Cook, Robin - Brain

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Robin Cook - Brain (1981)

(Scanned by: Kislany)

------------------------

March 7

Katherine Collins mounted the three steps from the sidewalk with a fragile

sense of resolve. She reached the combination glass and stainless steel door

and pushed. But it didn't open. She leaned back, gazed up at the lintel, and

read the incised inscription, "Hobson University Medical Center: For the

Sick and Infirm of the City of New York." For Katherine's way of thinking it

should have read, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here."

Turning around, her pupils narrowed in the morning March sunlight; her

urge was to flee and return to her warm apartment. The last place in the

world that she wanted to go was back into the hospital. But before she could

move, several patients mounted the steps and brushed past her. Without

pausing they opened the door to the main clinic and were instantly devoured

by the ominous bulk of the building.

Katherine closed her eyes for an instant, marveling at her own stupidity.

Of course, the doors to the clinic opened outward I Clutching her parachute

bag to her side, she pulled open the door and passed into the netherworld

within.

The first thing that assaulted Katherine was the smell. There was nothing

like it in her twenty-one years of experience. The dominant odor was

chemical, a mixture of alcohol and sickeningly sweet deodorant. She

guessed the alcohol was an attempt to check the disease that lurked in the

air; she knew the deodorant was to cover the biological smells that hovered

around illness. Any remnants of denial that Katherine had been using to help

herself make this visit evaporated under the onslaught of the smell. Until her

first visit to the hospital a number of months previously she had never

considered her own mortality and had accepted health and well-being as her

due. Now it was different and as she entered the clinic with its smell, the

thought of all her recent health problems flooded into her consciousness.

Biting her lower lip to keep her emotions under control, she pushed her way

toward the elevators.

The hospital crowds were troublesome for Katherine. She wanted to draw

into herself like a cocoon to avoid being touched, breathed or coughed on.

She had difficulty looking at the distorted faces, scaly rashes and oozing

eruptions. It was worse in the elevator, where she was pressed up against a

group of humanity that reminded her of the crowds in a painting by

Brueghel. Keeping her eyes glued to the floor indicator, she tried to ignore

her surroundings by rehearsing the speech she was going to give to the

receptionist at the GYN clinic. "Hello, my name is Katherine Collins. I'm a

university student and I've been here four times. I'm about to go home to

have my medical problems handled by my family internist and I'd like a

copy of my gynecology records."

It sounded simple enough. Katherine allowed her eyes to wander to the

elevator operator. His face was tremendously broad, but when he turned

sideways, his head was flat. Katherine's eyes involuntarily fixed on the

distorted image and when the operator turned to announce the third floor, he

caught Katherine's stare. One of his eyes looked down and to the side. The

other bore into Katherine with an evil intensity. Katherine averted her gaze,

feeling her face redden. A large hairy man pushed past her to disembark.

Steadying herself with her hand against the side of the elevator, she looked

down at a blond five-year-old girl. One green eye returned her smile. The

other was lost beneath the violaceous folds of a large tumor mass.

The elevator door closed and the car lifted. A dizzy sensation swept over

Katherine. It was different from the dizziness that had presaged the two

seizures she'd experienced the month before, but still it was frightening

within the closed environment of the stuffy elevator. She shut her eyes and

battled against the sense of claustrophobia. Someone coughed behind her

and she felt a fine mist on her neck. The car jolted, the doors opened, and

Katherine emerged on the fourth floor of the clinic. She moved over to the

wall and leaned against it, letting the people behind her push by. Her

dizziness cleared rapidly. Once she felt back to normal she turned left down

a hall that had been painted light green twenty years before.

The corridor expanded into the waiting area for the GYN clinic. It was

dense with patients, children, and cigarette smoke. Katherine crossed this

central area and entered a cul-de-sac to the right. The university's GYN

clinic, which served all the colleges as well as the hospital employees, had

its own waiting area, although the decor and furniture were the same as the

main room. When Katherine entered there were seven women sitting on

tubular steel and vinyl seats. All were nervously flicking the pages of

outdated magazines. The receptionist sat behind a desk, a bird-like woman

of about twenty-five with bleached hair, pale skin, and narrow features. Her

name tag pinned firmly to her flat chest proclaimed her name to be Ellen

Cohen. She looked up as Katherine approached the desk.

"Hello, my name is Katherine Collins ..." She noticed that her voice lacked

the assertiveness she had intended. In fact, when she got to the end of her

request she realized that she sounded as if she were pleading.

