Appointment in Samarra

by John O'Hara

  Thus what were boom times for the rest of the country were something less for Gibbsville. The year of Our Lord 1929 saw many of the mines near Gibbsville working on a three-day-a-week basis. The blasts of the giant whistles at the collieries, more powerful than those of any steamship, were not heard rolling down the valleys as they had been before the 1925 strike, every morning at five and six o’clock. The anthracite industry was just about licked.

  Still there were a great many people in Gibbsville who had money in 1930. The very rich, who always had money, still had a lot of money. And the merchants and bankers, doctors and lawyers and dentists who had money to play the market continued to spend their principal. Mr. Hoover was an engineer, and in a mining country engineers are respected. Gibbsville men and women who were in the market trusted that cold fat pinched face as they had trusted the cold thin pinched face of Mr. Coolidge, and in 1930 the good day’s work of October 29, 1929, continued to be known as a strong technical reaction.

  II

  William Dilworth English (B.S., Lafayette College; M.D., University of Pennsylvania), father of Julian McHenry English, had a salary of $12,000 a year as chief of staff of the Gibbsville Hospital. He lived within that salary, almost to the dollar. His income from private practice was about $10,000, and this totaled up to more than he could spend in a year, without being foolish. In addition to that his wife, Elizabeth McHenry English, had an income which in 1930 was about $6,000. In other years it had been more than that, but Dr. English, in investing his wife’s money, had been no wiser than a lot of other men whose wives had money to invest.

  Dr. English came from one of the oldest families in Gibbsville. He was of Revolutionary stock. He wore a ring with an indistinguishable crest (he took it off when he operated). Adam English, one of his ancestors, had come to Gibbsville in 1804, two years after Gibbsville was refounded (Gibbsville was founded by Swedes in 1750, as nearly anyone could make out; the Swedes had been massacred by the Leni Lenape Indians, and the Swedish name of the original settlement has been lost). Old Adam English, as Dr. English called him, who certainly would have been old if he had lived till 1930, was a Philadelphian. It was not old Adam’s father, but his father who had fought in the Revolution.

  The Englishes were not exactly coal people. They were more in the railroad, the Philadelphia & Reading. But of course the railroad and the coal and iron once had been all one company. It was much better in those days, Dr. English said, because you could get passes on the railroad if someone in your family happened to be connected with either the railroad or the coal company. But Dr. English did not desire a return to those days, the days when he was in college and at The University (whenever a Gibbsvillian speaks of The University he means Pennsylvania and nowhere else). He rarely spoke of those days, for, as he said, a dark and bitter cloud had been drawn over what should have been remembered as the happiest days of his life. He referred, of course, to the fact that the summer after he got his M.D., his father, George English, stuck a shotgun in his mouth and blew his head all over the hayloft of the English stable. Dr. English thought of his father as a coward. Two or three times in their married life the doctor had said to his wife: “If George English had been anything but a coward he would have gone to the directors like a man and said, ‘Gentlemen, I have been using the bank’s funds for my own uses. I am willing to work hard and make it up.’ And I know the directors would have admired that stand, and they would have given him a chance to make good. But…” And his wife would sympathize with him and try to comfort him, although she knew that her father, for one, would have tried to send George English to jail. As it was, he opposed her marriage to Billy English. Her father had said: “He may be all right. I don’t know. But his education was paid for out of stolen money. That’s enough for me.” But how was Billy to know that? she argued. “He knows it now,” said her father. Yes, he knew it, she went on, and he was anxious to start private practice so he could make good every penny. And he had. Within ten years of his graduation Billy English had paid off the money his father had taken from the bank. It had been a struggle, in a way; what with young Julian’s arrival in the world. Still, Julian had not been deprived of anything, thanks to her own income. Despite the dark, bitter cloud that hung over Dr. English’s college days, Julian, who wanted to go to Yale, was sent to Lafayette. And, probably out of spite, Julian did not accept the invitation to join Phi Delta Theta, his father’s fraternity, but had joined Delta Kappa Epsilon. By that time his father had given up hope that Julian would study medicine. He had pointed out to Julian that “when I die, you’ll have this practice that I’ve been years building up. I don’t understand it. Plenty of boys in this town would give their right arm for just this chance.” Poor Dr. English, people would say; starting out that way, with that handicap, and then his only son not taking advantage of that wonderful opportunity. No wonder the doctor was such a stern-looking man. He’d had his troubles.

  He represented the best things in the community. He was a member of the County Medical Society, the Medical Club of Philadelphia, the Gibbsville Chamber of Commerce, the Gibbsville Community Chest (director), the Children’s Home Association (life subscriber), the Y.M.C.A. (director), Lantenengo County Historical Society, the Gibbsville Club (board of governors), the Lantenengo Country Club (board of governors), the Gibbsville Assembly (membership committee), the Union League of Philadelphia, the Ancient and Arabic Order-Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, the Scottish Rite Masons (32°), and the Liberty (formerly Germania) Hook & Ladder Company Number 1 (honorary). He also was a director of the Gibbsville National Bank & Trust Company, the Gibbsville Building & Loan Company, the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company, the Lantenengo Lumber Company, and the Gibbsville Tap & Reamer Company. Episcopalian. Republican. Hobbies: golf, trapshooting. All that in addition to his work at the hospital and his private practice. Of course he didn’t do nearly the private practice he used to. He was more or less giving that up and specializing in surgery. He left the little stuff to the younger men that were just starting out—childbirth and tonsils and ordinary sickness.

