Back to Blood: A Novel

by Tom Wolfe

  Sometimes her heart literally, literally, beat faster just thinking about it… which is to say, about Sergei. She could actually feel it speed up beneath her breastbone from fear of failure in his eyes… What should she wear? She didn’t possess one thread of clothing that could possibly impress these Chez Toi people… or him. She’d just have to go à la cubana… flash plenty of cubana cleavage… turn her eye sockets into nightclub-black pools with two gleaming orbs floating in them… have her long hair cascading down to her shoulders as full-bodied as she and Fructis shampoo, conditioner, and a Conair hair dryer could possibly manage… turn her dress, any dress, into nothing but a sheet of Cling Wrap around her breasts, her waist, her hips, her “butt,” and her upper thighs… only the upper thighs… at least eighteen inches above the knee… She’ll lift this whole production up close to six inches on stiletto heels. Sexy—that was the idea. Turn it on… the Body! Let sex override all the sophistication she didn’t have.

  Or would she just look cheap and trashy? Her spirits plummeted. Who was she anyway? Who was she supposed to be at this high-class dinner, just an employee of Dr. Lewis, the generous Dr. Lewis who took employees to events like this? Or should she go in the other direction and intimate that there was a lot more than that and thereby let Sergei and the world know that a celebrity like Norman Lewis was mad for her, nurse or otherwise?

  Plummmmet, went her confidence again. Maybe she was only deluding herself about the whole thing… Sergei hadn’t said a single word to signal any actual interest, not one spoken word… He had merely poured a certain look into her eyes and surreptitiously pressed his fingers into her palm… Maybe that was just the way he was around women, a chronic flirt… Yes, but pressing a girl’s palm with his fingers like that—was so strange that it had to mean something… and he had poured that certain look into her eyes not once, but three times… and her heart beat on, beat on, beat on, beneath her breastbone, beat so loudly that—what if Norman could actually hear it? She had reached the point of paranoia… She mustn’t let it be known in any way that she was even looking forward to the evening. Whenever Norman mentioned it, she had gone to great lengths to appear indifferent.

  She had a magazine from the waiting room open on her desk but had barely glanced at it; so lost was she in a fairyland—that consisted solely of Friday night, Sergei Korolyov, and Magdalena Otero—she didn’t notice that Norman had come out of the swami room and was within six feet of her desk.

  “Must be a great magazine,” he said.

  Magdalena looked up, flustered, as if she had been caught out. “Oh, no,” she said. “I was sitting here thinking—about something else.” She quickly dropped that subject and opened her daybook and said, “Your next appointment is fifteen minutes from now, at eleven, with a new patient, Stanley Roth. I made the appointment myself, but I’ve got no idea what he does.”

  “He’s a trader for some new hedge fund called Vacuum,” said Norman. He smiled. He found “Vacuum” amusing. “I talked to him on the phone.”

  “Vacuum?” said Magdalena. “Like a vacuum cleaner?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Norman said with a chortle. “A bunch of young guys. You’re gonna laugh when I tell you Mr. Roth’s little problem—” He broke off that thought. “What is that magazine?”

  “It’s called—” She had to give it a close inspection herself. “La Hom?… Loam?”

  Norman picked it up and inspected it. “It’s Lom,” he said, pointing at the name at the bottom of a page, L’Homme. “It’s French. ‘The Man.’ Take a look at these guys,” he said, holding up one of the pages. “All the male models these days are like these two. They’re all skinny. They look like they have a serious protein deficiency. They have these sunken cheeks and a six-or-seven-day growth of beard and this gloomy, hangdog look, as if they’ve just been released after five years of hard time, during which they contracted AIDS from getting buggered so much by other prisoners. I don’t get it. This is going to make young men want to buy the clothes these lulus are modeling? Or maybe these days looking like a gay AIDS blade is fashhhhionableahhHHHHock hock hock hock… They look like these emaciated young men Egon Schiele used to paint. They have this look like they’re all so weak and sickly, they’re going to pass out and collapse and die in a pile of bones right in your face.”

