A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  The receptionist, an elderly nurse with a bright and friendly face, greeted them. Dr. McManus would be here directly. And there he was, waddling from some door, glowering, his short thick legs moving like pistons. “Fifteen minutes late!” he squealed. “What do you think this is anyway, parson? A Ladies’ Aid tea?”

  It was Jean who answered him, moving a step toward the violent old man, and facing him. He said, “The car—she did not run.” The doctor scowled down at him. “Nonsense. The car is in good shape. Don’t be impudent, boy.” Jean said, almost inaudibly, “The wheels—they were cut—to pieces. Only Papa and I know.”

  “What!” cried the doctor, and his grayish face purpled. He turned to Johnny, and then his face crinkled into an expression of wrath. His breath whistled, and the children regarded him with interest. Then he put his hand on Jean’s shoulder and said abruptly, “Things happen to cars. Well, kids, and parson, come to Jean’s room. It’s a sight.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a telegram addressed to Johnny from New York, and Johnny opened it. It was from Dr. Stevens, expressing his earnest hope that Jean would have a successful operation and begging to be informed immediately. He sent his affectionate regards to the whole family. “He also sent a big bunch of flowers,” said the doctor, who had unashamedly been reading the telegram over Johnny’s shoulder. “Well, come on.”

  The telegram warmed Johnny, and he read it to the children. They all went up in a very large smooth elevator to the surgical floor, which had broad and well-lighted corridors, wide swinging doors, and an air of peace. The children were impressed, but they still crowded close to Johnny, who had difficulty in walking. The doctor swung open a door to a large room, and said with grim humor, “Looks like a damned funeral parlor, don’t it?”

  The room was literally embowered with roses, red, yellow, white, pink, and scarlet. The roomy table near the white bed overflowed; the dresser was inundated; huge vases stood against the walls, in ranks two deep. The room was sunny, and the effect of all this fragrance and color was of a garden in full June. The children cried out in delight, and even little Emilie scrambled in Johnny’s arms to be put down. The scent of the flowers was blown about the room by the gentle wind coming through the two large windows, and the children sniffed in ecstasy. Jean’s colorless face took on a flush of proud happiness, and he could only stand and stare.

  “Good heavens,” said Johnny weakly. “Dr. Stevens sent all this?”

  “No,” replied the doctor. He regarded the flowers with his usual glower, but it was evident he was pleased. “Never mind. A friend. Not me. Not anyone in your congregation. Just a friend.”

  Johnny was struck by another thought, as a smiling young nurse appeared in the doorway. He colored. “Dr. McManus. This room. It’s probably very expensive. I—I thought of a ward. That’s about all I can afford, you know. And it’s just occurred to me about nurses—”

  “The boy can’t be in a ward,” said Dr. McManus roughly. “For several reasons. Besides, he’ll need constant nursing for quite a while. Three nurses. The room’s eighteen dollars a day; the best we have. And the nurses get nine dollars a day each, not including their board. Now shut up. It’s all being taken care of—by a friend.”

  “Who?” demanded Johnny, suspiciously. “You? No. You’re doing enough, as it is. Dr. Klein told me. I can’t accept any more.”

  “Not me. Not Sol,” said the doctor, with impatience. “Just a friend who owes you a debt that can’t be paid in full. A debt so big that the friend is trying to pay just a little portion of it.”

  “No one owes me anything, not a cent,” said Johnny, with more suspiciousness, and with a growing humiliation. “Except one soldier who played poker with me. Five dollars. Doctor, I can’t take charity, even if I am a minister.”

  The doctor put his hands on his hips and glared at Johnny. “Now who in hell would give you charity, parson? Who in Barryfield, or anywhere else, I’d like to know? Don’t be a damned fool. I happen to know about this debt that’s owed you, and believe me, paying for all this is a fleabite in comparison.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Johnny in a tired voice. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “All right, all right, don’t believe it,” said Dr. McManus angrily. Dr. Klein appeared, blond, white-coated, his eyes smiling behind his glasses. He laughed at the flowers briefly, shook hands with Johnny and Jean. He admired a particularly beautiful yellow rose and, asking Jean’s permission, removed it tenderly from a vase and fastened it on his coat. “They were shipped in from Philadelphia; a truckload, almost,” he said. “Somebody kind of likes you and this boy here. Well?” and he glanced at Dr. McManus.

