The door was opened by a man of about forty. He was wearing a sweatshirt over a soft shirt, and looked like he’d just come from a gym.
“Is Miss Kline around?” I asked.
“She’ll be right back. Have a seat.” I made myself comfortable in one of the straight-backed chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk and offered a cigarette to the man.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve given them up completely now. I’ve seen the recent tests on tars, and I’m convinced that there is no way to eliminate all the noxious carcinogenic matter. Did you know that in one unfiltered cigarette, like the one you are now lighting, there is enough tar to destroy about fifty cells in your lungs.”
“Is that a fact.”
“After smoking a package of unfiltered cigarettes, just like the one in your hand, there have been tests to show that pre-cancerous anomalies can appear. They showed experimentally, not clinically of course, that once precancerous conditions exist, that in roughly half the cases the cells finally produce malignancies.” I butted my cigarette in the ashtray provided, and was beginning to feel certain pre-cancerous anomalies forming under my ribs, when a tall gray-haired black woman came in briskly in a starched white uniform. She smiled at me, and gave a dirty look at the health fiend next to me.
“Richard, what on earth are you doing here? I told you I would look in on you after rounds this evening. Now, run along and behave yourself.” Richard got up, nodded at me and left. “Richard is one of my star patients.”
“Patient?” My chest immediately responded to treatment. The furry feeling under my tie cleared up, and I offered Miss Kline a cigarette.
“No thanks. I’ve just put one out. I’m trying to stop. Not doing very well. Clara Ferrante said on the phone that you were looking for Liz Tilford. May I know why?” She blinked her bright eyes and smiled. Her high cheekbones were becoming. She sat very straight in her chair, giving me her complete attention. I could feel her efficiency in the way her hair was drawn back from her forehead by a no-nonsense band of tortoise-shell. I liked her. I explained that the Elizabeth Tilford I was looking for was a good-looking redhead in her twenties, not a registered nurse in her mid-sixties.
“So you see, I’m probably here under false pretenses.”
“Sounds highly unlikely to me as well,” she said helpfully. “Still it obviously is a different woman. No question about that?”
“None. No. It’s just a dead end in my investigation. I want to thank you for your help.”
“Don’t get up yet, Mr. Cooperman.” (I’d given her one of my cards.) “I’ve just had the strangest notion. Liz Til-ford was one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with. She knew her job, but that was only part of it. You know, this place can get you down after a few years, especially when we were still in the old building. But like very few other nurses, Liz Tilford really cared about her patients. Most of us feel that when you’ve rubbed one back, you’ve rubbed them all, that patients, especially here, are somehow inhuman unconnected bothers. To Liz Tilford, every patient was an individual. She didn’t just remember a few things about her patients and so josh them along and set up a friendly bantering relationship. She really got to know most of the people who were under her care for any length of time. It was a gift. She was missed when she left, I can tell you.”
“What happened to her?”
“For a while she lived here in Toronto, in a small apartment not far from the hospital. Then, I heard she went to live with a married sister in Sault Ste. Marie. I don’t know the name. But, you didn’t let me finish. What I was going to tell you was that during her last few years here, she became very fond of a patient who answers the description you gave of the woman you are looking for. Liz was good to everyone, but there was a special bond between Liz and this young patient. Do you think that might be helpful?”
“It very well might. How can I tell, Miss Kline? I feel like putting my name down to be committed. What happened to this young woman? The patient you mentioned?”
“It seems to me that she left us over a year ago. Yes, now that I think about it, it was just after Liz retired. The last few times I saw Liz was as a visitor to see some of her special patients. Yes, and here’s the link. I was going to mention, when the girl left us she went from here to live with Liz Tilford. I think I remember hearing that Liz had helped a few of the former inmates find their footing in the outside world again. You see, she was an extraordinary person.”
“Yes, I can see that. Thank you for all your help, Miss Kline.”
“Mrs.,” she said, with a turn of her head and a smile. “What will you do now, Mr. Cooperman?”
“I’m not sure. I might go over to that apartment building and talk with the super. I’d like to find out the name of the girl Liz Tilford was living with.”
“Oh, you needn’t go to all that trouble to find that out, I think I can save you steps there. I remember the girl’s name very clearly, because it’s the same last name as my favourite English poet. Her name is Hilda Blake.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I headed directly from the highway to my parent’s condominium. It was pushing seven when I walked into the tangerine grotto that was the family living-room. There was no sign of anyone on this floor. In the kitchen, the light was burning, but I couldn’t see any sign of activity in the oven. It was Friday night, but I didn’t recognize any of the signs. I followed the noise of the television down into the family room.
“Oh, you did come?” asked my mother.
“Did I say I wasn’t coming?” I looked at my father for judgment, but he was too clever to get involved. He kept watching the last dregs of local news.
“Well, in that case,” said my mother, as though my arrival had made alternate plans necessary. “I’d better put some meat in the oven and peel some potatoes. I haven’t even lit the candles yet. Benny, you didn’t even phone.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward in my usual helpless way, and followed Ma upstairs. She preceded me into the kitchen. By the time I arrived on the scene she was pulling out slabs of paper-wrapped frozen meat and dropping them on the floor like bricks. It was like a bowling alley, the racket. She found the brick she wanted and flung it un-wrapped into a pot with a resounding clang, added a can of tomato juice, paprika, an onion, and put the lid on. “There,” she said as she slammed the oven door, “that will be done in two hours. I’ll put the potatoes around it in an hour.”
She’d placed two brass candlesticks in the middle of the tablecloth in the dining room, inserting stubby white candles and lit them with her lighter. Then she covered her face with her hands and mumbled some words under her breath.
“Ma,” I asked, “what is it you say?”
“You’ve been asking me that question since you could talk. How many times do I have to answer you?”
“Tell me again.”
“It’s a blessing.” She was back in the kitchen, collecting knives and forks and spoons from the dishwasher.
“I know it’s a blessing. Tell me the words.”
“Why do you want to know? You want the job?”
“I’m just asking.” I took the plates she handed me and walked around the table putting one at each place. I got out some glasses.
“Not those,” Ma said. “Use the ones from the china cabinet. I thought we’d have some wine.”
“Don’t change the subject. What are the words you say with your eyes covered?”
“I say, Benny, what my mother taught me to say before you were born. That’s what I say.”
“And the words she taught you were? Tell me.”
“Why do you want to know? You got a customer for the information? Benny, stop nagging me. Here, put the salt and pepper on the table. And when you’ve done that, open this jar of pickles. Put it under the hot water if you have to.”