  Magdalena said, “Who? Did you say Sheila?”

  “It’s German,” said Norman, “S-c-h-i-e-l-e. Egon Schiele. He was from Austria.”

  “And he’s famous?” said Magdalena… glumly… All this art stuff the americanos thought was so important…

  “Oh, sure,” said Norman. “I mean I guess he’s famous if you’re into early-twentieth-century Austrian art, the way I am. I really consider—” He abruptly broke off whatever he was about to say and averted his eyes. His face fell. He looked sad in a way Magdalena had never seen before.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m ‘into’ early-twentieth-century Austrian art, all right. I’m ‘into’ it in those seventy-five-dollar picture books, that’s how far I’m ‘into’ it. It was twenty years ago when I first discovered Schiele and Gustav Klimt and, oh, Richard Gerstl and Oskar Kokoschka and that whole bunch. I could have bought this terrific Schiele for twenty-five thousand at auction. But I was in medical school, and I didn’t even come close to having twenty-five thousand dollars to spend on some ‘artwork.’ I was living practically hand-to-mouth. Same thing for another eight years as an intern and a resident. Finally I open my own practice and start making some money and I come up for air, and those Austrians—I look up, and they’re in earth orbit! A couple of years ago, that same painting sold for twenty-five million. It had increased in price a thousand times while I wasn’t looking.”

  He paused… He looked at Magdalena in a wary, tentative way that seemed to say I don’t know whether I should be getting into all this stuff with you or not. He must have decided, Oh, what the hell, because he proceeded to get into it.

  “You know,” he said, “people used to think doctors were rich. If you lived out where the doctors lived, you knew you were in the best neighborhood in town. That’s not true anymore. You can’t make any real money if you’re working for fees. Doctors, lawyers—we get fees for the time we spend on a case, so much per hour. So do violin teachers and carpenters. You go on vacation, you go hunting, you go to sleep—you get no fee. Now, just compare that with someone like Maurice. It doesn’t matter if he’s asleep, daydreaming, playing tennis, off on a cruise, or, for that matter, doing what he usually does, trying to find a way to wrap at least one finger and his thumb around his erect phallus without pressing upon any of his herpes blisters. Even while he’s doing the worst thing he can do in his condition, he’s got this company, American ShowUp, out there working for him day and night. They bring in the exhibition cubicles, the revolving platforms, the stages, the tents, the frameworks for everything you can think of from automobile shows and medical conferences to ordinary conventions. Believe me, if you have eighty percent of that business in the United States, the way Maurice does, that adds up to billions. That’s why you have to have a product. That’s why I go on all these TV shows. It’s not just the publicity. You have to admit I’m not bad on television. I could see myself getting a network show like this Dr. Phil. He makes a killing doing that show. That gives him something to sell. The more TV stations take the show, the more money he makes. He’s not working for fees anymore. Now he’s a franchise. He goes to sleep, he goes to Istanbul on vacation, and the franchise is still doing business while he’s not looking. I can see some good spin-offs, too, like e-books, even paper books—you know… like, printed.”

  Magdalena was astonished, shocked. “What are you saying, Norman! You have a… a… calling—you have something that’s so much… so much finer than what they have… these Dr. Phils, turning themselves into characters on television. Doctors—nurses, too—I remember the day I raised my right hand—doctors and nurses, we take an oath to devote our lives to the sick. I remember that day because I’m pro
ud of it. TV doctors turn their backs on the Hippocratic Oath. They’re devoting themselves to making money and being celebrities. When I think of ‘Dr. Phil’… I wonder what he tells his children he’s doing?… assuming he has children.”

  Norman seemed chastened. Perhaps he even felt guilty, which was not his way. Oh, no—not at all. Quietly—for Norman—he said, “Oh, I’m sure he tells them he can help so many more people this way, people all over the country, people all over the world—or maybe he goes all the way and says ‘heal,’ not just help the whole world but heal it. If my parents had told me something like that when I was six or seven, I would have chosen to believe them… In any case, you’re right, Magdalena.” He didn’t say that very often, either. Maybe he did feel guilty. “Even if you go on television now and then, the way I do, your peers, other doctors, hold it against you. I used to think it was pure jealousy. Now I’m not so sure. I guess it is partly about that honor—but they’re jealous bastards, all the same.”

