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When the evil door opened, an old couple, like someone's bewildered grandparents, peered anxiously into the waiting room--both confusion and curiosity on their faces, which, like the faces of many old couples, had grown to resemble each other. They were small and stooped, and behind them, on a cot--as still as a painting--a woman lay resting under a sheet, her eyes open but unfocused. The vomit basin had been placed on a towel on the floor, within her reach.
"He says he's a doctor," the cashbox man said, without looking at the old couple. "He says he came to give you free medical advice. He says to pay these ladies back. He says he'll take care of the young lady himself."
By the way that the old white-haired woman had become a presence--or, stronger, a force--in the doorway between the waiting room and the operating theater, Larch realized that she was in charge; the old white-haired man was her assistant. The old woman would have looked at home in a pleasant kitchen, baking cookies, inviting the neighborhood children to come and go as they pleased.
"Doctor Larch," Dr. Larch said, bowing a little too formally.
"Oh, yes, Doctor Larch," the old woman said, neutrally. "Come to shit or to get off the pot?"
The abortionist was known in the neighborhood "Off Harrison" as Mrs. Santa Claus. She was not the original author of that remark--or of that note. Mrs. Eames's daughter had written that herself, before she went to see Mrs. Santa Claus; she knew enough about the dangers "Off Harrison" to know that she might be in no shape to write anything at all after Mrs. Santa Claus finished with her.
Larch was unprepared for Mrs. Santa Claus--specifically, for her attitude. He had imagined that in any meeting with an abortionist he (Dr. Larch) would take charge. He still tried to. He walked into the operating theater and picked up something, just to demonstrate his authority. What he picked up was the suction cup with a short hose running to the foot pump. The cup fitted nearly into the palm of his hand; he had no trouble imagining what else it fitted. To his surprise, when he had attached the cup to his palm, Mrs. Santa Claus began stepping on the foot pump. When he felt the blood rushing to his pores, he popped the cup out of his palm before the thing could raise more than a blood blister on the heel of his hand.
"Well?" Mrs. Claus asked, aggressively. "What's your advice, Doctor?" As if in reply, the patient under the sheet drew Larch to her; the woman's forehead was clammy with sweat.
"You don't know what you're doing," Dr. Larch said to Mrs. Santa Claus.
"At least I'm doing something," the old woman said with hostile calm. "If you know how to do it, why don't you do it?" Mrs. Santa Clause asked. "If you know how, why don't you teach me?"
The woman under the sheet looked groggy, but she was trying to pull herself together. She sat up and tried to examine herself; she discovered that, under the sheet, she still wore her own dress. This knowledge appeared to relax her.
"Please listen to me," Dr. Larch said to her. "If you have a fever--if you have more than just a little bleeding--you must come to the hospital. Don't wait."
"I thought the advice was for me," Mrs. Santa Claus said. "Where's my advice?"
Larch tried to ignore her. He went out to the waiting room and told the mother with her young daughter that they should leave, but the mother was concerned about the money.
"Pay them back!" Mrs. Santa Claus told the cashbox man.
"They don't get the deposit back," the man said again.
"Pay them back the deposit, too!" the old woman said angrily. She came into the waiting room to oversee the disgruntled transaction. She put her hand on Dr. Larch's arm. "Ask her who the father is," Mrs. Santa Claus said.
"That's none of my business," Larch said.
"You're right," the old woman said. "That much you got right. But ask her, anyway--it's an interesting story."
Larch tried to ignore her; Mrs. Santa Claus grabbed hold of both the mother and her daughter. She spoke to the mother. "Tell him who the father is," she said. The daughter began to snivel and whine; Mrs. Santa Claus ignored her; she looked only at the mother. "Tell him," she repeated.
"My husband," the woman murmured, and then she added--as if it weren't clear--"her father."
"Her father is the father," Mrs. Santa Claus said to Dr. Larch. "Got it?"
"Yes, I've got it, thank you," Dr. Larch said. He needed to put his arm around the thirteen-year-old, who was sagging; she had her eyes shut.
"Maybe a third of the young ones are like her," Mrs. Santa Claus told Larch nastily; she treated him as if he were the father. "About a third of them get it from their fathers, or their brothers. Rape," Mrs. Santa Claus said. "Incest. You understand?"
"Yes, thank you," Larch said, pulling the girl with him--tugging the sleeve of the mother's coat to make her follow.
"Shit or get off the pot!" Mrs. Santa Claus yelled after them.
"All you starving doctors!" the cashbox man hollered. "You're all over."
The choir was singing. Larch thought he heard them say "vom keinen Sturm erschrecket"--frightened by no storm.
In the empty room that separated the
songs from the abortions, Larch and the mother with her daughter collided with the woman who'd been under the sheet. She was still groggy, her eyes were darting, and her dress was plastered with sweat to her back.
