Contents
The Physician
Part One: Barber’s Boy
1: The Devil in London
2: A Family of the Guild
3: The Parceling
4: The Barber-Surgeon
5: The Beast in Chelmsford
6: The Colored Balls
7: The House on Lyme Bay
8: The Entertainer
9: The Gift
10: The North
11: The Jew of Tettenhall
12: The Fitting
13: London
14: Lessons
15: The Journeyman
16: Arms
17: A New Arrangement
18: Requiescat
19: A Woman in the Road
20: Caps at Table
21: The Old Knight
Part Two: The Long Journey
22: The First Leg
23: Stranger in a Strange Land
24: Strange Tongues
25: The Joining
26: Parsi
27: The Quiet Sentry
28: The Balkans
29: Tryavna
30: Winter in the Study House
31: The Wheat Field
32: The Offer
33: The Last Christian City
Part Three: Ispahan
34: The Last Leg
35: Salt
36: The Hunter
37: Reb Jesse’s City
38: The Calaat
Part Four: The Maristan
39: Ibn Sina
40: An Invitation
41: The Maidan
42: The Shah’s Entertainment
43: The Medical Party
44: The Death
45: A Murdered Man’s Bones
46: The Riddle
47: The Examination
48: A Ride in the Country
49: Five Days to the West
50: The Chatir
Part Five: The War Surgeon
51: The Confidence
52: Shaping Jesse
53: Four Friends
54: Mary’s Expectations
55: The Picture of a Limb
56: The Command
57: The Cameleer
58: India
59: The Indian Smith
60: Four Friends
Part Six: Hakim
61: The Appointment
62: An Offer of Reward
63: A Clinic in Idhaj
64: The Bedoui Girl
65: Karim
66: The Gray City
67: Two Arrivals
68: The Diagnosis
69: Green Melons
70: Qasim’s Room
71: Ibn Sina’s Error
72: The Transparent Man
73: The House in Hamadhān
74: The King of Kings
Part Seven: The Returned
75: London
76: The London Lyceum
77: The Gray Monk
78: The Familiar Journey
79: Lambing
80: A Kept Promise
81: The Circle Completed
Acknowledgments
Shaman
Part One: Coming Home
1 Jiggety-Jig
2 The Inheritance
Part Two: Fresh Canvas, New Painting
3 The Immigrant
4 The Anatomy Lesson
5 The God-Cursed District
6 Dreams
7 The Color of the Painting
8 Music
9 Two Parcels
10 The Raising
11 The Recluse
12 The Big Indian
13 Through the Cold Time
14 Ball-and-Stick
15 A Present from Stone Dog
16 The Doe Hunters
17 Daughter of the Mide’Wiwin
18 Stones
19 A Change
20 Sarah’s Suitors
21 The Great Awakening
Part Three: Holden’s Crossing
22 Cursing and Blessings
23 Transformations
24 Spring Music
25 The Quiet Child
26 The Binding
27 Politics
28 The Arrest
29 The Last Indians in Illinois
Part Four: The Deaf Boy
30 Lessons
31 School Days
32 Night Doctoring
33 Answers and Questions
34 The Return
35 The Secret Room
36 The First Jew
37 Water Marks
38 Hearing the Music
39 Teachers
40 Growing Up
41 Winners and Losers
42 The Collegian
43 The Applicant
44 Letters and Notes
Part Five: A Family Quarrel
45 At the Polyclinic
46 Heart Sounds
47 Cincinnati Days
48 The Boat Ride
49 The Contract Surgeon
50 A Son’s Letter
51 The Horn Player
52 Troop Movements
53 The Long Gray Line
54 Skirmishing
55 “When Did You Meet Ellwood R. Patterson?”
