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XVII. The Hypocritical Oath
«Found what you expected, Inspector?»
The voice, that betrayed old age, made him look up. The man's bushy gray eyebrows would undoubtedly stick out if one looked at him in profile. The inspector laughed, and heartily. A good laugh was all he needed now, within these grey walls, within these grey rooms that smelled of death.
The man smiled lightly at hearing the inspector laugh, and the Inspector gestured at him to sit down. He smelt strongly of ammonia, and the nails on his hands were blueish, the skin dry and wrinkled. Even the inspector, who had long since learned to treat everything with a cynicism and detachment that probably saved his sanity, he knew that a man's hands betrayed his age far better than his face.
«You must excuse me, sir, we have a cholera outbreak, I must reek something awful.»
«No matter, sir...» it did matter, of course, his nose burned from the smell. And yet, he had long since learned to treat everything with an indifference that had probably saved his mind. «Cholera,» he echoed. «I was wondering why it was so quiet.»
Even though the young inspector had long since learned to look past people's faces, to treat everything with an ignorance that probably kept the voices and visions at bay, he couldn't help but notice that the man's eyes reminded him of an old spaniel, rheumy-eyed and sad, so much like dear Janet, who ran out in front of that carriage one misty morning...
What was wrong him? Had he not long since learned to speak and think of death with the same coolness as if he were thinking about the weather?
«It must be hard, having to come to these places all the time...» said the man, raising his bushy eyebrows.
«It's my job,» he said, although he suddenly wished he could talk to this man, this man he never knew, to talk to him, about how hard it was. About how he had to skim over the details. About how hard it was to go to work in the morning. About how he only did it to distract himself. Because it got him out of bed in the morning. It made him forget. Forget the wife that left him. Forget the boy that shared his eyes. Forget Janet, who had, in the last glance of her life, held the same condemnation as his wife's when she had left. And yet, he had learnt to respond to everything with an insincerity that had probably kept him out of Bedlam. «It's my job,» he repeated. They were silent for a while. «Are you a doctor?» he asked. It was a pointless question, and yet, was not everything pointless? Where all the antics of this world not a mere distraction from what mattered? Not that he knew what mattered in any case.
At this, the man gave a mirthless chuckle. «I suppose you could call it so.»
The inspector frowned at this. He had long since learned to report facts with an accuracy that probably made him paranoid, and yet saved him his job. «What do you mean, sir?»
This was followed by a protracted silence. The man's rheumy eyes focused on the floor. The grey, dirty floor.
«I don't deserve to be called so. Like so many others do not. When I was young, I believed anyone who was clever could be a doctor. Now I know that cleverness is not enough. In fact, it is the tiniest fraction of what matters in reality. Oh, I was clever, I was the best student of medicine. I could have been a physician to Her Majesty, for the amount of skill I possessed.»
That puzzled the inspector even more. «So why are you here, doctor? The pay here is minimal, barely acceptable for man of such skill.»
«I want to help people,» he said, his eyes still on the floor, his bushy eyebrows scrunched up, «those who are less fortunate than us.» He turned to the inspector. «You are an inspector, sir. Do you not know the conditions in these workhouses? There is a reason that they are nicknamed The Bastille. Today...» he raised his hands, his chapped, dry hands with their blueish nails, in front of his face, and his eyes creased at the corners. The inspector had never seen someone with so many wrinkles in his life. «I saved four children. From cholera. They will recover, I am sure of it....»
«There are plenty of other doctors around that can do this job. You, sir, could have become great. Listen to me, please, I could ask...»
At this, the doctor sprung up onto his feet, with a surprising agility, and stood in front of the inspector, his chapped hands curled into fists, his eyes livid under those bushy eyebrows.
«I need none of your help, sir, none of the help of the men who let this country go to the dogs while they dress in the finest silks and leathers and eat from gold plates.»
«We do not eat from...»
«Leave that, sir! You know very well what exactly I mean by that!»
The inspector stared, taken aback. «There are not many doctors that so commend the Hippocratic oath, sir,» he said. He had long since learned that to avoid conflict in a way that had probably kept the grey out of his hair up to now. At this, the doctor threw his head back and laughed, in his hoarse, low voice, laughed and laughed, until he clutched his stomach and staggered to the bench where he had sat.
«Sir?»
The doctor turned to him, staring at him with watery eyes. Those rheumy eyes now filled with tears of mirth. «The hypocritical oath does not interest me, I'm afraid. It is no different and no more commended than any other oath. Men forget oaths the second after they swear them.»
«But sir, you uphold...»
«I, I, what do I matter?» shouted the doctor. «Yes, I do, in a way, but not because of the oath, but because of this, sir, this» he said, slapping his chest with his hand – where his heart was. «That hypocritical oath is the damned reason why there are so few good doctors. They think that, just because you have recited a couple of lines, you may now have a permanently clear conscience. No sir, no sir.» catching sight of the inspectors expression, he let out a snort of laughter. «Don't let all of this fool you, Inspector. I was one of those hypocrites once, too. Unfortunately life does not give second chances.» he paused for a few seconds, wringing his wrinkled, chapped hands. «A week ago I was called to visit a poorhouse. A man was who was about to check himself out of there approached one of the workers and asked when he and his wife and children could move out. The worker told him he couldn't take his wife because they had buried her a month before.»
