. I'd like to speak with him,” he said.

“Call me Palsy,” the new nurse pouted. “Okay?”

He nodded, annoyed at her penchant for nicknames, and she went on, “He's not here yet, Dr. Z. He called a while ago to say he'd be a little late.”

“Okay, Palsy. Just let me know when he arrives.” He started down the corridor but Miss Palchek half-stood behind her desk, whispering loudly, “Doctor? Could I ask you something?”

He turned back and faced her. She looked up at him with wide childish eyes. “I was expecting the other Dr. Z. at nine o'clock. And it's nearly ten. I don't know what to tell the people who are waiting to see him.” She gestured at the waiting room, which was starting to fill up.

“Tell them he'll be along soon.” He felt troubled by her need for direction in so simple a matter. “He must have gotten held up at the hospital.”

Miss Palchek shook her head. “But that's just it. The hospital's been trying to reach him too. He isn't there.”

“Try him at home.”

Miss Palchek pouted again. “I did. There was no answer.”

“Well, he could be at any number of places. Maybe he had to go over to Midstate. Didn't you ask him for a calling number when you spoke to him?”

“Of course. But he said he couldn't be reached.”

He shrugged. “Well, he must be on his way over, then. Just hold his calls and tell his patients he's on his way. And let me know as soon as he arrives.”

Miss Palchek thanked him effusively. He dodged past her into his own office. When Miss Palchek finally buzzed him to say Sidney was in, it was past eleven.

By then the waiting room was dense with patients, some waiting for him, more of them waiting for Sidney. He hurried toward Sidney's office and, coming up to the door, almost forgot to knock on it. But at the last moment he remembered how much Sidney hated to be disturbed without prelude and with the door already partly opened, tapped on its frame loudly to announce himself.

Sidney was standing at his big window, his back turned.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked, looking over his shoulder for just a second to make sure it was Ben who had knocked, and then resuming his stance at the window. He stood quite motionless there, as if he were absorbed by something he was watching, and didn't turn again. His unresponsiveness made it difficult for Ben to launch into the subject he had come to discuss and at first he answered, feeling foolish, “Yes. It's about … About your health. I'm worried about you.”

“My health?” Sidney still didn't move. “What do you mean?”

“The barbiturates you're taking,” Ben said, speaking directly at last, and waiting for Sidney to whirl around and deny his accusation. Standing straight, his back muscles tense, he was primed for a denial, prepared to argue with Sidney just to get an admission of his habit from him, let alone a plan for curtailing it. But to his astonishment, Sidney made no denial. Staring out the window, he said flatly, “So you know about it.”

Ben quickly cleared a space for himself on the chair alongside Sidney's desk, scooping off the mail and setting it on the floor. “Yes. And I'd like to talk to you.”

“Sure. Say anything you like.” Sidney sounded exceptionally tranquil. “Claudia told you?” he asked, his back still turned, in the tone of a man asking a rhetorical question.

“No. Yes. Well, she said something about pills, but I had pretty well figured it out by then.”

“Do you suppose anyone else has?” Sidney asked. But he didn't sound worried, only mildly curious. At last he left the window and ambled slowly over to the desk, sitting down facing Ben.

Once they were face to face, Ben was startled. Sidney didn't look well. Ben had thought back in the early spring that his brother had lost some weight, but now his diminishment was undeniable and disturbing. His cheeks were cavernous and his hazel eyes appeared larger and deeper-set than usual. Worse, they were dulled and expressionless. He was heavily sedated, Ben thought. His mind wasn't tranquil but tranquilized. “No. No, I don't think anyone else has figured it out yet,” he said sternly, “But it's only a matter of time. You've got to give up the pills.”

Sidney half-smiled, his mouth opening, but his lips not curling. “Look who's talking.”

“I don't take them anymore,” Ben announced slowly. “Not at all. I gave them up last winter.” It was the confession he had postponed for months. “I didn't want to say anything and then have to feel ashamed if I couldn't stick to the decision.”

Sidney leaned forward, his forehead furrowing. “Was it difficult?” He sounded almost jealous and for a moment Ben felt gratified and generous.

“Not so very,” he lied, recalling the torment of his first sleepless nights and jumpy days, but hoping to encourage Sidney to do as he had done. “I did it cold turkey. But there are better ways. You ought to put yourself into a psychiatric clinic. Let them withdraw you. Or you could do it slowly yourself. Ten percent less a day.”

Sidney said edgily, “I know.”

“You just have to make up your mind to it.”

Sidney leaned his chin on his elbow and offered thoughtfully, “I'll do it if it ever gets to the point where my competence is endangered.”

“But it is,” Ben argued passionately. “Look what happened the other day. That episiotomy you did.”

Sidney tilted back in his high leather desk chair. “That was nothing. I told you that was nothing.” He arched his neck, his head pushing against the headrest of the tall, thronelike chair, his eyes on the ceiling. “Look, Ben, I've been under terrible pressure lately. I need to relax. I need all the relaxation I can get.” His head lolled forward and he shut his eyes for a moment. A murmuring, exhausted breath pushed its way up from his chest.

It frightened Ben, making him remember a time when they were children and he had awakened in the middle of the night to hear Sidney groaning and gasping for breath in the bed across from his. They were living in Brooklyn then and Sara had gone to play mah-jongg with some of her new friends. Ben had known that Sidney was sick and that he ought to locate their mother and get her to come home at once. But it was always Sidney who knew to which neighbor's apartment Sara had gone and Ben couldn't, no matter how hard he tried, rouse Sidney from his feverish nightmare. He was six. He had thought of leaving the bedroom and going down the dark corridor that led to the front hall and letting himself out of the apartment and ringing someone's bell, but he was terrified of the dark corridor with its pull-light he couldn't reach. And he had slumped down on the floor alongside Sidney's bed and begun to cry and in the end simply climbed into the bed alongside him. When Sara had come home she had found them both soaked with perspiration but asleep and in the morning Sidney had had to go to the hospital but Ben's diphtheria was milder and he was treated at home.

“Sid?” he said loudly now. “Sidney?” He leaned across the desk and grasped Sidney's white-coated arm.

“Don't worry. I'm awake. I hear you. I was just think—thinking.” Sidney's words were slurring. “The lethargy is nice, isn't it? The problem is that I can't hold onto it. It wears off so fast.”

“And then you take more?”

“Yeah.”

“That's why you have to give them up.”

“I will. Don't worry. I will.”

“In England they've been discovering that people on high doses of certain sedatives get even tenser on them than without them.”

“I know about it.”

“It's the same with barbiturates. They're paradoxical.”

“Are you lecturing me?” Suddenly Sidney's calm gave way to anger. “Because if you are, you'd better stop! I know more about it than you'll ever know. I know what I'm doing. And I'll know when to quit.”

“Suppose Alithorn finds out,” Ben persisted.

“Suppose he does. What's he going to do? He'll tell me to take a vacation, that's all.” Sidney seemed determined to deny that his addiction could result in complications for his career.

“Well, at least cut down. You could hurt someone. It's been known to happen.”

“Rarely. Anyway, don't worry. I'm careful. And even with the stuff inside me, I'm still better than nine-tenths of the competition.” Sitting forward, Sidney reached into the pocket of his white coat, and, withdrawing a small vial of pills, shook out two yellow capsules and swallowed them without water.