Benedict Hall

by Cate Campbell

  It felt so natural he couldn’t think why it had taken him a whole day to come. Her long arms went around him, and his good right arm pulled her close. Her lean body melted into his, and she buried her face against his neck. He said into her hair, “I’m so sorry, Margot.”

  She said in a muffled voice, “Sorry for what?”

  He laughed a little, and held her tighter. “Everything. For being—a cowboy.”

  At this, she laughed, too, and he felt the movement of her small breasts against his chest. For long moments they didn’t speak. He let his cheek rest against her hair. He breathed in the scent of her shampoo, mixed with the faint tang of medicine that clung to her coat. Only when she stirred did he release her, and then only to kiss her, firmly and at length.

  When he was done, she said mistily, “Oh, Frank! I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He released her, but caught her hand in his, reluctant to let her go. “Last night was just—”

  She made a vague gesture, then pulled her hand free, gently, to begin unbuttoning her white coat. “It was ghastly,” she said. “And embarrassing. I should have understood that.”

  “You’re not angry with me.”

  “Of course not.” She tossed her coat over the back of Thea’s chair. “Thea couldn’t make it in today. Her husband is ill again.” As she moved toward the rack where her street coat and hat hung, the telephone rang. She went back to the desk and picked it up. “Dr. Benedict speaking.”

  Frank took her things from the coatrack as he waited for her to finish the call. Her end of the conversation was terse. When she put down the receiver, she said, “That’s Thea’s neighbor. Norman is much worse, evidently. They’re on their way here.” She picked up her white coat again, and pulled it on. “Can you help me, Frank? I ordered some bottles of oxygen from the surgical supply house, and they came today. They’re in the storeroom, but I don’t have an anaesthetic mask. If you could go down to Bartell’s, they might have one.”

  “Happy to help. Where is it?”

  She cast him a grateful look as she started on the buttons. “First and Pike. Thank you.”

  Frank hadn’t been to Bartell’s before, but he found it easily. It was a modern drugstore, its shelves packed with bottled medicines, boxes of tooth powder, sacks of bluing, cans of pipe tobacco. The clerk quickly found the mask and tubing he needed behind a rack of peanut brittle and chocolate-dipped cherries, but he insisted on wrapping the supplies in brown paper, tying them neatly with string, though Frank told him he was in a hurry. He strode swiftly back to the clinic with the package under his arm.

  The taxicab that had carried Thea and Norman from their home was just pulling away when Frank reached Post Street again. At Margot’s direction, Frank fetched an oxygen bottle from a row of three in the storeroom. He carried the bottle into the examining room. Thea’s husband lay on the high table, a pillow tucked beneath his head, a woolen blanket across his legs. Frank could hear his wheeze while he was still in the short hallway.

  Norman was so thin it seemed his bones might break through his skin. His hair was limp and colorless against the white pillowcase, and his lips and nostrils were as blue as the waters of Elliott Bay in the summer. Frank had seen men who looked just that way in the hospital in Virginia. They had all died.

  Thea and Margot worked together in efficient silence. Margot fastened the anaesthesia mask to a rubber bag, then connected the apparatus to the oxygen. Thea held the mask over Norman’s face as Margot monitored his pulse, and operated the valve on the oxygen bottle with her other hand. After each inspiration, Thea lifted the mask for her husband to exhale, then replaced it. The little room filled with the sounds of Norman’s struggles to breathe and his occasional, desperate moans.

  Frank went back to the waiting room. He left the door open, so he could hear Margot if she called to him. He didn’t bother turning on the light, but leaned against the wall near the door, his hand in his pocket, staring blindly out into the darkening street.

  It was all achingly familiar. Sounds like this had been commonplace in the hospital in Virginia. He had become so accustomed to the smells of disinfectant and ether and damaged flesh that he hardly noticed them. Since leaving the hospital he had tried to put them out of his mind, but now, here, he remembered. Norman smelled of death. It was only a matter of time, no matter how hard Margot worked over him.

