The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman And Matters Of Choice Part 107

"Yes, that's true."

"Why don't you hear us?"

"I'm deaf because I was sick when I was a little boy," Shaman said easily.

"Is Joshua going to be deaf?"

"No, Joshua definitely isn't going to be deaf."

In a few minutes he was able to a.s.sure them that Joshua was much better. The baths and steam had broken his fever, his pulse was strong and steady, and when Shaman positioned the stethoscope bell and told Rachel what to listen for, she could hear no rales. Shaman placed the earpieces in Joshua's ears and let him hear his own heart beating, and then Hattie took a turn with the stethoscope and placed the bell on her brother's stomach, announcing that all she heard was "guggles."

"That's because he's hungry," Shaman said, and advised Rachel to put the boy on a light but nourishing diet for a day or two.

He told Joshua and Hattie their mother knew some very good fishing spots along the river, and he invited them to visit the Cole farm and play with the lambs. Then he said good-bye to them, and to their grandmother. Rachel walked him to the door.

"You have beautiful children."

"They are, aren't they!"

"I'm sorry about your husband, Rachel."

"Thank you, Shaman."

"And I wish you good luck in your impending marriage."

Rachel appeared startled. "What impending marriage?" she asked, just as her mother came down the stairway.

Lillian pa.s.sed through the foyer quietly, but the high color in her face was like an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"You have been misinformed, I have no marriage plans," Rachel said crisply, loud enough for her mother to hear, and her face was pale when she said good-bye to Shaman.

That afternoon as he was riding Boss toward home, he overtook a solitary female figure trudging along, and when he drew closer he recognized the blue housedress. Rachel wore stout walking shoes and an old bonnet to guard her face from the sun. He called out to her, and she turned and greeted him quietly.

"May I walk along with you?"

"Please do."

So he swung down from the saddle and led the horse.

"I don't know what got into my mother, to tell you I was to be married. Joe's cousin has shown some interest, but we won't marry. I think my mother is pushing me toward him because she's so anxious for the children to have a proper father again."

"There seems to be a conspiracy of mothers. Mine neglected to tell me you were back, purposely, I'm sure."

"It's so insulting of them," she said, and he saw tears in her eyes. "They a.s.sume that we're fools. I'm aware I have a son and a daughter who need a Jewish father. And certainly the last thing you're interested in is a Jewish woman who has two children and is in mourning."

He smiled at her. "They're very nice children. With a very nice mother. But it's true, I'm not an infatuated fifteen-year-old anymore."

"I thought of you often, after I was married. I so regretted that you'd been hurt."

"I got over it very quickly."

"We were children, thrown together during difficult times. I dreaded marriage so, and you were such a good friend." She smiled at him. "When you were a little boy you said you'd kill to protect me. And now we're adults, and you've saved my son." She placed her hand on his arm. "I hope we'll remain steadfast friends forever. As long as we live, Shaman."

He cleared his throat. "Oh, I know we will," he said awkwardly. For a moment they walked in silence, and then Shaman asked if she would like to ride the horse.

"No, I prefer to continue my walk."

"Well, then, I'll ride him myself, because I have a good deal to do before I can eat my supper. Good afternoon, Rachel."

"Good afternoon, Shaman," she said, and he remounted and rode away, leaving her walking purposefully down the road behind him.

He told himself she was a strong and practical woman who had the courage to face things as they were, and he determined to learn from her. He needed the company of a woman. He made a house call to Roberta Williams, who was suffering from "women's troubles" and had begun to drink to excess. Averting his eyes from the dressmaker's dummy with the ivory b.u.t.tocks, he asked after her daughter and was told that Lucille had married a postal worker three years before, and lived in Davenport. "Has a youngun every year. Never comes to see me unless she needs money, that one," Roberta told him. Shaman left her a bottle of tonic.

At just the moment of his deepest discontent, he was hailed on Main Street by Tobias Barr, who sat in his buggy with two women. One of them was his diminutive blond wife, Frances, and the other was Frances' niece, who was visiting from St. Louis. Evelyn Flagg was eighteen years old, taller than Frances Barr but blond like her, and she had the most perfect female profile Shaman had ever seen.

"We're showing Evie about, thought she'd like to see Holden's Crossing," Dr. Barr said. "Have you read Romeo and Juliet, Shaman?"

"Why, yes, I have."

"Well, you've mentioned that when you know a play, you enjoy attending a performance. A touring company is in Rock Island this week, and we're getting up a theater party. Will you join us?"

"I would like that," Shaman said, and smiled at Evelyn, whose answering smile was dazzling.

"A light supper at our house first, then, at five o'clock," Frances Barr said.

He bought a new white shirt and a black string tie, and reread the play. The Barrs also had invited Julius Barton and his wife, Rose. Evelyn wore a blue gown that suited her blondness. For a few moments Shaman struggled, trying to remember where he'd seen that shade of blue recently, and then he realized it had been in Rachel Geiger's housedress.

