The Eskimo Invasion (20 page)

 

 

"I'm not a performer." Dr. West hurried along the hall because he had to
go home and pick up Marthalik and take her to that innocently unsuspecting
obstetrician within a half hour.

 

 

"Could you perform for $1000 a week?" Dr. Darwin pursued him. "Two lectures
a day, ten lectures a week, plus individual student conferences the rest
of your time. Two lectures a day, a hundred students in each, that's $200
a day. In a five-day week, that's $1000."

 

 

"But if they skip a class, they save a dollar," Dr. West retorted,
hurrying down the stairs, not asking whether even half a class showed
up for any lectures, because this would only encourage Dr. Darwin to
keep talking.

 

 

"In order to take the final exam for credit," Dr. Darwin panted after
him across the ground floor lobby, "kids have to produce receipts from at
least half the lecture hours. I can't attract the co-eds like you could,
but I'm grossing $850 per week. My only expenses are my pro rata share
of the warehouse rent, heating, lights and student janitor service. I'm
netting more than an Associate Professor at the University of California."

 

 

"Good." Dr. West dodged between silent electric autos, wondering if the
innocent obstetrician he had selected for Marthalik would end up as famous
as Dr. DaFoe, a semimythical Canadian who delivered the unremarkable
Dionne quints.

 

 

"And I have no research deadlines to meet," Dr. Darwin's voice trailed
after him toward his car. "Without research and publications scalps to
collect, I have so much time to meet with my students individually. I'm
working a solid ten-hour day with kids, a lot more than I'm required to,
but these are real live kids. Believe me, real teaching is wonderful."

 

 

"What do you think my graduate students were -- dead people?" Dr. West
retorted, cornered against his car. "I was teaching them -- "

 

 

"Then there's our merit bonus," Dr. Darwin shrugged. "At the end of
the Semester, when the students vote for the outstanding instructors,
what a pleasure to receive a merit bonus from the kids!"

 

 

"I hear that some teachers have received more eccentric treatment."

 

 

"Young people are lively, but each semester my own bonuses have grown bigger.
I'm learning -- "

 

 

"Thanks for asking me," Dr. West blurted, scrambling inside his Olds
Electro-Drive and simultaneously worrying about his university contract
and about Marthalik's surprising attitude toward her approaching visit
to the obstetrician. She had acted insulted at her husband's apparent
lack of confidence in her ability as wife.

 

 

"It is so easy to have babies by oneself," she whispered finally in the
obstetrician's waiting room. "This person never has needed help. I simply
kneel over a hole dug in the earth of the tent. The hole should be lined
with a caribou skin."

 

 

Dr. West sat beside her, staring at a dog-eared medical journal in the
waiting room and saying nothing.

 

 

"This is so stupid," she persisted in Modern Eskimo. "My belly has only
begun to grow big. I won't have my baby for at least a week."

 

 

"You speak truly. But it is a whiteman's custom for a medical angakok to
look at the mother first. This brings good luck for the baby." Dr. West
accompanied her into the examining room. He had decided not to confide
in the obstetrician about the one-month gestation period because the
obstetrician wouldn't believe him, and would think he was a nut.

 

 

The obstetrician moved with practiced sureness and a curious smile,
which faded as Marthalik resisted.

 

 

In outrage, Marthalik finally submitted to the examination. In answer to
the question as to the date of conception, Dr. West told the obstetrician
that he could not even guess the approximate date. At the end of the
examination, the OB innocently predicted Marthalik could expect normal
labor pains in about three months. Dr. West asked for another appointment
this Friday. The obstetrician blinked, evidently realizing the husband
was even more difficult than the wife.

 

 

Dr. West insisted that he record a handprint now -- of Marthalik. Turning
a dull red, the obstetrician tried to smile and humor him. "Normally it
is the handprint of the newborn baby we take to eliminate any worry as
to positive identification." But Dr. West insisted, and the obstetrician
suddenly laughed. "First time I've ever handprinted a mother."

