I stumbled to my dressing table, opened my doctor’s bag, and removed Poe’s Salter of cocaine. “Wait, please. I shall be there in a minute,” I called, in a calm, untroubled voice.
What have I done? What am I going to do?
Then came a muffled voice on the other side of the door: Dr. Chivers! It is nine o’clock and there is an important visitor for Mr. Poe!
I turned the iron knob and opened the door a reticent six inches. I would not have been surprised to see a robed skeleton on the other side—or worse, a policeman. Instead, I faced the scrubbed, merciless, familiar face of Nurse Slatin, fist upraised, about to knock for the third time, her starched uniform a wall of blue with a white collar, cap and cuffs, and that face, with the broad nose and the permanent stony grimace.
“Yes, nurse, what is it?”
“Mr. Neilson Poe, sir. The cousin has come to inquire after your patient.”
For a moment I stood there, tongue-tied. She took this for assent.
“Shall I fetch Mr. Poe then, sir?”
“Nurse Slatin, the patient has congestion of the brain and possibly lesions as well. He is in critical condition. He cannot receive visitors under any circumstance.”
“Mr. Neilson Poe is paying for the room, Doctor. It would be respectful if you would at least speak to him.” Nurse Slatin scarcely moved her lips while talking. Whether in the interest of efficiency or from pure laziness, she uttered words without moving a muscle of her face. Or perhaps it was a result of her calm confidence; for it is a fact of institutional life that minor officials who physically put their hands upon cash, in however small amounts, wield an authority far out of proportion to their station.
“Excuse me, nurse, I should like to get dressed.” I said, and gently closed the door.
“Very good, Doctor,” came the muffled monotone.
I mopped my face with my handkerchief, crossed the floor to the washbasin, performed my toilet, put on my suit and coat, and checked my pocket watch: ten minutes had passed.
I opened the door. As expected, Nurse Slatin stood rooted to the spot.
“What are your instructions, Doctor?”
“I shall look in on the patient at once. Inform Mr. Neilson Poe that I shall see him shortly in the waiting room. Tell him it must be very quick, for his cousin is a sick man and requires constant supervision.”
I headed downstairs, the picture of a harried, concerned physician, while a hollow voice in my mind shrieked: What have you done? What are you going to do?
IN EVERY ENCOUNTER, there is a time to sit back, and a time to take the initiative. In dealing with Eddie’s cousin Neilson, since there were any number of questions I did not wish to answer, I chose the former approach.
“Sir, am I to understand that you are Mr. Neilson Poe, the patient’s cousin?”
“Second cousin, as a matter of fact. And you would be Dr. Chivers, sir?”
“I am, sir” we said simultaneously, both sides having failed to establish the upper hand.
I shook hands with a gentleman somewhat older than Eddie, about the same height, with a similar expanse of brow and black eyes that must also run in the family.
There, however, the similarity ended.
Neilson Poe was obviously the more respectable of the two cousins, albeit with dirty fingernails and a suit that had not seen a brush in some time. However, he had augmented his appearance in a number of odd ways. Whereas Eddie’s chin was clean-shaven, Neilson sported an almost oriental wisp of a goatee. While Eddie grew his dark hair in Byronic curls, the pennant that swept across Neilson’s head with the aid of a good deal of pomade had been dyed a sort of purplish auburn.
For several moments, neither of us spoke. The toe of his highly polished walking shoe began tapping the floor, signaling impatience. I refused to break the pause, for to do so would be to establish subservience. Instead, I pretended to study my notebook, then reached for my pencil and pretended to make a correction, while arranging my features in an expression that suggested deep thinking on an important matter.
“I am sure you understand that the family is extremely concerned about Edgar,” he said, at length. “What is your prognosis, Doctor?”
I emitted a troubled sigh. “I am afraid that I cannot be overly encouraging, Mr. Poe. Your cousin is not a well man.”
“Second cousin, don’t you know?” he said, a point he wished to make clear.
“I shall make a note of that,” I replied. “In any case, to be frank, the chances are against him.”
“I see.” Mr. Poe did not seem overly affected by the bad news.
“The patient has a swelling on the brain—a condition we call lobar pneumonia—complicated by transient retardation. I can hardly recommend a visit at this time. Your cousin is not conscious, and there is some risk to yourself, until we know the precise cause of the malady …”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of it.” he replied quickly, as though I had invited him into a snake pit. “We were never close, my second cousin and I. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“I understand. You are most generous, sir, to accept the burden of his care.”
“It is my duty, sir.”
“Of course. Then what may I do for you? Why have you come to see me? For I should see to the patient at once.”
“I am—I have come—I have come—” The cousin searched for le mot juste: either he had no idea why he had come, or else he knew and did not wish to say.
“Out of familial duty, of course,” I said, doing his work for him.
“Indeed so. Well put, sir. I thank you for it.”
“Your devotion is most admirable, sir. I shall convey to the patient your best wishes when—or I should say if—he recovers his reason. I am sure an encouraging word from a blood relative will lift his spirits enormously.”
“Very good, sir. Quite so. Please carry on, then. Be assured that I shall cover all necessary expenses—within reason.”
