gowns, smoking. The overhang of the roof kept the snow off them. Out for a smoke. One of them, a young woman with red hair, waved a hand at me as she saw me looking. I waved back.
Who could blame them? What else did you have by the time you were in the hospital for Christmas and needed a walker to get around? By the time you were falling apart, all you had were cigarettes. Maybe music.
Lucille Bernard’s office in the hospital was empty except for a distracted woman in jeans who told me she was gone for the day. It took me a while to find somebody else, an Indian doctor, who said Dr. Bernard was in a conference in the other building, where I went, only to discover nobody knew anything about a conference. I called Bernard again. I left another message. I got hold of a secretary and told her it was urgent. She gave me directions.
I had to double back twice, had to cross a bridge between two buildings. Everything looked the same, everyone was in a hurry, doctors, nurses, visitors. The elevators were packed, the halls blocked by people pushing the sick on gurneys. Only the patients were still, staring at the ceiling as somebody pushed them, like trays of meat, to another part of the hospital, to surgery, or who knew where, maybe to die.
Come on!
Finally, back at Bernard’s office, I bullied a young guy, an intern, maybe, into getting her home address for me. Either my badge impressed him, or he didn’t care, and he simply walked into her office and looked in her Rolodex, and as he came out, I noticed a woman with little piggy eyes and a pinched mouth watching us. I didn’t care. At least I got a smile and a cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree from a small, sexy nurse. I ate the cookie. It had red sugar on it.
When I got into my car and looked in the rear view, I saw red sprinkles all over my mouth and I laughed at myself, first time that day, then wiped it off with a Kleenex I found in the glove compartment, put a CD into the slot, and listened to Louis Armstrong. “West End Blues” cheered me up even more than the cookie.
Twenty minutes later, I was on 139th Street in front of Dr. Bernard’s house. The traffic was jammed up because of the weather and hard pellets of ice hit my windshield.
“Yes?” Her voice through the door was pitched low. I knew she was looking at me through a peephole. I gave her my name and waited, looking at the beautiful brass knocker and knob, polished up to shine. The door opened a crack.
“Yes?”
I showed her my badge, and she opened the door wider to let me in. She was a tall, handsome woman of about forty. She didn’t like me the minute she saw me.
Wearing a gray suit, her hair caught back with a velvet headband, she had an impatient face.
“You better come inside,” she said, looking at the wet snow on my jacket.
The heels of her boots rang on the dark wood floors of the long hall, and I followed her, keeping up as she walked faster and faster. It was a beautiful, high-ceilinged town house that must have dated back to the turn of the twentieth century. I said so. “Stanford White designed this house,” she said. I said I had read Ragtime, in which the architect had featured. She seemed faintly surprised that I’d read a book.
On the deep red walls of the hall were photographs, sepia studies of Harlem in the early twentieth century, as well as a framed poster of Angela Davis.
Bernard saw me looking.
“You know who that is?”
“Yes.”
It was the second time that day somebody had quizzed me on my knowledge of famous black Americans-first Robeson, now Davis. Angela Davis had visited the USSR. She had been a member of the American Communist Party and was much admired. She was also stunning and articulate. People in Moscow were charmed by her. “She speaks such nice French and is so kind,” my mother, an obsessive Francophile, had said after she met Davis at a party. There were plenty of places where the Soviet Union and black America had once intersected.
I didn’t want to risk crossing Dr. Bernard when I needed information from her about Marianna Simonova, so I just nodded again and said, “Yes. I know.”
“Please sit down,” said Dr. Bernard when we got to a small study. There was a red and blue kilim on the floor, the walls were lined with books. On a shelf some antique surgical tools were displayed. The windows, old- fashioned wooden shutters folded back, looked out onto a courtyard, where there was already half a foot of snow.
Bernard sat down at her antique rolltop desk.
“Right,” she said. “What can I do for you? I only came back to my house to get some paperwork I need. I haven’t much time, and to tell the truth I only let you in so you’ll stop bullying my people at the hospital. Don’t do that again. Now, what is it you need me for?”
“I just wanted to see when you’re coming to Marianna Simonova’s place. I could give you a ride,” I said, keeping my temper.
“Excuse me? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t Lily Hanes call you?”
“Who?”
“Lily Hanes. She called you this morning about your patient Mrs. Simonova.”
“No, she didn’t,” said Bernard.
“Can you check your messages?”
Bernard picked up her cell phone, then listened to her voice mail on the landline. She called the hospital. She turned to me.
“You’re satisfied? Now what’s the problem with Mrs. Simonova?” she said.
Bernard leaned back slightly in her chair. On the credenza behind her was a large Mac. On the screen was a picture of a tall, pretty girl of about fourteen with Dr. Bernard beside her. Bernard was wearing a yellow sleeveless summer dress and high-heeled sandals.
“Simonova is your patient, though?”
Bernard glanced at me. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ve been treating Mrs. Simonova for COPD for a while now. That’s emphysema to you.”
“Was it your opinion she was terminal?”
“Why?” Her head snapped up. Clearly, Lily had not called the doctor. She had lied to me.
“I’m simply asking.”
“What’s happened?”
“Can you give me some background?”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” she said. “I’m busy, and unless you tell me why you’re here and why you’ve been calling me, there’s no way that I’m going to share privileged information.” She reached for the phone as if to indicate she was finished with me.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “Let’s start again. Marianna Simonova died earlier, probably sometime this morning.”
“What?”
“You’re surprised?”
“Yes. She was in only Wednesday, I think. I thought she was a bit better. Her saturation level was better. We’d been worried,” said Bernard. “It’s not impossible, of course; she was pretty sick. This cold weather is terrible for anyone with lung problems, though she was tough. Still, she hadn’t followed my instructions. I know she continued to smoke.”
“Did anyone come with her, bring her to your office?”
Bernard looked up. “Yes, a woman came with her the last few months. A white woman.”
“Lily Hanes,” I said.
“I think that’s right. Tall woman? She was a bit of a stickler, taking notes, wanting to know everything about Marianna’s condition, what medication she needed, everything. Well, she was meticulous, I’ll say that for her. Thank you for letting me know about Marianna,” said Bernard. “But what’s your interest?”
“I know some of her friends.”
“You mean this Hanes woman?”
“Yes. She suggested her neighbor-Dr. Hutchison-could sign the death certificate, because it would speed things up. Apparently Mrs. Simonova wanted a Jewish burial. It requires a pretty quick turnaround, so to
