Ames. Blind. Ames, who saw all beauty through his eyes; his treasures, the rare paintings he bought, his rugs, furniture. Blind. “Oh, God,” Caroline said.
“I told him,” said the young doctor with compassion, “that perhaps he should see his clergyman. He laughed at me.”
“Of course,” said Caroline in a voice like a groan. “How long — ”
“The tumor will grow. There’s no way of finding out if it’s benign or malignant unless the skull is opened. In any event, it will — ”
“Kill him,” Caroline broke in. “How long will that take?”
“If benign, perhaps many months after he is blind. If malignant, only a short time.”
“There’s no surgeon who can help him?”
“Mrs. Sheldon, I think there is one, the best I know. I’ve read reports of his operations. Amazing. If the tumor is benign, of course. But he is interned in Canada; he’s a German, and there’s the war in Europe. He’s in Toronto.”
“His name?” asked Caroline.
“Dr. Moritz Manz. He had his own clinic in Berlin and came to Canada before the war to demonstrate to colleagues. But — ”
“Thank you,” said Caroline, and replaced the telephone receiver. She called Griffith and said, “When my son returns — and I don’t care what time it is, for I won’t go to bed — you must tell him to call me at once. At once.”
Then she called Higsby Chalmers. “Higsby,” she said without a salutation, “my son Ames has a tumor of the brain. There is a man who can help him, a Dr. Moritz Manz, a German interned now in Canada. Toronto. I want him here to operate on my son.”
“Caroline!” exclaimed Higsby, much perturbed. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear this about Ames! But a German, and interned. I don’t think it’s possible. I can’t see how — ”
“My son,” said Caroline. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Ames! “Oh, God,” she said. “Higsby, I want that surgeon here; I want him in Boston. I don’t know how you can arrange it, but arrange it you must. That senator I helped elect, what is his name? Never mind telling me! Let him go to the White House. The President has invited me many times. I don’t care how it is done! Ames — he will go blind and die. Unless I can get that Dr. Manz.”
“Caroline, there is Dr. Gushing — ”
“I want Dr. Manz!” shouted Caroline. “Get him, Higsby! Call your politicians. Move anything, anyone. My son will die, do you hear me?”
“I will do what I can,” said Higsby in distress.
“You will do it,” said Caroline harshly. “You must do it. I want no excuses. I want no pleas about a war. There is that matter of a $500,000,000 loan between the British and French governments and American bankers; it will come up soon, and it is to be signed in the offices of J. P. Morgan. I know Mr. Morgan well; he is the only American in favor of that loan. All others are against it.” She paused. “I am too.”
Higsby was silent in the face of that huge implied threat. A Caroline Ames could do even more: she could wreck the frightened stock market. She had many associates in America and Europe. There was a great deal she could do.
“We are a neutral country, aren’t we?” said Caroline with an almost violent rage. “Let us not waste time. I want Dr. Manz in America as fast as possible. How or with whom you can arrange it, I don’t know. I don’t care. But he must come.”
“I will try,” said Higsby. “That is all I can promise, Caroline.”
“Do not try,” said Caroline. “Do not promise. The man must come. Good day, Higsby.”
“Caroline, please listen,” said Higsby. There was no answer. He put the receiver down, troubled and anxious. Then he picked it up again.
Caroline walked down the broken sea walk in the cool, bright September sunlight, in the great silence of the land, in the murmurous voice of the ocean. She stopped on the shingle and looked about her, and suddenly she saw the brilliant glory of the blue water and the vivid burning of the deep blue sky. They came to her like a shock, like a discovery. She had not seen them for many years. She had never really seen them at all since she was a child.
To be blind. Not to see. To grope in darkness. Not to see this little gray and marvelous shell at her feet; not to see the way the incoming tide threw long and bubbling foam on the sand, the color of breaking silver. Not to know the way the watery horizon tumbled in and upon itself in turquoise, streaked with rose, veined in white, vaporous with azure. Not to watch the manner in which the radiant clouds formed vast images of men and castles and unearthly caverns and mountainous gods and racing horses and walls of light. She bent and lifted a handful of sand and watched the endless tiny colors rush between her fingers, scarlet, gray, rose, pale blue, green, gold. A little stone — smooth and full of a thousand hues. A piece of driftwood, pale and carved by water into the shape of a sleek crouching cat. The sea grass, gray and green. The pines, gray and green also, valorous against the wide luminescence, the majestic loneliness of earth and heaven. Not to see the simplest thing — and it, itself, the very core of wonder and mystery.
Then, without warning, something spoke in Caroline. “But you, too, have been blind. You haven’t seen or looked for many years. You have been like your father in your grandfather’s painting; you have willfully blinded yourself with fear. There are many kinds of blindness, but yours has been the worst.”