“If there is a change in his condition, I shall see that Nurse Slatin contacts you at once.”
We shook hands. His palm had become damp during our brief chat, indicating that I had made him more nervous than the other way around. I watched his back recede down the hall, noting a certain lightness of step, as though at any moment he might begin twirling his stick.
Life, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
—Ambrose Bierce
IT IS AN unusual thing for a doctor to spend time alone with a cadaver; yet it seemed only prudent to allow a half hour to pass before declaring the patient officially dead.
We doctors have little truck with the dead other than as objects of study. Death, even if it is the normal outcome, is not a state that occupies the medical mind. With a patient’s last gasp, the attending physician loses all interest. Following a series of commemorative noises to the relatives he is on to the next patient, the next death, having forgotten the name of the last one.
Not in this case. In my mind the cadaver had become Eddie Poe— thanks, I thought at the time, to a remarkably skillful transformation, accomplished by a man with theater in his blood. However, my identification with the corpse may have also been a product of spiritual necessity; to survive this ordeal I was going to have to undertake a number of lies, convincingly—and the most successful lies are the ones we believe ourselves.
Sitting with Eddie’s dead body, I felt the urge to weep—certainly not for him, nor for myself, but for all of us. The loneliness of death. That it comes down to this, this, this silence …
I opened my eyes, looked down at the cadaver—and suddenly the illusion burst. It was as though someone had thrown a stone into a mirror. I saw, really saw, what lay before me, and I nearly cried out aloud.
Dear heaven, I had been in a sort of trance!
Whatever I thought I had seen over the past hours, the young man on the bed before me bore no more resemblance to Eddie Poe than I did. The complexion was darker, the brow narrower, the nose broader; our man was two inches t
aller, thirty pounds heavier, and a good fifteen years younger than the corpse he was to represent.
I restrained myself from shrieking aloud—unlike the annoying gentleman in the adjoining room.
Too late! too late! I must lift the pall and open to you the secret that sears the heart and daggerlike pierces the soul!
Looking back I sense that I had reached a fork in the road of life, at which one path leads to an uncertain destination and the other leads straight off a cliff. A point where a man must decide whether he intends to proceed with his life, such as it is, or not. I had been considering the question for some time, in the abstract. At the same time, I kept in my alligator bag a sufficient quantity of morphine, should I ever make up my mind.
In that moment, surprisingly, I chose life. Not out of courage, nor hope, nor because life was the path of least resistance. I chose life, that I might live long enough to have a word or two with my dangerous, duplicitous friend Eddie.
NURSE SLATIN, I need you.”
“Very good, Doctor.” Seated at her station, neither the head nor the lips seemed to move.
“Do you have an address for Mr. Neilson Poe?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Neilson Poe. He is paying for my patient’s room. You called my attention to that fact yourself.”
“Yes. Mr. Neilson Poe left his address with me this morning. He asked not to be contacted except in a crisis.”
“It is not a crisis, but send him a message anyway Tell him that his cousin—rather, his second cousin—has passed away. Request instructions regarding disposal of the remains.”
Nurse Slatin paused. A thoughtful expression momentarily swept over her flat features. It was almost as though she were considering the question of life and death.
“Doctor?”
“Yes, nurse?”
“By what time will the room be free? If you can clear the bed by two, there is a brain tumor waiting in the hall.”
AS I EXPECTED, Neilson Poe replied not in person but by courier. His message contained neither an expression of grief nor an interest in the disposition of his cousin’s cadaver. And to my vast relief, nowhere did he indicate the slightest desire to view his second cousin’s earthly remains for a last farewell.
Accordingly, in our subsequent communication, he was pleased to accept my offer to assign the collection and care of the remains to Mr. Samuel Ripp, an undertaker with a reputation for producing decent burials of the unloved deceased, at minimal cost to the relatives. For my part, I selected Mr. Ripp as a professional who, for a small additional stipend, could be counted on to overlook the rather large hole in the chest of the deceased, and thereby spare the family the disgrace of a suicide.
Later that afternoon, a pair of nonchalant attendants lifted the corpse onto an ice-filled cooling board. For this I was very glad, for the odor of decomposition might have revealed that our man had been dead longer than claimed. As they removed it from the premises in a wicker transport coffin, I pondered the best route to ensuring that the casket remained closed during the funeral. I did not worry overmuch about the undertaker, for Mr. Ripp would not know Eddie from Adam.
Given his evident concern over expenses, Neilson Poe’s invitation to luncheon the next day came as a surprise, and suggested some sort of request might ensue. Less surprising was the venue—the Exchange Hotel, located at the Merchant Exchange. The building, or series of buildings, was an H-shaped monstrosity in the ramshackle style, capped by a dome like the pate of a white elephant. Intended as a center for commerce, the venture had to be saved from bankruptcy by renting to an assortment of government offices—including that of the mayor and council. This of course ensured a steady flow of traffic, for every businessman in Baltimore had a reason to bribe a councilman.
In the financial districts of America’s three biggest cities (New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore), building edifices of this sort had become an obsession. Greek, Roman, anything ancient would do, as long as it was grandiloquent and European. I suppose it was meant to impart a feeling of history and permanence—a solidity lacking in the affairs of the tenants.