The doctor leaned back against the wall, and inhaled deeply. Behind one of the many doors, someone began to scream.
But the walls were thick enough to blot out any such disturbance. They were thick enough to stop anyone's voice from being heard outside this Bastille. They would stop anyone inside from hoping that the revolutionaries would be coming to overthrow the men who ran it, the men in fancy waistcoats, with golden pocket-watches. And had the inspector not long since learned to blot out the sounds that would make his mind a wreck?
«If you still think the hypocritical oath is any good for anyone, sir, I will tell you a story. It happens, also, that this story is about me. I don't come from a very rich family, so when I had finished my education, apart from accepting home calls, I worked in the Fleet Street Apothecary. I needed more money, you see, sir, my mother was dying at that time... »
The screaming stopped abruptly; whoever it was, they were either tired, or dead.
«One night, a woman came to me. A woman I recognized as the wife of a local barber. She was in the worst state, puffy face and eyes, hair in disarray...and she had reason to be like that, since her husband had been sent off on a false charge, she had been accused of prostitution and her child had been taken away from her...a daughter, I think, it was...well, as I said, she came to me, and very quietly told me that she had mice. In her house.»
The inspector shuddered, and thought of his wife. His wife and the way she had looked at him when she left. She hadn't cried. She hadn't looked sad. Only anger and condemnation, that was all he had detected in the last glimpse of her face.
«She said she had an infestation of mice, and that she needed some arsenic. I sold it to her. She handed me more money than I needed, and walked off without the change. If I didn't realise before, I should have realised it then. But I didn't stop her. I didn't even think on it.»
«So, what is wrong with that, doctor? You were doing your job.» That wasn't what he was thinking. He had long since learned to hide what he was thinking with a facility that was probably the reason his heart was still beating. Would he have sold her the poison? Probably. He had no right to judge this man. He, the inspector, was a hypocrite, like the rest. He had done many things which he now regretted.
«Later that night, I heard that she had poisoned herself.»
He had known, and yet, why was this a shock to him? Why did the hair rise on the back of his neck? It surprised him, for he had long since learned to accept everything with an impassiveness that was probably why he was still able to sleep at night.
«My job, you say, sir. My job. There we are, the famed, idealised, romanticized oath! Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Preserve human life! Respect it! And what did I do? I as good as killed that poor woman.» His voice was not loud, and yet in its calm, the inspector could hear unshed tears.
«It was not...»
«My fault? That is an easy way to excuse onself, is it not? I was a doctor, and – there, sir! That is why I call the hypocritical oath the hypocritical oath.» He sighed. «After that, I changed more jobs than I can count. I worked in poorhouses, boarding schools....»
He shook his head, pursing his lips together. «Good God, how many children died in my arms? How many people separated before my very eyes? I still remember how some women brought toys to an orphanage and the only children that even showed any reaction – a proper reaction of a child to a new toy – were those who had been in the workhouse for only a few days. I still remember the sick children's ward in the workhouse where some of them died in their sleep, embracing a tattered old doll...I will always remember that poor woman I will always blame myself for killing. I will remember my stupidity for not seeing the obvious in her eyes, for not realising...»
His sentence trailed off into the silence, and they sat, unspeaking, side by side. The silence stretched on, and inch by inch, the inspector's hand moved up. Finally, he placed it on the doctor's shoulder. He placed it there, knowing that it would be cold, not having touched for so many years; it would be cold, not having waved 'hello' in so long; it would be cold, not having held another since his wife had gone.
«Perhaps she would have killed herself anyhow, with or without your arsenic, doctor,» he said, his voice so gentle it surprised him, for he had long since learned to speak with a hardness that was probably the reason his life was an empty abyss. He had long since learned to shut everyone out with a persistence that was probably the reason he no longer even remembered how to smile. How to laugh. How to think what he, and not others, wanted to think.
«That does not matter. I am a doctor...» clearing his throat, he stood up, straightened his waistcoat and held his hand out to the inspector to shake. «I must be on my way, I'm afraid. Please excuse me, it was most pleasant to speak with you, sir.» He let go of the inspector's hand and started walking away, towards one of those grey doors. Doors of prison cells of this Bastille, marked with grey as a plague-ridden house's door was marked with blood.
«Wait, please, sir!» The doctor stopped and turned. The two men looked at each other, looked at each other across the grey corridor. The Inspector pressed his hands together. «Thank you,» he said. The doctor gave him a half-smile, and nodded. His hands behind his back, he turned on his heel and walked away.
As the inspector walked home, he thought of an opening sentence of a letter. A letter he thought he'd never have the courage to write. A leter in which he would tell her that he was sorry for marrying another woman under a different name. In which he'd tell her why he had been away every night, away from her and his son.
A letter in which he would tell her he loved her. Loved her, and the little boy with her hair and his eyes. In which he would say he could not take this game of pretence any longer. That he could not live without her. That he was sorry.
So sorry.