56 Across the Rappahannock
57 The Full Circle
Part Six: The Country Doctor
58 Advisers
59 The Secret Father
60 A Child With the Croup
61 A Frank Discussion
62 Fishing
63 The End of the Journal
64 Chicago
65 A Telegraph Message
66 The Elmira Camp
67 The House in Wellsburg
68 Struggling in the Web
69 Alex’s Last Name
70 A Trip to Nauvoo
71 Family Gifts
72 Breaking Ground
73 Tama
74 The Early Riser
Acknowledgments and Notes
Matters of Choice
Part One: The Throwback
1 An Appointment
2 The House on Brattle Street
3 Betts
4 Moment of Decision
5 An Invitation to the Ball
6 The Contender
7 Voices
8 A Jury of Peers
9 Woodfield
10 Neighbors
11 The Calling
12 A Brush with the Law
13 The Different Path
14 The Last Cowgirl
Part Two: The House on the Verge
15 Metamorphosis
16 Office Hours
17 David Markus
18 A Feline Intimacy
19 The House on the Verge
20 Snapshots
21 Finding Her Way
22 The Singers
23 A Gift to be Used
24 New Friends
25 Settling In
26 Above the Snow Line
27 The Season of Cold
28 Rising Sap
Part Three: Heartrocks
29 Sarah's Request
30 A Small Trip
31 A Ride Down the Mountain
32 The Ice Cube
33 Inheritances
34 Winter Nights
35 Hidden Meanings
36 On the Trail
37 One More Bridge to Cross
38 The Reunion
39 A Naming
40 What Agunah Feared
41 Kindred Spirits
42 The Ex-Major
43 The Red Pickup
44 Early Concert
Part Four: The Country Doctor
45 The Breakfast Tale
46 Kidron
47 Settling In
48 The Fossil
49 Invitations
50 The Three of Them
51 A Question Is Answered
52 The Calling Card
53 Sunshine and Shadows
54 The Sowing
55 Coming of Snow
56 Discoveries
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright page
Back Ads
THE PHYSICIAN
by Noah Gordon
With my love
for Nina,
who gave me Lorraine
Fear God and keep his commandments;
for this is the whole duty of man.
—Ecclesiastes 12:13
I will give thanks unto Thee,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
—Psalms 139:14
As to the dead, God will raise them up.
—Qu’ran, S. 6:36
They that be whole need not a physician,
But they that are sick.
—Matthew 9:12
PART ONE
Barber’s Boy
1
THE DEVIL IN LONDON
These were Rob J.’s last safe and secure moments of blessed innocence, but in his ignorance he considered it hardship to be forced to remain near his father’s house with his brothers and his sister. This early in the spring, the sun rode low enough to send warm licks under the eaves of the thatched roof, and he sprawled on the rough stone stoop outside the front door, enjoying the coziness. A woman was picking her way over the broken surface of Carpenter’s Street. The street needed repair, as did most of the small frame workingmen’s houses thrown up carelessly by skilled artisans who earned their living erecting solid homes for those richer and more fortunate.
He was shelling a basket of early peas and trying to keep his eyes on the younger children, his responsibility when Mam was away. William Stewart, six, and Anne Mary, four, were grubbing in the dirt at the side of the house and playing secret giggly games. Jonathan Carter, eighteen months old, lay on a lambskin, papped, burped, and gurgling with content. Samuel Edward, who was seven, had given Rob J. the slip. Somehow crafty Samuel always managed to melt away instead of sharing work, and Rob was keeping an eye out for him, feeling wrathful. He split the green pods one after another and scraped the peas from the waxy seedcase with his thumb the way Mam did, not pausing as he noted the woman coming directly to him.
Stays in her stained bodice raised her bosom so that sometimes when she moved there was a glimpse of rouged nipple, and her fleshy face was garish with cosmetics. Rob J. was only nine years old but a child of London knew a trollop.
“Here now. This Nathanael Cole’s house?”
He studied her resentfully, for it wasn’t the first time tarts had come to their door seeking his father. “Who wants to learn?” he said roughly, glad
his Da was out seeking work and she had missed him, glad his Mam was out delivering embroidery and was spared embarrassment.
“His wife needs him. She sent me.”
