Rosamund was determined that I should go on living. It was she, of course, who had saved me-flew me back from the Caribbean just in time, saw me through intensive care, sleeping in a chair be side my bed. When I struggled to breathe she would raise the oxy gen mask to swab the inside of my mouth. It was not until the respirator was brought in that she went home for an hour to change into clean clothing.
The one physician who came regularly to visit me was Dr. Bakst. He came irregularly, too-at odd hours. He would say, "Draw me a clock at 10:47." Or, "What is today's date? Now, don t tell me you live on a superior plane and don't have to know exact dates. I want specific answers from you." Or, "Multiply seventy-two by ninety-three-and now… divide five thousand three hundred and twenty-two by forty-six."
Thank God I had kept my multiplication tables in good order. He had no wish to discuss "deeper" questions with me-or questions relating to the extent of my recovery.
At the age of eight I had had to recover from peritonitis complicated by pneumonia. Returning from the hospital what I needed to decide was whether I was going to be a lifelong invalid with two older brothers hating me for monopolizing the affection and concern of our parents. How such decisions are made in childhood is beyond comprehension. I see now, however, that I chose not to be a weakling. In some junk shop I turned up a book on physical fitness by Walter P. Camp, and I did as the famous football coach had done-I carried full coal-scuttles at arm's length up from the cellar. I chinned myself, I worked out with a punching bag and Turnverein Indian clubs. I studied an inspirational tract called _How to Get Strong and How to Stay So__. I told everyone I was in training. This was no exaggeration. And the fact was that I had no gift for sports. Still the choice I had made at the age of eight remained effective. Some seventy years later I was preparing to do it again.
By a rare coincidence, Dr. Bakst had another patient upstairs with cigua toxin. She had been infected on a trip to Florida. The toxin ravages the nervous system but is soon excreted, so that in a few days there is no sign of it. Luckily in her case the disease was caught in an early stage, and after the fish-carried poison was filtered out of her bloodstream she was well enough to go home.
I was still pushing the walking frame through winding corridors, determined to recover the use of my legs. I was held upright in the shower and felt humiliated as I was soaped and rinsed by kindly nurses who had seen everything and were not shocked by my body.
I assumed that my senior neurologist and good angel was familiar with cases like mine and knew exactly "where I was at." My damaged hands and legs would wither and my sense of balance would be lost if the small muscles were allowed to atrophy. If I were inclined that way, I could decide not to make the effort. You do get tired of performing the tricks, kneading the ball of putty and fitting jigsaw puzzles together only to see, when you examined yourself, the long wrinkles of your desiccated inner arms.
It's only now that I come to understand how much tact there was in the doctor's conduct and to see that he knew perfectly well I would disintegrate if I didn't do the drill he prescribed. I loathed the drill but I couldn't allow myself to fall apart. Moreover, I owed it to Rosamund to work at recovery. Yes, I was tempted to drop out, but she had concentrated her soul entirely on my survival. My quit ting would be an insult to her. And, lastly, to live necessarily meant to do what I had always done, and I had to be strong enough to perform independently the jobs of which my life consisted.
Dr. Bakst was a crack diagnostician, I considered, but in my case his diagnosis had been challenged. Ciguatera toxin is a tropical disease. The toxin is carried by reef-feeding fish-"piscavores" the doctor called them. No amount of broiling or boiling could destroy the poison carried by the red snapper set before me by Bйdier, a tough guy playing the Frenchiest of French hosts. He had come to the tropics to make money to educate his little daughters-they no longer get a _dot__, they get an education. (Ravelstein, who haunts these personalities and occasions, would have preferred to have me say _dot__, not dowry.) Beyond playing the role Bйdier owed his clients nothing. They took their chances with the piscavores of the coral reef, as he did with his investments. Neither Bйdier nor the doctor who had told me that I had dengue answered the inquiries from Boston.
At my age one has had a considerable experience of the ins and outs, the dodges that accompany self-interest. All such considerations are wildly mixed.
Dr. Bakst's cigua-toxin diagnosis had been challenged by other doctors. So he had an additional interest in proving himself right. He sent me to every corner of the hospital for CAT SCANs, MRIs and dozens of other esoteric examinations, in which the forces of the entire planet are upon you. I was able, but only up to a point, to separate his professional concerns from his other motives. The fact was that he knew I needed his "personal" visits, his daily presence-that I depended upon him.
It occurred to me during one fragmented and hopeless day that I might be one of those cunning patients whose master plan is to drink up the doctor's attention. The sick man sees that the physician must portion it out, and he also recognizes a special need to get ahead of his sick and dying rivals. The doctor naturally has to protect himself against these monopolizing impulses-perhaps should say instincts-of people who are blindly recovery-bent, who have the deep and special greed of the sick when they have decided not to die.
Dr. Bakst was solidly built but with an odd tendency about the head, which he carried like a boxer. It was of course out of the question to guess what he was thinking. He came and went as he saw fit. His glasses might turn toward you when his eyes did not. This led me to realize that it would be a mistake to try to communicate the many odd things I was experiencing. The problems he was setting me in arithmetic were much like the challenges thrown at David Copperfield by his wicked, tyrannical stepfather-"Nine dozen cheeses at two pounds, eight shillings, four pence. This reckoning should take you no more than three minutes." I had been good at sums in my schooldays, and it carried me back to childhood to work at them. For my fingers, too, they were good therapy, and I was soon able to sign checks and pay my bills.
The doctor now adopted a rougher style with me.
"What day of the week is it?"
"Tuesday."
"It's not Tuesday. Every adult knows what day it is."
"It must be Wednesday, then."
"Yes. And what's the date?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, you're preparing to make a stab at it-a gamble. But from now on you're going to know the date like any normal person. You'll check it out every morning, and you'll be ready from now on to tell the day of the week and the exact calendar date." Then he pinned a calendar on the wall for me. The doctor had seen that my days were a morass of self-neglect and that I was demoralized, drifting and losing heart through slackness and disorder.
It is possible that Dr. Bakst saved me. I believe I owe my life to him and of course to Rosamund. Bakst didn't think that it had been a mistake to put me "on the floor' or that I was bound for a chronic care facility. He believed that I could-and therefore should-make the grade. Somehow he sized me up as capable of coming back. I wonder what medical practice would be if doctors were to dismiss such intuitions. Dr. Bakst, like a skillful Indian scout of the last century, pressed his ear to the rail and heard the locomotive coming. Life would soon be back, and I would occupy my seat in the life-train. Death would shrink into its former place at the margin of the landscape. The patients desire is to crawl or limp or maneuver himself back to the life that preceded the illness, and to entrench and fortify himself in the old position.