“Seymour,” she said, “do you want to ski with us?”
“Yes,” Foderman said.
“Then shut up.”
On the chair ride to the top, which we were ready to assay after three runs from the midpoint, Foderman and I sat with our faces tilted to the sun, and he said without preamble, as though we had been discussing it for the past half-hour and were only continuing the conversation, “It would be easier if I could tell her.”
My eyes were closed, the sun on my face was warm, the chair was moving silently on its greased cable, skiers below sent small snow-squeaking sounds into the air.
“This patient,” Foderman said. “But how can I tell her? How can I say, ‘Rose, you’re dying’? Can I deprive her of hope? She’s been my patient for eight years, she was seventeen years old when she first started coming to me. Now she’s twenty-five, and she’s dying of cancer, and I can’t tell her. I go in every morning, and I say, ‘Hello, Rose, how are you feeling today?’ And I tell her what medication we’re using, and I tell her there are certain symptoms we can expect, but that we’re prepared for them and will cope with them, and I encourage the thought that she’ll be healthy enough one day to walk out of the hospital and lead a normal, productive life. What else can I tell her? I’ve tried everything. I can’t save her. She’s going to die, Peter.”
“Well,” I said, and didn’t know what else to say.
“What am I, an intern?” Foderman asked. “Is this the first time I’ve had to look at death? Of course not! But do you know what I said to my associate? To Alan? This was just before I came out here, just before I started the vacation. I said, ‘Alan, all the years I spent in medical school were a waste.’ Well, what’s the sense of all those years I spent if I can’t save somebody I like? Peter, that’s why I became a doctor, to save the people I like. If I can’t even save the people I like, who cares about those shleppers who come in the office with a vaginal itch? Damn it, I want to save the people I like.”
I turned to look at him. Foderman was shaking his head. I remained silent. It occurred to me that what passed for humorlessness in him may have been grief instead. He was mourning in advance for deaths yet to come.
“What am I supposed to tell her?” he asked. “‘Rose, you’re dying’? Is that what I’m supposed to tell her? There’s an Arab saying, Peter. I have no respect for Arabs, but there’s a saying they have. ‘Show them the death, and they will accept the fever.’ Arabs don’t know their backsides from medicine, but they do know evil, and that’s what they’re talking about here — the lesser of two evils. If you show people the most horrible thing they can imagine, they’re willing to settle for anything else instead. It doesn’t matter how terrible the fever is, it can never be as awful as the death. ‘Show them the death, and they will accept the fever.’ Show them starvation, they’ll settle for hunger any day of the week. Show them Hitler, they’ll fall in love with Attila the Hun. Without flicking an eyelash, they’ll accept the fever every time because anything’s better than the death.” Foderman sighed heavily and turned his hands over in his lap, palms upward. “But can I tell Rose she’s dying? Can I say, ‘Rose you’re going to die’? If I show her the death, if I say, ‘Look, Rose, look at this hairy stinking thing coming to get you, look, Rose, I spit on it,’ will she then be able to spend her remaining days in peace? Will she accept the fever? I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, Peter.”
A sign on the stanchion just ahead of us informed Foderman (and indeed all skiers approaching the summit) that the thing he should do right that minute was RAISE SAFETY BAR, PREPARE TO UNLOAD, KEEP SKI TIPS UP. He had seen the sign himself. As I raised the bar, he swung his poles off the hook, and then shook his head again. We reached the platform and skied off the chair.
When I am skiing, I think of nothing but the snow and the way my body is reacting to it. Everything else leaves my head, there remains only a single-minded attention to the task of getting down the mountain in one piece. Considering the element of danger involved, I suppose such intense concentration is mandatory. I suppose, too, that this is what makes skiing such a relaxing sport. Like the snow itself, the mind becomes clean and white and empty, blank except for its occupation with the mountain. All other problems vanish.
KR: You mean to tell me you have problems?
ME: You know I have problems. That’s why I’m here.
KR: I was beginning to wonder exactly why you’re here.
ME: Well, that’s why I’m here. Is this going to be one of those days?
KR: One of which days?
ME: Where you goad me into anger?
KR: The anger is already there.
ME: No. The anger’s only there when I’m here.
KR: Very well. What are you angry about now?
ME: I was trying to tell you about this trip I’ll be taking. I don’t know why you had to twist it into something else.
KR: You said all your problems disappear when you’re skiing.
ME: That’s right.
KR: And I asked you what your problems were.
ME: No. You made some smart-ass sarcastic remark about not realizing I had any problems. And wondering why I was here.
KR: I was merely suggesting that if skiing can solve all your problems, there’s no need to come here three times a week.
ME: I didn’t say skiing solved all my problems. I said it was impossible to think about problems while I’m skiing.
KR: Ah, I see.
ME: You saw all along. Please cut the crap.
KR: Has it ever occurred to you that you’re extremely rude to me?
ME: Never.
KR: Well, you are.
ME: Gee, I’m sorry. Would you like to lie down here beside me and neck?
KR: Would you like me to?
ME: That’s a joke. I thought you knew all the analyst jokes.
KR: Yes, I know most of them. Why are you rude to me?
ME: Because you never understand what the hell I’m trying to say.
KR: Does anyone understand what you’re trying to say?
ME: Yes.
KR: Who?
ME: Sandy. And David.
KR: When you tell me they understand you, all I get is that you understand yourself.
ME: That’s not true. We’re very different people.
KR: But very much alike.
ME: I should hope so.
KR: Why?
ME: We’re friends.
KR: Do you have any other friends?
ME: Of course.
KR: Who?
ME: Rhoda was a friend.
KR: Yet you raped her.
ME: We did not rape her.
KR: Let’s for the moment drop the protective pronoun, shall we?
ME: What?
KR: The “we.” Let’s talk about you. Did you rape Rhoda?
ME: No.
KR: Then what happened? How would you classify what happened?
ME: I don’t know what happened. We were all good friends, I don’t know what happened. We got along fine until that day.
KR: What happened on that day?
ME: We went into the forest. It was too hot on the beach, so we went into the forest.
KR: And?
ME: We started kidding around, and it led to sex.
KR: To rape.
ME: No.