Frances Barr's idea of a light supper was six courses. Shaman found it difficult to carry on a conversation with Evelyn. When he asked her a question, she was inclined to answer with a quick, nervous smile and a nod or a shake of her head. She spoke twice of her own volition, once to tell her aunt that the roast was excellent, and a second time during dessert, to confide in Shaman that she doted on both peaches and pears and was very grateful they ripened in different seasons so she wasn't forced to choose between them.

The theater was crowded, and the evening was hot as only the end of summer can be. They arrived just before the curtain rose, because the six courses had taken time. Tobias Barr had bought the tickets with Shaman in mind. They sat in the center section of the third row, and they were scarcely settled before the actors were speaking their lines. Shaman watched the play through opera gla.s.ses that allowed him to lip-read quite well, and he enjoyed it. During the first intermission he accompanied Dr. Barr and Dr. Barton outside, and while waiting in line to use the privy behind the theater, they agreed the production was interesting. Dr. Barton thought that perhaps the actress playing Juliet was pregnant. Dr. Barr said Romeo was wearing a truss beneath his tights.

Shaman had been concentrating on their mouths, but during Act Two he studied Juliet and saw no basis for Dr. Barton's supposition. There was no doubt about the fact that Romeo wore a truss, however.

At the end of Act Two the doors were opened to a welcome breeze, and the lamps were lit. He and Evelyn remained in their seats and tried to talk. She said she often went to the theater in St. Louis. "I find it inspiring to attend the plays, don't you?"

"Yes. But I seldom go," he said absently. Curiously, Shaman felt he was being watched. With his opera gla.s.ses he studied the people in the balconies on the left side of the stage, and then on the right. In the second balcony, on the right, he saw Lillian Geiger and Rachel. Lillian wore a brown linen dress with great bell-like sleeves of lace. Rachel sat just beneath a lamp, which caused her to brush at the moths that swooped about the light, but it gave Shaman a chance to examine her closely. Her hair was carefully done, brushed up behind her in a gleaming knot. She wore a black dress that appeared to be made of silk; he wondered when she would stop wearing mourning in public. The dress was collarless against the heat, with short puff sleeves. He studied her round arms and full bosom, and always came back to her face. While he was still looking, she turned from her mother and glanced down at where he was sitting. For a full moment she observed him looking up at her through his gla.s.ses, and then she glanced away as ushers turned down the lamps.

Act Three seemed unending. Just as Romeo said to Mercutio, Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much, he became aware that Evelyn Flagg was trying to say something to him. He felt her slight warm breath on his ear as she whispered, while Mercutio replied, No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

He took the gla.s.ses from his eyes and turned toward the girl who sat next to him in the dark, mystified because small children like Joshua and Hattie Regensberg could remember the principles of lip-reading, while she wasn't able to.

"I cannot hear you."

He was unaccustomed to whispering. Doubtless his voice was too loud, because the man directly in front of him in the second row turned and stared.

"I beg your pardon," Shaman whispered. It was his earnest hope that his words were softer this time, and he put the gla.s.ses back up to his eyes.

62.

FISHING.

Shaman was curious about what allowed men like his father and George Cliburne to turn their backs on violence, when others couldn't. Only a few days after the theater party he found himself riding to Rock Island again, this time to speak with Cliburne about pacifism. He could hardly credit the journal's revelation that Cliburne was the cool and courageous person who had brought runaway slaves to his father and then picked them up to take them to their next station of hiding. The plump, balding feed merchant didn't look heroic or appear the kind of person who would risk everything for a principle in defiance of the law. Shaman was filled with admiration for the steely secret man who inhabited Cliburne's soft storekeeper body.

Cliburne nodded when he made his request at the feed store. "Well, thee can ask thy questions about pacifism and we shall talk, but I expect it will be good if thee begins by reading about the subject," he said, and told his clerk he'd be back presently. Shaman rode after him to his house, and soon Cliburne had selected several books and a tract from the library. "Thee might wish to attend Friends' meeting sometime."

Privately Shaman doubted he would, but he thanked Cliburne and rode home with his books. They turned out to be something of a disappointment, being mostly about Quakerism. The Society of Friends apparently was started in England in the 1600's, by a man named George Fox, who believed "the Inner Light of the Lord" dwelt in the hearts of quite ordinary people. According to Cliburne's books, Quakers supported one another in simple lives of love and friendship. They weren't comfortable with creeds or dogmas, they regarded all life as sacramental, and observed no special liturgy. They had no clergy, but believed that laymen were capable of receiving the Holy Spirit, and it was basic to their religion that they rejected war and worked toward peace.

The Friends were persecuted in England, and their name originally was an insult. Hauled before a judge, Fox told him to "tremble at the Word of the Lord," and the judge called him "a quaker." William Penn founded his colony in Pennsylvania as a haven for persecuted English Friends, and for three-quarters of a century Pennsylvania had no militia and only a few policemen.

Shaman wondered how they had managed to handle the drunkards. When he put Cliburne's books away, he had neither learned much about pacifism nor been touched by the Inner Light.

