Orbit 12 - [Anthology] Read online

  “No. She’s ill. Impossible.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” He was staring fixedly at the ceiling when Tillich left

  * * * *

  “Do you walk here often?”

  “When I can. That isn’t very often.” She looked at him. “How about you?”

  “Not often enough. Not enough time.”

  “I’ve seen you a few times. Your wife is very pretty.”

  He didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say. They were getting near the exit path that he would take. “Do you suppose you’ll have time tomorrow to take a walk?”

  She was silent so long he thought she hadn’t heard. Then: “I think I will tomorrow.”

  “Maybe we’ll see each other. I always come in at path number one-oh-two.”

  “That’s near where I enter. Ninety-six.”

  “I’ll wait for you at ninety-six.”

  * * * *

  She crouched in the doorway staring at him and shrieked. She didn’t close her eyes. He could see her stomach muscles tighten, her hands clench, then the shriek came. There was a glistening streak across her white thigh. Her legs were beautifully shaped. She shrieked. He pulled the cover over his head, pressing it against his ears. Twice or three times he had tried to comfort her, to quiet her, and it had been worse. He pressed harder on the covers. When she fell asleep on the couch, he covered her. She was thinner than she had been in the winter.

  * * * *

  “Please verify fourteen . . .”

  “You weren’t in the park all week.”

  “Please sign. I was busy.”

  “When do you get off? I’ll wait for you.”

  “Ten. Your wife and child. They need you. Who will make

  their dinner? Please, you must sign the forms and move on. Don’t wait for me. I don’t want to see you. I’m busy.”

  He signed and moved on.

  * * * *

  The waiting room of the pediatrics center was an auditorium with all the sections filled to capacity. Tillich had to stand with the baby for half an hour before there was a vacant seat. The din in the hall was constant, very much like the sound of a high-powered motor. The loudspeaker was on steadily: “UN three seven four two A one twelve. UN two two nine seven A/C seven nine seven. UN one two nine six A/F seventeen. UN three nine one six D two thousand.”

  The smells of formula, vomit, urine, feces hung in the air, combining and recombining. The baby’s screams were hardly noticeable here.

  “Please refresh your memory regarding your child’s identification number. You will be admitted to the doctor’s examination rooms by number. Please refresh your memory regarding your child’s identification number.” “UN six nine four A/D four nine two one. UN seven one two nine A/F one nine six eight.”

  He had to wait nine hours before he heard his number. He started; he had dozed; holding a screaming baby in the stinking auditorium amidst the bathroom and sickroom odors, he had dozed.

  “Please strip the child and place it on the table. Keep on the far side of the table. Do not ask any questions, or give any medical detail at this time. Thank you.” It was a recording, activated by the closing of the door.

  Tillich had barely finished undressing the baby when the second door opened and a woman came in. She was stooped, white-haired, with a death’s-head face. The baby was screaming more feebly now, exhaustion finally weakening him. He was revived by her approach.

  She held him with one hand and did a rapid and thorough eye, ear, nose and throat examination. She went to his genitals, studied his feet. She pushed his legs up to his chest, then spread them apart. She sat him up and felt his back, then tried unsuccessfully to stand him up. Finally she made notations on his card. Only then did she glance at Tillich.

  “We must make other tests. You will wait outside, please “ She pressed a button. The door she had used was opened and an orderly motioned for Tillich to follow him.

  “Why? What’s wrong? What is it?”

  The orderly touched his arm and wearily Tillich followed him. The baby wailed. This waiting room was even more crowded than the auditorium had been, but there was only a scattering of children; most of them were somewhere inside undergoing specialized diagnostic procedures. His head ached and he was very hungry.

  He didn’t know how long he waited this time. Finally the orderly motioned for him to come.

  “Please dress your child as quickly as possible and exit through the door marked B. An attendant on the other side will be happy to answer any questions. The time for your next appointment is indicated in the upper right-hand corner of your child’s identification card. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  He carried the baby into the other room. The baby was listless now, no longer crying. Overhead a light sign flashed on and off. “If you have any questions, please be seated at one of the desks.” He sat down.

  “Yes, Mr. Tillich.” It was a young man, an orderly, or nurse, not a doctor.

  “Why has his classification been changed? What does the new number and designation mean? Why is his next appointment a year from now instead of six months?”

  “Hm. Out of infant category, you see. There will be medication. You can pick it up at pediatrics dispensary, a month’s supply at a time, starting tomorrow. Twenty-three allergens identified in his blood. Anemic. Nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Tillich.”

  “What does the ‘R/MD one nine four two seven’ stand for? He’s retarded, isn’t he? How much?”

