Legion (11 page)

Amfortas probed his eyes for a time. “Well, all right,” he said at last. “But can’t we do it in my office?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Let me go and get a jacket.”

Amfoitas went away and when he returned he was wearing his navy blue cardigan sweater. “All right,” he told Kinderman.

Kinderman stared at the sweater. “You’ll freeze,” he said. “Get a jacket.”

“This will do.”

“No, no, get something warmer. I can see now the headline: ‘Neurologist Felled by Freezing Cold. Unknown Fat Man Sought for Questioning.’ Get a jacket, please. A windbreaker, maybe. Something warmer. I would feel too guilty. As it is, you’re not exactly the picture of health.”

“This is fine,” said Amfortas softly. “But thank you. I appreciate your concern.’’

Kinderman looked crestfallen. “Very well,” he said. “I warned you.”

“Where are we going? It will have to be close.”

“The Tombs,” said Kinde
rm
an. “Come on.” He linked up an arm with that of the neurologist and walked him toward the elevators. “It will do you some good. You need a little fresh air on your cheeks. A little nosh would also not make you thinner. Your mother, does she know about this meal–skipping nonsense? Never mind. You’re stubborn. I can tell. I wish her luck.” The detective flicked a glance of appraisal at the doctor. Was he smiling? Who knew? He is tough, a tough case, thought Kinderman.

On the walk to The Tombs, the detective asked questions about Dyer’s condition. Amfortas seemed preoccupied and answered with brief, terse statements, or with nodding or shaking of his head. What came through was the likelihood that the symptoms described by Dyer, although sometimes a warning of a tumor in the brain, were in this case most likely due to strain and overwork.

“Overwork?” the detective exclaimed with incredulity as they were walking down the steps of The Tombs. “Strain? Who would guess it? The man is more relaxed than a boiled noodle.”

The Tombs was red-and-white–checkered tablecloths and a dark oak spherical bar where the beer came in large, thick steins made of glass. The walls were festooned with prints and lithos of Georgetown’s past. The room was not crowded yet. It was just a few minutes before noon. Kinderman saw a quiet booth. “Over there,” he said. They went over and sat down.

“I’m so hungry,” said Kinderman.

Amfortas said nothing. His head was bowed. He looked down at his hands, which were clasped before him on the table.

“You’ll eat something, Doctor?”

Amfortas shook his head. “What about Dyer?” he asked. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Kinderman leaned forward, his expression and his manner vaguely portentous. “Don’t fix his TV,” he said.

Amfortas looked up, expressionless. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t fix his TV. He’ll find out.”

“Find out what?”

“You didn’t hear about the murder of the priest?”

“Yes, I heard,” said Amfortas.

“This priest was a friend of Father Dyer’s. If you fix the TV he’ll find out the news. Also, don’t bring him newspapers, Doctor. Tell the nurses.”

“That’s what you brought me here to tell me?”

“Don’t be hard–hearted,” said Kinderman. “Father Dyer has a delicate soul. And a man in a hospital in any case shouldn’t be getting such news as that.”

“But he already knows,” said Amfortas.

The detective looked mildly staggered. “He knows?”

“We discussed it,” said Amfortas.

The detective looked away with an air of recognition and resignation. “How very like him,” he nodded. “He didn’t want to worry me with his angst, so he puts on a show like he’s blissfully ignorant.”

“Why did you bring me here, Lieutenant?”

The detective turned his head. Amfortas was staring at him intently. His gaze was disconcerting. “Why did I bring you here?” said Kinderman. His eyes were blank and bulging as he struggled to hold the doctor’s stare, and his cheeks were beginning to redden rapidly.

“Yes, why? Surely not about a television set,” said Amfortas.

