Dr. Simons lived in an apartment house on Madison Avenue, a very
different Madison Avenue from the one which spread itself above the
park. The Collinses went down to Columbus Circle in the subway, then
took the Fifty-ninth Street car crosstown to Madison Avenue, then the
Madison Avenue car to Sixty-eighth Street. Dot was very tired when
she got to Dr. Simons’ house, almost too tired to be impressed by the
beautiful apartment building.
A very blond, very stagey-looking nurse took Dot’s name. Oh, yes, Dr.
Stewart had spoken of Mrs. Collins. She and Eddie were admitted to the
waiting-room. They sat very quietly and looked the place over. There
was no sign of the doctor, but they could hear an occasional movement
behind the closed door which betrayed the doctor’s presence.
There was a thick, soft rug on the floor, and a few Japanese prints
hung on the wall. The furniture was French gray wicker, and the window
had been draped by a professional draper. A very charming waiting-room,
and a most disgusting wait.
The thing that baffled Dot completely was the stairs which rose out of
the little foyer. Stairs! This was just an apartment, wasn’t it? What
were the stairs for and to what did they lead? She had decided that
they were just make-believe stairs when a child came down carrying a
doll. She placed the doll in a chair and solemnly climbed the stairs
again. When she returned she had a picture book. So! There was actually
something upstairs. Well, doctors were funny people.
The wait continued. The blond nurse smiled encouragingly now and again.
It grew warm in the pretty room. Dot took off her hat and later threw
back her cape. Eddie sighed heavily and shifted his position. No other
patients came into the room, but that was scant comfort, as a dozen
people might well have been examined while Dot waited.
Dot leaned over and whispered to Eddie: “I wonder how Al Smith’s doing?”
Eddie smiled. “It’ll probably be Election Day before we get home,” he
said.
A woman came down the stairs, a dark, brainy-looking woman with a
pleasant face. The doctor’s wife. Dot had never before seen a doctor’s
wife. She stared at Mrs. Simons, wondering what it must feel like to be
the wife of a clever doctor. Gee, Mrs. Simons must be proud. It wasn’t
long after that Dot learned that Dr. Simons was very proud of his wife.
Dr. Stewart hadn’t told Dot that Mrs. Simons was better known as Dr.
Martin and that under that name she was recognized as an obstetrician
of note.
Dot gazed at her interestedly and back at the child who was busily
tearing pages out of her book. Having a child couldn’t be bad, or all
the doctors wouldn’t be letting their wives have them, she thought.
Mrs. Simons exchanged a few words with the nurse and looked at Dot. She
smiled and Dot smiled back at her. Did doctors deliver their wives’
babies? she wondered. She would have liked to ask Mrs. Simons that and
what was upstairs.
Suddenly the door to the doctor’s office flew open. Nobody came out.
The doctor had apparently been lost in his own thoughts for an hour and
a quarter or had perhaps been deep in a mystery novel.
“You may go in, Mrs. Collins,” said the nurse.
Dot turned and whispered to Eddie: “I guess you’ll have to stay out
here.”
Dr. Simons was apparently a person who couldn’t stand waiting. Mrs.
Collins’ delay was too much for him. He appeared on the threshold and
gestured impatiently to both of them. They arose and followed him.
The inner office basked in a cool golden glow. The sun streamed
unrebuked in all the four windows and busy little electric fans whirred
gleefully and dared it to make a nuisance of itself. Everything was
terribly modern-looking and terribly oiled, polished, and clean.
In the center of the room stood Dr. Simons, waiting with a peevish
expression on his face for Dot to take a seat. He was a tall, dark
Jew, still under forty. He was slender, sharp-eyed, and rather
brilliant-looking. His fingers were long and slim and nervous. He was
good-looking. The sort of Jew who, one expects, will speak with an
Oxford accent and who will say blisteringly sarcastic things.
Dot took a seat. So did Dr. Simons. So did Eddie. Dr. Simons asked
Dot if her name was Kenny. She said it wasn’t, and Dr. Simons seemed
greatly upset over the turn affairs had taken. He pulled out a
file-drawer and began whispering “Collins” over and over to himself.
Finally he slammed the drawer and shouted: “Miss Henderson.”
The nurse appeared.
