The Burden of Proof (26 page)

And would he have answered if Peter had? Stern, pointed by his son to a small upholstered chair, settled in it with a certain morose heaviness.

No, he would not have. Somewhere in Stern's heart there was a perfect Peter, the son whom every man wanted, full of ready unspeaking sympathies, and inclinations in all matters of consequence exactly like his father's. But this figure was no more than a shadow, so removed from every day that he did not even have an imagined form. Stern dealt with the real man as best he could. He respected Peter's abilities; he was bright-always the star student--and meanly Clever. Like the women, Stern was willing to call on Peter when he was in need. But he was unwilling--unable--to yield something in return.

That was the truth. Have it. Peter reacted; Stern sat like a stone. It was all as it would ever be.

"Is it something else with Mom's will?"

"No," said Stern. He could hear the impatience in his voice, but Peter virtually demanded that his father state his business. Here, the dispenser of treatment and knowledge, his son was sovereign. This was clearly an unwelcome invasion.

"There are questions, Peter, which I need to put to someone. I mast your discretion."

"Medical questions, you mean?" As he asked, Peter moved behind his desk, the dashing young doctor, with his centerparted hair and long white coat. Even considering Kate, it was possible that Peter was the best-looking of the children. He appeared to be in peak physical condition, razor-thin and athletic.

"Yes. Medical questions. Technical questions."

"What happened to Nate?"

A reasonable inquiry. Stern himself had spent the weekend phoning Nate, who remained the first choice as medical adviser. But Dr. Cawley's personal life appeared to have rendered him as unreliable as a teenager, and Stern had tired of leaving messages.

"This is a matter with a contemporary flavor, Peter. I presumed that I could bother you. If another time would be preferable--"

Peter waved off the suggestion. "I was just wondering. So what is it?"

Stern felt his mouth drawing, preconsciously. 'Various cycles of discomfort started up in different regions of his body. Yet he was determined to proceed. The fact was he required information, not just to feed a grisly appetite for knowledge, but also because it had dawned on him over the weekend that his own well'being might be in doubt.

There were other physicians he knew. But it was hard to single out just anyone for questions of this nature. And in the end the most villainous side of his character was awakened by his son, especially in regard to his relations with his mother. Rationally, Stern could not brook any real suspicions. Never mind Clara Stern. He had lost, sometime last Friday, any authority to predict her behavior. But no woman of Clara's social class, of her experience or temperamental reserve, no mother could have turned to her son for treatment of a problem of this nature.

But here Stern sat, nonetheless, eager, among other things, to dash any final doubts.

"I wish information."

"For yourself?."

"I am asking the questions."

"I see that."

"Take it that I am inquiring in behalf of someone with a need to know."

Peter, as was generally the case with his father, wore his emotions visibly. He puckered up his mouth sourly to indicate he found this delicacy stupid. Stern, as usual, said no more. He meant simply to follow that tack, suggesting that a troubled client needed these answers. Assunting his son was uninvolved, Stern would never mention Clara--for Peter's sake as well as his own. In prospect, he foresaw this meeting very much like the encounter with a critical witness--one of those daring tightrope walks of courtroom life, exposing the witness's ugliest misconduct without giving the remotest hint that his client had shared in the behavior.

"Peter, does your practice make you familiar with the full variety of--"

What word? "In my day, the phrase was venereal disease, but I believe that is no longer popular terminology.""

"Sexually transmitted diseases," said Peter. "Just so," said Stern.

"Which one?"

"Herpes," said Stern. Somehow, as this discussion had begun, 'Peter's aspect had changed. He had reverted to his role as clinician. He sat up straight in his chair, his brow compressed, his expression somber.

Now, with the word, his calculations seemed far more intricate. His hands remained folded with doctorly exactness, but his eyes rolled through changes of color like the sea, so that Stern had the fleeting intuition that his suspicions were well placed, after all. "This is a subject in which you are versed?"

"i'm versed," said Peter. "What's the problem?"

"If one is exposed," said Stern. "Yes," said his son.

"How long before the disease appearS?"

:Peter waited.

"Look, Dad. This is not the kind of thing you screw around with. Do you think you have herpes?"

Stern attempted to remain impassive, but within he felt some failing motion--like the fluttering of wings. With his brooding days, his tortured emotions, he had failed to estimate accurately what would transpire here. With Peter staring him down, that was only too obvious now. They knew each other .too well. Peter had recognized, naturally, instantly that his father was the party in interest--and like any doctor, any son, had predictable concerns. If he was shocked, it was only because his mother was barely two months dead and the paterfamilias was here, already asking for a full scouting report on the wages of sin.

The atmosphere of charged discomfort slowly increased between them, while Stern gradually realized that if worst came to worst he would have no choice but to further his son's misimpressions. Meanwhile, he tried once again to steer the conversation onto more neutral ground.

"The facts which concern me, Peter, are basic. A woman is infected. A man is with her. I merely wish to know what the prospects are that he, too, will contract the disease."

"Look, that's too vague," Peter said, and once more considered his father. "Let's talk about a person, okay?

This person. How does he know there's a problem?"

"Assume the proof is positive. She has been tested."

"Tested. I see." Peter stopped for quite some time. "And you're informed?" Peter shook his head. "He's informed?"

"Just so."

"By this woman?" From Peter's tone, it was clear that he envisaged some wanton courtesan.

"As I say, assume an authoritative report."

"Right," said Peter. "And she's active at the time of contact? The virus is shedding?"

"Meaning?"

"Florid signs of the illness. Lesions. Blisters. Ulcers. A rash."

