A Farewell to Arms (24 page)

The doctor came into the room.

“How does it go, doctor?”

“It doesn't go,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I made an examination--” He detailed the result of the examination. “Since then I've waited to see. But it doesn't go.”

“What do you advise?”

“There are two things. Either a high forceps delivery which can tear and be quite dangerous besides being possibly bad for the child, and a Caesarean.”

“What is the danger of a Caesarean?” What if she should die!

“It should be no greater than the danger of an ordinary delivery.”

“Would you do it yourself?”

“Yes. I would need possibly an hour to get things ready and to get the people I would need. Perhaps a little less.”

“What do you think?”

“I would advise a Caesarean operation. If it were my wife I would do a Caesarean.”

“What are the after effects?”

“There are none. There is only the scar.”

“What about infection?”

“The danger is not so great as in a high forceps delivery.”

“What if you just went on and did nothing?”

“You would have to do something eventually. Mrs. Henry is already losing much of her strength. The sooner we operate now the safer.”

“Operate as soon as you can,” I said.

“I will go and give the instructions.”

I went into the delivery room. The nurse was with Catherine who lay on the table, big under the sheet, looking very pale and tired.

“Did you tell him he could do it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn't that grand. Now it will be all over in an hour. I'm almost done, darling. I'm going all to pieces. Please give me that. It doesn't work. Oh, it doesn't work!”

“Breathe deeply.”

“I am. Oh, it doesn't work any more. It doesn't work!”

“Get another cylinder,” I said to the nurse.

“That is a new cylinder.”

“I'm just a fool, darling,” Catherine said. “But it doesn't work any more.” She began to cry. “Oh, I wanted so to have this baby and not make trouble, and now I'm all done and all gone to pieces and it doesn't work. Oh, darling, it doesn't work at all. I don't care if I die if it will only stop. Oh, please, darling, please make it stop. There it comes. Oh Oh Oh!” She breathed sobbingly in the mask.

“It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Don't mind me, darling. Please don't cry. Don't mind me. I'm just gone all to pieces. You poor sweet. I love you so and I'll be good again. I'll be good this time. Can't they give me something? If they could only give me something.”

“I'll make it work. I'll turn it all the way.”

“Give it to me now.”

I turned the dial all the way and as she breathed hard and deep her hand relaxed on the mask. I shut off the gas and lifted the mask. She came back from a long way away.

“That was lovely, darling. Oh, you're so good to me.”

“You be brave, because I can't do that all the time. It might kill you.”

“I'm not brave any more, darling. I'm all broken. They've broken me. I know it now.”

“Everybody is that way.”

“But it's awful. They just keep it up till they break you.”

“In an hour it will be over.”

“Isn't that lovely? Darling, I won't die, will I?”

“No. I promise you won't.”

“Because I don't want to die and leave you, but I get so tired of it and I feel I'm going to die.”

“Nonsense. Everybody feels that.”

“Sometimes I know I'm going to die.”

“You won't. You can't.”

“But what if I should?”

“I won't let you.”

“Give it to me quick. Give it to me!”

Then afterward, “I won't die. I won't let myself die.”

“Of course you won't.”

“You'll stay with me?”

“Not to watch it.”

“No, just to be there.”

“Sure. I'll be there all the time.”

“You're so good to me. There, give it to me. Give me some more. It's not working!”

I turned the dial to three and then four. I wished the doctor would come back. I was afraid of the numbers above two.

Finally a new doctor came in with two nurses and they lifted Catherine onto a wheeled stretcher and we started down the hall. The stretcher went rapidly dOwn the hall and into the elevator where every one had to crowd against the wall to make room; then up, then an open door and out of the elevator and down the hall on rubber wheels to the operating room. I did not recognize the doctor with his cap and mask on. There was another doctor and more nurses.

“They've got to give me something,” Catherine said. “They've got to give me something. Oh please, doctor, give me enough to do some good!”

One of the doctors put a mask over her face and I looked through the door and saw the bright small amphitheatre of the operating room.

“You can go in the other door and sit up there,” a nurse said to me. There were benches behind a rail that looked down on the white table and the lights. I looked at Catherine. The mask was over her face and she was quiet now. They wheeled the stretcher forward. I turned away and walked down the hall. Two nurses were hurrying toward the entrance to the gallery.

“It's a Caesarean,” one said. “They're going to do a Caesarean.”

The other one laughed, “We're just in time. Aren't we lucky?” They went in the door that led to the gallery.

Another nurse came along. She was hurrying too.

“You go right in there. Go right in,” she said.

“I'm staying outside.”

She hurried in. I walked up and down the hall. I was afraid to go in. I looked out the window. It was dark but in the light from the window I could see it was raining. I went into a room at the far end of the hall and looked at the labels on bottles in a glass case. Then I came out and stood in the empty hall and watched the door of the operating room.

A doctor came out followed by a nurse. He held something in his two hands that looked like a freshly skinned rabbit and hurried across the corridor with it and in through another door. I went down to the door he had gone into and found them in the room doing things to a new-born child. The doctor held him up for me to see. He held him by the heels and slapped him.

“Is he all right?”

“He's magnificent. He'll weigh five kilos.”

I had no feeling for him. He did not seem to have anything to do with me. I felt no feeling of fatherhood.

“Aren't you proud of your son?” the nurse asked. They were washing him and wrapping him in something. I saw the little dark face and dark hand, but I did not see him move or hear him cry. The doctor was doing something to him again. He looked upset.

“No,” I said. “He nearly killed his mother.”

“It isn't the little darling's fault. Didn't you want a boy?”