The receptionist looked at her for a moment. "You want your records?"

she asked. Her voice reflected a mixture of disdain and incredulity.

Katherine nodded and tried to smile.

"Well, you'll have to talk with Ms. Blackman about that. Please have a

seat." Ellen Cohen's voice became brusque and authoritarian. Katherine

turned and found a seat near to the desk. The receptionist went to a file

cabinet and pulled Katherine's clinic chart. She then disappeared through

one of the several doors leading to the examining rooms.

Unconsciously, Katherine began smoothing her shiny brown hair, pulling

it down over her left shoulder. It was a common gesture for Katherine,

particularly when she was under strain. She was an attractive young woman

with bright attentive gray-blue eyes. Her height was five-two-and-a-half, but

her energetic personality made her seem taller. She was well liked by her

friends at college, probably because of her openness, and deeply loved by

her parents, who worried about the vulnerability of their only daughter in the

jungle of New York City. Yet it had been Katherine's parents' concern and

over protectiveness that had led to Katherine choosing a college in New

York, believing the city would help her demonstrate her innate strength and

individuality. Up until the current illness, she had been successful, scoffing

at her parents' warnings. New York had become her city and she loved its

throbbing vitality.

The receptionist reappeared and sat down to her typing.

Katherine's eyes surreptitiously swept around the waiting room, recording

the bowed heads of the young women waiting their turns like unknowing

cattle. Katherine was immensely thankful she was not waiting for an exam

herself. She loathed the experience, which she had endured four times: the

last just four weeks ago. Coming to the clinic had been her most difficult act

of independence. In reality she would have much preferred to return to

Weston, Massachusetts, and see her own gynecologist, Dr. Wilson. He'd

been the first and only other doctor to examine her. Dr. Wilson was older

than the residents who staffed the clinic and he had a sense of humor, which

had defused the humiliating aspects of the experience, making it at least

tolerable. Not so here. The clinic was impersonal and cold, and combined

with the city hospital environment, each visit became a nightmare. Yet

Katherine had persisted. Her sense of independence demanded it, at least

until her illness.

The nurse practitioner, Ms. Blackman, emerged from one of the rooms.

She was a stocky forty-five-year-old woman with jet black hair pulled back

into a tight bun on the crown of her head. She was dressed in a spotless

white uniform, starched to a professional crispness. Her attire reflected the

way she liked to run the clinic: with cool efficiency. She'd worked for the

Med Center for eleven years.

The receptionist spoke to Ms. Blackman, and Katherine heard her name

mentioned. The nurse nodded, turning to look in Katherine's direction for a

moment. Belying her crisp exterior, Ms. Blackman's dark brown eyes gave

an impression of great warmth. Katherine suddenly thought that outside of

the hospital Ms. Blackman was probably a good deal nicer.

But Ms. Blackman did not come over to talk with Katherine. Instead she

whispered something to Ellen Cohen, and then returned to the examination

area. Katherine felt her face redden. She guessed she was being deliberately

ignored; it would be a way for the clinic personnel to show their displeasure

about her wish to see her own doctor. Nervously she reached for a coverless

year-old copy of Ladies' Home Journal, but she couldn't concentrate.

She tried to pass the time thinking about her arrival home that night; how

surprised her parents would be. She could imagine herself walking into her

old room. She hadn't been there since Christmas, but she knew it would look

exactly as she'd left it. The yellow bedspread, the matching curtains, all the

mementos of her adolescence carefully preserved by her mother. The

reassuring image of her mother made Katherine question again if she should

call and tell her parents she was coming home. The plus was that they would

meet her at Logan Airport. The minus was that she'd probably be coerced

into an explanation about why she was coming home, and Katherine wanted

to discuss her illness face to face, not over the telephone.

Ms. Blackman reappeared after twenty minutes and again conversed with

the receptionist in muted tones. Katherine pretended to be absorbed in her

magazine. Finally the nurse broke off and came over to Katherine.

"Miss Collins?" said Ms. Blackman with subtle irritation.

Katherine looked up.

"I've been told you have requested your clinic records?"

"That's correct," said Katherine, putting the magazine down.

"Have you been unhappy with our care?" asked Ms. Blackman.

"No, not at all. I'm going home to see our family internist and I want a

complete set of my medical records to take with me."

"This is rather irregular," said Ms. Blackman. "We're accustomed to

sending records only when they are requested by a physician."

"I'm leaving for home tonight and I want the records with me. If my doctor

needs them, I don't want to have to wait for them to be sent."

"This just isn't the way we do things here at the Med Center."