  If there was one thing he loved, outside of his wife and son, it was surgery. He had been doing surgery for years, in the days when the ambulances from the mines were high black wagons, open at the rear, drawn by two black mules. It was almost a day’s drive from some of the mines to the hospital, in the mule-drawn-ambulance days. Sometimes the patient or patients would bleed to death on the way, in spite of the best of care on the part of the first aid crews. Sometimes a simple fracture would be joggled into a gangrenous condition by the time the ambulance got off the terrible roads. But when that occurred Dr. English would amputate. Even when it didn’t look like gangrene Dr. English would amputate. He wanted to be sure. If the case was a skull fracture and Dr. English knew about it in time, he would say to the one man in the world he hated most: “Say, Doctor Malloy, I’ve ordered the operating room for five o’clock. Man brought in from Collieryville with a compound fracture of the skull. I think it’s going to be very interesting, and I’d like you to come up and see it if you have time.” And Mike Malloy, in the old mule-ambulance days, would be polite and tell Dr. English he would be very glad to. Dr. Malloy would get into his gown and follow Dr. English to the operating room, and by saying “I think this, Doctor English” and “I think that, Doctor English,” Dr. Malloy would direct Dr. English in trephining the man on the table. But that was in the old days, before Dr. English overheard one of the surgical nurses saying: “Trephine this afternoon. I hope to God Malloy’s around if English is going to try it.” The nurse later was dismissed for being caught undressed in an intern’s room, a crime of which she had been guilty many times, but which had been overlooked because she knew at least as much medicine as half of the men on the staff, and more surgery than several of the surgeons. But even without her assistance Dr. English continued to do surgery, year after year, and several of the men he trephined lived. The dismissal of that nurse had one effect: Dr. Malloy never again spo
ke to Dr. English. “Need I say more?” Dr. English said, in telling his wife of Malloy’s strange behavior.

  III

  One look at his father told Julian that the old man had not heard anything about the scene in the smoking room of the country club. The old man greeted him about as usual, with Merry Christmas thrown in, but Julian expected that. He knew there was nothing wrong when he saw the old man’s mustache flatten back and the crow’s feet behind his shell-rim spectacles wrinkle up in the smile that he saved for Caroline. “Well, Caroline,” said the doctor. He took Caroline’s right hand in his own and put his left hand on her shoulder. “Help you with your coat?”

  “Thanks, Father English,” she said. She put her packages down on the hall table and was helped out of her mink coat. The old man took it to the closet under the stairs and put it on a hanger. “Haven’t seen you in I guess it must be two weeks,” he said.

  “No. Christmas preparations—”

  “Yes, I know. Well, we didn’t do very much in the way of shopping. I thought it over and I told Mrs. English, I said I think checks would be more acceptable this year, wherever we can—”

  “Doc-tor!” came a voice.

  “Oh, there she is now,” said the doctor.

  “Merry Christmas!” Caroline called out.

  “Merry Christmas, Mother,” shouted Julian.

  “Oh, you’re here,” she replied, and appeared at the top of the steps. “I was just about to say we ought to call you up. It must have been a good party at the club.” Julian saw his father’s expression change. Mrs. English came downstairs and kissed Caroline, and then Julian.

  “Now let’s all have a nice cocktail,” said Mrs. English, “and then we can tell Ursula to start serving while everything’s still hot. You two are so late. What kept you? Did you really get in so late last night? How was the dance?”

  “I couldn’t get the car started,” said Julian. “Cold.”

  “What?” said the old man. “Couldn’t get it started? I thought that apparatus you put in your garage, I thought—”

  “It wasn’t in the garage. I left it out all night,” said Julian.

  “Our driveway was blocked,” said Caroline. “We’re out in real country. It was drifted as high as the roof.”

  “Was it?” said the doctor. “I never knew it to drift that high out where you are. Remarkable. Well, I s’pose a Martini. Martini, Caroline?”

  “Fine for me,” said Caroline. “What about you, Julian?”

  “Now, Caroline,” said the doctor. “He’ll drink anything, and you know it.”

  “See our tree?” said Julian’s mother. “Such a skimpy little thing, but they’re so much trouble. I like a spruce, but they’re so much trouble I don’t think it’s worth it when there aren’t any children in the house.”

  “We have a small tree, too,” said Caroline.

  “When Julian was a boy, do you remember those trees? You must have been here during the holidays when we had a tree, weren’t you, Caroline?”

  “No, I don’t think I ever was. Julian used to hate me then, remember?”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” said Julian’s mother. “Tsih, when I look back. You’re right. He didn’t like to play with you, but my gracious, I don’t think he disliked you. He was in awe of you. But we all were. Still are.” Caroline gave her mother-in-law a hug.