“Find this woman’s card,” he said. “It’s with the batch Dr. Stewart
brought over. Her name is Kenny.”
Dot’s mouth opened, but she could see by the smile on Miss Henderson’s
face that the doctor’s mistake had been noticed.
Miss Henderson found the card. The doctor regarded it critically. “Oh,
you’re the woman who is to come to term in a few weeks, aren’t you?”
“I hope not before Dr. Stewart comes back,” said Dot timidly.
Dr. Simons favored her with a quick, sharp glance. In the end he
decided she was merely stupid. “So do I,” he said.
He read the card over six or seven times. When he finally laid it down,
Dot had the impression that he still had not absorbed a single idea
in connection with it. Miss Henderson could have told her something
about that strange, restless, clever mind that never knew a peaceful
moment. Could have told her something about this peevish young doctor
who crucified and tortured himself for his patients, who respected but
disliked him.
“We’ll look at her, Miss Henderson,” said Dr. Simons.
Miss Henderson led Dot through a narrow white door into a narrow white
room. She helped Dot off with her dress and assisted her to the table.
“She’s ready, Doctor,” said Miss Henderson, opening the door.
The doctor’s voice startled Dot. He was of course speaking to Eddie,
but who would have guessed that he could speak like a human being and
on such short acquaintance? “I listen to Roxy,” he was saying, “when I
have the time.”
“Mrs. Collins is waiting,” said Miss Henderson.
The doctor came in. He examined Dot thoroughly. He was as conscientious
and as purely professional as Dr. Stewart, but there the similarity
stopped. Dr. Stewart’s manner was that of a saviour ministering to the
needs of some one he pitied and cared for. Dr. Simons’ attitude was one
of extreme annoyance. “That there should be women!” said his cold eyes.
“And that they should get pregnant!”
The examination finished, he left Dot abruptly, presumably to continue
his conversation with Eddie. It was only by Miss Henderson’s cool hand
extended to her that Dot knew that it was time to get off the table.
She dressed and joined Eddie and the doctor. Eddie was chatting easily
with Dr. Simons. Dr. Simons looked at Dot as she came in. His eyes were
still cold, but they held something else, a look of apprehension, of
worry.
“She’s fine, isn’t she, Doctor?” asked Miss Henderson.
You felt that her words were not at all meant to reassure the patient,
but rather to soothe and compose the doctor.
“Yes, ah, yes,” he said absently. “Quite all right. When are you to
come again, Mrs. Collins?”
“The week after next,” said Dot.
“You’d better make it next week,” said Dr. Simons. “A week from today.”
They left him then. Dot went, feeling that she had put a blight on that
cool and sunny room. The doctor was worrying his hair with his long,
slim fingers and staring thoughtfully after her. Miss Henderson was
tiptoeing about as though not to disturb his reflections, unpleasant
though they might be.
Outside, Dot found that Mrs. Simons and the child had disappeared.
Together she and Eddie left the strange apartment that had stairs.
“I hate that man,” said Dot passionately.
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Eddie. “Nervous, that’s all. Clever fellows
are always two steps away from the bug-house.”
“Dr. Stewart isn’t like that.”
“This fellow’s a Jew,” Eddie reminded her. “When they ain’t the common,
money-grabbing kind, they’re kind of erratic.”
“You know why I hate him?” asked Dot.
“No. Why?”
“He scared me. He looked at me funny. He thinks something’s wrong with
me.”
“How do you mean?”
“With my insides, I guess. He thinks I’m gonna kick off, having this
baby.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You didn’t see the way he looked at me. Maybe he’s right,” she said,
gloomily.
“Ain’t you got faith no more in Stewart?”
“Yes, but he ain’t seen me lately. Maybe something has happened.”
“Oh, go on,” said Eddie. “Nothing just happens. You’d ’a’ felt it, I’ll
bet, if anything bad had happened.”
There was no car in sight; so they walked slowly down Madison Avenue.
Dot was preoccupied and dreary. She gazed without interest into the
windows of the shops that lined the street. Crazy shops. Many of
them had nothing but books in the windows. Others were full of junk,
funny-looking vases and plates and things. One shop had nothing at
all on display except a great big cabinet with Chinese designs. “Give
me Two Hundred and Seventh Street any time,” thought Dot. “Or Willis
Avenue.”
