“She has a natural and quite astounding talent for pediatric and obstetric medicine,” she told her husband. He was a slender white-bearded man with a serious but kind demeanor. Gently he took Sophie’s hands in his own and smiled at her as he examined them.
“You must forgive Mary,” he had said in his heavy German accent. “She is always on the lookout for talent to nurture, but her approach can be abrupt. Now that she has brought you home you must sit and tell me about your studies.”
Sophie didn’t know if Abraham Jacobi’s acceptance and support of female physicians was a consequence of his marriage, or if it had won his wife over in the first place. What she did know was that he was one of the few male doctors who welcomed women into his lecture hall, and Sophie had learned a great deal from him even before she was introduced. She still called on the Jacobis regularly, and might have sat next to Mary if there had been space for herself and Anna.
Her cousin sat in an uncharacteristic and almost moody silence, filled with a thrumming tension. Sophie put a hand over Anna’s folded fingers and pressed. There was reason to be worried, and to claim otherwise would not help.
A small commotion near the door had heads turning to see Comstock coming in, flanked by his colleagues from the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Young Men’s Christian Association. They marched through the room to take the seats reserved for the prosecution, all of them dressed as Comstock was in somber black wool, identical hats tucked under their arms, all of them with mustaches and beards that shone with pomade. Sophie’s dislike of these men was so extreme that she felt it like a mass in her throat.
Anna roused herself a little, her brow furrowing as if she were remembering some crucial task left undone.
Sophie wondered if she was going to finally talk to her about Cap. This morning she had planned to draw Anna aside to get whatever news there might be to share, but for once Anna had risen first. She was already in the kitchen when Sophie finally roused, deep in conversation with Margaret and Mrs. Lee, who had had a never-ending list of questions and an even longer list of grievances, because Anna had failed to observe the very things they most wanted to hear about the costume ball. Sophie would have been amused, under different circumstances.
Cap was dashing, Anna had told them. His costume was something Spanish dancers wore for a formal performance; he had had it made in Spain when he visited a few years ago, very elegant and understated and emphasizing his long, wiry form. His spirits were good; he had laughed at the outrageous stories told by his cousins; she even recounted one of the stories herself, something to do with a goose, the color of goose shit, and Mrs. Decker’s treasured Aubusson rug. Anna described the more ridiculous costumes, answered endless questions about the house, the draperies, the carpets, the furniture and fireplaces and pictures and sculptures. She recounted the names of all the friends who had stopped to visit with Cap, what costumes they wore, and all the conversations she could remember. She did not say, did not need to say that Cap had kept himself apart, touched nothing and no one, permitted no one to come near, and wore his gloves all night. Nor did she talk about his health, the one thing Sophie wanted most to hear.
Instead Anna recollected quite suddenly that she had patients to see, and she was off. Sophie didn’t see her again until she arrived at the front entrance to the Tombs at just before two in the afternoon, and they walked together into the courtroom. She would have to wait until Anna was ready to talk, as difficult as that was to do.
With some effort she pulled her thoughts together and turned to her cousin.
“You are very far away in your thoughts. Difficult case?”
Anna frowned extravagantly. “I have to say, that’s not the question I was expecting.”
“But I would like to know, nevertheless.”
“A new mother came in this morning, she can’t be more than fifteen. Stillbirth, and I think she might have been unattended. That she didn’t die is a mystery. One of the worst fistulas I’ve ever seen, severe damage to the bladder and urethra.”
Tearing was not uncommon when a young girl, slight of frame and undernourished, gave birth unattended to a child of even normal size. In such cases patients were often in such extreme pain that they had to be anesthetized before it was even possible to examine them.
“But at least there wasn’t a delay,” Sophie said. As bad as an obstetric fistula could be, women often didn’t come for treatment out of shame and embarrassment. They hid themselves away, as unwelcome as lepers in their own homes, swallowing agony until infection had turned into peritonitis and there was nothing to be done.
“Three hours in surgery,” Anna said. “And I’ll have to go in again. Tomorrow, if she’s strong enough. I fear she won’t last that long.”
She turned toward Sophie; her gaze was diagnosis sharp. “I wish you’d just go ahead and ask what you really want to know.”
“And I wish you’d just go ahead and tell.”