Chapter VI: Dr. Zerneke

HE went to a telephone booth. He did not need to look in the book: Dr. Zerneke’s phone number was fixed in his mind.

A girl’s voice answered the telephone. He gave his name.

“Yes, Mr. Overbeck,” said the girl. “Dr. Zerneke is expecting you. Can you come right over?”

“I’ll be there immediately,” he said.

The taxi stopped in front of an apartment building on the North Side. The name, Dr. Martha Zerneke, was on a plaque in one of the front windows. He rang the bell, and a young woman admitted him.

He gave his name.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Just wait in here a moment, please.”

She opened the door of the reception room, and went back to her desk.

He began to wonder why he had come. He ought to leave this part of it to Gilbert!

There were three women in the room. One by one they were called into an inner office by the office nurse.

Then it was his turn.

As he walked across the room, his mind whirled. But part of his mind didn’t care. He would know the whole truth, now.

A small dark woman seated at a desk rose and held out her hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Overbeck.”

“Dr. Zerneke?”

“Yes. You received my letter?”

“You asked me to come to see you.”

“It is very good of you to come. Sit down, please.”

Norman took the chair at the corner of the desk.

“My letter,” said Dr. Zerneke, “wasn’t very explicit, I’m afraid. But possibly you guessed something of its meaning. If you didn’t, I can make the situation clear to you.”

Norman had an impulse to delay matters, by pretending ignorance. If he had not talked with old Gilbert--if he had not met Springer--if he had walked in here unsuspectingly--what would she have said? She had offered just now to make the situation clear to him.

“Please do explain,” he said.

“I’m sorry if my letter appeared unduly mysterious, Mr. Overbeck. You’ll understand in a moment why I felt obliged to write as I did. The fact is that I need your assistance in a small technical matter.”

So that, thought Norman, was how she would have begun!

“You said, I believe,” he remarked, still keeping to his rôle of ignorance, “that it was of personal interest to me.”

“Yes,” she answered, “sufficiently so that I feel sure you will go to some little trouble to oblige us in the matter.”

“I should be glad to do anything I can,” he said. This, at least, was a way of postponing the inevitable for a few moments. He felt like a shipwrecked man who is holding to a plank and keeping his head above water while in the distance a great wave is sweeping down upon him. And at the same time he felt strangely calm.

“I am confident that you will, when I explain,” said the doctor. “Your name has been given me by one of my patients under circumstances which oblige me to ask for your assistance and coöperation. The matter is a little unusual: that is why I go at it in this somewhat elaborate manner. And because of its character, I think I ought to begin by assuring you that the question of money is not involved. I want to make that plain first of all.”

“I see,” said Norman.

“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now as to my patient. A year ago, Mr. Overbeck, if I am rightly informed, you were going to law school at Harvard.”

“Yes,” he said. The great wave hung overhead, about to fall.

“At that time you were acquainted with a girl named Isabel Drury. Recently she has come under my care, and--”

Enough of this farce of ignorance!

“I know,” said Norman, “she has had a baby.”

“Oh--you know that?”

“It’s true, then!”

“Yes. And for certain reasons, Mr. Overbeck--”

“It’s--alive?”

“Oh, yes.”

“A--a boy or girl?”

“A boy. And for certain reason which I’ll explain in a moment, it is desirable to have a record of the paternity in these cases. It is for this purpose only, that Miss Drury has consented to allow me to communicate with you.”

“Tell me,” said Norman impatiently, “when did it happen?”

“What? Oh, the baby was born eleven days ago.--The matter,” she went on, returning to her argument, “is entirely a private one, you understand....”

“How did she--come through it?” Norman asked.

“The delivery,” said the doctor, “was a somewhat difficult one, but she stood it very well.”

“She’s all right now?” Norman persisted.

“Oh, quite all right. She’ll be able to leave the hospital within a week or so.”

“And the baby?” asked Norman.

“The baby is a very healthy child. No physical defects. Six pounds at birth, now about six and a half.”

“Isn’t that rather small?” Norman asked anxiously.

The doctor smiled. “Not at all,” she said, “especially not for a first child. A very good weight, in fact. And now as to yourself.”

“Yes?” said Norman anxiously.

“Do you mind my asking you a few questions?” She drew a sheet of paper toward her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” said Norman in surprise.

“Have you recently had a thorough medical examination?”

“I took out some insurance recently,” he said, wondering what this was all about. “I was examined then.”

“Will you take off your coat and vest, please?” she asked firmly.

He obeyed with some inward astonishment, and followed her into an inner office, where he was weighed on her scales, seated on a kind of trestle, and thumped and listened to in chest and back.... “Am I all right?” he asked haughtily when they went back into the other office.

The doctor smiled. “You seem to be. Don’t put on your coat yet. Have any of your family ever had tuberculosis?”

“No,” he said.

“Epilepsy?”

“No.”

“Insanity?”

“No!”

“Roll up your sleeve, please.”

He did so, obediently.

“This will only take a moment.” She put a tourniquet around his upper arm and tightened it. She took out a queer shaped instrument of glass, partly wrapped with cotton, and with a needle on the end.

“What is that?” he asked curiously.

“A Kiedal tube,” she replied. She sterilized the needle, and dabbed with alcohol a spot on the skin of his upper arm. “Double up your fist--hard.”

She skilfully thrust the needle point into a swollen vein, and pressed upon the cotton about the tube, which immediately filled with blood. She withdrew the needle, took off the tourniquet, and dabbed again at his arm with alcohol.

“What is that for?” he asked.

“For a Kahn blood test,” she replied. “Now you may put on your coat and vest. Can you give me a statement from your family doctor about your family history--as to the hereditary diseases I asked you about?”

