or assault. And why should he do this for Ming, when this impulsive act might keep him from success, and she had drifted so far from him that she had changed her phone number? His knees had gone from scabbed and scruffy to raw and oozing with bloody fringes.
Karl said, “One thing you learn in medicine is that wounds heal. Almost all bleeding stops with pressure.” He scrubbed hard, and Fitzgerald tensed his thigh. “Also, there’s some pain.”
He should drive his leg upward. It was Karl’s fault that Ming had learned to exclude, to be hard. Of course, it was Karl’s study system that had brought Ming to medical school and himself to this interview. But the method was irrelevant. To study was to work. To work was to make it one’s own. As he neared the decision to do it—to knee Karl in the jaw—Karl finished wrapping his knees in gauze with a rough flourish. Karl stood and the opportunity for violence was gone. Fitzgerald looked at Karl and said, “Ming taught me that the first eighty marks are easy to get, but you lose it on the last twenty, so you live your life for the last twenty. Bleeding must be the same. The few cases that don’t stop are the tough part, right?”
McCarthy said, “Before we discuss the management of hemorrhage, tell me about ‘knowledge acquisition.’ Is that what they call academics now? Like buying a house, or a hostile corporate takeover. How is it, Fitzgerald, that you ‘acquire’ knowledge?”
Fitzgerald told himself to turn away, to look away from Karl’s gaze. “Maybe ‘acquisition’ is not right, since that implies taking it away from someone else. I guess when you know something well enough that you can use it from the gut, and it affects the way you think, then it’s an idea that you own. ‘Ownership’ might be a better way to think of it.”
“Owning ideas is all about discipline?” asked Karl.
“Why don’t you get dressed,” said McCarthy. Fitzgerald was standing in his boxer shorts and dress shirt, his face and knees freshly wrapped in gauze. After Fitzgerald had dressed, McCarthy asked him what quality he felt was most important in a physician. Trust is most crucial, said Fitzgerald.
“In that case, what should I ask you in this interview, if I wanted to know whether I could trust you?” said McCarthy with a tight grin.
“Ask me anything, and I could make up something that would sound good,” said Fitzgerald. The interview continued for another half-hour. McCarthy bantered and Karl read questions from his sheet, sullen and cautious. At the end of the session McCarthy gave Fitzgerald sample tubes of cream for his abrasions and said, “I still don’t know if we can trust you.”
“The only way to find out is to let me in and see what happens.” He said it plainly, somewhat tired.
After the interview, Fitzgerald went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, ran his fingers through his hair. He got in the elevator and Karl caught the closing door, stepped in with him.
“We haven’t met,” said Karl. “I’m sure of it, so don’t tell me we have.”
“But I know you. Ming and I are close friends.”
“You want to know how you scored today, close friend?”
“No,” said Fitzgerald.
“I wouldn’t count on Toronto.” Karl stood directly in front of Fitzgerald, and behind him the elevator buttons flickered in sequence as they descended to the ground floor. “See, all it takes is one bad score—an exam, an essay, an interview—and you’re out. Bye-bye. McCarthy liked you, but I think you’ve got the wrong attitude. Besides, whatever you think you know about me, you don’t.”
The floor numbers progressed downward.
“Feeling pretty guilty, huh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but don’t count on Toronto.” Karl turned away from Fitzgerald and gazed at the elevator door, leaning back on the railing.
Fitzgerald stepped in front of Karl, faced him. “Does the surgery program director know about your teaching experience, about how you got your start in tutoring?” They were at the fourth, then the third floor. “Imagine the embarrassment if there was some reason you couldn’t be left alone with kids, perhaps needed special supervision during your pediatric surgery rotation. It’s terrible how people talk.”
Second floor, then ground level. The door rumbled open slowly, an old elevator.
“How’d I do?” said Fitzgerald, putting his arm across the elevator door. “That interview score. How’d I perform?”
Karl raised the aluminum clipboard as if about to hit Fitzgerald with it, but instead pointed its corner between Fitzgerald’s eyes and said, “If you end up in Toronto, just remember that someone will see your mistakes.”
Fitzgerald moved his arm, allowed Karl to pass, and watched him disappear around the corner.
An hour later, standing on the Dundas subway platform, Fitzgerald removed his tie. His sports jacket was constrictive and lumpy under his winter coat. He rolled the tie carefully and pushed it into an outside pocket of his coat. He rode the subway to Summerhill station, stepped off the train, and stood on the platform as people walked past him. He sat on a plastic bench that looked like a square mushroom, pushed his hands deep into his coat pockets, and watched two more trains arrive and depart. The three tones of the bell sang out before the doors whooshed shut and the second train hurtled away with a rising clatter. Fitzgerald climbed the tiled stairs to the exit and clanked through the turnstile. Outside, the cold air felt like morning water. He was afraid. His breath steamed around him as he walked.
First, he buzzed.
He tried Ming’s apartment twice.
The screen said No Answer. It was four-thirty-five in the afternoon. He rang again, punched the numbers on the keypad with a determination he hoped would make her appear. The transmitted electronic bleeping continued until the screen flashed No Answer again.
From his inner jacket pocket, Fitzgerald removed the keys. He opened the front door, went up the elevator, and his feet were light and fast as he walked down the hallway to Ming’s door.
He knocked using his fingers, making a short little rhythm.
Silence.
He knocked again, rapped with his knuckles.
Still quiet.
The tip of the key trembled as he tried to bring it to the lock, and then with two hands he steadied and pushed the toothed key into its slot. It went in easily, without jamming or catching. He turned it. It turned smoothly, a soft click. She had not changed the lock.
He opened the door and called out, “Hello?”
No one.
Again, “Ming? It’s me.”
Quiet.
When he had last seen the apartment, it had been almost bare—furnished by her parents with one station-wagon load of prefabricated Swedish furniture and three brush-painted scrolls. Now, Ming had settled in. There were sandals and a single black pump in the hallway. In the kitchen, oven mitts that were supposed to look like slices of watermelon hung from a drawer knob. Medical pathology
