She had never told anyone of the incident, and whenever she thought of it, as she did with surprising frequency, even all these years later, she was still a little ashamed; yet she recalled, too, recalled so sharply that she as good as experienced it again, the warm thrill of carrying them, these frail, helpless, yet miraculously living creatures, in the pouch of her cardigan, up Station Road, in the silence of the summer afternoon.
Having Leslie White in her flat gave her something of that same thrill. She knew it was wrong, and probably dangerous, to be sheltering him. He was from a world of which she knew little, a disreputable world of sports cars and drinks in the afternoon and shady business deals, a violent world in which one was liable to be set upon in dark alleyways by silent, hard-breathing men with cudgels. He would tell her nothing of the assault other than what he had told her that first night. He insisted he did not know the three toughs or why they had attacked him. She did not believe this. From the way his eyes slid away from hers when she questioned him she saw there were things that he was hiding from her. And she was glad that he hid them. She was sure it was better not to know very much about Leslie White's doings.
PHOEBE HAD GONE THAT NIGHT TO DR. KREUTZ, AS HE HAD ASKED HER to do. The place was not at all what she had expected-it was not a surgery, for a start. When the taxi dropped her at the address in Adelaide Road she had an immediate sense of something indefinably sinister, which was due, she felt sure, to something more than the lateness of the hour and the deserted streets. Although it was past midnight there was a ghostly glow in the sky, but whether it was the last of the day's radiance or the light of an as yet unrisen moon she could not tell. She was not often abroad at such an hour, and the world in the darkness seemed tentative and without definite shape, as if everything were in the process of being dismantled for the night. Above the trees the streetlamps shone, and giant shadows of leaves trembled on the sidewalks. On the far side of the road, near the gate of the hospital, a pair of prostitutes loitered, the tips of their cigarettes making angular weavings in the shadows, like fireflies; seeing her hesitate at the black-painted iron gate of the house they said something to each other and laughed, and one of them called out softly to her what seemed to be a question, or an invitation, the words of which she was not able to catch, which, she thought, was probably just as well.
There was no sign of life in the basement flat, no sounds from within and no light in the window, but she had hardly taken her finger off the bell when the door suddenly swung open, as if under its own power. Dr. Kreutz had not switched on the light in the hall and at first all she saw of him was the glint of the whites of his eyes, which were like the eyes of the snake charmer in that jungle painting by the Douanier Rousseau. Kreutz must have known somehow that she was there, even before she rang the bell. When she said Leslie White's name it seemed for a moment that he would shut the door in her face, but instead he came out onto the step, pulling the door to behind him and holding it ajar with his hand. This was the strangest doctor she had ever encountered.
"He's had-he's had an accident," she stammered. "He said to ask you to give me his medicine for him. He said you'd understand."
He was tall and thin, and his face was darker than the night. He was wearing some kind of tunic without a collar, and when she glanced down she saw that he was barefoot. He gave off a faint odor, too, spicy and sweet.
"An accident," he said, without emphasis. His voice was deep and unexpectedly soft and almost musical.
"Yes." She was conscious of the two whores still watching from the other side of the road; she could feel their eyes boring into her back. "He's quite badly hurt."
"Ah." Dr. Kreutz pondered for a moment in silence, measuring the import of what she had said. "This is most most distressing."
Why did he not ask her what kind of an accident it had been?
"I don't know what the medicine is," she said. "I mean, Mr. White didn't say, he just asked me to come and tell you that he needed it." She was babbling. She could not stop. "I'm not sure if there's a chemist's open at this time of night, but maybe if you give me a prescription I could get it filled somewhere, maybe over there at the hospital." She half turned, to indicate where she meant, and saw the prostitutes out of the corner of her eye, craning in curiosity. Dr. Kreutz was shaking his head slowly from side to side.
"There is no medicine," he said. "You must tell him that-no medicine, no medicine anymore."
"But he's hurt," she said. She felt suddenly close to tears. Every word she uttered dropped like a stone into the bottomless depths of his calm and seemingly unbridgeable remoteness. "Can't you help?"
"I am sorry, Miss," he said, "very very sorry," although he did not sound it, not at all. A moment passed, in which she could think of nothing more to say, and then he stepped back soundlessly into the dark hallway, and again there was that flash of the glistening whites of his eyes, before he shut the door.
It was only on the way out that she saw the plaque on the railings with his name on it. "Spiritual Healing"-what was that, exactly, she wondered.
Leslie was lying on the sofa where she had left him, dozing, his head set crookedly against the cushions. In the light from the electric lamp on the sideboard his battered face seemed more swollen than it had been before, with shiny, purplish-red bruises; it looked like something in the window of a butcher's shop. When she told him what Dr. Kreutz had said, that there would be no more medicine, he put a hand over his eyes and turned away from her, and his shoulders began to shake, and she realized that he was weeping. Whatever she had expected, it was not tears. She put out a hand to touch him but held back. Suddenly there was a gulf between them, a distance not broad but immensely, immeasurably deep. She thought again of the baby hares. It was with him as it had been with them: she was of a different species. She turned away and went into the bedroom and left him there, crying desolate tears into a corduroy-covered cushion.