  “Oh, now, Mother,” she said. “Julian did hate me. Probably because I was older.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t think it now,” said the older woman. “I mean that both ways. You wouldn’t think he ever hated you, and you certainly wouldn’t think you were older. Julian, why don’t you go to the ‘Y’ or something? Let me look. Turn your face over that way…. You are. You’re getting a double chin. Julian, really.”

  “Very busy man,” said Julian.

  “Here we are,” said the doctor. “Drink this one, Caroline, and you and I can have another before we sit down.”

  “We can all have another one,” said his wife, “but we’ll have to take it in to the table with us. I don’t want to keep the girls any later than necessary. But that doesn’t mean you’re to bolt your food. Bad for the digestion.”

  “It is if you don’t masticate—” said the doctor.

  “Doctor, please don’t say that,” said his wife. “Chew your food is just as good a word. Well, shall we have a toast?”

  “Yes, I think so,” said the doctor. He raised the glass. “‘God bless us, everyone,’” he said; and all momentarily serious and self-conscious, they drank their drinks.

  IV

  Caroline and Julian, in the car, waved to Dr. and Mrs. English, and then Julian slowly took his foot off the clutch and the car pulled away. The clock on the dashboard said 4:35.

  Julian reached in his pocket and took out the Christmassy envelope, which had been on his plate, exactly like the envelope that had been on Caroline’s plate. He laid it in Caroline’s lap. “See how much it’s for,” he said.

  She opened the envelope and looked at the check. “Two hundred and fifty,” she said.

  “How much was yours?” he said.

  She opened her envelope. “Same thing,” she said. “Two hundred and fifty. Really, that’s too much. They’re sweet.” She stopped herself and he looked at her without turning.

  “What is it?” he inquired.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s just that they’re so swell. Your mother is such a darling. I don’t see how you—if she finds out about last night, your performance, do you realize how ashamed she’ll be?”

  “She’s my mother,” he said.

  “Yes, she is. It’s pretty hard to believe sometimes.”

  “Am I going to be bawled out the rest of the way home?” he said.

  “No,” she said. “What’s the use? What are you planning to do about Harry?”

  “Harry? I don’t know. I could call him up,” he said.

  “No, that’s not enough. I think the best thing is for you to take me home and then go to his house and apologize in person.”

  “Fat chance,” said Julian.

  “All right. But if you don’t, I go to no more parties with you. That means I’ll stay home from everything that we’ve accepted, and another thing, our party is off. If you think I’m going to make a spectacle of myself for people to talk about, going around to parties and having people feel sorry for me because of your behavior—I just won’t do it, Ju, I won’t do it, and that’s that.”

  “If there’s anything I hate, it’s that’s that,” he said. “All right. I’ll go to his house. He’s probably forgotten about it, and my going there will bugger things up proper.”

  “Please promise me you won’t bugger things up. You can handle him, Ju, if you’re just careful. I didn’t mean it when I said you couldn’t. You can. Turn on some of that English charm and he’ll fall for it. But please make it right so there won’t be a situation for the rest of the holidays. Will you, darling?” Her tone had changed completely, and her earnestness thrilled him. She was not quite so handsome when she was being earnest, but she so seldom wanted anything enough to be earnest about it that she became a new and rare Caroline.

  “One condition,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Will you do it?” he said.

  “I won’t promise till I know what it is. What’s the condition?”

  “That you be in bed when I get home,” he said.

  “Now? In the afternoon?”

  “You always used to love to in the daylight.” He reached over and put his hand high on the inside of her leg.

  She nodded slowly.

  “Ah, you’re my sweet girl,” he said, already grateful. “I love you more than tongue can tell.”

  She spoke no more the rest of the way home, not even goodbye when she got out of the car, but he knew. It was always that way when they were away from their home, and made a date to go to bed when they got home. When they made a date like that she thought of nothing else until they got home. She wanted nothing
else, and no one else could take anything of her, not even the energy that goes into gregarious gayety. Always she seemed then to crouch a little, although she didn’t actually crouch. But whenever they did that, from the moment she agreed, to the ultimate thing, she began to submit. And driving away he knew again, as he had known again and again, that with Caroline that was the only part of their love that was submission. She was as passionate and as curious, as experimental and joyful as ever he was. After four years she was still the only woman he wanted to wake up with, to lie glowing with—yes, and even to have intercourse with. The things that she said, the words he had taught her, and the divining queries that they put to each other—they were his and hers. They were the things that made her fidelity so important, he believed; and when he thought of how important those things were, the words and the rest, he sometimes could understand that the physical act in unfaithfulness can be unimportant. But he doubted that infidelity is ever unimportant.

  He stopped the car at Harry Reilly’s house, where Reilly lived with his widowed sister and her two sons and daughter. It was a low stone and brick house, with a vast porch around three sides. He pushed the bellbutton, and Mrs. Gorman, Reilly’s sister, came to the door. She was a stout woman with black hair, with a dignity that had nothing to do with her sloppy clothes. She was nearsighted, wore glasses, but she recognized Julian. “Oh, Julian English. Come on in,” she said, and left the door open for him to close. She did not bother to be polite. “I guess you want to see Harry,” she said.