“No,” I said. The doctor was busy with him. He held him up by the feet and slapped him. I did not wait to see it. I went out in the hail. I could go in now and see. I went in the door and a little way down the gallery. The nurses who were sitting at the rail motioned for me to come down where they were. I shook my head. I could see enough where I was.

I thought Catherine was dead. She looked dead. Her face was gray, the part of it that I could see. Down below, under the light, the doctor was sewing up the great long, forcep-spread, thickedged, wound. Another doctor in a mask gave the anaesthetic. Two nurses in masks handed things. It looked like a drawing of the Inquisition. I knew as I watched I could have watched it all, but I was glad I hadn't. I do not think I could have watched them cut, but I watched the wound closed into a high welted ridge with quick skilful-looking stitches like a cobbler's, and was glad. When the wound was closed I went out into the hall and walked up and down again. After a while the doctor came out.

“How is she?”

“She is all right. Did you watch?”

He looked tired.

“I saw you sew up. The incision looked very long.”

“You thought so?”

“Yes. Will that scar flatten out?”

“Oh, yes.”

After a while they brought out the wheeled stretcher and took it very rapidly down the hallway to the elevator. I went along beside it. Catherine was moaning. Downstairs they put her in the bed in her room. I sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. There was a nurse in the room. I got up and stood by the bed. It was dark in the room. Catherine put out her hand. “Hello, darling,” she said. Her voice was very weak and tired.

“Hello, you sweet.”

“What sort of baby was it?”

“Sh--don't talk,” the nurse said.

“A boy. He's long and wide and dark.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “He's fine.”

I saw the nurse look at me strangely.

“I'm awfully tired,” Catherine said. “And I hurt like hell. Are you all right, darling?”

“I'm fine. Don't talk.”

“You were lovely to me. Oh, darling, I hurt dreadfully. What does he look like?”

“He looks like a skinned rabbit with a puckered-up old-man's face.”

“You must go out,” the nurse said. “Madame Henry must not talk.”

“I'll be outside.”

“Go and get something to eat.”

“No. I'll be outside.” I kissed Catherine. She was very gray and weak and tired.

“May I speak to you?” I said to the nurse. She came out in the hall with me. I walked a little way down the hall.

“What's the matter with the baby?” I asked.

“Didn't you know?”

“No.”

“He wasn't alive.”

“He was dead?”

“They couldn't start him breathing. The cord was caught around his neck or something.”

“So he's dead.”

“Yes. It's such a shame. He was such a fine big boy. I thought you knew.”

“No,” I said. “You better go back in with Madame.”

I sat down on the chair in front of a table where there were nurses' reports hung on clips at the side and looked out of the window. I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the window. So that was it. The baby was dead. That was why the doctor looked so tired. But why had they acted the way they did in the room with him? They supposed he would come around and start breathing probably. I had no religion but I knew he ought to have been baptized. But what if he never breathed at all. He hadn't. He had never been alive. Except in Catherine. I'd felt him kick there often enough. But I hadn't for a week. Maybe he was choked all the time. Poor little kid. I wished the hell I'd been choked like that. No I didn't. Still there would not be all this dying to go through. Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.

Once in camp I put a log on top of the fire and it was full of ants. As it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the centre where the fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out, their bodies burnt and flattened, and went off not knowing where they were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.

So now I sat out in the hall and waited to hear how Catherine was. The nurse did not come out, so after a while I went to the door and opened it very softly and looked in. I could not see at first because there was a bright light in the hall and it was dark in the room. Then I saw the nurse sitting by the bed and Catherine's head on a pillow, and she was all flat under the sheet. The nurse put her finger to her lips, then stood up and came to the door.

“How is she?” I asked.

“She's all right,” the nurse said. “You should go and have your supper and then come back if you wish.”

I went down the hall and then down the stairs and out the door of the hospital and down the dark street in the rain to the café. It was brightly lighted inside and there were many people at the tables. I did not see a place to sit, and a waiter came up to me and took my wet coat and hat and showed me a place at a table across from an elderly man who was drinking beer and reading the evening paper. I sat down and asked the waiter what the plat du jour was.

“Veal stew--but it is finished.”

“What can I have to eat?”

“Ham and eggs, eggs with cheese, or choucroute.”

“I had choucroute this noon,” I said.

“That's true,” he said. “That's true. You ate choucroute this noon.” He was a middle-aged man with a bald top to his head and his hair slicked over it. He had a kind face.

“What do you want? Ham and eggs or eggs with cheese?”

“Ham and eggs,” I said, “and beer.”

“A demi-blonde?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I remembered,” he said. “You took a demi-blonde this noon.”

I ate the ham and eggs and drank the beer. The ham and eggs were in a round dish--the ham underneath and the eggs on top. It was very hot and at the first mouthful I had to take a drink of beer to cool my mouth. I was hungry and I asked the waiter for another order. I drank several glasses of beer. I was not thinking at all but read the paper of the man opposite me. It was about the break through on the British front. When he realized I was reading the back of his paper he folded it over. I thought of asking the waiter for a paper, but I could not concentrate. It was hot in the café and the air was bad. Many of the people at the tables knew one another. There were several card games going on. The waiters were busy bringing drinks from the bar to the tables. Two men came in and could find no place to sit. They stood opposite the table where I was. I ordered another beer. I was not ready to leave yet. It was too soon to go back to the hospital. I tried not to think and to be perfectly calm. The men stood around but no one was leaving, so they went out. I drank another beer. There was quite a pile of saucers now on the table in front of me. The man opposite me had taken off his spectacles, put them away in a case, folded his paper and put it in his pocket and now sat holding his liqueur glass and looking out at the room. Suddenly I knew I had to get back. I called the waiter, paid the reckoning, got into my coat, put on my hat and started out the door. I walked through the rain up to the hospital.