“I lied,” the detective blurted out. Now his face was flushed and he looked away and began to shake his head and smile. “I am so transparent,” he chuckled. “I don’t know how to keep a straight face.” He turned back to Amfortas and raised his hands above his head. “Yes, guilty. I am shameless. I lied. I couldn’t help myself, Doctor. Strange forces overcame me. I offered them cookies and told them, ‘Go away!’ but they knew I was weak and held on and said, ‘Lie, or for lunch you get quiche and a slice of warm melon!’ “

“The taco might have been more effective,’’ said Amfortas.

Kinderman lowered his arms in amazement. The neurologist’s face had remained unreadable, and his stare was still flat and unblinking. But had he made a joke? “Yes, also the taco,” said Kinderman numbly.

“What is it that you want?” Amfortas asked him.

“You’ll forgive me? I wanted to pick your mind.”

“What about?”

“Pain. It drives me crazy. Father Dyer said you work in this field, that you’re an expert. Do you mind? I used a ruse so we could talk about this subject a little. In the meantime, I’m embarrassed and I owe you an apology, Doctor. I’m forgiven? Maybe sentence suspended?”

“You have a recurring pain?” said Amfortas.

“Yes, a man named Ryan. But this is not the point now; it isn’t the subject.”

Amfortas remained a dark presence. “What is?” he asked quietly.

Before the detective could answer, a waiter appeared with menus. He was young, a student at the college. He was wearing a bright green tie and vest. “Both for lunch?” he inquired politely.

He was offering the menus, but Amfortas declined with a gesture of his hand. “Not for me,” he said softly. “A cup of black coffee, please. That’s all.”

“No lunch for me either,” said the detective. “Maybe some tea with a slice of lemon, please. And some cookies. You have the little round ones with the ginger and the nuts?”

“Yes, we do, sir.”

“Some of those. Incidentally, what is doing with the tie and the vest?”

“Saint Patrick’s Day. In The Tombs it’s all week,” said the waiter. “Nothing else for you gentlemen?”

“You have today a little chicken soup?”

“With noodles.”

“With whatever. Bring it also for me, please.”

The waiter nodded and went to fill the order.

Kinderman glowered at another table where he saw a large stein that was filled with green beer. “It’s all a craziness,” he muttered. “A man runs around chasing snakes like some looney, and instead of a nice padded cell in some rest home, the Catholics are making him a saint.’’ He turned back to Amfortas. “Little garden snakes, they’re harmless, they don’t even eat potatoes. This is rational behavior, Doctor?”

“I thought you were so hungry,” said Amfortas.

“Can’t you leave a man a little shred of dignity?” asked Kinderman. “All right, it was another big lie. I always do it. I’m a totally incorrigible liar and the shame of my precinct. You’re happy now, Doctor? Use my brain for experiments and find out why this happens. Then at least I’ll have some peace when I die–I’ll know the answer. This problem has been driving me crazy all my life!”

In the doctor’s eyes there was a ghost of a smile. “You were mentioning pain,” he said.

“A truth. Look, you know that I’m a homicide detective.”

“Yes.”

“I see a great deal of pain that’s inflicted on the innocent,” the detective said heavily.

“Why does this concern you?”

“What’s your religion, Doctor?”

“I’m a Catholic.”

“All right then, you’ll know, you’ll understand. My questions have to do with God’s goodness,” said Kinderman, “and the ways that little innocent children can die. At the end, does God save them from horrible pain? Is it like in that movie Here Comes Mister Jordan, where the angel pulls the hero from the crashing plane just before it hits the ground? I hear rumors of such doings. Could it possibly be true? For example, there’s a car crash. In the car there are children. They’re not seriously injured, but the car is on fire and the children are trapped inside and they can’t get out. They were burned alive, we read later in the papers. It’s horrible. But what are they feeling, Doctor? I heard somewhere that the skin goes to sleep. Could this be true?”

“You’re a very strange homicide cop,” said Amfortas. He was looking directly into Kinderman’s eyes.

The detective shrugged. “I’m getting old. I have to think about these things a little bit. It couldn’t hurt. In the meantime, what’s the answer to my question?”

