Private Practices (24 page)

Ben shuddered. The degree of Sidney's fury had virtually no relevance to the specific situation. As soon as the woman who had triggered the attack had fled, he hurried into Sidney's office and said, “You've got to grab hold of yourself, Sid. The barbiturates aren't calming you. They're making you more and more agitated.”

“That's my business,” Sidney answered him sharply.

“Surely it's mine too. If you keep this up, you won't have any patients left. And I can't afford the office on my own.”

Sidney simply shrugged. “I don't think it matters to my patients how I treat them, as long as I treat them.”

Ben left, discouraged, for the truth of the matter was that while a few patients had begun dropping Sidney now that he was so ill-tempered, many others were continuing to demand appointments with him. He wondered if any of them suspected that their physician was a drug addict, but concluded that none of them did. It was a thought too far beyond their imaginations.

The nurses were another story. There were three of them including Miss Viviani, the newest, and he was sure that, given their pooled experience and wisdom, they knew Sidney was on something. Yet although they were alarmed by Sidney, they covered up for him, explaining his actions to patients as well as they could, making excuses for him, softening his words whenever possible. They were, Ben supposed, as protective of the medical profession as he was, as interested in keeping it from scandal or condemnation.

Of course, they gossiped about Sidney among themselves. He had overheard them. But they spoke of him as being explosive or agitated or paranoid, naming his symptoms but not his ailment. Nor did they ever ask direct questions about his condition. Perhaps they hoped that by not giving it a name, they could avoid responsibility for his actions.

It was the same with the interns and residents at the hospital. And even with Sidney's peers, the other attendings and medical school professors. Martin Stearns had stopped him in the hospital corridors one afternoon and said, “I hear Sidney isn't feeling well. Is that true?” When he had nodded, “Yes,” Stearns had said sympathetically, “Tell Sid I hope he's feeling better soon,” but oddly enough he'd showed no curiosity about the nature of Sidney's illness.

Alithorn was equally uninquisitive, at least at first. But late in June Ben saw him talking to Sidney outside his office, his handsome, suntanned face looking unusually tired and troubled. Several days later he asked Ben to stop by and see him.

“Your brother's always been known as a moody guy, right?” he began, as Ben nodded nervously in the chair alongside his mammoth roll-top desk, an antique Alithorn had insisted be installed in his office. His was the only antiques-furnished office in the glass-walled modern building. He had chosen the antiques, he would explain to anyone who asked, because he believed they inspired trust and confidence in patients. He was fond of saying that medicine, like religion, had only started to invite disaffection once it espoused modern architecture. “Sidney had a reputation for temper tantrums long before I ever knew him, right?” he prodded Ben, looking over his head toward the door in his familiar distracted fashion.

Ben nodded again. Alithorn put his chin on his hands and, for the first time, gave him his full attention. “But his personality's been getting out of hand,” he said. “He's been screaming at nurses, cancelling operations, terrorizing the interns. He needs a psychiatrist. You know what I mean?”

Ben said at once, “Yes, I believe so.” Alithorn's expression was stern. He wondered how much he actually knew about what was causing Sidney's explosions.

“Good,” Alithorn continued. “Now, I'm not asking any questions, and I don't intend to ask any. I've told Sidney this and I think he understood me. What psychiatric clinic he goes to is entirely up to him. It needn't be ours at all. But he obviously needs some treatment, and I'm more than willing to grant him a medical leave for as long as it takes. I'm counting on you to see to it that he goes.”

Ben felt dismayed. “I've told him that myself,” he blurted out. “So has his wife. Isn't there anything else you can suggest? Is there any way
you
can make sure he goes?”

Alithorn scratched at his chin. Then he looked away from Ben and pulled one of his small netsuke animals from his jacket pocket and began stroking it. “You've told him and he doesn't care?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Stroking the figurine, Alithorn slowly shook his head and when he spoke, sounded discouraged. “What can I do?” he said. “Medical leaves are strictly voluntary. Of course, there's such a thing as suspension. Removing a man's operating privileges. But it's hardly Number One on the Hit Parade.”

Ben stared at him, puzzled.