  “All right. There’s things to be done, parson. Room’s not big enough with all these infernal flowers.”

  Johnny took Jean’s hand firmly in his own. “Jean,” he said, “the doctors have to prepare you for the operation. We’ll wait until they’re finished, and then we’ll be back. Okay?”

  Jean hesitated. All at once he was afraid. He looked searchingly at Johnny, then at the two doctors. Then he said, “Okay.”

  “Good,” remarked Dr. McManus. “Kid’s got guts. By the way, while this is going on, take the other kids down to the examination rooms. I’ve made the appointment for you. You’ll meet one of my boys; a mick called Kennedy. He’s waiting for you.”

  The children, particularly Pietro, did not want to leave Jean. They suddenly surrounded him in a tight circle, and their eyes were again the wary eyes of animals. “Stay,” said Pietro. “We stay,” said Max and Kathy. And they were alien and cornered, confronted by enemies.

  Then Jean spoke loudly and firmly: “You not stay. I don’t want you. Doctors take care of me. Out, Max, Kathy, Pietro. Out!”

  They stared at him in disbelief. He pushed Pietro and Kathy firmly toward the door, and Max followed uncertainly with Emilie. “Out,” he repeated. “Papa!” cried Pietro, overcome with his bewilderment, and Johnny hurried to join the frightened flock. “Well, kids,” he said ruefully when in the corridor, “we’ve been tossed out, haven’t we? We’re just nuisances in there. Come on; we’re going down to the examination rooms, where the doctors are going to see if you’re all right, and good and healthy.”

  They laughed with him and took his hands, relieved. Then Johnny saw Father Krupszyk coming down the hall, and all at once he felt the full impact of Jean’s coming ordeal. “Padre!” said Pietro with delight, and ran to the priest, while the others watched in wonder. The priest took Pietro’s hand, but it was Pietro who dragged him to the waiting group. “Padre,” he explained loftily to the little girls, and Max. The children peeked at him shyly, while Johnny shook his hand. The young minister’s heart quickened with greater fear and apprehension. “Jean’s being made ready,” he said.

  Father Krupszyk nodded comfortingly. “I’ll wait near the door, until they call me.” He paused, and his broad Polish face became beautiful with his smile. He put his hand on Johnny’s arm. “We’ll be praying together, Mr. Fletcher. And we’ll remember that God hears all prayers.” His eyes showed his concern for Johnny’s haggard face and saddened mouth. “I am sure that everything is going to be all right.” Johnny squeezed his eyes tightly together to clear them of a blurring mist. Somehow he found himself going down the hall with the children. Pietro was chatting importantly, telling the others about his “Padre.” He showed them his rosary again, holding it cupped in his little dark hands.

  The examination rooms were large and bright, and Johnny was met by a slender young man with black eyes and hair who introduced himself as Dr. Timothy Kennedy. “So these are the children,” he said, smiling down at the group, which was silent again. His keen glance touched their faces busily; it paused for a longer time than Johnny liked on Emilie’s little frail face, so pale, so pinched. Then Dr. Kennedy reached out and gently lifted a long strand of the child’s pretty hair. “I have a little girl just like you, dear,” he said. “Her name is Mary. What’s yours?”

  She leaned against Johnny
’s leg and did not answer. She was trembling.

  “Her name is Emilie,” said Johnny, in as strong a voice as he could muster. “And she’s my baby girl. My own Emilie.” Her arms suddenly went about his leg and she hid her face against his coat.

  It was Kathy who took competent hold. She pulled one of Emilie’s hands away from Johnny, and held it. “I go with Emilie,” she informed Dr. Kennedy in a severe and matronly voice.

  “Well, of course,” replied the young man. “Why not? Girls in one room. Boys in another.” He tousled Pietro’s curls, and the boy grinned at him impudently. He looked at Max again, and his smiling Irish mouth became tense. “We’ll change those bandages,” he said, and his eyes were no longer laughing, but hard as jet.

  A nurse joined him, a short girl with a merry face, who immediately knew the leader. “Kathy?” she said. “You’ll take care of the little girl, your sister? Do you mind if I tell you that I never saw such pretty hair as yours? Yellow as a tulip. Wish I had it.”

  Kathy, who had been surveying her haughtily, smiled and beamed, and preened more than a little. “Thank you,” she said primly. She flounced her plaid skirt, and the nurse said, “My name is Nancy. I like your dress, Kathy. I had one like it once, and I loved it.”

