Everyone had been looking at Patricia, listening to the harsh sound of her voice, so neither Evelyn nor Harrison saw exactly what happened. But in the echoing silence that followed her outburst, they both looked at Bradford, to see what he would have to say, wondering why he hadn’t yet spoken. And Bradford, eyes squeezed shut, was toppling forward off his chair.
2
Fridays were the worst. No matter how early he managed to leave, the traffic was already impossible. And it didn’t matter what route he took, over 33rd or down St. Paul or what, getting out of Baltimore on a Friday afternoon would try the patience of a saint. And, Dr. Joseph Holt told himself, I’m no saint.
Of course, he didn’t really have to go through it every week. He was attached to Johns Hopkins on a purely consultative and more or less voluntary basis. He could simply rearrange his schedule and not come down to Baltimore at all on Fridays.
But he was hesitant to do that, and the reason was, it was too easy. There was no requirement that he come to Johns Hopkins at all, ever. In fact, there were practically no true requirements of his time or training or talent, and at times that frightened him. It’s hard to maintain a belief in one’s worth when one isn’t actually needed anywhere, and in a professional sense Dr. Joseph Holt was one of the world’s least necessary medical men, or at least that’s the view of himself that he held. The closest thing he had to a purposeful function in this world was his position as Bradford Lockridge’s personal physician, a role he’d held for thirteen years, ever since Bradford won the Presidency, and even that wasn’t so much the result of his ability as of the fact that Bradford Lockridge was his sister-in-law’s father. He’d been thirty-eight when he’d been given the post of chief White House physician, very very young for the job, and how the cries of nepotism had gone up. And properly so, of course, though Bradford hadn’t given a damn. Bradford had always been lush about spreading his luck around to the rest of the family, and if outsiders complained that was their tough luck.
Holt, for the thousandth time, wished his own skin were that thick. Did Bradford ever worry about his self-image? Did he ever think of himself as useless, as parasitical, as a complete waste of self? Joseph Holt doubted it, he really doubted it.
But of course, what Bradford had done he’d done on his own initiative, while what Joseph Holt had done had been handed to him by his uncle-in-law. And that was why Holt spent time at the clinic in downtown Philadelphia, and offered his services in humanitarian causes, and was a consultant at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. And why he would not rearrange his schedule to avoid the Baltimore Friday traffic jam.
After trying a wide variety of routes in his first several months of commuting, Holt had finally given up all hope of beating the traffic and had resigned himself to joining it. These days, he drove down St. Paul and over North Avenue and Sinclair and Erdman to 95. After that, it was a straight run on superhighway all the way.
This Friday he had a passenger with him, a student going home to Philadelphia for the weekend. The student was one of the severe new youngsters coming along as a reaction to the radical-hippie syndrome, these new ones being the antithesis in every way, from their strict crew-cuts and clean jaws to the rigid conservatism of their clothing. As Howard Lockridge had said recently, “Even at their most relaxed, they look like a bunch of poli sci majors taking a tour of a steel plant.”
And yet, the conservative youngsters were not really very different from the radicals. Youth tends to be self-righteous and autocratic, whatever its political beliefs, and people past their first youth tend to be made irritable by the sound of a loud self-confident young voice, even if it is agreeing with them.
Fortunately, this young man was not of a missionary type, and except for an expression of gratitude at having been given the lift he kept silent while Holt negotiated the gauntlet of St. Paul Street.
In fact, it was Holt himself who broke the silence, just after making the turn onto North Avenue. “I tend to think of this route,” he said, “as a visual cautionary tale for doctors.” He glanced at his passenger. “And doctors-to-be.”
“Sir?”
“You’ll see what I mean.”
They drove a few blocks in silence, the young man looking alert, and then Holt said, “On our right, chapter one.”
“The cemetery?”
“Green Mount Cemetery, yes.”
The young man waited, but Holt said nothing more yet, so he looked curiously out at the cemetery instead, obviously hoping to find some sort of explanation there, and just as obviously failing to find it.
Holt was all at once feeling embarrassment. This was the first time he’d mentioned his Baltimore-cemetery theory to anyone, and bringing it out in the air like this it suddenly looked absurd. Particularly given the blank expression on the young man’s face. Youth is notoriously literal and unimaginative, and it was more than likely a grave mistake for a fifty-one-year-old man to try to share a private conceit with a twenty-year-old.
Still, he’d started it now, there was nothing to do but go on with it. A few blocks later, therefore, he said, with somewhat less conviction, “And on our left, chapter two. Holy Cross Cemetery.”
This cemetery was smaller and more quickly passed. The young man studied it the whole time they were going by, and then said. “You said, especially for doctors?”
“A visual cautionary tale for doctors,” Holt said, but by now he’d lost the feeling so completely he had to start undercutting himself. “You know, when you’re stuck in traffic jams week after week, you start looking for meanings in the things around you. And all these cemeteries along here, it seemed to me they had something to say. And since I’m a doctor — at any rate, I call myself a doctor — I took a sort of lesson for doctors out of what they said. Here comes chapter three, by the way. Dead ahead, you might say.”
Baltimore Cemetery was directly in their path, and their route took a jog to the left, then a half-right onto Sinclair Lane. Baltimore Cemetery was now on their right, and Holt said, “With chapter four on our left. Hebrew Cemetery. You can’t see it, but chapter four has a footnote just the other side of it. Saint Vincent’s Cemetery, in Clifton Park.”
The young man said, “Do you mean doctors should be careful what they do, or their patients will end up here?”
“Not exactly,” Holt said. He was strongly regretting all this by now, but there was no longer any choice. He was kicking himself for not having kept his mouth shut in the beginning. “In fact,” he said, maintaining a cool and confident exterior despite himself, “I think it means just the reverse. I think it means, no matter how careful a doctor is, no matter how brilliant or learned or devoted, his patients will end up here anyway.”
The young man frowned in disapproval and surprise. “That’s an awfully negativistic attitude, Dr. Holt.”
“Not at all. I’m simply saying that doctors are human, just like everybody else. We aren’t gods. Our cures aren’t miracles, our failures aren’t cosmic defeats. We are men and women, frail and prone to error. If we start believing our diplomas, we are in serious trouble.” He had warmed to the thought after all, losing his self-consciousness in the explanation. “Those cemeteries,” he said, “serve to remind me that doctors aren’t perfect, because nobody is perfect. The thought helps me keep my equilibrium.”