Джон Ирвинг – The Cider House Rules / Правила виноделов (страница 10)

Wally had already had several rubbers thrown at him, and he was tired of the joke, but he thought that Herb Fowler was the right sort of man to ask.

“Hey, Herb,” Wally said to him.

“Yes, that's my name,” Herb said.

“Herb,” Wally said. “If a girl is pregnant, what should one do about it?”

Herb Fowler disappointed Wally. All he knew was something suspicious about a butcher, and five hundred dollars.

“Maybe Meany Hyde knows about it,” Herb added. “Why don't you ask Meany?” Herb Fowler smiled at Wally.

Meany Hyde was a nice man. He'd grown up with a lot of older brothers who beat him. His brothers called him Meany – probably just to confuse him. Meany was friendly; he had a friendly wife, Florence; there had been so many children that Wally couldn't remember all their names, or tell one from the other, and so he didn't think that Meany Hyde even knew what an abortion was.

“Meany listens to everything,” Herb Fowler told Wally.

So Wally went to find Meany Hyde. Meany was waxing the press boards for the cider press. Wally watched Meany Hyde waxing.

“Say, Meany,” Wally said, after a while.

“I thought that you forgot my name,” Meany said cheerfully. “Meany, what do you know about abortion?” Wally asked. “I know it's a sin,” Meany Hyde said, “and I know that Grace Lynch has had an abortion – and in her case, I sympathize with her – if you know what I mean.” Grace Lynch was Vernon Lynch's wife; Wally – and everyone else – knew that Vernon beat her. They had no children.

“Who needs an abortion, Wally?” Meany Hyde asked.

“A friend of a friend,” Wally said.

“That's a shame, Wally,” Meany said. “I think you should speak to Grace about it – just don't speak to her when Vernon's around. And don't tell Grace I told you to ask her.”

So Wally went looking for Grace Lynch.

Grace was cleaning one of the shelves of the pie oven when Wally found her; he startled her, and Grace made a little cry and banged one of her elbows against the oven.

“I am sorry that I scared you, Grace,” Wally said. “I've got a problem.”

She stared at him as if this news frightened her more than anything anyone had ever told her. She looked quickly away and said, “I'm cleaning the oven.” Wally suddenly realized that all his secrets were entirely safe with Grace Lynch.

“Candy is pregnant,” Wally said. She looked at Wally again with her eyes as round as a rabbit's.

“I need advice. Please just tell me what you know, Grace,” Wally said.

“Saint Cloud's,” she whispered. Wally thought that it was someone's name – the name of a saint? Or was it a nickname for an evil abortionist – St. Cloud's?

“I don't know the doctor's name,” Grace said, not looking at Wally. “The place is called Saint Cloud's, and the doctor's good,” she whispered. “But don't let her go alone – okay, Wally?” Grace said.

“No, I won't let her go alone, of course,” Wally promised her.

“You will ask for the orphanage when you get off the train,” Grace said. She climbed back in the oven before he could thank her.

Grace Lynch had gone to St. Cloud's alone. Vernon hadn't even known she was going. Grace had arrived in the early evening, just after dark; she'd been so nervous that Dr Larch's sedation had not affected her very much and she'd been awake during the night. There had been no complications. (There had never been any serious complications following any abortion Dr Larch had ever performed.) But still Grace Lynch hated to think of St. Cloud's. It was because of the atmosphere of the place in the long night she'd stayed awake. The disturbed river smelled like death; the cries of the babies were frightening; there was a sound of a machine (the typewriter).

That night Wally sat on Ray Kendall's dock with Candy and told her what he knew about St. Clouds.

“I knew it was an orphanage,” Candy said. “That's all I knew.”

It was clear to them both that they couldn't explain their absence during the night, so Wally arranged to borrow Senior's Cadillac, so that they could leave very early in the morning and return in the evening of the same day. Wally told Senior it was the best time of year to explore the coast.

“I know it's a workday,” Wally told Olive. “But it's only one day off, Mom. It's just to have a little journey with Candy.”

Ray Kendall knew that Candy would be happy to take a drive with Wally. Wally was a good driver, and the Cadillac was a safe car.

The night before their trip, Candy and Wally went to bed early, but each of them was awake through the night. Wally worried that an abortion would make Candy unhappy, or even uncomfortable with sex. Candy wondered if Wally would love her after all this was over.