Yes, thought Caroline, that has been the worst. There was everything for me to see, but I refused to see it. Because I was afraid. Because I preferred to see darkness. I walled myself against the sight of a tree or a stone, a face or a blade of grass, a cloud or a leaf. I was afraid of the emotion they might bring, and the understanding. I had to have my blindness because I was afraid. Shall I blame my father because he cut off my sight? No. That priest was right. God will not accept a plea that others sinned against us. We sin against ourselves, deliberately. And against Him. We refuse to see Him, the Lord our God. Yet He is all about us, visible, if only we look and know.
She looked at the sky and said, “Dear God, have mercy on us, Your deliberately blind, and show us the light. Have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.”
She waited. God had not given her His grace. Not yet. She looked about her and saw His grace and felt it within her. “He who hates his life in this world . . .” His stupid, foolish, tragic, blundering, wicked, blind life. She knew now. She had only to ask to be given.
She went back to her deathly house. She would find a way for Ames, her son, her crippled son. He was calling for her when she came into the living room, and she went upstairs to her study.
“What is it, Mother?” he asked lightly. “There seems to be some emergency, according to Griffith.”
“You,” said Caroline, and told him.
“You will do this for me?” he asked.
“I will do anything for you. My son,” said Caroline.
There was no answer. Then Caroline heard his breath, fast and shallow.
“For me?” he said.
“For you.”
Another silence. “May I ask,” said Ames, “where all this maternal solicitude has come from so suddenly?”
“I deserve that,” said Caroline. She spoke in a louder voice. “But you also deserve a lot that has happened to you. You aren’t a victim, Ames. You have had plenty of opportunities to be different from what you are. I am not going to take the sole responsibility. No more, now, than I blame my father for everything that I am. I had had opportunities too.”
Still another silence, longer than the others. Ames finally said, “I won’t be blind. I will kill myself first.”
“Let us wait,” said Caroline. “A man can always die. It is the living that requires stamina. Are you entirely without courage?”
“No,” said Ames. “I think not. And then I think so. But I’ll wait.”
“You must,” said Caroline, making her voice hard and brusque. “We all have to do that. Only cowards don’t wait.”
“I’ll wait,” said Ames.
Chapter 8
On October 15, Dr. Moritz Manz crossed the border at Buffalo and went at once to Boston, to Sisters of Charity Hospital, where Ames Sheldon was waiting for him, and Caroline also.
The new tests were all ready for him, and the X rays and the blood tests. He was a little fat man with a tiny goatee on his round and rosy face. He had shining blue eyes behind his glasses and an air of brisk competence. His small nose was as pink as a rose, and his big skull was completely bald. He spent several hours examining his patient, who occupied a large suite of luxurious rooms. He had a lordly air and was autocratic to all the nurses and Sisters, who seemed larger than himself. These big American women! But then, all woman always seemed larger than his small self. He was very fastidious. He called for many things and many instruments. He tested, then tested again. His patient, he observed, this son of a famous mother, appeared to find him a little ludicrous, and this was strange, considering the misery in his gray eyes. The smiling and the faint laughter were all about the lips only. Dr. Manz made large gestures to compensate for his size, and he had a larger voice which filled all the corridors. The doctor felt defensive for several hours, until he discovered that the Sisters and the staff and the nurses had only kindness and respect for him, and no disgust or aversion for him as a ‘murderous’ German.
He lost considerable of his pomposity. Finally, as this was a very warm October day, he took off his coat, which hung to his knees, and he was a physician face to face with a desperate emergency. He had found that many of the Sisters had been born in Germany, and he conversed with them. He had been told that Americans were completely barbarous, but he found the medical staff very competent and serious. They did not speak of the war, not even once. Dr. Manz expanded. He was a Jew and not always liked, even if always reverenced, and he basked in this atmosphere of goodness and acceptance, this eagerness to help, this anxiety over a patient. It was so — personal. One did not usually encounter this, and it warmed him.
He said to the Reverend Mother, who was also a surgeon and had been born in Germany, “These X rays, Mother. I do not find them superior. I should like more.”
“Of a certainty, Herr Doktor. At once. Will you preside?” She added, “This is a great honor to us, for you to be here, Herr Doktor.”
He smiled, and he looked like a gentle gnome. “I do not know how it was done, but it was done. I was very astonished. Ah, one does not know what goes on in the world, does one?”
“Very occasionally,” said the Reverend Mother. “But only occasionally.”
“One must trust in God,” said Dr. Manz.
Ames, listening, and thinking this was all like a formal minuet, said in precise German, “I am not merely a specimen, Herr Doktor. I am concerned in this also.”
The Reverend Mother and Dr. Manz looked at him with kind severity. “Have we forgotten?” asked Dr. Manz. “Are we not here for you, Herr Sheldon? What else? We were speaking of God. At the last, we must bow before the Great Physician and await His verdict.”
“Of a certainty,” said the Reverend Mother.
“Amen,” said Ames. “I only hope He has not turned His thumb down.”
They ignored this remark.
