Better in the Dark (6 page)

The tests took her much longer than she had anticipated: almost four hours.

When she was through she put the bottles back, and walking as if in a daze, she left the labs quietly and went to the surgeon’s lounge for some sleep, if she could sleep. Her head ached, and her neck, but that was not what haunted her.

Please, she thought as she stretched out on the couch ... please, don’t dream, don’t dream.

“Natalie,” said Mark’s yoice, and for a moment she thought she was at home and it was time to get up. But the way he said those familiar words and the pain behind her eyes reminded her where she was, and why.

“Natalie, get up.” There was no friendliness in him at all. She opened her eyes and looked up at her husband. Mark’s face was ominously dark. He extended his hands to her. Her flashlight lay in them.

“Oh,” she said. “That was clumsy of me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Yes.” He waited. “I saw what you’d done. And now, Natalie, you will tell me why.” The fury in his eyes belied his soft tone.

“I had to find out, that’s all. I can’t stand to have patients dying for no reason. And I found out more than I bargained for.” She looked up at him fearlessly. He had no threat in him now. “I know about you, Mark. I know what you’re doing.”

He was not listening. “What were you trying to prove?”

“It was the children,” she said, rubbing at the kink in her neck and wishing that she did not have to argue while she was so tired. “I saw children with diseases they could not—or
should
not have. I had to find out how they got them. Don’t you see that?”

“Oh, I see, all right.”

She rose stiffly. “No, you don’t. That’s the trouble. All you ever see is that damned lab of yours. The statistics and the dabs of blood and tissue. You don’t have to see diphtheria and smallpox up close on human beings. You deal in pathology.” She ran her hand over her wrinkled lab coat. “One third of your vaccines are totally useless.”

“Of course,” he scoffed. “What do you think my Project is all about?”

For a moment she was aghast. Then she stared at him as if she had never seen him before, never touched him. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t understand the enormity of it.”

He laughed as he knotted his hands into fists. “I don’t know what I’m doing?” he mocked her.

“You couldn’t. Mark, all those people ... all those dead people...”

At that he swung toward her. “ ‘All those people,’ you say. All is the operative word, Natalie.
All
. There are too damn many of them. And it is getting worse and worse. Each year the quality of life is poorer, the crowding is denser, the education more shoddy, transportation more dangerous, food less nourishing, sanitation less trustworthy. Of course I know what I’m doing. It’s not as if this isn’t being monitored and controlled. We’re a test area, because you and I know that a thing like this can get out of hand if it isn’t watched. And I’m for it, Natalie, because it’s fair. You would be, too, if you thought about it a little.” His hands opened and he spoke more softly. “Gil told us about your hunches. You’re very bright, Natalie, but you’re very blind.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered, moving away from him. “You are wrong.”

“Listen, you said it yourself. There are too many people. Don’t you realize we can’t take care of the ones we’ve got, let alone the ones who haven’t been born yet?” He reached his hand out to her, his face lined with concern. “Look at the problem sensibly, and you’ll see that something has to be done before we’re all lost. You’ll see this is the only way. Ian understands. Jim understands. Even Gil does. They know the danger we face, and they all agree that this is the most humanitarian way to deal with the problem. No elitism, no judgment beyond the judgment nature makes. Even the killing of the vaccines is done by computer. No one makes a decision about it.”

Suddenly Natalie remembered what Ian Parkenson had said as he worked over the two battered sisters. She knew then that he would support something this desperate, this crazy. “But they’re doctors,” she said to herself, forgetting she spoke aloud.

“Yes,” he agreed, his voice at its most persuasive. “They are doctors, and they’re anxious to make a better life for all of us. You can...”

“Plague is a better life? Because that’s what you’re getting from this Project of yours, a plague.”

Mark’s eyes grew bright, but he controlled his temper. “Think about it, Natalie. If we had fewer people, think of what it would mean in terms of space and food and work and life ... living, Natalie. We aren’t living now.”

“There are other ways.” She felt defiance rising up in her, and with it, doubt. What if he was right? What if this were the only answer?

