The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,380

Operating Room nurses, including those famous for being uncooperative with women surgeons, is something of a legend in the hospital. Whereas other female surgeons are criticized as “having a chip on their shoulder,” or being “too superior” or “just plain bitchy”—remarks which seem to reflect considerable prejudice, all things considered—the same nurses speak of Rowan as if she were a saint.

“She never screams or throws a tantrum like the men do, she’s too good for that.”

“She’s as straight as a man.”

“I’d rather be in there with her than some of these men doctors, I tell you.”

“She’s beautiful to work with. She’s the best. I love just to watch her work. She’s like an artist.”

“She’s the only doctor who’s ever going to open my head, I can tell you that.”

To put this more clearly into perspective, we are still living in a world in which Operating Room nurses sometimes refuse to hand instruments to women surgeons, and patients in Emergency Rooms refuse to be treated by women doctors and insist that young male interns treat them while older, wiser, and more competent women doctors are forced to stand back and watch.

Rowan appears to have transcended this sort of prejudice entirely. If there is any complaint against her among members of her profession it is that she is too quiet. She doesn’t talk enough about what she’s doing to the young doctors who must learn from her. It’s hard for her. But she does the best she can.

As of 1984, she seemed to have escaped completely the curse of the Mayfairs, the ghastly experiences that plagued her mother and her grandmother, and to be on the way to a brilliant career.

An exhaustive investigation of her life had turned up no evidence of Lasher’s presence, or indeed any connection between Rowan and ghosts or spirits or apparitions.

And her strong telepathic powers and healing powers seemed to have been put to extraordinarily productive use in her career as a surgeon.

Though everyone around her admired her for her exceptional accomplishments, no one thought of her as “weird” or “strange” or in any way connected with the supernatural.

As one doctor put it when asked to explain Rowan’s reputation, “She’s a genius. What else can I say?”

LATER DISCOVERIES

However, there is more to the story of Rowan which has surfaced only in the last few years. One part of that story is entirely personal and no concern of the Talamasca. The other part of it has us alarmed beyond our wildest expectations as to what may happen to Rowan in the years that lie ahead.

Allow us to deal with the insignificant part first.

In 1985, the complete lack of any social life on the part of Rowan aroused our curiosity. We asked our investigators to engage in closer surveillance.

Within weeks, they discovered that Rowan, far from having no social life, has a very special kind of social life including very virile working-class men whom she picks up from time to time in any one of four different San Francisco bars.

These men are predominately fire fighters or uniformed policemen. They are invariably single; they are always extremely good-looking and extremely well built. Rowan sees them only on the Sweet Christine, in which they sometimes go out to sea and other times remain in the harbor, and she rarely sees any one of them more than three times.

Though Rowan is very discreet and unobtrusive, she has become the subject of some gossip in the bars she frequents. At least two men have been embittered by their inevitable rejection by her and they talked freely to our investigators, but it became apparent that they knew almost nothing about Rowan. They thought she was “a rich girl from Tiburon” who had snubbed them, or used them. They had no idea she was a doctor. One of them repeatedly described the Sweet Christine as “Daddy’s fancy boat.”

Other men who have known Rowan are more objective. “She’s a loner, that’s all. I liked it, actually. She didn’t want any string attached and neither did I. I would have liked it once or twice more maybe, but it’s got to be mutual. I understand her. She’s an educated girl who likes old-fashioned men.”

A superficial investigation of twelve different men seen leaving Rowan’s house between 1986 and 1987 indicated that all were highly regarded fire fighters or policemen, some with sterling records and decorations, and all considered by their peers and later girlfriends to be “nice guys.”

Further digging also confirmed that Rowan’s parents knew about her preference