“I came,” said Dr. Manz, “incognito. I have never before been in America, Reverend Mother, and I have colleagues here with whom I have corresponded. I wished to meet them. It is now impossible. Those were the conditions. I do not understand many things, but I was given an order to come. I am a medical officer; I hold the rank of colonel. Hundreds of poor young men with torn heads need me; it is to break the heart to see them when they are brought to me for operation. They look at me — their eyes. I do not say, ‘Are you a Frenchman or an Englishman or a German?’ I, who am a bachelor, say to them, ‘Do not fear, my son. God is close at hand, and He will help me, for you are His child also’. This war! One does not understand it. One is never told.”
He sighed, and as he was a sentimental man, he wiped his eyes with a flourish, but there was a sternness about his mouth.
“So we shall operate as soon as I have seen the new X rays which we shall take.” He smiled at Ames, who was lying tautly in his narrow bed. “You must not be afraid, young Herr Sheldon. You must have faith.”
Ames began to smile; his face was very pale. Then he said, “If anyone can help me, it is you, Herr Doktor.” He seemed surprised at his own words. He continued, “I ask only one thing: if it is malignant and I must go blind, do not let me become conscious again. Let me die.”
The Reverend Mother caught her breath. Dr. Manz said, “I am a doctor, not an executioner.” He pointed to the crucifix on the wall. “Contemplate that. He was a man not much older than you. He could have willed not to hang there, but He chose it, it is said. For you. Contemplate it.”
The new X rays were taken, and only the awe of the staff kept them from expressing human exasperation, for Dr. Manz was meticulous and excessively thorough. “This angle, ah. And that. Just a little, two millimeters; careful. And now it must be this. Lift. Drop.” He did not wait for the plates to dry; he held them, dripping, up to a strong light and studied them, and the staff exchanged glances. Then he said briskly, “Prepare the patient for operation. Immediately. It is a tumor.”
It was as if a death sentence had been given. A deep silence stood over the staff while Ames was being wheeled from the room. Then one of the doctors raised his voice and started to speak slowly and carefully. “I speak the English also,” said Dr. Manz with a noble gesture. “I am no illiterate. You were saying? Ah. Is there a possibility the patient will survive?” He touched the left side of his head, near his ear. “It is there, too close to the centers of speech. Another week, another month — No, I do not know if it is benign or malignant, but I have studied the blood. The potassium is not above normal, so there is a good possibility that it is benign, that ugly tumor. I have done much research on this. The optic nerves are in great difficulty, but the patient is young. Of a certainty, if it is benign and there has not been too much injury to the delicate tissues, the patient will survive and he will not be blind.”
“The whole staff of surgeons and neurologists will be present, Herr Doktor,” said the Reverend Mother. “Do not be alarmed; we will be discreet, though they all know you are here.”
“How was it possible to see the tumor, Doctor?” asked a surgeon.
“It is a matter of instinct, of recognizing the faintest of shadows. I cannot explain it,” said Dr. Manz with large simplicity. “But I am not wrong often. I am in the process of preparing a dye to be injected in the carotid artery and have done interesting experimentation on animals. If it had not been for this war, when one must do gross work! There is a matter, too, of a certain gas with which I am experimenting. The dye and the gas will outline a tumor so it can be seen clearly on the plates. Until I have them, I must move by instinct. I must consider objective symptoms, few though they are, from the history, from the eye examinations.”
He went into the large and sunlit living room of the suite where Caroline was waiting for him. He had met her briefly on his arrival. He took her hands in his own little fat ones and pressed them warmly, bending over her. He thought her magnificent; there were older ladies at Court like this, stern and still and plain. One could always recognize aristocracy. He bent over her and said, “Dear lady, this is an occasion of courage for you. I have decided to operate as soon as your son is prepared.”
“He has the tumor?” Caroline spoke quietly in her impeccable German.
“Unfortunately, yes. A little longer and he should have been blind, or he should have had a stroke from the squeezing of the blood vessels. I can promise you I shall do my best. More, I cannot promise.”
“Is it malignant, do you think?”
He admired her great calm, but he saw how alive and brilliant her eyes were, so purely hazel streaked with gold. What young eyes, what a soul!
“Ah, dear lady, that I do not know until I have opened the skull and see with my two eyes.”
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“But, so young, if it is cancer.” Caroline bent her head a little.
“Frau Sheldon, it is not something which others care to face. Cancer is no respecter of persons or age. Many children have that evil thing, but the people do not want to know it. At this time, one person in thirty-five will have it and possibly die of it. Twenty years ago it was one in fifty or less. It is increasing. One day, I am afraid, the ratio will increase. We conquer one destroyer to see the rise of another, perhaps more deadly. Why this is so is inscrutable. Nature, too, is no respecter of persons. We can only struggle with her for our survival, which at the end is not in her hands but in God’s. I have always considered that we live in a vortex of mysteries.”
“If it is cancer?”
“Then he will not only be blinded but will be paralyzed, and he will die. Mercifully, it does not take long. On the other hand, if it is benign he will be perfect again after removal. He is being prepared; before he subsides under drugs, you will wish to see him.”
A Prologue to Love Page 91