“Why--I suppose so. Yes, I’m sure I can. But why do you want to know these things?”

“Oh--I thought I had explained that, Mr. Overbeck. It is always desirable in these cases, when possible.”

“But what is it all about?” he asked. “You see, I am engaged to another girl. Do you think I ought to marry Isabel, in order to legitimate the child? Is that why you sent for me?”

The doctor looked surprised. “Apparently I have not yet made the situation quite clear,” she said. “No, that wasn’t why I sent for you. It is, as I told you, merely a technical matter. With a medical record of paternity, showing that the child is free from hereditary disease, a more desirable adoption can be effected. There was no intention of embarrassing you further. As for these medical records, they will be sealed and filed with the St. Thecla Child Adoption Society, of which I am the medical director. These records are secret, and can’t even be brought into court. Under these circumstances, I felt sure you wouldn’t mind giving us this assistance.”

“I--no; I mean yes,” said Norman weakly, as with that word “secret” ringing in his mind the world righted itself from topsy-turviness and settled down about him--familiar, solid, secure.... He could marry Madge, his career would not be affected, everything would be just as old Gilbert had prophesied....

“And I thank you very much,” said the doctor, rising and holding out her hand.

“Then--that’s all?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s all--except for the family medical history that you promised to send me. You won’t forget that?”

“No, I won’t forget. But if you can spare the time--a moment or two--I’d like to know something further about what’s going to be done with the baby.”

“Certainly,” said the doctor, resuming her seat. “I’ll be glad to explain that to you. Just what is it you want to know?”

“Well,” said Norman uncomfortably, “I really don’t know--but I don’t quite like the idea of adoption!”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “some people feel that way. It offends them to think of the child being separated from its natural mother.” And she went on, in an impersonal manner to speak of the different laws of different states--something about the mother having to keep her babies herself....

“This,” Dr. Zerneke commented, “is supposed to be good for the girl’s character. In some cases, no doubt it is. And it at least makes it rather unlikely that those girls will have any more illegitimate babies. That, I sometimes think, is the real reason for putting that burden on them.”

Norman felt confused by these generalizations. This wasn’t exactly what he wanted to know....

“Social workers believe, theoretically,” the doctor went on, “that both parents should be held as strictly as possible to their responsibilities for children born out of wedlock. But in actual practice that means compelling the girl to take care of the baby, with some inadequate financial aid, if any at all, from the man....”

Norman would have felt indignant, except that she seemed to have forgotten that he was one of those men she was talking about.... Yes, she was ignoring his personal interest in the question altogether. She was treating him as though he were some visitor who had inquired about the work of her society.... It was queer....

“The fact is,” she was saying, “that there isn’t any right solution of the problem of illegitimacy. If we had a decent civilization, any baby would be legitimate. To have babies is a natural function of women. But the penalties for having them outside of marriage are still pretty severe; and when there are homes where these children are wanted, there seems to be no reason for penalizing the children. That’s why we undertake to get these children adopted.”

“Yes, but--who is going to take Isabel’s baby?” Norman made himself ask.

“The Society has a large waiting list,” said the doctor. “The applicants are thoroughly investigated.”

“Do you mean that you can’t--or won’t tell me?”

“I shouldn’t think of telling you,” said the doctor.

“Why not?”

“It makes trouble in the future,” said the doctor. “The adoptive parents want to be assured of untroubled possession of the child. The girl sometimes changes her mind and tries to get her child back.”

“Then Isabel isn’t to know who they are, either?”

“No more than you. If there were any chance of a parent turning up later to reclaim the child, they would refuse to take it. You can see that, Mr. Overbeck.”

“And Isabel agrees to this?”

“She trusts us to do the best for the child.”

“Has she--signed over the child yet?”

“Not yet. If you have any doubts of the Society I represent, Mr. Overbeck, its record is easily looked up. In fact, Mr. Overbeck, since you are a lawyer, I wish you would make an investigation, and advise Miss Drury accordingly. The one thing we are anxious to avoid is the charge of exerting undue influence upon the mothers of these children.”

Norman was conscious of a feeling of frustration which he could not quite understand.

“I shall certainly make inquiries about the Society,” he said. “But I might remind you that there are my rights, as well as the mother’s, to be considered.”

“I’m sorry to have to correct you on a legal point,” said the doctor drily, “but the fact is that you have no legal rights to or over Miss Drury’s child.”

“Is that true?”

“You’ll find it to be quite true, Mr. Overbeck.”

Norman was silent for a long moment. Then he looked up and said:

“I must see her--Isabel. Can I?”

“Certainly,” said the doctor, “as far as I am concerned. If she wishes to see you.”

“Why shouldn’t she wish to see me?” Norman demanded.

“She may feel that the fact that you are her child’s father gives you no special claim upon her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She was quite unwilling for me to communicate with you at all. She particularly said that she did not wish to see you.”

“She said that?”

“But she may feel differently about it now. I am only warning you.”

“I’ll call her up and ask her,” said Norman grimly.

“I’ll call up for you, if you like, right now, and find out.”

“Do, please,” said Norman coldly.

“Do you wish to see her this morning?”

“The sooner the better.”

The doctor lifted the receiver and called the number.

“Obstetrical B, please.... Miss Higginson? This is Dr. Zerneke. Please send word to Miss Drury in Room 37 that Mr. Norman Overbeck would like to visit her this morning.... Yes, Over-beck.”

Norman waited.

“Yes.... She will? Thank you.”

Dr. Zerneke turned to Norman. “It’s all right. You can go at eleven. But I will have to remind you that emotional scenes are not good for nursing mothers. And don’t stay longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Very well,” said Norman, and rose impatiently.