  “Mr. Tillich, you’ll have to discuss that with his doctor.”

  “Tell me this, would you expect a P/S four two nine eight MC to be able to care adequately for an R/MD one nine four two seven?”

  “Of course not. But you’re not . . .”

  “His mother is.”

  * * * *

  “Why did you decide to come, after all?”

  “I don’t know. I guess because you look so miserable. Lonely, somehow.” She stopped, looking straight ahead. A young couple walked hand in hand. “You do see people like that now and then,” she said. “It gives me hope.”

  “It shouldn’t. Norma was twenty-two before she . . . She was as normal as anyone at that age.”

  She started to walk again.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Louisa. Yours?”

  “David,” he said. “Louisa is pretty. It’s like a soft wind in high grass.”

  “You’re a romantic.” She thought a moment. “David goes back to the beginning of names, it seems. Bible name. Do you suppose people are still making new names?”

  “Probably. Why?”

  “I used to try to make up a name. They all sounded so ridiculous. So made-up.”

  He laughed.

  “You turn off here, don’t you? Good-bye, David.”

  ‘Tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  * * * *

  Norma slept. The baby lay quietly; he didn’t know if it was asleep. He remembered laughing in the park. The sun shone. They walked not touching, talking fast, looking at each other often. And he had laughed out loud.

  * * * *

  “No one came,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. His voice rose. “No one came. They know I need a nurse. It’s on my card. I signed over my pension so they’d take care of me. They agreed.”

  “Can I do something?”

  “No!” he said shrilly. “Don’t touch it. You know how long I’d last if an infection set in? Call them. Give them the numbers on my card. It’s a mistake. A mistake.”

  Tillich copied the numbers, then went out to make the call. The first phone was out of order. He walked five blocks to the next one. Traffic was light. It was getting lighter all the time. He could remember when the streets had been packed solid, curb to curb, with automobiles, trucks, buses, motorbikes. Now there were half a dozen vehicles in sight. He waited for the call to be completed, staring toward the west. One day he’d make up a little back-pack, not much, a blanket, a cup, a pan maybe, a coat. He’d start walking westward. A
cross Ohio, across the prairies, across the mountains. To the sea. The Atlantic was less than five hundred miles east, but he never even considered starting in that direction.

  “Please state patient’s surname, given name, identification number and purpose of this call.”

  He did. There was a pause, then the same voice said, This data has been forwarded to the appropriate office. You will be notified. Thank you for your cooperation. This is a recording.” So no one would argue, he knew. He stood staring westward for a long time, and when he got back to his building, he went directly to his own rooms.

  * * * *

  “And so he died.”

  “He didn’t just die. They killed him. I killed him. They were smart. They saw to it that he had a full week’s supply of those pills. He took them all.”

  “I guess most of them had saved enough pills or capsules, same thing.”

  “So now they can claim truthfully that everyone who needs home nursing gets it” He kicked a stone hard. She walked with her head bowed.

  “If they had known about you, your daily visits to the old man, probably they would have discontinued his nursing service sooner.”

  “But I’m not trained to insert a drainage tube.”

  “You learn or you lose whoever needs that kind of care.”

  He looked at her. She sounded bitter, the first time he had heard that tone from her. “You had something like that?”

  “My husband. He needed constant attendance after surgery. On the sixth night I feel asleep and he hemorrhaged to death. I had learned how to change dressings, tubes, everything. And I fell asleep.”

  He caught her hand and held it for a moment between both of his. When they started to walk again, he kept holding her hand.

  * * * *

  “When I get well, we’ll have a vacation, won t we? We’ll go to the shore and find pretty shells. Just us. You and me. Won’t we?”

  “Yes. That would be nice.”

  “Will they hurt me?”

  “No. You remember. They’ll look at your throat, listen to your heart. Weigh you. Take your blood pressure. It won’t hurt.” He held the baby because he hadn’t dared leave it. They might be there all day. The baby cried very little now. It slept a lot more than it used to and when it was awake it didn’t do anything except suck its fingers and stare fixedly at whatever its gaze happened to focus on. Tillich thought he should cut down on the medicine for it, but he liked it better this way. He didn’t know what the medicine was for, if this effect was the expected one or not.

  “You’ll stay with me! Promise!”

  “If I can.”

  “Let’s go home now.” She jumped up, smiling brightly at him.

  “Sit down, Norma. We have to wait.” The waiting room held over a hundred people. More were in the corridor. In this section few of the patients were alone. Many of them looked normal, able, healthy. Almost all had someone nearby who watched closely, who made an obvious effort to remain calm, tolerant, not to excite the patients.