She undressed and lay down when she got home. It had been a horrible
trip. She was dead tired and depressed. Her body was a smoldering
expanse of quivering flesh. That doctor! Did he know something that
kindly, good-natured Dr. Stewart didn’t know? Had she seen her future
truthfully foretold in the panicked gaze that he had cast upon her?
Some women did die in childbirth. Everybody knew that. The rate was low
nowadays. But still, some women did die. Would she be one of them?
Funny she hadn’t thought about dying before. And funny that somehow she
didn’t care for herself. But to leave a tiny, defenseless baby all
alone in the big world! There was Eddie, of course, but he would be
bewildered, frightened, helpless as the baby. What would he do? He had
no relatives. He would not give the baby to Edna even if she would take
it. What would he do? He would probably put it in a “home.”
She tore her mind to pieces with conjectures. She tossed her head about
in an agony of worry. She saw her baby’s identity forgotten, Eddie far
from New York, herself cold and useless in her grave. Sleep released
her at last, but she cried in her sleep, and Eddie, standing quietly
by, wondered what she was dreaming.
When she awakened, he had dinner all ready. The corn had boiled too
long, and the steak was too rare; but she appreciated his effort. Not
that she was hungry. It was hard to eat when visions of the baby--whose
mother had made him a dozen web-fine dresses all by hand--growing up in
an institution were so close.
“Ain’t supper all right?” asked Eddie.
“Sure. It’s fine.”
She wasn’t eating even as well as her diet permitted. Eddie wondered
what that meant. Was something wrong with her, after all? Suppose
something happened to her?
Now, for the first time in months, he pictured her lying white and
dead. He couldn’t bear the thought of it. He moved restlessly and
uttered an oath.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Honest, Eddie, dinner is fine. Don’t be sore that I ain’t eating. It’s
only because that trip kinda tired me out.”
“I ain’t sore.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“There is, too, something the matter. Do you get the blues when you
think how close we are to having a kid?”
“Yes,” said Eddie.
The pall with which Dr. Simons had enshrouded Dot did not lift. The
days of Eddie’s vacation rode each other into eternity, hot, dry days
above which the sun hung with a tawdry brassiness. Its sumptuous golden
radiance seemed to have deserted it. It was merely a huge and ugly gilt
bauble suspended in space. At night when it fell behind the Palisades
with the crass obviousness of an electrical effect, it left behind a
stifling, black night.
The Democratic Convention continued. The inability of the Democrats to
reach an agreement had become a joke around town. Dot still listened.
She had come to respect steadfast Alabama and to enjoy, if not to
share, California’s excitement over William Gibbs McAdoo. She was a
New Yorker. She wanted to see Al Smith get the nomination. Of course
Coolidge was going to be President again, but since these people set
so much store by picking a loser, she felt that Al Smith certainly
ought to be the guy. Listening to the arguments and discussions, even,
dispelled the gloom which Dr. Simons had provoked. But after the
delegates, the alternates, the visitors, and everybody else had gone
for the night to their hotels, rooming-houses, and homes, there were
still Dr. Simons’ worried eyes staring at her from the darkness. He
thought she was going to die. She had seen it in his face.
She had stayed in the house during the terrible heat wave. Eddie had
shopped for the meat and groceries. Nobody had come to see them.
Edna had taken Floyd to Asbury Park. Sue and Pat were vacationing at
Far Rockaway. She had had a card from Maude McLaughlin. Maude was in
Atlantic City. Her card had said: “We are having a wonderful time. Wish
you were here.”
“We” are having a wonderful time. That didn’t mean Maude and her
mother, for they never went any place together. Did it mean Maude and
the golden-haired child? Dot earnestly doubted it. It probably meant
Maude and Ted. She would be having a wonderful time at an expensive
seaside resort despite any irregularities of conduct. When it was
Maude, the gods laughed and accepted her sins as youthful pranks. Dot
felt a little bitter. It was very hot on Post Avenue, and the gods
didn’t seem to care a hoot that Dot was perpetuating the race in a
perfectly respectable way. Maude was probably wearing snowy-white sport
clothes and soft, perfumed dance frocks. She was bathing, riding in
wheel chairs, dancing, and in every way enjoying the summer.