 

 

"We'll be back in four days," Dr. West said.

 

 

"If you wish, but I wouldn't worry about a thing," the OB laughed,
steering him out the door. "She's young, has borne previous children,
has outstanding muscle tone. Since this is your fourth child, there's
no reason for you to suffer such acute symptoms. Don't worry!"

 

 

In four days, it was the OH who was suffering acute symptoms. In only
four days, Marthalik had swelled up like a balloon. The OH feared a
huge watery tumor and insisted that a heat print of the uterus and fetus
not only was justified, it was imperative. When he inspected the blurry
picture of the nearly full-term fetus, the OH glared at Dr. West as if
suspecting a bad joke. "This is a different woman. This is a different
baby. It will be born within six weeks. Different woman -- "

 

 

"Compare handprints of my wife."

 

 

Making another handprint of Marthalik and comparing it with the one in
his files only made the obstetrician angrier. "Even my nurse -- someone
in my office is in on this so-called joke. Switching handprints has to
be an inside job. Mr. West, if you're not satisfied with my services and
are trying to make a fool of me I would recommend another doctor. You still
have six weeks."

 

 

"I'm satisfied." Dr. West was not satisfied, worrying that this OB might
prove too unadaptable for his purpose. The OB would undergo a shock
in three days. But to change doctors now would frustrate Dr. West's
whole purpose.

 

 

In three days, the obstetrician was called to the hospital to deliver the
baby. When he recognized Marthalik, he called in a specialist. "You won't
be billed for his time, Mr. West. If necessary, I'll pay him out of my
own pocket. When I deliver this baby, which should be a simple procedure,
which is supposed to be a simple procedure, and I've been delivering
babies for thirty years including many premies, I expect no problems,
and the incubator and my usual assisting physician for interesting cases
are ready -- but I want an expert witness."

 

 

Dr. West smiled. This was exactly what Dr. West wanted, witnesses.
Marthalik had an easy birth, a baby boy who gave one squawl, then lay
on the OB's rubber gloves, seeming almost smiling with confidence in
this cold and drying new world.

 

 

"Full-term," remarked the specialist, and shrugged, coldly eyeing the
obstetrician.

 

 

The OB became embarrassed. Evidently he had given the specialist and the
other doctor the impression that the baby would be premature. Plainly
the OB had lacked the confidence to tell them his patient had progressed
from the apparent six-month to a full-term pregnancy in one week, and
now he had no intention of doing so. Before the witnesses could depart,
Dr. West desperately whispered to the OB that he handprint Marthalik
in the presence of these two doctors and get their signatures on the
handprint. Surprisingly the OB nodded in agreement. With odd expressions
the two doctors signed and left.

 

 

The OB peered at Dr. West. With a deductive hypothesis worthy of Sherlock
Holmes, the OB laughed hopefully. "Is it possible, you'll be bringing
your wife -- to my office again -- in a couple of months?"

 

 

Dr. West returned with Marthalik in a week. With nervous hands,
the OB personally did the pregnancy lab ten-minute test and other
exam procedures. "I suppose I don't know much about Eskimos. But this
heat print suggests she's already in her second month of this second
pregnancy. I never imagined that Eskimos -- "

 

 

"Marthalik's not an Eskimo," replied Dr. West.

 

 

The OB stared at him. "Will you do me a favor and bring your wife in
every day except -- of course, Wednesday. Your daily appointments could
be at 6:00 if that is convenient. No charge, no charge at all." The
obstetrician smiled with boyish excitement as if he were about to make
a great medical discovery.

 

 

In less than a month, this baby was born before too many witnesses. Some
of them clutched Dr. West's arm and virtually demanded a repeat performance.

 

 

"Visit Canada," Dr. West retorted with a narrow smile. "Put pressure
on the Canadian Government and demand to be allowed to inspect the
Boothia Peninsula Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary. There's nothing unusual
about Marthalik. Believe me, a one-month gestation period is normal for
Boothia Peninsula Eskimos -- if they are Eskimos."