  An unexpected yearning swept through Frank. He longed, suddenly, to be home, under the wide, clear Montana sky, breathing the invigorating scents of grazing cattle and freshly cut hay. He thought of his mother, kneading biscuits on the ancient board in the kitchen. He thought of his father, climbing down from the hay rig, loosening the harness so the big draft horses, smelling of healthy horseflesh and summer sunshine, could munch grass in the shade. It was all lost to him, all the vibrant strength and sweetness. Norman would die, as so many others had, and leave his grieving widow behind. Frank would have to go in search of some way to support himself, and he would have to leave Margot to do it.

  There was no escaping the aftermath of the war. His arm burned, as if chafed by the very memories he had tried to put away. He groped in his pocket, but his flask wasn’t there.

  Thea said, “His lips are pinker.”

  “Oxygen relieves the anoxaemia,” Margot said. “It’s temporary, I’m afraid.”

  Thea gazed down at her husband. “He’s suffered so much.” Her brow contracted, and she said in a choked voice, “Perhaps I should just let him go.”

  Norman’s pulse was thready beneath Margot’s fingers. “He could go to the hospital.”

  “If he goes to the hospital, they’ll put him in one of the public wards—no one will pay him any attention, and he’ll die there, all alone!”

  Margot released Norman’s wrist. “You and I can’t keep this up all night.”

  “I know,” Thea said. She lifted her eyes to Margot’s. They were red-rimmed, but steady. “I’m not sure we should in any case. He’s not going to get well, is he?”

  Margot glanced at Norman. His eyes were closed, all his energy focused on breathing, in, out, in, out. Briefly, she wondered which was harder, the inhalation or the exhalation. It was no wonder he was so thin. It must take constant effort simply to force air through those scarred lungs. She said gravely, “No, Thea. Norman’s not going to get well.”

  “He said, just the other night, that it would have been better if he’d died in France. Died with his buddies, he said. He hates lying in bed all the time. Being helpless.”

  Margot could sense Frank waiting in the outer office. There was a great deal she didn’t know about him, but she was certain he, too, would have hated being an invalid. Bad as he felt things were, as badly as his arm hurt him, he still had a life. He had only to find it.

  She wanted to say something hopeful to Thea, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak false comfort. It wasn’t her way, and her nurse knew that. They looked at each other in the silence of the night, and understanding flashed between them.

  It was Thea who reached for the mask. With gentle fingers, she lifted it from her husband’s mouth and nose, then caressed his forehead with the back of her hand. Margot coiled the tubing, and took the mask when Thea handed it to her.

  “I’ll prepare an injection of scopolamine. There’s no point in Norman being in pain.”

  “Thank you.” Thea’s voice shook only a little. She bent over her husband to press her lips to his cheek, then pulled a chair close and sat down. She held his hand, but she didn’t put her fingers over his pulse. Sorrow filled the room. The air was thick with it, its presence as discrete as the smell of alcohol. Though Thea did not weep, nor did Norman make any sound beyond his labored breathing, it was a relief to Margot to step out, to have respite from the atmosphere of grief, even for a moment.

  When she came back with the syringe, she found Thea with her eyes closed, Norman’s hand cradled at her breast. Norman’s lips had gone blue again. His breath scraped through his throat in ribbons so th
in his chest barely moved.

  She gave him the injection, and his face relaxed a bit. She murmured, “Call me if you need me, Thea. I’ll be in the reception room,” and slipped out. On her way she turned off the light, leaving Thea and Norman in a comfortable darkness. In the little hallway, moonlight filtered through the small window of her office, just enough for her to see where she was going.

  She left the lights off in the waiting room, as well. She removed her white coat and hung it up. She and Frank sat down together on the little divan. She sat on his right side, and he gathered her close to him with his arm. It was comforting to rest her head on his shoulder, to feel his masculine solidity. The weight of his head against her hair felt proprietary, and her burden of responsibility lessened, as if by his very proximity he could share it. She murmured, “Thea doesn’t want Norman to die in the hospital.”

  “Right.”

  “I can’t leave her here alone with him.”

  “We’ll stay.”