  The children were led off, and Johnny was assigned to a comfortable waiting room. No one noticed him, for the other occupants were concerned with their own fears and anxieties. He looked at the stout drab woman opposite him; her fleshy face was white, and pulled into desperate folds. She kept twisting a handkerchief in her black-gloved fingers, and she would blink dryly, over and over. Sometimes her mouth moved in a silent prayer. A very thin, yellow-faced man sat quietly beside his little wife; his head was like a skull, and death stood in his eyes. Cancer? thought Johnny, with compassion and pain. The knowledge was written in the face of his wife, who held his hand and stared before her in a dead, fixed way. There was a mother with her baby, a shriveled, wailing little thing. Her worn hand smoothed and patted its head, and she murmured constantly with anguish in her tender voice. There was an old man, his eyes covered by dark glasses, and a young girl who was almost visibly wasting away. And a boy with a fine body whose face was twisted with scars.

  Johnny prayed for them, out of his own fear-stricken heart. But the prayer was a lost seeking, like a child calling to a silent and distant father. While he prayed for the sufferers in this room his thoughts kept turning inexorably to Jean, a weathercock whirling in a wind. He said inwardly, How can I pray for others, or help others, if there is only terror and doubt in me?

  And then a voice spoke in him with deep and gentle authority: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

  Johnny sat, motionless. Several times—not very many, however—he had heard that paternal Voice, coming to him suddenly, without any warning, not from within himself, but as from outside, from radiant and pearl-colored spaces vivid with rapture, palpitating with peace, full of understanding and all knowledge. He held his breath in order not to disturb this mystical glory, this love, this comprehension, this pity and tenderness. And this indescribable silent joy, which was as if all his being had been flooded by a light never seen on land or sea.

  And then it ebbed away from him, like a shining tide, but leaving him with courage and fortitude, with humility and calm. He could see that eternal tide joining the endless and brilliant horizon, hovering there, waiting, never out of sight.

  He could pray now, not only for Jean without fear, but for these strangers whom he did not know. He could pray with confidence and peace, looking, with his inner eye, upon the tide and the horizon and a sky that was not the sky of earth.

  Someone touched his arm, and he started. Dr. Kennedy was smiling down at him. He said, “Well, Dr. Fletcher, we’ve taken the clamps from Max’s neck, and it’s all healing wonderfully, and we’ve presented the boy with a big bottle of pills. Pietro couldn’t be in better health, though he’s a little nervous. And Kathy is all bounce and vitamins. She’s convinced she must be a doctor.”

  His young voice was cheery, but when Johnny looked into his eyes they moved aside. “Emilie?” said Johnny. His heart shriveled a little, in spite of himself, and the tide and the sky and the horizon darkened. Dr. Kennedy glanced about the waiting room. It was empty now. He lowered his voice, and pressed Johnny’s shoulder. “I suppose you know, anyway. It’s her heart, sir. There was a congenital defect, to begin with. And then things—happened. Doc told me. I don’t know how to tell you this, but we can’t do anything. Not even the experimental ‘blue baby’ operation. Things—went too far. Mr. Fletcher, she can’t live. A week, a month, a year? We can’t tell. But she can’t live. It—could be any time.”

  Johnny’s hands clasped together tightly. His mouth and throat were like bleached old paper, dry and dusty. He tried several times to speak before he said huskily, “She was examined several times in Europe. Best doctors, too, heart specialists. I—I took her to Harley Street, in London. That was in July. He—the specialist—said she had about an even chance—I don’t understand. How—how could her condition have deteriorated to—nothing?”

  “These things happen,” said the doctor compassionately. “She’s just a little girl—five. But she has memories. You’ve done all your best, but the terror and the suffering remained, in her mind. And”—he lifted his hand eloquently, dropped it with a movement of despair. “Love can do only so much, you know. You’ll have the consolation of knowing how much you did, and how much you gave to the baby.”

  “Not enough,” whispered Johnny. He swallowed convulsively. “A hospital? Staying in a hospital? It might help?”

  The doctor considered. Then he shook his head. “She’d have to remain in bed or a wheel chair all the time. Away from you, and the others. I’m afraid she’d go even quicker, under those circumstances. She—why, she’d die of fright and loneliness. Remember, she’s not the ordinary child, with ordinary memories.”