She had dropped Dot a card and had sent the baby a gift; so apparently
she bore Dot no ill will even though Dot had seen fit to do as she
pleased in the little matter of her pregnancy. Dot was still a trifle
angry at Maude. She had longed to return the carriage robe, but an
insane lust to own many things for her baby had defeated her longing.
The night of July Fourth came down upon New York with a dark, throbbing
heat. There was nothing of new interest being reported from Madison
Square Garden. Dot and Eddie sat drinking cream soda, each gloomily
thinking his own gloomy thoughts.
Dot got to her feet ponderously. “Eddie,” she said, “I got to go up on
the roof for a while. I’m getting crazy from just looking at this room.”
Eddie turned off the radio. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
They ascended the one short flight of stairs to the roof in silence.
Dot walked in front. Gee, from the back you’d never know she was
pregnant! She wore a short dotted-swiss dress without sleeves and
without belt or sash. It had only taken an hour to make and had cost
but forty-nine cents. Her hair still held its noble, aloof wave which
could be touched neither by pain nor by adversity, but it was ragged
on her neck and far too long to fill any of the accepted offices
of the bob. Eddie looked at her ankles. They were slim and girlish.
Perfectly normal. Some women acquired swollen ankles during pregnancy,
Eddie knew. He remembered Dr. Stewart’s concern lest her hands and feet
swell. Oh, she was probably all right. He was just full of imagination.
The roof was dark and deserted. There were no stars, and a cloud,
glumly silver, betrayed the moon’s hiding-place. There was going to
be rain in a few hours, and the air, heavy and sulky, resented the
approaching storm.
Dot walked to the edge of the roof and peered over the low wall. The
street lay alone suffering the heat. No one was strolling tonight
toward the movies or the pool room. This was a holiday. People were
at the beaches or at lavishly decorated dances. The older folks were
probably listening to the Convention or permitting the threat of rain
to keep them to their living-rooms.
The voice of Senator Walsh reached Dot and Eddie from a dozen loud
speakers. Everybody in Inwood who owned a radio set listened to the
Convention.
Some one didn’t have a radio set. A girl with a frail, thrilling
voice who had the apartment right under the front part of the roof
was playing a piano and singing the wistful, haunting melody that had
struck New York so short a time before.
“What’ll I do, when you
Are far away?
What’ll I do? What’ll I do?
What’ll I do?”
A sudden chill hit Dot. Far away. Somebody was wondering what they
would do when they were left alone. Far away. What did that mean?
California? Hawaiian Territory? Perhaps farther. Perhaps a place from
which there was no return.
“What’ll I do, when you
Go ’way from me?”
The voice of the singer was not a good voice, but there was a faint
tragic sweetness tinting it that hurt Dot. It tore. It cut. Perhaps she
was going far away and was going to leave Eddie wondering what to do.
She crept closer to him over the dead, black roof. His face was a blur
of white in the darkness. She touched him, and his arms went around her
with a gentle firmness that seemed for the moment as though they could
keep her safe from Death itself.
They stood so for an age, it seemed. They were alone in the world, he
and she standing alone in the hot, black dampness. There was a lump in
Dot’s throat. She wanted to cry, wanted to shriek that it wasn’t fair.
Why were you tortured with fear and grief when you were doing what,
according to religion and science, was the right thing? Why was your
body ill, your mind troubled, when you were saving and stinting just
to bring another little life into the world? Oh, it wasn’t fair. She
hugged Eddie tightly. Perhaps very soon now his arms would be empty.
“What’ll I do, when you
Go ’way from me?”
Over Interstate Park, a skyrocket cut through the fog and exploded, a
torrent of hot red and dazzling green. The colors were dimmed slightly
by the mist but you could guess that they were bright and very gay. To
Dot, the thought of pleasure-seekers and excursionists at the Park did
not occur. The skyrocket was just a mockingly cheerful salute from a
world that was about to crumble and fall into the unknown.
“Oh, Eddie, I’m so blue.”
He kissed her mouth gravely and held her close. He did not question.
He was Eddie, her husband. Solid, strong, and so very dear to her.
“What’ll I do? What’ll I do?