Stern, in spite of himself, recoiled somewhat. He had noticed nothing like that. But by now he had realized it was no accident that he could not recall his last encounters with Clara.

"I am afraid that my information is not that exact, Peter."

"Can you ask?"

"I would think not."

"You would think not?" Peter peered at his father. This imaginary assignation, Stern recognized, was beginning to sound as if it had taken place in an alley. Peter, disquieted, looked down to his folded hands.

"The disease is only communicated by direct skin-to-skin contact with someone who is actively infected, or prodromal--that is, about to begin.

Onset of the infection is two to twenty days from contact. Far more frequently, within the first week. If you get it. Some people are effectively immune. If you're beyond those periods, without symptoms, you're probably all right. Probably," his son repeated.

"I see," said Stern. Peter was watching carefully to see how this news affected him. "And if one is infected, how long does it last?"

"The initial efflorescence is usually three to six weeks at the outside.

But this is one of those viral infections that can come back. I'm sure you've heard that. It's usually seven to ten days on recurrence."

"And how, Peter, does one know if he is infected?"

"Well, the first thing you do is look."

"For what?" asked Stern.

Peter rested his hand on his chin, with his sour expression. At last, he stood up from behind his desk and closed the door. Then he pointed at his father. "Take down your trousers."

"Peter--"

"Fuck this nonsense. Stand up. Let's go." He was far too positive to allow any quarreling. Somehow, Stern was struck, either in irony or longing, by the recollection of the way he had foreseen this meeting, with himself in complete control.

"Peter," he said weakly again.

,,Chop-chop." Peter clapped his hands. He was disinterested and positive. His eyes were already lowered to Stern's belt line.

As a moment, it passed without incident. Body things, as he was learning, had an intense factitiousness about them, an irreducibility.

Peter dropped to one knee and removed a slender flashlight from his pocket. He gave instructions like a dance instructor. Left, right.

Pull this, pull that.

His bedside manner was entirely antiseptic, his look of scrutiny intense and pure.

"Any irritation?"

"No."

"Burning at any time?"

"None."

"Any functional problems of any kind? Urination? Emission?"

Stern decided to forgo remarks about the problems of age.

He answered no.

"Any kind of discharge?"

"None."

' :Swelling."

! wish. "No."

Peter touched him once, precisely and momentarily, in the groin, probing his lymph glands.

The examination ended after Stern stood with his organ extended like a fish by the tail, dorsal side facing, and Peter ran his light the length of the limp column and over the scrotum.

"You look clean," he stated and motioned for Stern to .recover himself.

Then he added, "Hold on a sec." He slipped out the door discreetly, then returned with a small :plastic beaker. "I'd like a specimen," he said.

Stern objected. Was this necessary?

"It's a good idea, Pa. There are occasions, rare ones, where patients, particularly males, can contract HSV-2 without the usual symptoms. You could go walking around with an infection in the prostate or urinary tract, and end .up spreading it." Peter looked at him pointedly, then added that he also wanted to draw blood for something called a serum vital titer test, in which his father's present antibody levels could be compared with those in five or six weeks, to ensure there had been no infection.

"Is all this necessary?" Stern asked again.

Peter simply pointed to the small john down' the hall.

Stern went, as directed. He stood in the tiny room, petting his organ for stimulation, experiencing the usual difficulty -of performing on command. Immediately outside the door, two nurses gabbed about a patient.

Was Peter gay? The question, afamiliar One, struck like lightning, timed to arrive, as usual, so that it would inspire maximum discomfort.

Nevertheless, there was no putting off the thought. The young man was thirty years old; and his sisters and mother had always seemed to be the only women in his life. He had never had a live-in girlfriend; indeed, when his parents saw him he rarely, if ever, had a female companion.

That did not mean much. Who willingly exposed an outsider to the neurotic fun house of his family? Nonetheless, Stern, at moments, saw what in an amateurish and bigoted fashion he took for signs: Peter's close attachment to his mother. A certain prissiness. Well, even this speculation was vicious. And, if for no one else, inappropriate from a parent. The fact was--and here at last was the truth with its contained explosive effect, like a charge set off in a strongbox--that the thought always managed to please Stern vaguely. It would be a permanent advantage. It would serve Peter right. Stern, with little consciousness, shook his head while this river of resentment poured forth. Today in this smelly closed space the clarity of his ill feelings was bleakly, unremittingly sad.

Back in Peter's consultation room, his son waited with an elastic strap and a syringe. After the beaker was relegated to a nurse, Peter knelt beside his father and inserted the needle. In the meantime, Stern gathered himself for another question he knew was required.

"I take it this is the kind of matter which ought to be shared with partners?"

When Stern looked back, his son's mouth was parted and his eyes were widened. Unable to master his own pretense, Stern had not thought about the impression this question would make. There was woman number one who had the problem. Now he was speaking of other partners--using the plural. It had been quite a couple of months.

"It would probably be advisable," Peter said at last.

"Overall. If the blood work would be quicker, I'd say that you could save yourself the embarrassment. But five, six weeks." Peter shook his head. "You'd better say something, just in case. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, you're fine. But if something were to show up, you'd want them to know what it is."

"! see." Well, the Lord only knew what Margy had heard in her time, but the thought of informing her still made Stern shudder. He would never explain the true circumstances to her any more than to anyone else. It would appear to her 'to be another example of the bad faith men were always capable of. "And I take it, for the present you recommend abstinence?" he asked almost hopefully. He had resolved over the weekend to revert to ret'nment.