"But I know it's my right to have a copy of my records if I want it."

For Katherine an uncomfortable silence followed her last comment. She

was not accustomed to such assertiveness. Ms. Blackman stared at her like

an exasperated parent with a recalcitrant child. Katherine stared back,

transfixed by Ms. Blackman's dark and fluid eyes.

"You'll have to speak to the doctor," said Ms. Blackman abruptly. Without

waiting for a response she walked away from Katherine and stepped through

one of the nearby doors. The latch engaged after her with mechanical

finality.

Katherine drew in a breath and looked around her. The other patients were

regarding her warily as if they shared the clinic personnel's disdain for her

wish to upset the normal protocol. Katherine struggled to maintain her self-

control, telling herself that she was being paranoid. She pretended to read

her magazine, feeling the stares of the other women. She wanted to pull

inside herself like a turtle or get up and leave. She couldn't do either. Time

inched painfully forward. Several more patients were called for their exams;

It was now obvious she was being ignored.

It was three-quarters-of-an-hour later when the clinic physician, dressed in

rumpled white jacket and trousers, appeared with Katherine's chart. The

receptionist nodded in her direction, and Dr. Harper sauntered over to stand

directly in front of her. He was bald save for a frieze of hair that started over

each ear and dipped down to meet in a wiry bush at the nape of his neck.

He'd been the doctor who'd examined Katherine on two previous occasions,

and Katherine had distinctly remembered his hairy hands and fingers, which

had had an alien appearance when matted with the semi-transparent latex

rubber gloves.

Katherine glanced up into the man's face, hoping for a glimmer of warmth.

There wasn't any. Instead he silently flipped open her chart, supporting it

with his left hand and following his reading with his right index finger. It

was as if he were about to give a sermon.

Katherine let her glance drop. Along the front of his left pant leg was a

series of minute bloodstains. Hooked onto his belt on the right was a piece of

rubber tubing, on the left a beeper.

"Why do you want your gynecology records?" he said without looking at

her.

Katherine reiterated her plans.

"I think it's a waste of time," said Dr. Harper, still flipping through the

pages. "Really, this chart has almost nothing in it. A couple of mildly

atypical Pap smears, some gram positive discharge explainable by a slight

cervical erosion. I mean, this isn't going to help anybody. Here you had an

episode of cystitis, but it had been undoubtedly caused by sex the day before

the symptoms started, which you had admitted to..."

Katherine felt her face flush with humiliation. She knew everyone in the

waiting room could hear.

"...look, Miss Collins, your seizure problem has nothing to do with

Gynecology. I'd suggest you head up to Neurology clinic..."

"I've been to Neurology," interrupted Katherine. "And I have those records

already." Katherine fought back the tears. She wasn't usually emotional, but

the rare times she felt like crying, she had great difficulty controlling herself.

Dr. David Harper raised his eyes slowly from the chart. He took, a breath

and expressed it noisily through partially pursed lips. He was bored. "Look,

Miss Collins, you've received excellent care here..."

"I'm not complaining about my care," said Katherine without looking up.

Tears had filled her eyes and threatened to run down her cheeks. "I just want

my records."

"All I'm saying," continued Dr. Harper, "is that you don't need any second

opinions about your gynecological status."

"Please," said Katherine slowly. "Are you going to give me my records, or

do I have to go to the administrator?" Slowly she looked up at Dr. Harper.

With her knuckle she caught the tear that had spilled over her lower lid.

The doctor finally shrugged and Katherine could hear him curse beneath

his breath as he tossed the chart onto the receptionist's desk, telling the

woman to make a copy. Without saying goodbye or even looking back, he

disappeared into the examining area.

As Katherine put on her coat she realized she was trembling and again felt

light-headed. She walked over to the receptionist's desk and grasped the

outer edge, leaning on it for support.

The bird-like blonde chose to ignore her while she completed typing a

letter. When she put the envelope into the machine, Katherine reminded the

receptionist of her presence.

"All right, just a moment," said Ellen Cohen with irritated emphasis on

each word. Not until she'd typed the envelope, stuffed, sealed and stamped

it, did she get to her feet, take Katherine's chart, and disappear around the

corner. During the entire time she avoided Katherine's eyes.

Two more patients were called before Katherine was handed a manila

envelope. She managed to thank the girl, but wasn't given the courtesy of a

response. Katherine didn't care. With the envelope under her arm and her

bag over her shoulder, she turned and half-ran, half-walked out into the

confusion of the main GYN waiting room.

