The Heart Specialist (40 page)

“London?”

“Colchester, actually. That illustration work I told you about.” He was sitting on the side of the bed now, pulling on socks. As soon as he finished he reached for his boots.

“That’s wonderful news.” My voice cracked.

“It’s the only offer I’ve got,” he said. “Mastro has nothing, what with the veterans returning. And everyone else I knew at McGill is dead or retired.”

“I’m still here.”

Jakob Hertzlich made no answer, but his expression hardened.

“If it’s work you want,” I said, loosening my scarf, “there’s more than I know what to do with at the museum. I’d have you back gladly. We have received the Army’s war specimens and they have said I can hire a technician. The Army pays splendidly,” I added inanely.

His look made me wince. He had backed away at my approach, literally recoiled along the mattress. It was as if we were doing a dance but I had no idea what the steps were.

He jumped up and grabbed his coat from a hook on the door. “I don’t wish to be rude, Dr. White, but I was on my way out.” He was unshaven and unwashed. It was quite obvious that he had never intended to leave his bed that day, yet his hand was on the doorknob. “Keep your goddamn charity,” he said over his shoulder. “Save it for someone who asks for it.”

I didn’t hear anything more, not the sound of ice dropping from the branches or the water rushing in the gutters outside. Not my breath, which seemed to have stopped altogether. Not even the beating of my own heart. Sun was pouring in the window and the heat was suddenly too much to bear. I lay down on his bed. I was trying to fill my lungs but each time I inhaled there was a stabbing pain. I watched, unable to move as Jakob Hertzlich turned and walked away.

His footsteps crossed the landing. He was walking out of my life just as my father had so many years before. It was such an old, familiar pain that I could do nothing but surrender. My voice failed now just as it had when I was four years old. My mouth was open but nothing came out. Inside me, however, every single cell was crying. My skin, my bones, my blood screamed in the silence.

I was so caught up with myself, lying there with my face in his pillow, that I failed to notice when the footsteps on the landing halted, or when they retraced the path along the carpet to the bedroom. I did not notice the door open or Jakob’s head peer in. In my despair I saw nothing until he was standing so close that I caught a whiff of cigarettes and dark licorice from Holland.

He knelt down on the floor. His gaze was strange, as if he wasn’t sure who I was. “You can’t go,” I said, crying hard. “You mustn’t leave me.”

Jakob raised his eyes to the ceiling and took a breath. After what seemed an eternity he looked at me. “You are some woman, Dr. White. As perverse as they come.”

I nodded and wiped my nose. “I’ve treated you so badly.”

He shrugged and was about to say something when we heard the landlord’s step upon the stairs. He called up, no doubt hoping for scenes of dissipation.

Jakob passed me a handkerchief. By the time the landlord got his head through the door I was halfway presentable. “We were on our way out,” I said as he stared with suspicion. The room was cooler now and full of sunshine, but it was clearly time to leave. Despite the open window the landlord was sniffing for proof of Jakob’s cigarettes.

“Come, Mr. Hertzlich,” I said, taking his arm. “You’ll be my guest for tea.”

“YOU MEAN THAT OLD
man I met was your father?”

“Honoré Linière Bourret,” I said, stirring the cloud of milk in my cup.

“After you journeyed all the way to Calais he would not acknowledge you?”

A young waitress wiped down the tables at the front of the café. She hummed to herself, taking pleasure in the simple task, a sight that for some reason I found comforting.

“He’s a scoundrel, Agnes. There’s no other word for it.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, my eyes following the girl as she reached and cleaned. “The townspeople like him well enough. He built a life over there. He won their respect.”

Jakob reached over and placed his hand on mine. “Scoundrel,” he mouthed silently.

I shook my head. “Thinking that way doesn’t help. Vilifying a person is the obverse of the coin of idealizing him. That is a lesson I have had to learn.”

Jakob took my hand and gazed at it. After a moment he looked up. “What do you intend to do now?”

I shrugged. “The only plan I had was to track you down. Beyond that I have no idea. It feels a little like the earth has cracked open. The things I used to be certain of have suddenly ceased to be.”

Jakob smiled. “Sounds practically mystical.”

“Hardly,” I laughed. “I just opened my eyes for the first time in fifty years. It certainly took me long enough. I had built my life on a dream. My picture of my father and of Sir William Howlett had little to do with reality.”

He made a face. “We all have blind spots. And who is to say what is real?”

“My blindness wasn’t a spot, Jakob. It was the whole picture. I built my entire life, don’t you see, to please a man who did not exist.” I was shy to admit this, but Jakob seemed neutral. There were no signs of judgment.

We sat in silence for a minute or two, simply looking at each other. Jakob Hertzlich’s eyes were particularly warm and dark that day, set off against his full brown beard. I reached out and stroked the wiry bristles. He responded by taking my hand in his and kissing the palm. Then he smiled and signalled the waitress to bring more hot water for our tea.

AFTERWORD

Although this novel takes its inspiration from the work and professional life of one of Montreal’s first female physicians, Dr. Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott (1869–1940), the characters and events imagined here are purely fictional.