  “You don’t need—”

  “Hush, Margot. We’ll stay together.”

  She was so tired. Frank wriggled into a more comfortable position, his head back against the frame of the divan. Margot kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her. She rested her cheek against the rough fabric of Frank’s coat, and listened to the rasp of Norman’s struggles to breathe. Darkness enfolded the little building, so that there was nothing in the world but the final breaths of the dying man, the faint sounds of occasional foot traffic in Post Street, the steady beat of Frank’s heart so near to her own. For a time she dozed.

  She startled awake at the creak of the back door of the clinic. She sat up straight, and listened. Frank stirred beside her. “What?”

  She put a finger to her lips. She heard nothing from the examining room.

  Margot got to her feet. Frank stood up, too, just as a step sounded in the little hallway, and the door to the storeroom opened and closed. Margot said, “There’s someone back there.”

  “Thea?”

  “Perhaps she decided to give more oxygen after all.” Margot crossed the waiting room in her stocking feet, and peeked into the examining room. Thea still sat beside the bed, her forehead resting against the edge. Norman made no sound at all.

  Margot went to him, and put her hand on his wrist.

  Thea said in a thin voice, “He stopped breathing a few minutes ago.”

  Margot found her stethoscope on the counter, and fitted the earpieces to her ears. She put the bell to Norman’s chest and listened for a moment. There was only silence. Norman was released at last from his suffering. She straightened, and pulled off the stethoscope. “He’s gone, Thea. I’m sorry.” Thea only nodded.

  From the doorway, Frank murmured, “Margot—there’s someone in your storeroom.”

  She had forgotten the sounds. She turned sharply about, and started toward the door. “It could be someone looking for alcohol,” she said. “It’s happened before.”

  Frank put up his hand. “I’ll go. Stay with Thea.”

  He hadn’t taken more than two steps before they heard an odd whoosh, just audible in the quiet. Margot couldn’t identify the sound, and before she could think about it there was a clatter, as of something being dropped or thrown. Frank broke into a run.

  Margot reached the hall just in time to see Frank hauling Preston out of the storeroom by his arm. Preston wore a long coat and a hat pulled down over his forehead, and he tried to yank his arm free of Frank’s grasp.

  Frank spun Preston around, and shouted something. A sudden rush of fire billowing from the storeroom drowned his words. Glass popped, and burning wood made great cracking sounds. Thea cried out, “What’s happened?”

  Margot stared in shock as angry red fire roared up behind Frank and Preston. The two men struggled, their silhouettes dark against the flames. It looked as if Frank was trying to pull Preston down the hall, away from the fire. Of course, he would know, the engineer. Everything in that storeroom was flammable: alcohol, ether, cotton, wooden shelves . . . oxygen bottles!

  Margot recovered herself enough to cry, “It’s a fire! Thea, call the fire trucks!” before she started toward the two men. Halfway there, she saw her brother twist free of Frank’s grasp. He flattened himself against the wall, opposite the now-blazing storeroom.

  Frank lunged for him.

  Preston pulled back his fist and launched it at Frank’s face.

  Margot found she was screaming. “Frank! Frank, no! Let him go!”

  Frank took the punch on his bad shoulder, and Margot heard him choke, “Benedict! You have to get out of here!”

  Preston’s lips pulled back in a rictus of a grin, an expression made demonic by the lurid light of the fire. The ceiling had caught the flames, and the fire flared across the top of the little building with a rush of sound and heat. Preston pulled back his arm again, readying another blow.

  Margot reached Frank and seized his arm. It was the bad one, but it was closest, and there was no time to be gentle. She pulled him back, away from Preston, away from the fire, past the examining room and toward the front door. She gave her office a despairing glance, lamenting her books, her diploma, but there was no time to save anything. The fire was racing across the roof. She could hear it, and she could feel it. Thea, weeping, begged someone on the telephone to hurry. There was nothing to be done about Norman’s body, either, and Thea would know that.

  Frank resisted her hand. She could tell by the heat of his body that his arm must pain him furiously. She said, “Thea! Outside! Frank, we have to get out!”

