“No, of course not,” said Bastiaan. “And he didn’t take it well. He looked at me as if I was playing some crazy practical joke on him, then he started shaking, visibly shaking, and asked me for some water. I went out to get some and when I came back he’d taken his file off my desk and was reading through it like a madman. Not that he would have been able to understand a word of it, of course, he wasn’t a doctor, but it was as if he wanted to prove to me that I was wrong. I took the file back and handed him his water but his hands were trembling so badly that he spilled it all over himself when he tried to drink it. When I finally calmed him down, he told me that there was no way I could be right in my diagnosis and he wanted a second opinion. You can have one, of course, I told him, but it’s not going to change anything. There are very specific tests in place today for how we identify the virus and there’s simply no doubt about it whatsoever. I’m very sorry.”
I shook my head in sympathy and as I glanced around I noticed that the people at the table next to ours were watching us with disgusted expressions on their faces. I caught the eyes of one of the men—he was well into his fifties, bald and obese with an enormous steak bleeding onto the plate before him—and he simply stared back at me with utter loathing before turning back to his friends.
“Despite all this,” continued Bastiaan, “Patient 741 was still not willing to accept the truth. He wanted to know who the best doctor in the field was, where was the best hospital; he insisted that someone must be able to help him. That someone would be able to prove me wrong. But Doctor, he said leaning forward and taking me by the shoulders as if he wanted to shake some sense into me, I can’t possibly have that disease. Do I look like a queer? I’m normal, for Christ’s sake!”
“You see?” said Courteney, sitting back and throwing her hands in the air. “No education. No understanding at all.”
“And did he come to terms with it in time?” I asked.
“Well, he had to,” said Bastiaan, reaching across and taking my hand for a moment and squeezing it. Despite how close we were with Alex and Courteney, there was still a moment where I noticed how their eyes glanced toward our hands and they seemed a little embarrassed by our physical affection. “He had no choice. When I told him that he would have to contact all the women he’d been intimate with and tell them that they needed to get tested too, he said that he didn’t even know the names of half the women he’d slept with in the last year, let alone their phone numbers. Then he said he wanted a blood transfusion. Take all my blood out and replace it with good blood, he said, but I told him that was ridiculous, that it didn’t work like that. But I’m not fucking gay! he kept insisting.”
“And where is he now?” I asked.
“At Mount Sinai,” said Bastiaan. “He doesn’t have long left. He was admitted a few weeks ago and it’s only a matter of time at this point. In the end I had to call security. He started to lose his mind. Came around to my side of the desk, pinned me up against the wall—”
“He did what?” I asked.
“He pinned me up against the wall. He said he knew that I was a dirty faggot too and that I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near patients, that I was probably infecting them one by one.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” said Courteney.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
“No. Look, this was a year ago anyway. And I was bigger than him. And stronger. I could have taken him down if I’d needed to, but I was able to control the situation, to calm him down, to make him realize that his anger would not help. Finally, he backed off and that’s when he just crumbled and started to cry. Jesus Christ, he said. What will they say at home? What will they think of me?”
“Where was home?” asked Courteney.
Bastiaan hesitated for a moment and turned to me. “Well, that’s the thing,” he said. “He was Irish.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “I haven’t even kept up with what’s going on over there. Do people have AIDS in Ireland too?”
“People have it everywhere, Cyril,” said Alex. “Probably on a much smaller scale, but there’s bound to be a few cases.”
“So why didn’t he go home to die?” I asked. “Why stay in America?”
“He said he didn’t want his family to know. That he’d rather die alone here than tell them the truth.”
“You see?” I said. “That country never fucking changes. Better to cover it all up than to face up to the realities of life.”
I looked up as the waiter came over to the table and stood before us, smiling nervously. He had enormous bouffant hair and was wearing a leather waistcoat with no shirt underneath, revealing a hirsute chest, and looked as if he belonged on stage with the rest of Bon Jovi.
“How was your dinner?” he asked, and before we could reply his expression grew noticeably anxious. “I’ll just leave this here for you for whenever you’re ready,” he said, laying a small silver tray on the table and turning around to walk away.
“What’s that for?” asked Alex, summoning him back. “No one asked for the check.”
“I’m afraid we need this table,” said the waiter, glancing toward our neighbors for a moment. “We didn’t expect you to stay this long.”
“We haven’t even been here an hour,” I said.
“And we haven’t had dessert or coffee yet,” said Courteney.
“I can give you some coffee to go if you like?”
“We don’t want coffee to go!” she snapped. “Jesus Christ!”
“Just take the check back and we’ll order something else when we’re ready,” said Bastiaan.
“I can’t do that, sir,” said the waiter, looking around for reinforcements, and I noticed a couple of his colleagues gathered near the bar area watching what was going on. “This table is reserved for another party.”
“Well, where are they?” I asked, looking around.
“They’re not here yet. But they’re on their way.”
“I can count at least four empty tables,” said Courteney. “Seat them at one of those.”
“They specifically requested this table,” said the waiter.
“Then it’s hard luck,” said Alex. “Because we were here first.”
“Please,” said the waiter, looking at our neighbors again, who were watching with smiles on their faces. “Don’t make a scene. We have the other diners to think about.”
“What’s going on here exactly?” said Bastiaan, throwing his napkin down on the table and growing angry now. “Are you throwing us out, is that what’s going on here? Why? What have we done?”
“We’ve had some complaints,” said the waiter.
“About what?” I asked, completely baffled.
“Why don’t you just do what the man says and get the hell out of here,” came a voice from the next table, and we looked over at the man with the steak who was staring at us in disgust. “We’re trying to have a nice dinner and all we can hear from you people is a lot of talk about that queer disease. If one of you has it, then you shouldn’t be in a restaurant anyway.”
“None of us has it, you moron,” said Courteney, turning on him. “These two are doctors. They treat victims of AIDS.”
“I think you misunderstand the meaning of the word victim,” said one of the women. “You’re not a victim if you’re asking for it in the first place.”
“What the fuck?” I said, looking around, half-amused and half-shocked by what I was hearing.
“Waiter, you need to throw away all their plates and cutlery,” said the man. “No one else should have to eat off them after these people. And wear gloves, I advise you.”
It took just a moment for Bastiaan to be on his feet and marching over to their table. The waiter stepped back in fright and Alex jumped up, as did I, uncertain what to do at a moment like this.