The occupants of the Merchant Exchange were of course all men, down to the last merchant. Only in the army or the clergy might one have encountered a more homosexual society, in the sense of including only one gender among its ranks.
Fittingly, in its design and function, the dining room was intended to ape a private men’s club in the City of London—an expensive and painstaking re-creation, thousands having been lavished on mahogany, brass, velvet, gilt and stained glass, with everything, from chandeliers to spittoons, shipped from overseas.
But in the end, what defined the room, as with any room, were the persons who occupied it.
These were not Mayfair gentlemen. These men—if indeed they were subject to a collective noun at all—were for the most part uprooted, desperate gamblers from any one of a dozen nations, no more than a week away from bankruptcy. They rode on hosses, not in carriages; they did not duel with swords, but in fistfights; their suits had been on their bodies daily for months, as had their underwear, with no bathing required.
Visually, the overwhelming effect on entering the dining room was of an enormous humidor, in which all the cigars had been lit at once. Stepping onto the carpet one took care not to slip on phlegm that had missed the intended spittoons. As for sound, everyone talked as though he wished to be heard from the table at the other end of the room; in the Merchant Exchange, to be overheard was not an embarrassment but a business strategy.
As expected, my table companion was nowhere to be seen. For any Baltimore businessman, to be punctual at luncheon is an admission that business is slack. A waiter in a soiled, vaguely Hessian uniform ushered me to a table and I took my seat in front of a linen tablecloth set with great lumps of silver, each piece stamped with the crest of a nonexistent duke.
To pass the time, I requested a copy of the Sun so that I might review the election results. On the front page I noted the resounding victory of an incumbent councilman named Riley.
Troubled by the name, I turned to the Books section, that part of a newspaper in which the reader is told which books he should pretend to have read.
DICKENS NOVEL IMMINENT
“A First for American Literature,” crows Editor
by Sanford W. Mitchell, The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA——Amid much fanfare, Topham and Lea have announced the forthcoming complete edition of the novel David Copperfield by Mr. Charles Dickens.
According to Mr. Topham, “The publication of a major author even before the appearance of a British edition is an unprecedented achievement. It is a triumph for the American publishing industry, a tribute to American know-how, and of great benefit to the American readers.”
Readers will remember Charles Dickens as the author of Dombey and Son, which makes no secret of its contempt for commerce and for businessmen such as Mr. Topham.
While we readily accede to his first and second pronouncements, we trust that Mr. Topham will leave it to the American reader to discern what “benefits” accrue from Mr. Dickens’s acerbic pen.
DR. CHIVERS, SIR, I do apologize.”
Neilson Poe loomed above me with his auburn cap of hair, extending his soft right hand. Another reason to ensure tardiness at luncheon: one attains a superior position over one’s companion right at the outset.
“We are so terribly busy these days, don’t you know?” he continued, as though that were an explanation.
“There aren’t enough hours in the day,” I replied, grasping his damp little palm.
He frowned slightly, noting the newspaper spread out in front of me. “Surely it hasn’t got into the Sun as well.”
“Only in the Clipper at present. But news of his death is bound to spread. Edgar Poe was extremely famous in certain circles.”
“Yes, regrettably. Would you care for a whiskey?”
“I am a Son of Temperance, sir,” I replied, as the waiter poured the d
elicious amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler that might have weighed five pounds.
“I salute your resolution,” Mr. Poe said, allowing the light to cast a golden glow through his raised glass, as though he might tell the future by it.
“His passing has put a strain on the hospital,” I continued. “There were fifteen women at the front doors this morning, demanding to view the remains. They wanted locks of his hair; some actually carried scissors for the purpose. Morbid, if you ask me.”
Neilson Poe shook his head as though weighted down by the folly of mankind. His little goatee waggled back and forth like a finger of reprimand.
“It is the fault of the public school system, of that I am certain,” he said. “This is what you get when inferior people are taught how to read. An age of shallow celebrity, when all a man has to do is write something shocking and he will be deluged by brainless young women!”
From his emphasis on the last three words, and from the state of his linen and fingernails, I concluded that Mr. Poe was a bachelor. He was not a handsome man. The hair dye did him no favors. Yet he had an ingratiating quality, an eagerness for agreement.
“My cousin’s celebrity,” he continued, “was an ill-gotten affair. Poison for the young people.”
“I quite agree,” I replied. “Yet we must be careful not to confuse celebrity and success, for he had no money.”
“Indeed so,” replied the cousin, warming to his like-minded companion. “To judge by recent assessments of his work, there can be no doubt that he was on the way down in every conceivable way.”
“A sad deterioration in general,” I replied. “It might seem cruel to say this, but perhaps he was fortunate to have met his end before he was entirely found out.”
“Absolutely! Dead lucky, one might say!” and the little goatee went up and down like a bobbin.
I carried on in this sycophantic vein while he drank another whiskey. By degrees, in our mutual view, Eddie was to blame for a general public deterioration, including the rate of public drunkenness and the low voter turnout at municipal elections. Had we continued at this rate for the afternoon, his death might have cured America.
Not Quite Dead Page 7