  “But don’t you see?” said Magdalena. “It is about honor. We don’t do this for money, you and me. We do it for honor. Somebody like Maurice comes in, and he has an addiction that’s gradually eating up his life. Here he is, a billionaire—and does that make him feel secure? He’s a wreck! Last week at Art Basel I must have seen him trying to scratch his crotch without anybody noticing a hundred times. He’s pathetic… and he’s totally dependent on you. What’s worth more, all his money or your ability to heal people? He’s down here”—she lowered one hand and made the palm parallel with the floor and raised the other hand three feet above it—“and you’re up here. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. You’re Dr. Norman Lewis. You have a gift. Can’t you see that?”

  Norman nodded a faint yes, looked down at the floor, and didn’t say a word. Was this modesty in light of the high place in the life of Man that she had just ascribed to him? But she had never seen him overcome by modesty before. Now he had his eyes aimed down… at what? The wall-to-wall carpet apparently. It was perfectly good, practical, with a forest-green background and a fine-line white windowpane plaid. Not bad… and maybe worth five seconds of study.

  “What are you thinking about, Norman?”

  “Oh… nothing…” He still wasn’t looking at her, and she had never heard his voice die like this.

  A vile thought insinuated itself into her head. It was so vile, she resolved not to think about it at all. Maurice had been coming to see Norman three times a week, meaning close to $3,000 per week in fees. As far as she could tell, Maurice hadn’t improved in the slightest, and in some ways he had gotten worse. His leper-blistered groin was a disaster. But the whole thing was so vile, she just wasn’t going to think about it. Why try to out-analyze Norman? Norman was perhaps as well known as any psychiatrist in the country. How could she presume to second-guess him… and even wonder if Norman didn’t find it to his advantage to have Maurice undergo such endless therapy? But that was the vile part! How could she let her imagination run wild like that? She wasn’t going to. The next thing she knew, she would start wondering who was getting the most out of this doctor-patient relationship. How had Norman managed to get a slip for his cigarette boat in the famous marina at Fisher Island?… Maurice… How had he managed to be among the very first in line for the mad rush on the opening day of Art Basel? Maurice. How had he managed to be invited to dinner at Chez Toi by one of the leading figures in the Miami art world, Sergei Korolyov?… Because Sergei had seen him in Maurice’s entourage at Art Basel… Anyone who didn’t realize that Norman was a shameless climber would have to be blind.

  She thought of a way to get Norman on that subject without being too obvious. There was nothing out of place for her to ask—and so she did: “Norman,” she said, “you think Maurice will be there Friday night?”

  It was as if she had pushed the switch that turned Norman back on. “Oh, yes! He’s already talked to me about it. He thinks this Korolyov might be an important new friend. And he loves Chez Toi. Yowza yowza. It has the kind of cachet Maurice thinks is very important. I’ve been there and I know how much it impresses somebody like Maurice.”

  “Cashay?” said Magdalena.

  “You know, it’s like… a reputation or a certain social level.”

  “Cashay,” said Magdalena in a dead tone of voice.

  “They have a black membership card, and if you have that, you can go to the cocktail lounge upstairs. Otherwise, you can’t go up there.”

  “Do you have a membership card?”

  Norman paused. “Well… actually… no. But I’ve been in the lounge.”

  Magdalena said, “You’ve been there a lot?”

  “Up to a point.” Norman paused again, and his expression became tentative, which was not like him. “Come to think of it… twice, I guess.”

  “Who did you go with?”

  Long pause… a frown… finally: “With Maurice.”

  “Both times?”

