Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [46]
He washes his hands and wrists in what little water remains, using a charcoal-gray soap and producing a lather of blood and gray suds that makes Olympia have to turn away. Haskell tells the old woman to massage the uterus and that he will send Malcolm around with fresh linen and gauze to stanch the bleeding. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and withdraws some paper dollars and hands them to Mrs. Bonneau. He tells her to buy oranges and milk and wheat bread for the children, not to give the money to any relative who is a man and not to spend it on drink. Undoubtedly grateful to Dr. Haskell for saving the life of the infant and possibly that of the newly arrived French Canadian mother as well, Mrs. Bonneau promises she will do exactly as he has asked. But when Olympia looks up at Haskell’s face, she notices that he has a wry, not to say sardonic, expression on his features; and she thinks that he perhaps has little faith that his instructions will be followed to the letter.
After Haskell has cleaned himself and dressed, he gestures to Olympia, and they leave the room. Arrayed along the floor, still expertly popping buttons, are the three children of the woman who has just given birth. If they know they now have another sister, they give no sign. Haskell crouches down in front of the smallest of the three, holds her head in his hands and draws back the lid of the child’s right eye. He examines her thoughtfully and then says, in French, “Why are you not outside playing on this holiday?” The child shrugs. Haskell reaches into his shirt pocket and produces a handful of saltwater taffy pieces, wrapped in waxed paper, which he distributes to the three children. Then he stands and, without knocking, opens the door to the room. He gives the old woman a further set of instructions.
“Oui, oui, oui,” Olympia hears from beyond the door.
• • •
They walk to the horse and buggy. Haskell helps her in, and then he climbs up and takes the reins. The sun has nearly set in their absence, and the sky has the appearance of indigo dust. They retrace their route along the trolley line and head out toward Ely and Fortune’s Rocks, a distance of perhaps eight miles. From time to time, Olympia begins to tremble with the memory of the extraordinary events of the afternoon and evening. She wonders how it is that Haskell does not collapse from the sheer weight of his encounters with mortal injury and illness. But then she surmises that a physician, familiar with, if not actually inured to, the physical vicissitudes of birth and death, might take the occurrences of the afternoon as merely commonplace; though she cannot imagine how seeing the human body in extremis, as they have just done, can ever be routinely absorbed. The sleeves of his shirt are spotted with blood and other matter, and he gives off a distinctly masculine odor — not unpleasant, but testament to his own labors. After some time, he speaks.
“You must not be frightened of childbirth,” he says. “What you saw just now is not unnatural or uncommon. Difficult perhaps, but not desperately so. Nature sometimes makes a thunderous entrance and a whimpering exit, though I assure you it can be otherwise. I fear I have gravely injured your sensibilities.”
“Not injured,” she says. “Stunned them, perhaps. And my sensibilities are not as tender as you might imagine. Indeed, I am grateful to you for allowing me to witness the birth, which was an astonishing miracle. And is it not better always to know the truth of a thing?”
“I have mixed opinions on that subject,” he says thoughtfully.
“But what good does a woman do herself if she hides from the physical realities of her person? So that she might be terrified in the event itself? I wonder how I should ever have learned of such matters, for I have been