Cold Service

4

IN THE AFTERNOONon Thursday, late enough to be dark, with the rain coming hard, I walked down Boylston Street to have a drink with Cecile in the bar at the Four Seasons. We sat by the window looking out at Boylston Street with the Public Gardens on the other side. Cecile was wearing a red wool suit with a short skirt and looked nearly as good as Susan would have in the same outfit. A lot of people looked at us.

"Hawk asked me to talk with you," I said.

She nodded.

"You know his situation?"

She nodded again. The waiter came for our order. Cecile had a cosmopolitan. I asked for Johnnie Walker Blue and soda.

"Tall glass," I said. "Lot of ice."

The waiter was thrilled to get our order and delighted to comply. There was considerable traffic on Boylston, backing up at the Charles Street light. There were fewer pedestrians. But enough to be interesting, collars up, hats pulled down, shoulders hunched, umbrellas deployed.

"I know his surgeon," Cecile said. "We were at Harvard Med together."

"And he's filled you in?"

"Well," Cecile said with a faint smile. "He respects patient confidentiality, of course… but I am reasonably abreast of things."

"Hawk wants me to explain to you," I said.

"Explain what?" she said.

"Him," I said.

"Hawk wants you to explain him to me?"

"Yes."

Cecile sat back with her hands resting on the table and stared at me. The waiter came with the drinks and set them down happily, and went away. Cecile took a sip of her drink and put it back down and smiled.

"Well," she said, "I guess I'm flattered that he cares enough to ask you… I think."

"That would be the right reaction," I said.

"I could have considered it possible that I knew him well, and perhaps even in ways that you don't," Cecile said. "For God's sake, you're white."

"That would be another possible reaction," I said.

Cecile drank some more cosmopolitan. I had some scotch.

"How long have you known Hawk?" she said.

"All my adult life."

"How old were you when you met him?"

"Seventeen."

"Good God," Cecile said. "It's hard to imagine either of you being anything but what you are right now."

"Hawk wants you to understand why he doesn't want you to visit."

"He doesn't need to explain," Cecile said.

"He doesn't want you to see him when he isn't… when he is, ah, anything but what he has always been."

Cecile nodded. She was looking at her drink, turning the stem of the glass slowly in her fingers.

"I am a thoracic surgeon," she said. "I am a black, female thoracic surgeon. Do you have any guess how many of us there are?"

"You're the only black female surgeon I know," I said.

"Surgery is still mostly for the boys. If you're a woman and want to be a surgeon, you need to be tough. If you are a black woman and want to do surgery…"

She drank a little more.

"I do not," she said, "need a man to protect me. I don't need one who can't be hurt."

"No," I said. "I think Hawk knows that."

She raised her eyebrows.

"But he needs to be that," I said. "Not for you. For him."

"That's childish," Cecile said.

"He knows that," I said.

"He could change," Cecile said.

"He doesn't want to. That's the center of him. He is what he wants to be. It's how he's handled the world."

"The world being a euphemism for racism?"

"For racism, for cruelty, for loneliness, for despair… for the world."

"Does that mean he can't love?"

"I don't know. He doesn't seem to hate."

"It's a high price," she said.

"It is," I said.

"I'm black."

"That doesn't make you just like Hawk," I said.

"I don't have to pay that kind of price."

"You're not just like Hawk."

"Neither are you," she said.

"No," I said, "neither am I."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying he can't see you until he's Hawk again. His Hawk. And he cares enough about you to want me to explain it."

"I'm not sure you have," Cecile said.

"No. I'm not sure I have, either," I said.

"Have you ever been hurt like this?" Cecile said.

"Yes."

"Did you want to be alone?"

"Susan and Hawk were with me. But the circumstance was different."

The waiter drifted solicitously by. I nodded. He paused. I ordered two more drinks. Cecile looked out the window for a while.

"You love her," Cecile said.

"I do."

"Is there a circumstance in which you would not want her with you?"

"No."

Cecile smiled again.

"How about if you're cheating on her?" she said.

"I wouldn't do that," I said.

"Have you ever?"

"Yes."

"But you won't again."

"No."

"She ever cheat on you?"

"She has."

"But she won't again."

"No."

Cecile smiled without any real humor.

"Isn't that what they all say?"

"It is," I said.

I sipped some scotch. Rain ran down the window, the streets gleamed. The scotch was excellent.

"You're not going to argue with me?"

"About what they all say?"

"Yes."

"No," I said.

Cecile studied me for a time.

"You're more like him than I thought," she said.

"Hawk?"

She nodded.

"I have never heard him defend himself or explain himself," she said. "He's just fucking in there, inside himself, entirely fucking sufficient."

There was nothing much to say to that. Cecile drank the rest of her cosmopolitan.

"And except for being white, I think you are just goddamned fucking like him," she said.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

She was studying my face like it was the Rosetta stone.

"Susan," she said. "You need Susan."

"I do."

"Well, he doesn't need me."

"I don't know if he does or not," I said. "But not wanting to see you now doesn't prove it either way."

"If he doesn't need me now, when will he?"

"Maybe need is not requisite to love."

"It seems to be for you," she said.

"Maybe that would be my weakness," I said.

"Maybe it's not a weakness," she said.

"Maybe an infinite number of angels," I said, "can balance on the point of a needle."

She nodded. The waiter brought her another drink.

"We are getting a little abstract," she said.

"I don't know if he loves you," I said. "And I don't know if you love him. And I don't know if you'll stroll into the sunset together, or should or want to. But as long as you know Hawk, he will be what he is. He's what he is now, except hurt."

"And being hurt is not part of what he is?" she said.

I grinned.

"It is, at least, an aberration," I said.

"So if I'm to be with him, I have to take him for what he is?"

"Yes."

"He won't change."

"No."

"And just what is he?" Cecile said.

I grinned again.

"Hawk," I said.

Cecile took a sip of her drink and closed her eyes and tilted her head back and swallowed slowly. She sat for a moment like that, with her eyes closed and her head back. Then she sat up and opened her eyes.

"I give up," she said.

She raised her glass toward me. I touched the rim of her glass with the rim of mine. It made a satisfying clink. We both smiled.

"Thank you," she said.

"I'm not sure I helped."

"Maybe you did," she said.