September came warmly but was clear and fresh, and he chose to follow river roads whenever he could while making his calls, enjoying the glitter of the sun on the moving water, and the stilt-legged beauty of the wading birds, fewer now because many already were flying south.

He was riding slowly on his way home one afternoon when he saw three familiar figures under a tree on the riverbank. Rachel was removing the hook from a catch while her son held the fishpole, and when she dropped the flapping fish back into the water, Shaman could see from Hattie's stance and expression that she was angry about something. He turned Boss off the road, toward them.

"h.e.l.lo, there."

"h.e.l.lo!" Hattie said.

"She doesn't let us keep any of the fish," Joshua said.

"I'll bet they were all catfish," Shaman said, and grinned. Rachel hadn't ever been allowed to bring catfish home because they weren't kosher, lacking scales. He knew that for a child the best part of fishing was watching your family eat the fish you caught. "I've been going up to Jack Damon's every day, because he's poorly. Well, you know that spot where the river turns sharply at his place?"

Rachel smiled at him. "That bend where there are lots of rocks?"

"That's the spot. I saw some boys taking very nice small ba.s.s beyond the rocks the other day."

"I'm obliged. I'll bring them there tomorrow."

He observed that the little girl's smile was very much like hers. "Well, nice seeing you."

"Nice seeing you!" Hattie said.

He tipped his hat at them and turned the horse.

"Shaman." Rachel took a step toward the horse, looking up at him. "If you're going up to Jack Damon's tomorrow around midday, come share our picnic lunch with us."

"Well, I might just try to do that, if I'm able," he said.

Next day when he fled Jack Damon's laborious breathing and rode to the bend in the river, he saw her mother's brown buggy right away, the gray mare tethered in the shade and cropping sweet gra.s.s.

Rachel and the children had been fishing off the rocks, and Joshua took Shaman's hand and pulled him to where six black ba.s.s, just the right size for eating, were swimming on their sides in a shaded shallow, with a fishline threaded through their gills and tied to a tree branch.

Rachel had taken a piece of soap as soon as she saw him, and was scrubbing her hands. "Lunch is apt to taste fishy," she said cheerfully.

"I won't mind a bit," he said, and didn't. They had deviled eggs and pickled cuc.u.mbers, and lemonade with mola.s.ses cookies. After lunch Hattie announced seriously that it was sleepytime, and she and her brother lay on a blanket nearby and took their nap.

Rachel cleaned up after the meal, placing things into a carpet bag. "You can use one of the poles and fish a bit, if you're inclined."

"No," he said, preferring to watch what she was saying instead of tending a fishline.

She nodded and looked out over the river. Upstream, a large flock of swallows, probably pa.s.sing through from far north, wheeled and glided as if they were one bird, and kissed the water before darting away. "Isn't it extraordinary, Shaman. Isn't it fine to be home?"

"Yes, it is, Rachel."

They talked for a time about life in the cities. He told her about Cincinnati and answered her questions about the medical school and the hospital. "And you, did you like Chicago?"

"I liked having theaters nearby, and concerts. I played my violin in a quartet every Thursday. Joe wasn't musical, but he indulged me. He was a very kind man," she said. "He was very careful with me when I lost a child, the first year we were married."

Shaman nodded.

"Well, but then Hattie came, and the war. The war took whatever time my family didn't need. We had less than a thousand Jews in Chicago. Eighty-four young men joined a Jewish company and we raised funds and completely outfitted them. They became Company C of the Eighty-second Illinois Infantry. They have served with distinction at Gettysburg and other places, and I was part of that."

"But you're Judah P. Benjamin's cousin, and your father's a fervent Southerner!"

"I know. But Joe wasn't, and neither am I. The day my mother's letter arrived that told me he'd gone to the Confederates, I had a kitchen full of the Hebrew Ladies Soldier Aid Society rolling bandages for the Union." She shrugged.

"And then Joshua came. And then Joe died. And that's my story."

"Up to now," Shaman said, and she looked at him. He'd forgotten the vulnerable curve of her smooth cheek beneath the high facial bones, the soft fullness of her lower lip, and how the darkness of her brown eyes contained lights and shadows. He didn't mean to ask the next question, but it was wrenched from him somehow. "So you were happy in your marriage?"

She studied the river. For a moment he thought he had missed her answer, but then she looked back at him. "I would like to say satisfied. Truth is, I was resigned."

"I've never been satisfied or resigned," he said wonderingly.

"You don't give in, you keep struggling, that's why you're Shaman. You must promise you'll never allow yourself to become resigned."

Hattie woke up and left her brother sleeping on the blanket. She came to her mother and snuggled into her lap.

"Promise me," Rachel said.

Shaman smiled. "I promise."

"Why do you talk funny?" Hattie asked.

"Do I talk funny?" he asked, more of Rachel than of the child.

"Yes!" Hattie said.

"You're more guttural than you were before I left," Rachel said carefully. "And you seem less in control of your voice."