Katherine paused in the heavy air as a smothering wave of dizziness

descended over her. Her fragile emotional state combined with the sudden

physical effort of rapid walking had been too much. Her vision clouded and

she reached out and groped for the back of a waiting-room chair. The manila

envelope slipped from under her arm and fell to the floor. The room spun

and her knees buckled.

Katherine felt strong hands grasp her upper arms, supporting her. She

heard someone try to reassure her and tell her that everything was going to

be all right. She wanted to say that if she could sit down for just a moment

she'd be fine, but her tongue wouldn't cooperate. Vaguely she was aware she

was being carried upright down a corridor, her feet, like those of a

marionette, bumping ineffectually along the floor.

There was a door, then a small room. The awful spinning sensation

continued. Katherine was afraid she might be sick, and cold perspiration

appeared on her forehead. She was conscious of being lowered to the floor.

Almost immediately her vision began to clear and the whirling of the room

stopped. She was with two doctors dressed in white and they were helping

her. With some difficulty they got one of her arms out of her coat and had

applied a tourniquet. She was glad she was away from the crowded waiting

room so that she was not a spectacle for everyone to stare at.

"I think I feel better," said Katherine, blinking her eyes.

"Good," said one of the doctors. "We're going to give you a little

something."

"What?"

"Just something to calm you down."

Katherine felt a needle pierce the tender skin on the inside of her elbow.

The tourniquet was pulled off and she could feel her pulse in her fingertips.

"But I feel much better," she protested. She turned her head to see a hand

depressing the plunger of a syringe. The doctors were bent over her.

"But I feel okay," said Katherine.

The two doctors didn't respond. They just looked at her, holding her down.

"I really feel better now," said Katherine. She looked from one doctor to

the other. One of them had the greenest eyes Katherine had ever seen, like

emeralds. Katherine tried to move. The doctor's grip tightened.

Abruptly Katherine's vision dimmed and the doctor appeared far away. At

the same time she heard a ringing in her ears and her body felt heavy.

"I feel much ..." Katherine's voice was thick and her lips moved slowly.

Her head fell to the side. She could see she was on the floor of a storeroom.

Then darkness.

March 14

Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Collins supported each other while they waited for

the door to be opened. At first the key wouldn't go into the lock, and the

superintendent pulled it out and examined it to make sure it was the key to

92. He tried it again, realizing he'd had it upside down. The door opened and

he moved aside to allow the Women's Dean of the university to step inside.

"Cute apartment," said the Dean. She was a petite woman, about fifty with

very nervous and quick gestures. It was apparent she felt under pressure.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Collins and two uniformed New York City

policemen followed the Dean into the room.

It was a small one bedroom apartment, advertised to have a river view. It

did, but only from a tiny window in the closet-like bathroom. The two

policemen stood aside with their hands clasped behind their backs. Mrs.

Collins, a fifty-two-year-old woman, hesitated near the entrance as if she

were afraid of what she might find. Mr. Collins, on the other hand, limped

directly to the center of the room. He'd had polio in 1952 and it had affected

his right lower leg, but not his shrewd ability in business. At fifty-five he

was the number two man in the First National City Bank of Boston empire.

He was a man who demanded action and respect.

"Since it's been only a week," offered the Dean, "maybe your concern is

premature."

"We never should have allowed Katherine to come to New York," said

Mrs. Collins., fidgeting with her hands.

Mr. Collins ignored both comments. He headed for the bedroom and

looked in. "Her suitcase is on the bed."

"That's a good sign," said the Dean. "A lot of students react to pressure by

leaving school for a few days."

"If Katherine had left, she would have taken her suitcase," said Mrs.

Collins. "Besides, she would have called us on Sunday. She always calls us

on Sunday."

"As Dean, I know how many students suddenly need a breather, even good

students like Katherine."

"Katherine is different," said Mr. Collins disappearing into the bathroom.

The Dean rolled her eyes for the benefit of the policeman, who remained

impassive.

Mr. Collins limped back into the living room. "She didn't go anyplace," he

said with finality.

"What do you mean, dear?" asked Mrs. Collins with mounting anxiety.

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摘要：

RobinCook-Brain(1981)(Scannedby:Kislany)------------------------1March7KatherineCollinsmountedthethreestepsfromthesidewalkwithafragilesenseofresolve.Shereachedthecombinationglassandstainlesssteeldoorandpushed.Butitdidn'topen.Sheleanedback,gazedupatthelintel,andreadtheincisedinscription,"HobsonUniver...

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Cook, Robin - Brain

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