That same night Wilbur Larch and Homer Wells weren't sleeping either. Larch sat at the typewriter in Nurse Angela's office; through the window, he saw Homer Wells walking around outside, with an oil lamp in the darkness. What is the matter now? Larch wondered, and went to see what Homer was doing.

“I couldn't sleep,” Homer told Larch.

“What is it this time?” Dr Larch asked Homer.

“Maybe it's just an owl,” said Homer Wells. The wind was strong, which was unusual for St. Cloud's. When the wind blew out the lamp, the doctor and his assistant saw the light shining from the window of Nurse Angela's office. It was the only light for miles around, and it made their shadows gigantic. Larch's shadow reached the black woods. Homer Wells's shadow touched the dark sky. Only then both men noticed: Homer had grown taller than Dr Larch.

Larch spread his arms so that his shadow looked like a magician. Larch flapped his arms like a big bat. “Look!” he said to Homer. I'm a wizard!”

Homer Wells, the wizard's apprentice, flapped his arms, too.

The wind was very strong and fresh. The stars shone bright and cold.

“Feel that wind,” said Homer Wells; maybe the wind didn't let them sleep.

“It's a wind coming from the coast,” Wilbur Larch said. It was a rare sea breeze, Larch was sure.

“Wherever it's from, it's nice,” Homer Wells decided.

Both men stood sniffing the wind. Each man thought: “What is going to happen to me?”

5. Homer Breaks a Promise

Before this morning, Homer Wells had not had an occasion to think about the soul. A study of the soul had not been a part of his training.

Dr Larch had asked Homer to prepare a fetus for an autopsy.

A woman had been stabbed, or she had stabbed herself; the pregnancy of the woman was nearly full-term. Dr Larch had attempted to rescue the child but the child – or, rather, the embryo, nearly nine months – had also been stabbed. Like its mother, the baby (the boy) had died. Dr Larch had asked Homer to help him determine the cause of death.

Homer cut the little body. He had never looked inside a fetus before. What was the life of the embryo but a history of development? Homer turned to the section in Gray's devoted to the embryo. It was a shock for him to remember that the book did not begin with the embryo; it ended with it. The embryo was the last thing which was considered.

In Gray's Homer saw the profile view of the head of a human embryo at twenty-seven days old. It didn't look like human: it had a face of a fish. But in eight weeks the fetus has a nose and a mouth. “It has an expression,” thought Homer Wells. And with this discovery – that a fetus has an expression — Homer Wells felt the presence of a soul.

He put the little dead body in a white enamel examining tray. The tiny fingers of its hands were slightly open.

The color of the dead baby was gray. Homer turned to the sink and vomited in it. When he turned on water to clean the sink, the old pipes vibrated and howled; he thought that the room was trembling because of the pipes. He wasn't thinking about the wind from the coast – how strong it was!

Homer wasn't blaming Dr Larch. If Wilbur Larch was a saint to Nurse Angela and to Nurse Edna, he was both a saint and a father to Homer Wells. Larch knew what he was doing – and for whom. However Homer had his own opinion. “You can call it a fetus, or an embryo,” thought Homer Wells, “but it's alive. And if you perform an abortion, you kill it.” He looked at the little dead body. “If it's a fetus to Dr Larch, that's fine. But it's a baby to me,” thought Homer Wells. “If Larch has a choice, I have a choice, too.”

He picked up the tray and carried it into the hall, like a proud waiter carrying a special dish to a favorite guest.

Soon Homer was at the door of Nurse Angela's office, which was open. He could see Dr Larch at the typewriter; the doctor wasn't writing; there wasn't even any paper in the machine. Dr Larch was just looking out the window. The state of a dream was so clear on Wilbur Larch's face that Homer Wells paused in the doorway; he almost turned around and took the baby away with him. Homer hesitated; then he stepped forward and put the metal tray on top of the typewriter.

“Doctor Larch?” Homer Wells said. Larch looked away from his dream; he stared over the baby at Homer. “The source of the bleeding was the pulmonary artery, which was slashed, as you see,” Homer said, as Larch looked down at the baby.

“Goddamn!” said Wilbur Larch, staring at the artery.