He snorted. “Birth control, you mean? When people talk about limiting families, they mean someone else’s family, and you know it. You’ve seen it. How many women come in here on their fourth or fifth and tell us that they’re special, their case is different, they should have children because they are brighter or more capable or richer than other people. But they’re wrong. We tried it, oh so patiently, so politely, to tell them that they cannot make exceptions of themselves, and it didn’t work.”

“That’s no excuse for what you’re doing,” she said doggedly, wishing that he would leave her alone so that she could think.

“Excuse, hell. It’s reality, girl. Believe me, if we don’t change fast, good old Mother Nature is going to cook up her own plague and get rid of us as a general pest.” He started to pace up and down the room. Natalie remembered the many times his feral grace had fascinated her, the power of him, his control. It still fascinated her, his lithe movement. But his power she now saw as ruthlessness.

“Can’t you see,” he was saying, “there’s nothing really wrong with what we’re doing. We’re the ones who’ve been wrong all the time. We’re supposed to let the weak ones die. Natalie, the dead vaccine batches are computer controlled. Nobody knows which batches are good and which aren’t. Chance picks the victims, don’t you see? The only reason you find this hard to accept is that we’ve got used to having life so far out of balance that this unnatural immunity seems normal. But it isn’t.” He stopped pacing and leaned toward her. “Think about it.”

“If people knew. Mark...”

“People don’t know,” he said flatly. The menace in him was much stronger. “They don’t know and there’s no reason for them to know.”

“No reason? When it’s their lives?”

“Don’t pull those big eyes on me; save them for Gil. It might work on him. There is no reason for people to know about our Project...”

“Project?”

“Certainly. What did you think the Project has been all this time? We’re a test area, this county. If the program works here, then similar projects will be started in other parts of the country. You don’t think we’d take on a full-scale Project without doing test areas first, do you?”

She stepped toward him, trying not to touch him as she said, “I am not afraid... You’re doing something terribly wrong and you have to be stopped.”

“
You’re
going to stop us?”

She bridled. “The government will. The courts will.”

“Who the hell do you think authorized this in the first place, the American Medical Practitioners?”

“They wouldn’t.” In the quieter part of her mind, Natalie wondered if anyone could overhear them. This was the surgeon’s lounge. Anyone might come in. Anyone might be listening. And what then?

“Don’t hope for a timely rescue. Ian’s outside.” He pushed her shoulder and she sat down, startled. “You’re a problem, Natalie. You found out about something that was none of your business.”

She tried to rise and was forced to sit again. “What do you mean, none of my business? This is very much my business. Look at my patients’ admit records. Your Project is absolutely my business.”

“Will you get off this emotional binge and listen?” he asked as if he were speaking to a ten-year-old. “You’ve found out about the Project. And you are not going to say a word to anyone. Because if you do, I guarantee that you will be shut up. Officially. You will be fired. And there won’t be a city or a county hospital in the whole state that will hire you, now or ever. You’d be lucky to get a job cleaning bedpans. Do you understand that?” He waited, studying her face.

“Yes. I understand.”

“Now. You are going back to work. You are going to keep on working. You are also going to keep your mouth shut. Remember, we’re going to need doctors badly, Natalie. You can’t afford to give up.”

She said, as if far away, “What about the people who already know? How do you know you’ll be able to trust them when their kids are dying?”

Mark shook his head slowly. “What would they say?” He strode to the end of the room, his hand on the door. “No one knows which batches are which or where they go once they are prepared. There’s no way we could trace them, even if we wanted to.”

“Somebody is going to find out.” She stood up and walked down the room toward this man who was her husband. “Even if I don’t talk, Mark, someone will. You can’t hide polio and smallpox and diphtheria and all the rest. It’s bound to come out, and what then? Who will you blame?”

“We’ll worry about that when it happens.” He turned to her with real affection and respect in his face. “I didn’t think you could fight, Natalie. I’m very proud of you, even though you’re wrong.”

She choked back angry tears. “I can’t live with you any more, Mark.” She tried to look away from him, but could not.

“Fine.”

“And neither can Philip.”

“All right.”

They stood together silently.

“May I leave now?” she asked in a moment.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

On the other side of the door Ian Parkenson faced her, his deep eyes sad. “I’m sorry for this, Natalie. I wanted to be the one to talk to you. Mark doesn’t understand what we go through. He doesn’t know what we face.”