  “No,” said Johnny fiercely. He struck his knee with his fist. “No.” Not little Emilie, with the large, strained blue eyes, the trusting child’s smile, the timid small hand, the eager little ways, the shy affection. Why can’t I give her my heart? he thought with agony. My blood, my flesh? My life?

  Dr. Kennedy sighed. He thought of his own daughter, and he understood. “You could be mistaken,” said Johnny, and he coughed as if strangling. “I think—a clinic. Mayo? Cleveland? Johns Hopkins?” His eyes searched the doctor’s face for one smallest hope.

  Dr. Kennedy said, “You’d be wasting your time and money. I—I’ve never seen a heart this bad. It’s a miracle she breathes from one moment to another. Would you like to see the X rays? Look through the fluoroscope? I think it would make you feel worse. A miracle that she breathes at all. Or that she ever survived.”

  He added, “Keep her as quiet and as comfortable as possible. Don’t send her to school. Restrict her play. Make her take frequent naps. And quiet. No excitement. Did you know she has a lot of pain?”

  Pain! The child had never spoken of it, never complained, never cried! Johnny gazed at Dr. Kennedy, tortured. To him this was the supreme horror, that a child, hardly more than an infant, had the fortitude, the acceptance, the mature meekness to endure suffering without complaint, to take it as natural and normal, without adult philosophy to sustain her, or understanding faith. He said, stifled, “I—could accept that, if she were old enough—to believe in God.”

  “And how do you know that she doesn’t have that faith?” asked Dr. Kennedy. “Her age? Her ignorance, except what she’s been taught by you? How do you know that faith is reserved only to those who can reason in adult ways?”

  Johnny bent his head. “I shouldn’t be talking to you this way, sir,” said Dr. Kennedy apologetically. “After all, you’re a minister.”

  Johnny looked up. “A minister,” he said, with dim bitterness. “I keep forgetting what I know.” His clenched hands ached, and now he smiled somberly. “Yes. I forget; sometimes logic gets me, too. Yes, how do I know tha
t God doesn’t comfort babies and little children?”

  Dr. Kennedy smiled at him. “Well, I just gave the youngster a pill about half an hour ago. I wouldn’t have known either, though I suspected that she might be having some discomfort. It wasn’t until she—well, poor little thing—she kissed my hand and told me the pill ‘took the rat away,’ and she put her hand on her chest.”

  Took the rat away, the rat in the cave, in the executioner’s house, in the forests and the hills where she had hidden with the others! Yes, she would associate a rat with pain. Dr. Kennedy was putting a box in Johnny’s hand. He said briskly, to cover his emotion, “She must have three a day. It’ll make her more comfortable. And here’s a prescription for more.”

  Johnny put the box in his pocket; his trembling hands pleated the prescription blank. “I can’t help it, but do you know something? I’m beginning to feel a lot of hatred lately. Even more than I did in Europe. I’m hating many things, many people. I’m beginning not to be able to stand mankind. And I a minister!”

  Dr. Kennedy said, “Don’t feel guilty. I never heard that it was bad to hate evil.”

  Kathy appeared, all pink shine and yellow hair, maternally leading Emilie. Johnny looked at the little one, at her pale, translucent skin, at the mauve shadows under her eyes, at her transparent flesh. The only healthy thing about her was that abundance of long bright hair, like a shawl over her shoulders and far down her back. Johnny held out his arms to her and she came to him and nestled on his knee. His heart almost broke. He put his cheek on the top of her small head, and stared dully before him, unable to pray, able only to feel his intense grief.

  And then he saw the shining tide again, incandescent against the eternal sky, and peace came to him. He said aloud, “I’d forgotten.”

  He carried Emilie and, followed by the other children, went up to the surgical floor again. Dr. McManus and the priest and Dr. Klein were talking together outside Jean’s room. Dr. McManus’s brutal eyes went instantly to Johnny’s face, for he knew. He saw that the young man was very pale, but that he was smiling, and the old doctor sighed to himself. He said, “Well, thought you weren’t ever coming. Had your cup of tea? Heard parsons are addicted to it; my father was. Or am I just remembering English novels about vicars?” His voice and his look were sour. “Go on in: we’ve given him his preliminary sedative. Don’t disturb him. We won’t know anything for at least two hours.”