What’ll I do?”
The black hush deepened. The piano was quiet. The Democratic Convention
had lost its followers. They had gone to bed. No further signal came
from Interstate Park. The world was empty. There were only Eddie and
Dot, forgotten and solitary, left alone on top of a deserted building.
“Eddie, I love you so.”
He kissed her again. “How do you feel, Kid?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m all right. Why? Why did you ask?”
“I just wanted to know.”
A little wind came up. Dot’s hair blew in his eyes as he bent above
her. The fragrance of her powder rose from her warm, white neck. He
turned away from her, lost in thoughts of the night he had first kissed
her. She had been so gay, so fresh. Now, she was troubled, burdened,
and about to face a crisis. He had done it. He had brought this on her.
“Eddie, I got to go see Simons again tomorrow.”
“Yes, I know, Kid.”
“I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t for Dr. Stewart. He’d probably be sore if I
didn’t, huh?”
“Yes, I guess he would. You’ll have to go.”
“Eddie, when are you going to get your suit?”
“Maybe tomorrow night if you feel well enough to be left alone. I don’t
want to drag you down there with me.”
“What kind you gonna get?”
“Blue serge, I guess. It always looks nice.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
They left the roof then, but Dot knew that the roof and what it
brought to mind would never leave her. It would linger forever embalmed
in all its terrifying serenity.
Reluctantly, the next day she started again for the office of Dr.
Simons. Eddie had thought it best to accompany her again. For though
she now knew exactly where the office was, he thought it advisable for
her to have a companion on such a long trip.
Dot hated the people in the subway who looked at her. She was conscious
of the shabbiness of her cape, which was of cheap material and had
not stood the gaff. She was quite unable to feel glorified by her
approaching motherhood, for across the way from her sat a woman with
a tiny infant in her arms, and the woman wore a frock that had never
been purchased for less than thirty dollars. Dot fell to wondering how
the woman could have managed such an expensive dress so shortly after
her confinement. The puzzle kept Dot occupied all the way to Columbus
Circle.
Dr. Simons had not yet returned from his calls when they arrived at the
office. Miss Henderson assured Dot that he was due any minute. There
were other patients in the reception room today--a white-faced girl
with a bad cough, a small, natty man with no obvious disorder, and a
woman who was going to have a baby around October.
Dot sighed and took a seat. This probably meant that the trip to
Inwood would be made during the subway’s rush hour. She discarded her
hat and cape and picked up a magazine. It was the _Atlantic Monthly_.
She didn’t remember ever having seen a copy of the _Atlantic Monthly_
before. It looked like a very nice magazine, but _Judge_ had funny
pictures. Eddie found _Judge_ for her, and she settled down to wait.
Presently the main door of the hall slammed loudly. There was the
sound of quick, important steps and the doctor’s voice rapidly putting
questions to the nurse. There followed a delay in which the patients
in the reception room heard Dr. Simons holding forth to Miss Henderson
on the delivery he had just accomplished uptown somewhere. Miss
Henderson’s voice was not in evidence now, but you knew she was looking
surprised, sympathetic, and admiring at proper intervals.
The doctor rushed impressively through the reception room and into his
office. He did not look at any of the people who were awaiting him, but
you felt that this was just a little game he played and that really he
had noted the number and identities of the patients.
Miss Henderson gave him time to rest for ten minutes or so; then she
nodded brightly to the natty, little man. “You may go in, Mr. Clifford.”
Mr. Clifford went in jauntily. Mr. Clifford came out properly
squelched. The two women were attended to with neatness and dispatch.
Dot’s turn was next, but it appeared, from the hesitation on Miss
Henderson’s part, that she was a delicate subject with the doctor and
could not be broached without preparation. Miss Henderson went in the
office. When she came out she smiled at Dot but gave no signal. A few
minutes later the signal came from the nurse. It was as though she had
been instructed to count up to five hundred and then usher Dot into the
presence of his Royal Nervousness.
Dot went in with slow and reluctant steps. Eddie remained in the
reception room, pretending to read from one of the humorous weeklies.
Dot smiled at Dr. Simons when he looked at her. He returned her
greeting with a somewhat absent cordiality.
“Well, how are you?” he asked.
