The dog reluctantly crouched back down on the rug and the doctor indicated a chair for me by the examination table. She then put on a white labcoat from a hook on the wall, hung a stethoscope round her neck, and sat in the chair opposite. Now, looking much more the part, she asked me who I was and what was troubling me.
I explained that I was from Scotland, now a deckhand on the Charybdis, that I’d contracted some kind of fever either in or on the way to West Africa, and that although I was feeling much better now I still had occasional headaches.
She took my pulse and checked my back and chest with her stethoscope. She peered into my eyes with another device.
“You do show signs of having had malaria,” she said. “In that case, your symptoms aren’t unusual.” She went to the biggest medicine cabinet, which had shelves of pills and liquids. Then she poured some yellow pills into a paper pillbox and gave them to me. “Take one of these each morning for the next week. That should help clear up the headaches. If they continue, see a doctor at your next port of call.”
I took out my wallet to pay for the medicine.
“No charge,” she said, and before I could thank her, she went on: “By the way, if you don’t mind my saying so, you have a most interesting nose.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. She’d been looking at my nose all through the examination. She’d even allowed her fingers to touch it gently for no apparent reason.
“The nose is an unjustly neglected area of medical research,” she said. “I had the good fortune to study in Edinburgh under a famous physician — Dr. Cornelius MacVittie?” She was sure someone Scottish, like me, would know the name.
Of course, I’d never heard of him.
“He was renowned for his pioneering work in phrenology— that’s the study of the shape and size of the cranium,” she said. “Dr. MacVittie believed that the human skull can reveal the psyche of its owner. A highly trained phrenologist, like a perceptive art critic, should be able to grasp precisely what the exterior characteristics convey about the inner person.”
She paused a moment, smiling while I took that idea in.
“At the suggestion of Dr. MacVittie,” she said, “I myself moved from the general study of anatomy into phrenology, and from there into a subspecialty: rhinology. That’s the technical name for a specialization in the nose alone. Dr. MacVittie was convinced that through the use of various methods he’d developed, nose studies would inevitably come to replace psychology — which he regarded as a dangerously unscientific discipline.”
As she talked, I couldn’t help but notice again how conspicuous her own nose was. I wondered if it was possible for a rhinologist to do a self-analysis. But I was afraid I might laugh, so I didn’t dare ask.
“Now, in the case of this nose of yours,” she said, “I wonder if you’d allow me to schedule a few sessions to give it a careful examination?”
I told her that wouldn’t be possible, for we sailed the next morning.
“That’s a great pity,” she said. “But if you like, perhaps I could make a few general observations right now — though you mustn’t put too much stock in them. A nose is as individual as a fingerprint, and the nuances are everything. After a rigorous scientific analysis complete with follicle samples I might arrive at quite different conclusions over the course of a few meetings.”
I thought this experience might be amusing, and I was in no rush to get back to the ship. So I told her I’d be most interested in her findings.
“Very well,” she said. “Sit back and relax.”
I did sit back, and Dr. Chafak began to run the tips of her first two fingers along the contours of my nose. Her nails were clean and rounded, her touch delicate. She spoke, almost to herself, as she worked. “Nostrils: medium wide, conducive to adequate inhalation. Bridge: a little on the large side in proportion to cheekbones and brow. Septum: notable deviation from rectilinearity. Skin: tending to desiccation.”
At that point, she stood back for a moment, thinking. Then she took a pencil-thin flashlight from her labcoat pocket. She pushed my head gently back and shone the light up each nostril.
“Well, well,” she said, in that same meditative way. “What a very pleasing interior architecture. Caverns: unusually capacious. Nostrils: narrow and absolutely symmetrical. Olfactory bulb: globose and delicate as could be wished. How paradoxical that the deviation of the septum has had no effect on the inner harmony.” She put her flashlight back in her pocket, smiling admiringly at my nose. “All in all,” she said, “a most instructive first inspection.”
By now I really was curious about her findings.
“Now remember, I can’t be definitive, but I’m willing to pass an informed opinion,” she said. “Physically, you have nothing whatever to worry about concerning your nose. All the parts are in exceptionally good order and will continue to be of service throughout your life. If, as we believe, a healthy nose is an excellent predictor of longevity, you will certainly live to at least three score years and ten — accidents aside, of course.”
I supposed that was good news. Dr. Chafak had more to say, however.
“But psychologically, what your nose tells me is another matter.” She considered her words carefully. “The interior and the exterior are in surprising conflict with each other. You remember I noted that extreme aridity of the outer skin? Yet the inner surface is totally humid and lubricious. What this generally implies in an individual is extreme difficulty in reconciling conflicting elements of the psyche.”
This sounded to me as vague as the horoscope section of a newspaper. But she was obviously serious, and what she said next caught my attention.
“Within the last year, you’ve apparently suffered a great emotional shock,” she said in a gentle voice. “On the one hand, you’ve had to deal with the death of at least one of those you loved most. But your condition has been exacerbated by something else, almost certainly an affair of the heart.”
On hearing this I was, to put it mildly, surprised. I’d told Dr. Chafak nothing whatever about the deaths of my parents, and certainly not about Miriam Galt.
“You see, the first thing I noticed,” she went on, “was that the interior veins of the exumenta, which were already quite fragile, have slight ruptures in them. In my experience, it takes the double emotional trauma of a death and a tragic love affair to cause this kind of damage.” She looked at me with great compassion. “I’d guess it’s because of these things you’ve wandered so far from your native land.”
She asked for no confirmation from me and I volunteered none.
“But there is very good news, too,” she said. “Those inner vestibulants are already healing noticeably. In other words, you’re gradually getting over your emotional hurt. Your mind may not be fully aware of that yet, but your nose is.”
With those consoling words, the session was over. As Dr. Chafak was showing me to the door, Pongo the dog rose from his rug and hobbled along at her side.
“Pongo used to act as a guard dog when I had to treat violent inmates from the prison,” she said. “Now he’s just a pet.” She fondled his ears.
Pongo then came to me, sniffed at the back of my hand, then licked it. I made some comment about the infallibility of a dog’s nose.
“That’s true,” she said. “But who knows what a dog’s thinking? When the prison was still in operation, he’d sometimes lick the hands of monsters.”
I thanked her for seeing me and went outside. I walked fast all the way back to the Charybdis but not fast enough to outpace the stinging flies and mosquitoes.