A House Like A Lotus Part 6

'Weren't you prying about Renny?' I countered.

'At my age, prying is permissible. Not at yours. Please treat me with the respect I deserve.'

Ursula put her journal down and stood up, stretching. 'I'm off to finish up in the kitchen.'

'Need any help?' I asked.

'No thanks, Pol. Nettie and Ovid already think I'm displacing them. I do try not to hurt their feelings, and I'm more than grateful to have them wash up. It's a dream of a kitchen, and cooking has always been therapy for me.'

At Beau Allaire it wasn't always easy to remember that Urs was at the top of her profession. She seemed to enjoy acting the housekeeper.

'I take outrageous advantage of Urs,' Max said, as the doctor shut the library door. 'But she doesn't have to let me.'

'Well, she loves you.'

'So, are you going to see Renny again?'

'Yup.'

'When?'

'He's not on call on Thursday. We're getting together.'

'He's coming to the Island for dinner again?'

'No. I'm going out with him.'

This seemed to please Max. And that surprised me. Max did not strike me as the matchmaking type.

Ursula came in with a decanter of sherry and said she'd fixed a good French peasant stew for dinner and it could sit on the back of the stove till wewere ready. 'Like Nettie and Ovid, I tend to ignore the electric stove and use the old wood-and-coal one. I suppose I'll be 65.grateful for the electric stove come summer.' She poured a small gla.s.s of sherry for Max, half gla.s.ses for herself and for me, and put the crystal stopper back in the decanter. 'You're good to spend so much time with us, Polly.'

'Good! You've rescued me! You've no idea how lonely I've been.'

'I do,' Max said. 'I grew up at Beau Allaire. I, too, went to school in Cowpertown. You were probably luckier on your Portuguese island, where you were the only Americans, the only Europeans, really, and had to make your own company.'

I nodded. 'I was lots less lonely than I am here. It's not the island-I love Benne Seed.'

'Too bad you and Kate don't hit it off better. M.A. and I made life under the Spanish moss bearable for each other.'

'Kate and Xan are the ones who get along. And Kate's wildly popular at school.'

'You're not?' Ursula's voice was gentle.

'I think the other kids think I'm weird.'

'You're brighter than they are,' Max said, 'and that's threatening.'

'A couple of guys in my grade killed a tortoise the other day,' I said, feeling sick all over again. 'I mean deliberately, and I could have killed them. I wanted to, it was awful, but then I realized that the tortoise was already half dead so it was better to let them finish the job, and everybody laughed because I was making such a case of it.'

'Kate and Xan, too?' Ursula asked.

'They weren't there. Xan would have stopped them.'

Ursula spoke rea.s.suringly. 'Don't worry, Polly. You'll have friends, too, even if you have to wait till you get to 66.college and meet more people. You're friend material, and once you have friends you'll keep them for life.'

Renny had borrowed a motorboat from one of the doctors, which saved us nearly an hour. He took me to a Greek restaurant, Petros', near the dock, which shared a run-down sort of boardwalk with a seafood restaurant.

Renny and I sat in a booth and he told me about his special field, tropical medicine, especially in South America.

That surprised me. I looked at Renny sitting across from me, and there was something solid about him. His blue-grey eyes behind the thick lenses were amused. 'I inherited the Renier myopia,' he said. He'd have been good casting for a young doctor on a soap opera. If I'd been asked to guess what he was going to specialize in, I'd have said orthopedics, or maybe general surgery.

No. South American amoebas and parasites.

'What about India?' I asked, because I've always wanted to go to India.

'Aren't there vast quant.i.ties of amoebas and parasites there?'

'Yes, but I'm particularly interested in some parasites which are found largely in South America. They get into the bloodstream, and-to try to simplify a long procedure -eventually invade the heart.'

'Doesn't sound nice.'

'Isn't. The parasite Trypanosoma enters the body usually through the bite of an insect. There are two types of Trypanosoma problems I'm interested in-Chagas'

disease and Nelson's. Nelson's disease is even more lethal than Chagas', particularly to someone with no immuni- 67 /.

ties. When it gets to the heart, ultimately it kills, and thus far we don't have any successful treatment. More important than treatment is finding a means of prevention.'

'Hey. Is there any of this disease around here?'

'No, no, don't worry. So far, it's found almost exclusively in South America.

None indigenous to North America.'

Behind Renny was a large poster of the Acropolis, the Parthenon prominent.

Despite the Greek decor, the menu was Italian. But I had no idea, that first pizza with Renny, that I'd ever be going to Greece.

'So how come you're interning at M. A. Horne in Cowpertown if you're so interested in South American diseases?'

'Because Bart Netson's on the staff of M. A. Horne. He's my immediate boss.'

When I looked totally surprised, he grinned. 'I have the feeling you suspected that M. A. Horne was at the bottom of my list when I applied to hospitals.'

I could feel myself flus.h.i.+ng. I had once again jumped to conclusions. I had judged Renny quickly and unfairly. 'Offhand, a small general hospital off the beaten track doesn't sound like a number-one choice. I didn't know about this Nelson or his disease. Why is he at M. A. Horne?'

Renny laughed, a nice, hearty laugh. 'He was born in Charleston but spent most of his childhood in Argentina because his father was in foreign service. He came back to Charleston to medical school and married an Allaire. He spends a couple of months each year in South America doing research. He's published a lot of good material, probably the best in the field of tropical medicine, and it's prestigious for M. A. Horne to have 68.him. They're heavily enough endowed to give him pretty much whatever he wants.'