  Frank shouted, “But he doesn’t know about—”

  Two concussions shook the building, dull, deep thuds in such quick succession they were nearly indistinguishable. The storeroom, Margot’s office, the little hallway, erupted in a wall of flame that sped toward the waiting room with breathtaking speed.

  Frank cursed, and dashed toward the front door. “I’ll go around back,” he shouted. Margot cried, “No! Frank, wait!” but he had already disappeared.

  With a thudding heart, Margot guided Thea through the front door into the cool darkness of the street. A handful of men were running toward them, shouting with excitement as they dashed up from the speakeasies on Western Avenue. In the distance a fire bell clanged, but the roar of the fire nearly drowned out its hollow voice.

  A single high, thin shriek pierced the din of shouts and splintering wood and the roar of the motor of the fire truck. Thea gave a horrified scream, and turned to stare at the billows of smoke, the spears of orange flames. Her hands to her face, she beseeched Margot, “He was dead, wasn’t he? Norman was already dead? Oh, my God, Margot, he’s not burning?”

  Margot gripped Thea’s arm, hard. Over the racket, she cried, “No, Thea, no! He was already gone. You know that!”

  “Then who—?” Thea began to sob. Margot didn’t try to answer. Aghast, she stared at the inferno. Her brother was in there. Despite everything, it turned her stomach to think of her blond, handsome brother suffocating with smoke, crushed beneath blazing timbers. And where was Frank? Was he in there, too? It would be just like Preston to escape, and to allow Frank to perish in his place.

  In the midst of the heat and noise and glare, Margot felt frozen. She just managed to move her arm, to put it around Thea, to allow her to weep on her shoulder. They clung together as leather-helmeted firemen streamed past. Thea sobbed, and Margot trembled. There was nothing they could do but watch Margot’s dream burn to the ground, taking Norman’s body with it.

  CHAPTER 19

  The heat from the fire reached to Margot and Thea where they stood. An ambulance arrived, and one of the drivers, a man Margot recognized from the hospital, threw her a surprised glance as he ran toward the burning building, a stretcher under his arm. The police arrived a few seconds later. One of them came to Margot and began asking questions. She struggled to answer through lips gone numb with shock and fear.

  Where were they? Why didn’t he come back, around the cor
ner of the building, away from the danger? She tried to picture them, Frank helping Preston, even dragging Preston. She tried to believe they would emerge from the inferno in just another moment. . . . It was unthinkable that they shouldn’t. But everything about this situation, the fire, Norman’s body incinerating, was unthinkable. None of it should be happening.

  The building was fully engulfed now, flames spearing the dark sky, windows popping as they burst from the heat. The firemen gave up on her clinic. They played their hoses on the surrounding buildings, trying to stop the fire from spreading. Faces glowed sickly orange in the light from the flames, and Margot shook so that even Thea, distraught as she was, looked up at her with concern.

  The ambulance driver reappeared from the blur of fire and smoke, a nightmare figure against a scarlet haze. He had the front poles of the stretcher in his hands, and one of the firemen had the back. There was a blanket on the stretcher.

  With an exclamation, Margot tore free of Thea and ran forward. She stopped a pace away from the stretcher, terrified at what she might see.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t know how a body could be ruined by fire. She had seen it in her residency, bodies contorted, twisted into grotesque shapes that were no longer human. The heat of her burning clinic was powerful enough to destroy muscle and tendon and bone, to make a body unrecognizable.

  Margot the physician stepped forward, put out her hand to lift the blanket. Margot the woman had to stifle the panicked moan rising from her throat as she bent forward. If her brother had caused Frank’s death, he might as well have killed her.

  She pulled up the edge of the blanket. The stretcher was empty. There was nobody there, dead or alive. The fireman stumbled, and the ambulance driver shouted something. The stretcher fell to the ground, the blanket sliding off onto the pavement.

  “What happened?” Margot cried.

  The two men stared at the empty stretcher, then looked up at her, mouths open in astonishment and fear. “Where’d he go?” the ambulance driver cried.