Coma

Bellows was number five. She pushed the button hard, and was rewarded with a raucous buzz.

In a minor panic she reached for the doorknob, scraping her knuckle on the metallic guard on the door frame as the door swung open. A small amount of blood oozed from her knuckle, and she lifted her hand to her mouth. In front of her was a staircase twisting up to the left. A shining brass chandelier hovered above, and a gilded frame mirror served to make the hall seem more spacious. By reflex she checked her hair in the mirror, pressing it down at her temples. As she climbed she noticed attractively framed Brueghel prints on every landing.

Exaggerating her exhaustion, she reached the top flight and paused, gripping the banister. Down the stairwell she could see to the tiled floor of the foyer, five storeys below. Bellows opened his door before Susan knocked.

“There’s an oxygen bottle in here if you need it, Grandma,” he said, smiling.

“God, the air is thin up here. Maybe I should sit here on the steps and.

recuperate for a few moments.”

“A glass of Bordeaux will fix you up perfectly. Give me your hand.”

Susan allowed Mark to help her into his apartment. Then she took off her coat, her eyes wandering around the room. Mark disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses of ruby red wine.

Susan threw her coat over a straight-back chair near the door and pulled oft her high boots. Distracted, she took the wine and sipped it.

Her attention had been captured by the room she found herself in.

“Pretty tastefully decorated for a surgeon,” said Susan, walking into the center of the room.

It was about twenty by forty feet. At each end was a large old-fashioned fireplace, and in each glowed a cheerful fire. The beamed cathedral ceiling was very high, perhaps twenty feet at the peak, slanting down toward both fireplaces. The far wall was an enormous complex of geometric shapes, some housing bookshelves, others with objets d’art and a large stereo, TV, and tape system. The near wall was of exposed brick and covered with paintings, lithographs, and medieval sheet music, attractively framed. An antique Howard clock ticked unobtrusively over the fireplace to the right, a ship model adorned the mantelpiece to the left. Through the windows, on either side of both fireplaces, a myriad of crooked chimneys was silhouetted against the night sky.

The furnishings were of a minimum; Bellows had relied on a collection of thick scatter rugs, dominated by a blue and cream Bukhara in the center of the room. On it was a low onyx coffee table, surrounded by a large number of sizable pillows covered in shocking shades of corduroy.

“This is beautiful,” said Susan twisting around in the center of the room and then collapsing on an armful of cushions. “I never expected anything like this.”

“What did you expect?” Mark sat down on the other side of the low table.

“An apartment. You know, tables, chairs, couch, the usual.”

They both laughed, aware that they really did not know each other very well. Conversation remained on a frivolous level as they enjoyed the wine.

Susan hopefully pointed her stocking feet toward the fire, to warm her toes.

“More wine, Susan?”

“For sure. It tastes wonderful.”

Mark disappeared into the kitchen for the bottle. He poured each of them another glass.

“No one would ever believe the day I’ve had today, incredible,” said Susan, holding the glass of wine between her eye and the fire and appreciating its deep luscious red glow.

“If you haven’t abandoned your suicidal crusade, I believe anything. Did you go and see Stark?”

“You bet your ass, and contrary to your fears, he was very reasonable ...

more than I can say about Harris or even Nelson, for that matter.”

“Be careful, that’s all I can say. Stark is like an emotional chameleon. I usually get along with him extremely well. Yet today, out of the blue, I found out he’s furious at me because of some nut putting half-used medicine in a locker that I had used for a while. He doesn’t come to me and ask me about it the way a normal human being would. Instead he sics poor old Chandler, the chief resident, onto me, and Chandler cancels a case of mine to ask me about it Then later he calls me out of rounds to tell me Stark wants me to get to the bottom of it. You’d think I had nothing to do.”

“What’s this about drugs in a locker?” Susan remembered the doctor talking to Nelson.

“I’m not sure I have the whole story. Something about one of the surgeons coming across a whole bunch of drugs in an OR locker which old friggin’ Walters still had assigned to me. Apparently there were narcotics, curare, antibiotics—a whole pharmacy.”

“And they don’t know who put them there or why?”

“I guess not. It’s my idea that somebody’s been saving the stuff to ship off to Biafra or Bangladesh. There’s always a couple of people around with some cause like that. But why they’ve been storing them in a locker in the lounge is beyond me.”

“Curare is a nerve blocker, isn’t it, Mark?”