“Hardly the court of first resort. There have been some hellish lawsuits over removing a doctor's privileges. It's an ugly business. It can be as bad for the hospital as it is for the man himself. Unless, of course, the doctor in question has seriously broken hospital rules. Not shown up at staff meetings. Not kept legitimate records.” He paused and looked at Ben unhappily. “Or wantonly harmed a patient.”

Ben sat forward attentively, relieved that at last Alithorn had raised a matter that worried him more than any other, the possibility that Sidney might injure a patient.

“It takes a screw-up or two,” Alithorn muttered sadly. “After that, it's a different story. If we've suggested to a man that he get help, and he hasn't paid attention to us, and he's had a screw-up or two, then we can begin to find a way of dealing with the situation.” He emitted a long, drawn-out sigh from between slightly parted lips.

“I think I see what you mean,” Ben said.

“We wouldn't want any screw-ups,” Alithorn commented.

“Yes. I see that. But I'm not sure under the circumstances that they can be prevented.”

Alithorn stood up, as if ready to dismiss Ben. “Well, I wouldn't be so skeptical,” he said, smiling now. “Psychiatric clinics can do wonders these days, don't you think? With these personality problems, I mean.”

“If a person checks into one of them.”

“Well sure. Of course,” Alithorn smiled. “That's up to you, isn't it? You and Mrs. Zauber. The people who are close to Sidney. Who can influence him.” He put his carving back into his pocket and extended a hand. “He's a great doctor, your brother,” he said, grasping Ben's fingers and shaking them hard. “A credit to the profession.”

A half-hour later, walking through the hospital lobby on his way back to his office, Ben decided that although he had promised Claudia on the day of Mulenberg's funeral that he would himself take over the onerous job of talking Sidney out of the barbiturates, he would have to renege on that promise and demand her assistance. She had given him almost none, he had to admit. In fact, she had acted distinctly uninvolved in Sidney's condition once she had assigned the task to him.

She had stayed up in Boston for an entire week after Sidney had lost his grant. Then she had returned to the city briefly, only to set off for St. Louis to visit an old friend. She had called Ben several times from St. Louis to ask about Sidney, but seemed reluctant to come home even when he told her that he thought her absence was contributing to Sidney's accelerating deterioration.

He had assumed that she found Sidney difficult to be around just now. God knows, he did too. But she never said this. Instead, she excused her absence in terms of other people's needs: her mother's depression, her friend Bootie's problems with her difficult five-year-old. Well, he would have to get her to come back. Alithorn had as much as said that the responsibility for Sidney lay with both of them. And he couldn't work on Sidney all on his own any longer. For one thing, he couldn't supervise him adequately. More and more he could see that someone ought to be with Sidney at all times. Someone ought to determine whether or not he could be believed when he said he felt steady enough to go over to the hospital, calm enough to operate. He could do this himself during the daytime hours, and would do it, but there were the middle of the night emergencies and the early morning summonses and the sudden after-dinner calls. Claudia would simply have to come back.

Backtracking, he entered a phone booth in the hospital lobby. But when he telephoned the number in St. Louis Claudia had given him, Bootie told him casually that Claudia had left several days ago.

“Are you sure?” He found the information incredible.

“Sure I'm sure. She's in New York.”

“She hasn't called me,” he murmured.

“I didn't know she was in the habit of calling you,” Bootie said.

He was disconcerted by her tone and got off the phone a moment later, barely saying goodbye. Then he dialed Claudia at home, but there was no answer.

He tried her again from a luncheonette on Third Avenue, and a third time when he reached Park Avenue, stopping at an open phone booth. For some reason, he didn't want to go into his office and make the call from his desk telephone. But again he got no answer. Then it occurred to him that of course Claudia wouldn't be at home. It was after two, and she always worked at the museum in the afternoons. He dialed her there and asked the switchboard operator to put him through to her. But when he finally got Claudia's extension an unfamiliar woman's voice said, “Mrs. Zauber? Oh. Well, I'm afraid you can't reach her here. She's no longer working at the museum.”