'So he's a sort of cousin of Max's?'

'Has to be. Her mother was an Allaire.' He cut two more slices of pizza and put one, dripping cheese, on my plate. 'Polly? If I go on riding my hobbyhorse, we'll miss the movie.'

'That's okay. I'd rather talk.'

He looked eager. 'Sure?'

'Sure. I'm interested. I wouldn't think you'd have many patients coming into M.

A. Horne with South American diseases.'

'You'd be surprised.' He took a large bite of pizza and a swig of milk. 'With the continuing flood of refugees from South American countries, some of them coming in via Cuba and Florida and filtering up through Georgia, we get quite a few. And because of Bart Netson, their problem is recognized more quickly than in other places. For instance, a mild case of conjunctivitis plus a fluctuating fever isn't usually equated with a parasite.'

'Conjunctivitis? You mean pinkeye?'

'The vector-the biting insect-often bites the face at the mucocutaneous junction-'

'Translate.'

'The lip, or the outer canthus of the eye.'

'How'd you get involved?' It did seem an odd choice for a perfect Southern-gentleman type like Queron Renier.

'I spent a couple of summers working in a clinic in Santiago. Eventually, I want to go back.'

'Like a missionary?'

He shook his head. 'To do research. A lot of good medicine has, in fact, come from medical missionaries who give their lives to help people n.o.body else gives a 69 /.

hoot about-millions of people worn down and living half lives.'

'So how'd you get to Chile and this clinic?'

He looked over my head at one of the Greek posters. 'I met a girl from Santiago while I was in college. Jacinta was over here taking pre-med courses and stayed on for medical school. It was through her I got the summer jobs in Chile.'

'You were in love with her?' He nodded. 'And vice versa?'

A shadow crossed his face. 'To some extent. But there wasn't any future for us.'

'Why not?'

'For one thing, Jacinta was Roman Catholic.'

'Would that really matter?'

'To her, yes. And she came from a big Chilean family, and she was engaged to someone there. They still arrange marriages.'

'She sounds like an independent type. Why'd she accept it?'

'Who knows? Maybe she liked the guy. Maybe he had enough money for her clinic.'

'And you don't want me to ask you any more questions about her.'

'It's okay,' Renny said. 'I've pretty well got her out of my system.'

'But you're still into tropical medicine.'

'Yeah. I guess I'm grateful to her for that. I really am fascinated by it.'

And he was still bruised over the Chilean girl.

'Jacinta's interning in Louisiana,' he said. 'I might b.u.mp into her if I ever get back to Chile. But she'll be married by then. They make good baklava here.

Want some?'

70.'Too sweet. You go ahead.'

After we finished eating, he drove back to the dock and we got into the motorboat. About halfway to the Island, he cut the motor and kissed me, which Kate had given me to understand was mandatory, whether the guy really liked you or not. I hoped that Renny liked me. He kissed nicely.

'I'm glad your friend made me call you,' he said.

That was Renny, and I liked him, as the older brother I'd always wanted, even if I got a little tired of tropical medicine. And maybe I was helpful to him in getting his Chilean girl out of his system.

The view of the Acropolis from the balcony at the King George was very like the poster at Petros' in Cow- pertown. I took longer over breakfast than I'd expected, looking out at the view, reading hits from the book on Epidaurus (Sandy would expect me to have done my homework), relaxing in the warm morning sunlight.

So I had to dress in a hurry to get down to the lobby by ten. Not difficult.

I.

don't have a large wardrobe to choose from, unlike Kate, who could barely get all her clothes plus herself into her room at Benne Seed. Well, Kate's an Only, and if I had that many clothes I'd have a terrible time deciding what to wear.

I put on a blue-and-white seersucker dress and my sandals and was ready when Zachary pulled up in a diesel taxi with flames coming out the tail pipe. I remember thinking the car was on fire when I first saw a diesel taxi in Lisbon.

I felt simultaneously warm with excitement and frozen with shyness as I sat by this extremely handsome young 71.man on the drive to the Hilton. Zachary did the talking, so I didn't have to worry about what to say. "And listen, Red"-as we drew up to the Hilton-"uh-Pol-about coming up to my room-it's perfectly okay-I mean, I'm not going to try anything or anything like that. So just relax."

His room was on the eleventh floor of the Hilton, "in the best curve of the building," he told me as we went up in a very swift elevator. He led me through his room and right out onto the balcony, and I caught my breath in awe and delight. He had a view not only of the strange, flat-topped hill with the Parthenon but also a wide vista of the harbor at Piraeus, with the Aegean Sea to the left. And there was a high, stony mountain rising out of cypress trees, topped with a stone belfry, and then a large, white building, probably a monastery. It was far more spectacular than the view from the King George, or the poster at Petros'.

I had let my breath out in what was almost shock at the vast sweep of gloriousness. He gave me a proprietary smile. "Told you it would wow you."

It did. But the funny thing was that despite the staggering magnificence of the view, I liked my old hotel better than the Hilton.

As though reading my thoughts, Zachary waved toward the room. "The decor is pure Hilton, and a Hilton is a Hilton is a Hilton. However, my pa has connections, and the view redeems it. And the bathroom is European, black marble, with a tub made for people who prefer baths to showers."

"Like me," I said.

"I can't start the day without a shower. Okay, what now?"

"The Acropolis, please, if you haven't been there too many times."

72."The Acropolis, pretty Pol, can't be visited too many times. We'll just grab a cab."