  “I’m hungry. I feel so sick. I really feel sick. We should go now.” She stood up again. “I’ll go alone.”

  He sighed, but didn’t reply. The baby stared at his shirt. He moved it. One eye had crossed that way. She went a few feet, walking sideways, through the chairs. She stopped and looked to see if he was coming.

  “Don’t shriek,” he prayed silently. “Please don’t shriek.”

  She took several more steps. Stopped. He could tell when the rush of panic hit her by the way she stiffened. She came back to him, terrified, her face a grey-white.

  “I want to go. I want to . . .”

  Over and over and over. Not loud, hardly more than a whisper. Until her number was called. They didn’t admit him with her. He had known they wouldn’t. She could undress and dress herself.

  * * * *

  The trains came in from Chicago; from New York; from Atlanta. Fruit from the South. Meat from the West. Clothing from the East. A virulent strain of influenza from the Southwest. Tillich had guided it in.

  “Cleanliness and rest, nature’s best protection.” The signs appeared overnight.

  “If it gets worse,” the superintendent said, “well have to quarantine our people here at work.”

  “But my wife is sick. And my child.”

  The superintendent nodded. “Then you damn well better stay well, don’t you think?” He stomped off.

  He thought of Louisa at the dispensary, in constant face-to-face contact with people. After work he was shaking by the time he reached gate ninety-six, and saw her standing there. He began to run toward her. She came forward to meet him. She looked frightened.

  “Are you ill?” she asked.

  “No. No. I’m all right. I got it in my head that you ...” He took her face in his hands and examined her. Suddenly he pulled her to his chest and held her hard. Then he loosened his arms a bit, still without releasing her, and put his cheek on her hair, and they stayed that way for a long time, his cheek on her hair, her face against his chest, both with closed eyes.

  * * * *

  He called the hospital about Norma. He told the recording about her shrieking fits after intercourse; about her sexuality that was as demanding as ever, about her neglect of self, of the baby. “Thank you for your cooperation. This is a recording.” He called back and told the recording to go fuck itself. It thanked him.

  * * * *

  “You should have reported an adverse reaction immediately,” the nurse said. “Decrease the dosage from twenty drops to ten drops daily.” She read the prescription from a computer printout.

  “And If that doesn’t help?”

  “There are several procedures, Mr. Tillich. These are doctor’s orders. Report back in two weeks. You will be given a two-week supply of the medication.”

  “Can’t someone just look at him?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Tillich.”

  The baby wasn’t eating. He moved very little and slept sixteen hours or more a day.

  “You’re killing him,” he told the nurse. He got up. She would merely summon an orderly if he didn’t leave. There was nothing she could do.

  “Mr. Tillich, report to room twelve-oh-nine before you leave the building.” She was already looking past him at a woman with red eyes.

  “My baby, she’s been vomiting ever since she took that new medicine. And her bowels, God, nothing but water!”

  Tillich moved away, back to the dispensary for the baby’s medicine. He had been there for three hours already. The line was still as long as before. He took his place at the end.

  Ninety minutes later he received the medicine. The dispensary nurse said, “Report to room twelve-oh-nine, Mr. Tillich.”

  In 1209 there was a short line of people. It was a fast-moving line. When Tillich entered the room, a nurse asked his name. She checked it against a list, nodded, and told him to get in line. When he came to the head of the line, he was given a shot.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  The doctor looked at him in surprise. “Flu vaccine.”

  He saw the nurse at the door motioning to him. She put her forefinger to her lips and shook her head.

  As he went out she whispered, “Louisa slipped your name in. For God’s sake keep your mouth shut.”

  * * * *

  A fast-moving freight from Detroit derailed when the locomotive’s wheels locked as it slowed for a curve. Sixty-four cars left the track, tearing up a section a quarter-mile long. It happened during the night, the specks of light were still motionless in that section when Tillich arrived.

  “No more direct connection with Detroit,” the superintendent said, “We’re working on alternate routing now.”

  “Aren’t they going to fix the tracks?”

  “Can’t. No steel’s being allotted to any nonpriority work. Just keep a hold on section seven until the computer gives us new routing. What a goddamn mess.”

  Detroit was out. Jacksonville was out. Memphis was out, Cleveland. St. Paul.
r />   Tillich wondered what a high priority was. Syringes, he thought. Scalpels. Bone saws. He wondered if steel was still being produced

  * * * *

  “Can you get away at all?” he asked her desperately.

  She shook her head. “No more than you can.”

  “I’ll leave them. She isn’t helpless. It’s an act. If she got hungry enough, she’d get something.”