“Do you know, or have you forgotten, Ian? You’re kidding yourself, if you think this plan will work.”

Ian took her by the shoulder, regret in his face. “I know better than you do what we’re up against. That’s why I’m for this. If you want to talk about it when you’ve had a chance to think it over, I’m willing to listen. Let me know.”

She pushed past him. “That’s very generous of you, Doctor. I might take you up on it after I talk with Justin or Wexford.” She knew that Ian would not like to be compared with the two most bureaucratic of the hospital administrators.

“Natalie ...” he began.

But she was already out of earshot.

She stopped at the first phone and dialed the desk. “This is Dr. Lebbreau. I want to talk to Peter Justin in administration. His office is in Statistics on the sixteenth floor.”

“Dr. Lebbreau?” asked the operator. “Just a moment, Doctor. We have a message for you.”

“Oh?” Natalie was not willing to be put off. “Who from?”

“From a Mrs. diMaggio. I think it...”

“It’s from my son’s school.” A sharp pain lodged itself in her throat as she waited. She.told herself that it was psychosomatic, but that did not make it go away. “What does the message say?”

“I’ll read it to you, if you like. Just a moment.” There was a pause and Natalie heard the rustling of paper. “Here it is. ‘Dr. Lebbreau: we have sent Philip home with a bad cough. Will you please advise us when you are ready to return him to school? Miss Sczieker will stay with him until you can get home.’ It’s signed Florence diMaggio. Will you wait to talk to Dr. Justin, Dr. Lebbreau?”

Natalie’s hands had gone numb. She fumbled with the receiver with unfeeling fingers. “No. No. I’ll talk to Dr. Justin later.”

It took her forty minutes to get home, and all the while she was in turmoil, outraged. Over and over she told herself that Philip had only a cold, that Mark would not let this happen to their child. But the selection for vaccines was random, and no one knew which batches were good and which were not. She wished there was someone she could talk to, someone who would understand and help her fight back, someone who could share her horror.

“It’s only a cold,” she said aloud, blushing when the other passengers stared at her.

By the time she left the bus she was calmer. Her temper was under control and she had realized that she could not buck the whole administration. One thing at a time, she told herself, and the most important thing was her son.

Before she opened her door, she took a deep breath and steadied herself against the frame. At last she knew she would not panic, no matter what she saw. She went into the little apartment.

“Mommy!” Philip wailed as he saw her.

“Dr. Lebbreau,” said the stout young woman on the sofa. She rose with surprising grace, extending her hand. Her hair was the color of highly polished cherrywood.

“Yes, Philip,” Natalie said as she took the proffered hand. “Mommy’s home.” She turned to the other woman. “You’re Miss Sczieker, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. How do you do, Dr. Lebbreau?”

Natalie made some answer, anxious to see her son.

“I’ll be leaving now, Doctor, unless you want me to stay?”

“No, thank you,” Natalie said, wishing now that she could confide in this polite, plump woman. It would be so much easier to endure her fear if she could confide in someone.

But Miss Sczieker was already at the door, a light jacket over her arm. “He’s a fine boy, Dr. Lebbreau. You must be very proud of him. Well, if there’s nothing else I can do, I’ll say good-bye.”

Natalie stood uncertainly in the center of the room after the door had closed. Then she walked the few feet to Philip’s bed, each step feeling like miles. “Now, Philip, what’s this about a cold?”

From his mound of covers he said, “I don’t feel good, Mommy. Make me better.”

“I’ll have to look you over first, and then we’ll fix you up perfectly. And soon you’ll be well and you can come with me to a new house.” She wondered where she was to find housing for them, now that her marriage was over, then forced that concern from her mind. “You’ll like a new house, won’t you?”

The boy laughed, which quickly dissolved in a thin wheezing cough. Natalie tried not to be too alarmed. This could be a recurrence of croup, she told herself. For about a year, Philip had had bouts of croup, and this could be more of the same. She reminded herself, as she reminded other parents, that children go through some pretty terrific colds which don’t amount to much later on. But she didn’t believe it.