“I’m feeling fine,” she said, trying to keep a ring of defiance out of
her voice. “Though I’m kind of worried.”
Dr. Simons appeared interested. He looked up from a sheaf of papers
which he held in his hand and asked, “What are you worried about?”
Dot’s defiance fled. She met Dr. Simon’s eyes timorously. “You kind ’a’
gave me the idea,” she said, “that things weren’t so awful good with
me.”
Dr. Simons laughed a little. His laugh would have deceived no one.
It was hollow, false. Dissipating fear was evidently no part of his
bedside manner.
“You want your own doctor back, eh?” His attempt to jeer pleasantly
fell flat. His expression was too anxious, too intent on her answer,
for his words to pass as mere persiflage.
“I’ve had Dr. Stewart for months,” Dot said, gravely, “and I feel as
though I had had him for years. I’d let him cut my head off, and I
wouldn’t doubt but what he could get it back on again.”
“That’s very flattering trust,” said Dr. Simons.
Dot felt a little sorry for him now. Perhaps her disclosure of how she
felt toward Dr. Stewart had been unkind, and certainly unnecessary.
She laughed uncomfortably. “I’m used to him,” she said. “That’s it, I
suppose. Have you heard from him lately?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Simons. “I had a wire from him this morning.”
Miss Henderson came and urged Dot into the other room, where she helped
her prepare for the examination. Dr. Simons was, on this occasion,
content with the most perfunctory of investigations.
“Well,” he said, as Dot returned to the office, “I guess you’ll have
your doctor with you in three or four days.”
“Oh, did he say so in the wire you got?”
Dr. Simons shook his head. “I’m going to send for him at once,” he
said. “He asked to be called if you showed any signs of action. I don’t
feel justified in handling your delivery in the face of his request.”
“Oh,” said Dot, “that’s fine.”
She left Dr. Simons, with his dubious smile, standing in the middle of
his office looking after her. The nurse was humming a melody from the
new Elizabeth Hines show.
Dot said nothing to Eddie until they were on the car; then she told him
that Dr. Stewart was coming right back. In her voice was the peace and
joy Robert Browning must have visioned when he wrote his famous poem of
the world’s tranquillity.
“Gee, that’s great,” said Eddie.
“Ain’t it? Everything will be all right now. That Simons guy put a jinx
on me. He made me feel rotten.”
Eddie looked at her carefully. “How do you feel now?”
“All right. Tired, though. Gee, I’m glad Dr. Stewart is coming back.”
She looked glad. For the first time in weeks there was a vividness
about her, an air of having to face a job that would be unpleasant but
inconsequential.
Eddie’s spirits rose with each station that they passed on the Broadway
express. At Dyckman Street, he bought half a banana cream pie in
Hanscom’s bakery, and Dot forgot her diet long enough to eat a slice of
it.
She was cheerful, smiling, and brave through the following days. When
Dr. Stewart’s letter postmarked New York arrived, she felt almost as
though the worst part of the confinement were over. The letter said
that he was coming to see her on the following day.
Eddie had gone back to work. She had hated to part with him, but there
was some consolation to be found in returning to a normal routine. She
cleaned busily so that the house should be bright and shining when Dr.
Stewart came. She expected him around one o’clock, but it was after
three when he arrived.
He didn’t tell her that he had been talking to Dr. Simons. If he had,
he probably would have kept Dr. Simons’ greeting to himself: “My God,
Stewart, I’m glad you’re back. That Collins woman! I don’t want to
deliver her. If her baby’s over two pounds it’ll be a battle. God,
Stewart, I’m glad to see you.”
Dr. Stewart had scoffed at his colleague’s excitement, had laid him a
little bet, had advised him quite seriously not to worry so much over
the people he saw and to have some confidence in himself. Dr. Simons
reminded his friend very much of an exposed nerve. Everything that came
within his range of feeling hurt him, made him throb with pain and
anxiety.
“Don’t worry over Mrs. Collins,” Dr. Stewart had laughed.
“I shan’t,” Dr. Simons returned, “now that you’re here; but if you
hadn’t come, I’d have probably been buried the same day they bury her.”
On the whole, Dr. Stewart didn’t consider it prudent to repeat this
conversation to Dot.