  Longer pause… deflated scowl: “Yes.” Norman gave her a sharp look. Somehow Magdalena had become an interrogator and had found him out, not in a lie… but in the sin of omission… omission of anything that might reveal his dependence on Maurice—his patient. He changed course and brightened again. “But I know Maurice much better than most people, maybe better than anyone else. Everybody in Miami wants to be next to Maurice, the art collectors, the art dealers—art dealers! I mean, you better believe itttahHHHHock hock hock hock!—the museum directors, the politicians, every type of businessman you can think of—very much including our new friend, Korolyov. You remember the way Korolyov came hustling over to Maurice at Art Basel? He practically kissed his shoes, like a little Russian serf. I mean, Maurice has the most influential network in South Florida.” He smiled broadly, then looked into Magdalena’s eyes with great earnestness. “That’s why we—you and me—we’ve got to do everything in our power to get Maurice out from under this terrible weakness, this addictive weakness. Weakness shouldn’t become addictive, but it does. You put it correctly, Magdalena; it’s wrecking him. We can’t let that happen. He’s not just a rich and powerful man. He’s also a decent man, who is dedicated to doing good in the whole community. We have to get our job done, Magdalena! That’s why I try to stay with him even beyond our sessions. I felt it was important for me to be with him at Art Basel, even though most psychiatrists would never do that. So many exciting things in this town are like Art Basel. At their core they’re utterly amoral. The people there are comfortable with pornography, so long as it has a ‘cultivated’ provenance.”

  ::::::provenance?::::::

  “Maurice could have sunk into that quicksand and we’d never find him again. But we didn’t let that happen, Magdalena. We stayed there with him to the end.”

  The odd thing… maybe the happy thing is… he believes every word of that, thought Magdalena. He’s being utterly sincere. Dutifully, she warded off every countervailing interpretation.

  13

  A La Moda Cubana

  It was about five minutes before noon when the Sergeant and Nestor walked three blocks from the Starbucks and arrived at the main police headquarters at 400 East Second Avenue N.W. They kept their cop shades on, even though the shades plunged the lobby, the waiting area, into the last dim dying moments of dusk… but not so dark that they couldn’t see all the cops looking at them and checking them out.

  The Sergeant said, “The first one a these suckers tries to get smart with me, I’m gonna bite his fucking nose off for him.”

  The force was spared any impending proboscission when the hot cubana named Cat Posada—unh huhhh, Cat—appeared from out of nowhere—or nowhere to two men leading a twilight life behind their cop shades, and gave them a perfect Girl from Ipanema smile—goes ahhhhhh—and said they should come with her. Apparently, the Chief was smart enough to know that nothing cools off a young male’s rankles faster than a hot girl’s charms.

  On the elevator up, Nestor practiced the look he wanted to show the Chief: I’m a real cop�
�� shoulders back, military-style, correct posture to burn, head back, chin down. He wasn’t so sure about the chin down… it did something funny to his lips—and at that very moment the Sergeant glanced over and said, “What’s the matter with you?” Nestor decided he would only lose points with lovely Cat Posada if he opened that subject up in front of her… Why did he even care? He just did. Why did he care about how he looked in front of guys in the video game arcade he’d never see again?… the girl at the cash register at Starbucks?… two young black guys walking toward him on the street yesterday, minding their own business? Did he try to look so tough, they wouldn’t even think of fucking with him? Half your life you spent wondering how you looked to this total stranger and that one…

  When they reached the third floor, lovely Cat led Nestor and the Sergeant down a long, too narrow, too gloomy hallway lined with small offices, doors open… revealing the little bureaucratic cogs, many of whom really would recognize them as the two racist cops from YouTube… He took every glance to be an accusing stare. Un negro employee looked his way—nothing more than that—looked his way. He felt terribly embarrassed and falsely condemned. He wanted to stop and explain… it wasn’t like that at all!—not in my case!… They reached an office way down at the corner, and gorgeous Cat—men are terrible! Even under pressure of something serious, something he feared, Nestor kept thinking of her as lovely, gorgeous Cat—and maybe she’d like to go have some coffee later? The sublime Cat motioned for them to wait a moment while she went inside, and they heard her say, “Chief, Sergeant Hernandez and Officer Camacho are here.” When the radiant Cat came out, she smiled at them, the irresistible Cat did, and indicated that they should go in. She walked the other way without looking back pop went the fantasy.