The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [19]
Then, one night, she said that we should be married.
Wanda had every right to expect that our love affair would culminate in a proposal and it was the honorable action to take. But at the mere consideration of such a prospect, I was seized with dread. Marriage to her meant that I would pass my remaining days on the West Side of Chicago, growing old and beaten down by the poverty and despair around me. I realized too that Wanda had all of this planned. For her, marriage to a physician, regardless of circumstances, was a great step up, as it had been a great step up for me to have become a physician.
I told her I could not marry her.
I expected tears but, instead, Wanda flew into a rage. She shrilly inquired whether or not I intended to abandon her now that I had rendered her unfit for other men. I retorted that I was not a fool and was therefore well aware that I had hardly been the first man who had ruined her for others. At that, she softened her tone. She informed me that she was with child. I replied that I did not believe her, that I was, after all, a doctor, and if she wished, she could accompany me to the hospital where we could find out whether she was expecting or not. She leapt out of bed, gathered up her clothes, dressed, and departed, informing me on her way out that if I ever encountered her father, uncles, brothers, or myriad other relatives, I would be the worse for it. I left Chicago not a month later.
The episode caused me to realize what a complete fool I had been. How close I had come to precipitating my own downfall. Since then, when I could stand the strain no longer, I resorted, like most, to self-abuse. Yet, with all of that, the one feeling from last night that had not passed with the coming of the new day was an immense lust to be coupled with Monique, feeling her body thrusting against mine.
Once at the hospital, my headache still murderous, I called on the Professor in his office. I was reassured to find that he could not have been more open or in better spirits.
“My word, Carroll,” he said, taking immediate note of my condition, “if I did not know you better, I would say that you had been gallivanting. Since I do know you, however, I assume that you simply stretched out in the middle of Broad Street last night and allowed the traffic to run over you.”
I tried miserably to manage a small smile in reply, which the Professor laughed off as he bade me accompany him on rounds. He was so buoyant and lighthearted that the memory of the previous day and night began to seem more and more illusory. It was, after all, completely possible that what Turk had put forward as a gibe was actually true—that in the Dead House, the Professor had simply been shocked by the unfortunate woman’s youth and beauty and found himself unable to cut into her flesh. As we headed for the wards, I felt foolish for my suspicions.
Going on rounds with the Professor was an opportunity to experience medicine at its apex. He had introduced an entirely new manner of training even first-year medical students to deal not only more effectively with illness but more humanely with the afflicted. He began, as was his wont, in the children’s ward. The Professor adored children, and the sentiments were heartily reciprocated. (Years later, long after he had fled America for Great Britain, upon hearing that he was to be knighted, one of his young patients exclaimed, “Too bad. They should have made him king.”) This day, we had been joined by, among others, Corrigan, Farnshaw, and Simpson—in fact, everyone who had been at yesterday’s session in the Dead House, save one.
“Dr. Turk will not be joining us this morning,” the Professor informed us. “He sent word that he has been laid low with a gastrointestinal ailment. I know how much we will all miss him, but we have no choice but to soldier on, eh?”
I took brief comfort in the thought that Turk had weathered the evening even less well than I until Simpson sidled up next to me. “You look positively dreadful,” she observed quietly, with what I could not