 

 

He was feeling fierce because the University finally had notified him
that day his contract would not be renewed.

 

 

"Go to Boothia," he told the reporter, "and see if I'm lying. Those
poor people are multiplying so fast, it's like the next hundred years
of the world's population explosion compressed into the next ten. Unless
those bureaucrats in Ottawa hurry up and introduce birth control instead
of endless food, Canada could be submerged by Eskimos. No, call them
Esks. They're not the same as Eskimos. They're something new. But their
hunger is as old as mankind."

 

 

Dr. West had only one more sabbatical paycheck, and already five children
to feed. He intended to practice birth control from now on. Five children
were more than enough. In this crowding world, in his crowding apartment,
he lectured Marthalik on when to take The Pill. Conscientiously, she seemed
to follow his instructions.

 

 

Each morning when he rolled out of bed to type exploratory letters
to colleagues at other universities, not openly applying for a job,
Marthalik already would be up, boiling tea, pouring milk, spooning baby
food, nursing the smallest baby, frying ham and eggs for Dr. West.

 

 

Like Icarus at the breakfast table, he devoured his ham and eggs
regardless of cholesterol consequences. Like Icarus at the typewriter,
he hammered wings of words beginning his Boothia report, planning to
impress the universities who soon would be competing for his services.
He thought U.C. would regret making him a free agent just before he became
famous. But to be recognized in the academic world, his report first needed
to be published in a professional journal, which meant a time lag of months,
if he were published at all. Unfortunately, when he was on the Boothia
Peninsula he had spent more time making love to Marthalik and then
traveling to the Burned Place to try to question Peterluk, than in
gathering the detailed statistics which would impress the editors of a
professional population journal.

 

 

He regretted working up his age-sex census from memory. Hans Suxbey had
his notebook. He wished he could provide more statistical clues as to
the rate at which these pseudo-Eskimos really were increasing. It was
an unprofessional report.

 

 

One important factor in any population's rate of increase was the average
age at which marriage began. How soon did each generation begin breeding
the next generation? From his questioning of Marthalik he was confused
as to how fast an Esk child would mature.

 

 

Watching Little Joe riding his tricycle round and round the living room,
already chirping whole sentences in understandable English although he
was less than a year old, Dr. West knew Little Joe hadn't inherited such
precocity from the West side of the family.

 

 

To his dismay Marthalik became pregnant again as promptly as if she'd
spit out birth control pills when he wasn't looking.

 

 

When he stared at his daughter, Little Martha, whose physical father
he had believed he could not be, he thought he could see some of his
characteristics. Fingering the cartilage of her ear, he even thought
he could feel the West family lump. Eva, the third child, who also
could not be his, also had his ears, he thought. So did Little Sam,
and also the new baby they had named after the obstetrician. All five of
them equally appeared to be his children, he pondered, although Little
Martha and Eva could not be. But he felt they were his. Was this too
much fatherly pride? No. "Marthalik, we've had enough children."

 

 

But Marthalik refused to accept an intrauterine device. "Children are
so nice, Joe. They are our purpose in life. If you love me, you will
permit me to have children."

 

 

Stubbornly, Dr. West not only was gulping guaranteed sperm-suppressant
capsules, he was making double sure by using condoms.

 

 

To his dismay, Marthalik became pregnant right on schedule. He didn't
think she had been unfaithful to him. He had his pride. Who had been
alone with her? Steve Jervasoni. Impossible. He wasn't going to question
her or accuse him. He could not believe she had been unfaithful to him.

 

 

"Marthalik, six children will be enough! This next baby must be your last."

 

 

"But this is why we are alive -- to have children, Joe. My babies are
my purpose."

 

 

"Marthalik, in your village -- " Dr. West paused in embarrassment.
"Sometimes husbands would be gone for many days hunting seals on the
ice. While these husbands were gone, their wives would sleep with
other men?"