The Anatomy Lesson (19 page)

He phoned Dr. Kotler.

“
This is Nathan Zuckerman. What do you mean by
‘
dolorologist
’
?”

“
Hello there, Nathan. So my pillow arrived. You
’
re on your way.
”

“
It
’
s here, yes, thank you. You sign yourself
‘
dolorologist.
’
I
’
m lying on the pillow at this very moment and thought I
’
d phone for a definition.
”

But he
’
d phoned to find out about the hypnotic procedures employed in recalcitrant cases; he
’
d phoned because the orthodox techniques of the highly esteemed doctors had alleviated nothing, because he could hardly afford to reject the prospect of a cure on account of the age or eccentricity of the physician, or because the physician happened to be a nostalgic exile from the same pile of rubble as himself. Everybody comes from somewhere, reaches an age, and speaks with some accent or other. Cure was not going to come either from God or from Mount Sinai Hospital, that much was clear by now. Hypnosis seemed a terrible comedown after years of making the hypnotic phenomena himself, yet if someone actually could talk to the pain
directly,
without his looking for meaning, without al
l the interfering ego static…

“
Is
dolorology
a coinage of Kotler
’
s or a real medical specialty you can study?
”

“
It
’
s something every doctor studies every day when the patient walks in and says,
‘
Doctor, it hurts.
’
But I happen to consider dolorology my particular specialty because of my approach: anti-prescription, anti-machine. I date back to the stethoscope, the thermometer, and the forceps. For the rest you had two eyes, two ears, two hands, a mouth, and the instrument most important of all, clinical intuition. Pain is like a baby crying. What it wants it can
’
t name. The dolorologist unearths what that is. Chronic pain is a puzzle for which few of my colleagues have lime. Most of them are frightened by it. Most doctors are frightened of death and the dying. People need an incredible amount of support when they die. And the doctor who is frightened can
’
t give it to them.
”

“
Are you free this afternoon?
”

“
For Nathan Zuckerman
I
am free day and night.
”

“
I
’
d like to come by, I
’
d like to talk about what we
’
ll do if the pillow doesn
’
t help.
”

“
You sound distraught, my boy. Come first and have lunch. I overlook the East River. When I moved in I thought I would stand staring at the river four and five hours a day. Now I
’
m so busy weeks go by and I don
’
t even know the river is here.
”

“
I
’
m interested in discussing hypnosis. Hypnosis, you say in your note, is sometimes useful for what I have,
”

“
Without minimizing what you have, for far worse than you have. Asthma, migraines, colitis, dermatitis—I have seen a man suicidal from trigeminal neuralgia, a most nightmarish pain that attacks the face, reclaim his life through hypnosis. I
’
ve seen the people in my practice that everybody else has written off, and now I can
’
t answer my mail from these patients, given up as incurable, whom I have hypnotized back to health. My secretary needs a secretary, that
’
s how heavy my mail runs.
”

“
I
’
ll be there in an hour.
”

But an hour later he was on the unmade bed in the little room dialing Cambridge, Mass. Enough cowering before the attack.
But I
’
m not cowering and it
’
s not the first attack. And will he sit up and listen, no matter how generous the amplitude with which I patiently spell out his hundred mistakes? You expect him to suffer remorse? You figure you
’
ll win his blessing by phoning long distance to tell him he can
’
t read? He expresses the right thoughts about Jews and you express the wrong thoughts about Jews, and nothing you shout is going to change that.
But it
’
s
these Appels who
’
ve whammied my muscles with their Jewish evil eye. They push in the pins and I yell ouch and swallow a dozen Percodans. But what you do with the evil eye is poke it out with a burning stick!
But he is not my father
’
s deputy, let alone the great warrior chieftain that young Nathan longed to please and couldn
’
t help antagonizing. I am not young Nathan. I am a forty-year-old client at Anton
’
s Trichological Clinic. To be
“
understood
”
is no longer necessary once you seriously begin losing your hair. The father who called you a bastard from his deathbed is dead, and the allegiance known as
“
Jewishness
”
beyond their moralizing judgment. It
’
s from Milton Appel that I found tha
t
out, in one of his own incarnations. And you needn
’
t bother to tell him.

Too late for reason: he had Harvard on the phone and was waiting to be connected to the English Department. The real shitside of literature, these inspired exchanges, but into the bitter shit
I
go if churning up shit is what it takes to get better. Nothing to lose but my pain.
Only Appel has nothing to do with the pain. The pain pre-dates that essay by a year. There are no Jewish evil eyes or double Jewish whammies. Illness is an organic condition. Illness is as natural as health. The motive is not revenge. There is no motive. There are only nerve cells, twelve thousand million nerve cells, any one of which can drive you mad without the help of a book review. Go get hypnotized. Even that
’
s less primitive than this. Let the oracular little dolorologist be your fairy godfather, if it
’
s a regressive solution you
’
re after. Go and let him feed you lunch. Tell Gloria to come over and you can blindfold each other. Move to the mountains. Marry Jenny. But no further appeals to the Court of Appels.

