"This is one of his patients, Jude Harley. I need a physical exam right away."
The words "right away" — and the presumption they conveyed — did not sit well with the receptionist, who told him to "hold on." He heard his name being punched into a computer, and then a silence while she read his records. Thankfully, they were short and dull—but they're about to get more interesting.
"What seems to be the trouble, Mr. Harley?"
With a torrent of lies and inventive explanations involving heart palpitations and sudden blackouts, a family history of dreaded diseases and the anxious pleadings of a friend who happened to be a doctor, Jude managed to convey some urgency.
"I'm sorry, but your medical plan does not authorize coverage of a physical exam unless it is performed by your own physician and for a verifiable symptom or complaint likely to lead to a diagnosis."
That figured — the company health plan that Tibbett had negotiated into the last contract was notoriously skinflintish. But when Jude said he would pay for all of it himself, no questions asked, and wanted "the works," her tone changed to something approaching helpful. She said she could fit him in that afternoon if he didn't mind being seen by a young doctor who had just joined the group.
Jude hung up the pay phone with a feeling of satisfaction and gave a thumbs-up signal to Skyler, whose puzzled expression indicated that he had not the remotest idea what it meant.
Tizzie joined them at the unisex hair salon on Lexington Avenue. Jude had called her shortly after he had smuggled Skyler out of his building through the basement and out the rear exit. Skyler had been outfitted with a golfer's cap and dark glasses, which lay beside the basin in which his hair was being dyed blond.
"You're going to make him look ridiculous," she said.
"No, I'm not. Anyway, the less he looks like me, the better."
"I see. And the way to make him look not like you is to make him look like a fool?"
Jude couldn't think of a retort.
The hair stylist came over, a young woman chewing gum.
"So what is it? You guys are twins and you're tired of looking alike?"
"Something like that," said Jude.
"I can give him a Leo. Or maybe something younger, you want punk? Only thing is, he already looks younger — I mean, you guys still want to be the same generation, right?"
Jude nodded.
The stylist looked over at Skyler, waiting in the barber chair with a white-and-black-striped cloth tied around his neck; he was looking at his new head of blond hair in the mirror and then at Tizzie's reflection.
"He says to ask you," she insisted.
"Give him a buzz cut," replied Jude.
"Not you," she said, then turning to Tizzie. "You."
Tizzie smiled.
"Give him a handsome haircut, like that," she said, pointing to a larger-than-life photograph of George Clooney on the wall.
"You got it."
The stylist walked away.
"I see you're already casting your spell," remarked Jude.
The visit to the doctor was an ordeal. Skyler needed a great deal of persuading even to enter the office, which lay behind a small side door next to an imposing entrance under a green awning on East Eighty-sixth Street.
Jude remained outside. Over and over, he had explained to Skyler why it was important to him to undergo a medical exam that would establish once and for all just how much alike the two of them really were. Skyler had had too much experience with doctors in his short life, Jude figured. His reluctance to submit to a physical was understandable, but it had to be overcome if they were to get any answers. Finally, Jude had prevailed upon Tizzie to accompany him, and it was only then that Skyler had agreed.
Skyler jumped when Tizzie rang a bell and the door was buzzed open by the receptionist. The lock, she explained, was intended to keep people out, not in.
The patient was so obviously nervous that the receptionist, the same one who had talked to Jude on the phone, was touched. She smiled sympathetically as she handed the file to Tizzie—Jude's file — and told them she would try to push his name ahead on the list. The waiting room was crowded, and they took the last two empty seats.
Tizzie asked him about the medical care on the island. He told her about the weekly examinations, the urine and blood tests, the obsession with vitamins and health food.
"Tell me," she asked. "Were you all in good health?"
"Yes, perfect health."
"But sometimes people got sick?"
"Sure, we got sick."
"And sometimes they didn't recover. That's what you told us."
"Most of the time they did. But not always."
"And when they didn't recover, what happened?"
"They died."
"Just like that? They died?"
"Yes. We never saw them again. We went to their funerals."
"Did you know why they died? Did they tell you?"
"Not really. They just said they died."
"But when they recovered… they were all right?"
"Yeah. But sometimes they were missing things — like an eye."
Tizzie was visibly upset.
A nurse with a clipboard walked in and looked at Skyler.
"Hello, Jude," she said. "You've changed your hair — very hip."
He tried to smile.
"What brings you here?"
Tizzie answered for him.
"Nothing specific, just a general checkup."
"Good idea. It's a smart thing to do," she replied. "Come with me."
Tizzie squeezed Skyler's hand, and he stood up, apprehensive. The nurse saw this, and on the way to the examining room, she turned to look him in the eye and said with feeling: "I hope it all works out okay."
An hour and a half later, after Skyler had given up every conceivable bodily fluid and had X rays taken of every bone and examinations of every orifice and protuberance, he was led back to Tizzie. He was shaken but in one piece, and he brightened visibly when he saw her reading magazines in the lobby, which moved her. They stopped off at a counter where a sign in block letters said: BILL MUST BE PAID AT TIME OF VISIT. Tizzie pulled out a check that Jude had already signed, and was about to fill in the amount when the Filipino woman behind the counter asked why Skyler didn't do it himself. So he did, writing the numerals and the zeroes in a fluid hand. Tizzie was struck, in fact, by how much his writing resembled Jude's.
An hour later, Jude and Skyler were riding in the subway. Lurching back and forth against the seat as the train screeched around a bend, Skyler could not believe that anything could make so much noise. But the people around him did not notice it or if they did, they gave no sign. He was fascinated by them — he had never seen anything like them, such a multitude of humanity and such diversity; he had never dreamed that people could come in so many different sizes and shapes and colors. Some of them looked like Kuta. And the clothes they wore were flamboyant and equally bounteous — T shirts with designs, flowered dresses, light jackets and short skirts, baseball caps and berets and earphones. But his fellow passengers did not seem especially happy; none of them were smiling. Across the way, a figure in short blond hair and dark glasses seemed to be staring at him; he looked back and realized with a start that he was looking at his own reflection.
The wheels screeched again and the train came into a station, and as it halted, the doors flew open, so that looking through them, Skyler could see walls covered in white tile and dark columns. Dozens of people got off and dozens more cleared a path for them and then stepped on board. Skyler was amazed that even children seemed unfazed by the noise and the crowd. One was asleep in a little chair that had wheels on it, the same device that he had seen on the sidewalks above.