Amfortas looked down at the table. “No one knows,” he said softly. “The dead don’t tell us. Any number of things could be happening,’’ he said. “Smoke inhalation might kill before the flames. Or immediate heart attack, or shock. Moreover, the blood tends to rush to vital organs in an effort to protect them. That accounts for reports of the skin turning numb.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. We can only guess.”

“So what happens if all these things don’t happen?” asked the detective.

“It’s all speculation,” Amfortas reminded him.

“Please, Doctor, speculate. It’s eating me up.”

The waiter arrived with their order. He was setting down the soup in front of the detective, but Kinderman held him off with a gesture. “No, give it to the doctor,” he said, and when Amfortas began to decline, he interrupted him with, “Don’t make me call your mother. It’s got vitamins and things only mentioned in the Torah. Don’t be stubborn. You should eat it. It’s full of strange goodness.”

Amfortas gave up and let the waiter set it down.

“Oh, is Mister McCooey around?” asked Kinderman.

“Yes, he’s upstairs, I believe,” said the waiter.

“Would you ask if I could see him for a moment? If he’s busy, never mind. It’s not important.”

“Yes, I’ll ask him. What’s your name, sir?”

“William F. Kinderman. He knows me. If he’s busy, it’s okay.”

“I’ll give him the message.” The waiter went away.

Amfortas stared at the soup. “From the first sensation until death takes twenty seconds. When the nerve endings burn, they cease to function and the pain is all over. How long before that happens is also a guess. But no more than ten seconds. In the meantime, the pain is the most hideous imaginable. You’re fully conscious and acutely aware of it. Your adrenaline is pumping.”

Kinderman was shaking his head, staring down. “How could God let such horror go on? It’s such a mystery.” He looked up. “Don’t you think about such things? Does it anger you?”

Amfortas hesitated, then met the detective’s gaze. This man is burning with wanting to tell me something, thought Kinderman. What is his secret? He thought he read pain and a longing to share it. “I may have misled you, I think,” said Amfortas. “I was trying to work within your assumptions. One thing I didn’t mention is that when pain gets too unbearable, the nervous system overloads. It shuts down and the pain is over.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Pain is strange,” said Amfortas broodingly. “About two percent of the people relieved of a long–standing pain develop serious mental disturbance as soon as that pain is taken away. There have also been experiments with dogs,” he continued, “with rather peculiar implications.” Amfortas proceeded to describe for the detective a series of experiments in 1957 in which Scottish terriers were raised in isolation cages from infancy to maturity, so that they were deprived of environmental stimuli, including even the most minor of knocks and scrapes that might cause them discomfort. When fully grown, painful stimuli were applied, but the dogs did not respond in a normal manner. Many of them poked their noses into a flaming match, withdrew reflexively and then immediately sniffed at the flame again. When the flame was inadvertently snuffed out, the dogs would continue to react as before to a second, or even a third, flaming match. Others did not sniff at the match at all, but made no effort to avoid its flame when experimenters touched their noses with it any number of times. And the dogs did not react to repeated pinpricks. In contrast, the litter mates of these dogs, which had been raised in an ordinary environment, recognized possible harm so quickly that experimenters found themselves unable to touch them with the flame or the pin more than once. “Pain is very mysterious,” concluded Amfortas.

“Tell me frankly, Doctor, couldn’t God have thought of some other way to protect us? Some other kind of warning system to tell us our bodies were in trouble?”

“You mean like an automatic reflex?”

“I mean something like a bell that goes off in our heads.’’

“Then what happens when you sever an artery?” said Amfortas. “Would you put on the tourniquet right away, or put up with the bell while you finished your seven no–trump redoubled? And what if you’re a child? No, it just wouldn’t work.”

“They why couldn’t our bodies have been made impervious to injury?”

“Ask God.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I don’t know the answer,” said Amfortas.

“So what is it that you do in your laboratory, Doctor?”

“Try to learn how to shut off pain when we don’t need it.”