The English Department secretary rang through to Appel
’
s office, where a graduate student came on the line to tell him that the Distinguished Professor wasn
’
t there.

“
Is he home?
”

“
Can
’
t say.
”

“
Have you his home number?
”

“
Can
’
t be reached.
”

Disciple, undoubtedly, holding sacred all of the Distinguished Professor
’
s opinions, including those on me.

“
This is Nathan Zuckerman.
”

Zuckerman imagined the smirking disciple passing a cryptic comic note to another smirking disciple. Must have them up there by the dozens. Used to be one myself.

“
It
’
s about a piece Appel asked me to write. I
’
m calling from New York.
”

“
He hasn
’
t been well,
”
the disciple offered.
“
You
’
ll have to wait until he gets back.
”

“
Can
’
t,
”
Zuckerman told him.
“
Haven
’
t been well either,
”
and promptly called Boston information. While the operator searched the suburbs for a listing, Zuckerman spread the contents of Appel
’
s file folder on the bed. He pushed his medical books onto the carpet, and arranged on the bedside table all the unfinished draft letters that he
’
d eked out in longhand. He couldn
’
t trust himself to extemporize, not while worked up like this; yet if he waited till he could think straight and talk sensibly, he wouldn
’
t make the call.

A woman answered at the Appel residence in Newton. The pretty dark wife from the Barnes Hole beach? She must be white-hatred by now.
Everybody moving on to wisdom but me. All you do on the phone is document his original insight. All you are doing on the phone is becoming one of the crazies of the kind who phone
you.
When you saw him strolling by you on the beach, were you that impressed by his narrow shoulders and his soft white waist? Of course he hates your work. All that semen underfoot is no longer to his taste. Never was
—
not in books at least. You two are a perfect mismatch. You draw stories from your vices, dream up doubles for your demons
—
he finds criticism a voice for virtue, the pulpit to berate us for our failings. Virtue comes with the franchise. Virtue is the goal. He teaches, he judges, he corrects
—
rightness is all. And to rightness you are acting out indefensible desires by spurious pseudo-literary means, committing the culture crime of desublimation. There
’
s the quarrel, as banal as that: you shouldn
’
t make a Jewish comedy out of genital life. Leave the spurting hard-on to goyim like Genet. Sublimate, my child, sublimate, like the physicists who gave us the atomic
bomb
.

“
This is Nathan Zuckerman. May
I
speak with Milton Appel?
”

“
He
’
s resting right now.
”

“
It
’
s pretty urgent business.
”
She didn
’
t answer, and so somberly he added,
“
About Israel.
”

He was shuffling meanwhile through the letters on the table, looking for an opening shot. He chose (for their adversaria
l
pithiness), then rejected (for lack of tact and want of respect), then reconsidered (for just the sake of those deficiencies) three sentences written the night before, after he
’
d given up on writing
about Jaga; about Jaga he
’
d been unable to write even three words.
Professor Appel. I am convinced that the quality about a man or a group tha
t
most invites the violence of neurotic guilt is public righteousness and innocence. The roots of anti-Semitism are deep and twisted and not easily sterilized. However, to the extent that published statements by Jews have any effect at all. one way or another, on Gentile opinion and prejudice, the words
“
Jews jerk off daily
”
on lavatory walls would do us all more good than what
y
ou want me to write on the Op Ed page.

“
This is Milton Appel.
”

“
This is Nathan Zuckerman. I
’
m sorry to bother you when you
’
re resting.
”

“
What is it you want?
”

“
Do you have a few minutes to talk?
”

“
Please, what is it?
”

How sick is he? Sicker than I am? Sounds strained. Burdened. Maybe he always does, or maybe there
’
s something worse in his kidneys than stones. Maybe the evil eye works both ways and I
’
ve given him a malignancy, i can
’
t say the hatred hasn
’
t been on that scale.

“
My friend Ivan Felt has sent on to me your letter requesting him to ask me to write a piece on Israel.
”

“
Felt sent that letter on to you? He had no right to do that,
”

“
Well, he did it. Xeroxed your paragraph about his friend Nate Zuckerman. I have it in front of me.
‘
Why don
’
t you ask your friend Nate Zuckerman to write, etc…. unless he feels the Jews can stick their historical suffering up their ass.
’
Odd request. Very odd. To me in that context, infuriatingly odd.
”
Zuckerman had begun to read now from one of his unfinished letters.
“
Though since you so regularly change your opinion about my
‘
case,
’
for all
I
know you
’
ve had yet another flexibility spasm since you distinguished in
Inquiry
between anti-Semites like Goebbels and people like Zuckerman who
“
just don
’
t like us.
’”