He was shocked. He'd had no idea that Claudia was planning to quit her job, let alone that she had done so. She'd worked at the museum for years. Been a junior curator there even before she'd met Sidney. He'd assumed she would stay at the museum forever. How annoying that he'd failed to take an interest in her plans. And how annoying that she herself had been so close-mouthed about them. He'd have to ask Sidney about her decision to quit as soon as he got to the office.

Unfortunately, however, Sidney was over at the hospital, Miss Viviani reported to him as soon as he walked in and picked up his phone messages from her. “He didn't want to go,” she gossiped, shaking her head from side to side. “You should have heard the argument he got into.”

“With whom?” Ben asked, although he knew he was being nosy.

“Some woman whose boy he delivered two days ago,” the aging, heavy-bodied Miss Viviani replied easily. “She suddenly took it into her head to leave the hospital early, and she wanted the baby circumcised immediately.”

“I see.” He was disappointed. For a moment he had imagined that Alithorn, after reconsidering their conversation, had changed his mind about merely delegating responsibility for Sidney and had called him up to take a firm, aggressive stand.

Ben saw his patients and then, finishing up swiftly, decided to go back to the hospital. He hadn't planned on returning there until it was time for his evening rounds, but Sidney hadn't come back to the office and he did want to catch him and speak with him about Claudia. Anyway, it was just as well that he went over early. He and Naomi were planning on having a fast dinner at her loft tonight, then going to Petey's school to see his class perform
The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
He could get his rounds out of the way and not have to worry about being late.

He walked expeditiously back to the hospital and took the back elevator up to the maternity floor. Would Sidney still be there? Stepping off the elevator, he started hurriedly down the corridor. But before he'd gone more than a few yards a gray-haired nurse came bursting through swinging doors at the far end. Her crown of braids was slipping out from under her cap and her chest was heaving. He stopped to stare at her as she ran past him and to his astonishment she changed the direction of her flight and scurried back. “Dr. Zauber! Thank God you're here!” she cried and clutched his arm.

“What's the matter?” He pulled back. She had dug her nails into his arm so hard he had felt them through his suit jacket.

“It's your brother! He's in the circumcision room.”

And then they were both running in the direction from which she had come. Ben was ahead of the nurse but he called out over his shoulder, “Who's with him?”

“Miss Field. She sent me for help.”

A moment later he pushed breathlessly through the swinging doors and into the circumcision cubicle off the nurses' station. He saw Sidney and the head nurst first, their white uniforms and Sidney's right hand smeared with blood. Miss Field was holding Sidney's scalpel behind her back and she was struggling to keep it there, as Sidney wrenched and wrenched at her arm.

Ben threw himself between them at the same moment that he saw the baby. It was lying in its rounded, scale-like bassinet, its tiny wrists bound to the side of the scooped-out basket by little cords. Its waist and plump thighs were slippery and smeared with blood. But it was howling, emitting a shriek that burst from its lungs with the urgency of a siren.

The howl was a good sign, Ben had time to think, before he tightened his fist, jerked back his arm and, with Miss Field behind him and only inches between himself and Sidney, pushed his fist into Sidney's stomach. Sidney doubled over and Ben caught him, so that he wouldn't stumble forward.

Miss Field ran out of the cubicle and slammed the scalpel into a desk drawer, just outside. Then she was back, helping the gray-haired nurse untie the baby from its surgical bassinet. A few seconds later the two nurses had extricated the infant and were running down the corridor with it toward the pediatric wing.

Ben let Sidney slump onto the floor. He looked dazed, his eyes still uncomprehending, his lungs gasping for breath. Waiting for him to stop his heavy breathing, Ben marveled at how easy it had been to immobilize him. It had never been easy in the past when, as adolescents, he and Sidney had tangled physically. In fact, it had always been Sidney who had bested him. He couldn't recall a single time when he had won one of their youthful battles. The more he had tried, the harder Sidney had always fought, striking out with ever-increasing vigor. He had learned something just now, he thought. Sidney had lost so much weight that their strengths were almost equal. Surprised, he bent over Sidney and helped him to his feet. Miss Field was returning, accompanied by a youthful mustachioed resident. “Stand up,” he whispered to Sidney.