one’s own patient.
I wondered if by one she meant herself or me.
If you don’t mind my asking, Doctor, with your interest in research, why aren’t you on staff at one of the big hospitals?
Her thin lips twisted wryly. None of them would have me.
She cut straight down from breastbone through navel to pubis, finishing the capital Y.
I was offered a position some years ago, she added, but their medical men shied away from the prospect of a petticoated colleague.
I knew it wasn’t my place to comment, but…Their loss!
Dr. Lynn nodded to acknowledge that. She added crisply, And on the whole, my gain. Shifting my tent has let me encounter and study all the ills that flesh is heir to.
She snipped on, adding, Besides, I’d have been cashiered by now anyway for my commitment to the cause.
My face was suddenly hot. I’d assumed the doctor would keep a veil drawn over her other, underground life. Since she’d brought it up, I made myself ask, So it’s true, then, that you were with the rebels on the roof of City Hall?
She corrected me: With the Irish Citizen Army. I took over as commanding officer when Sean Connolly was shot putting up the green flag.
A silence.
I said unevenly, I got some experience with gunshot wounds during that week.
I’m sure you did, said Dr. Lynn.
A woman who was with child, a civilian, was brought in on a stretcher and bled out before I could stop it.
Her tone was sad: I heard about her. I’m sorry. One of almost five hundred killed that week, and thousands injured, mostly by British artillery.
I saw red, because that was Tim’s army. I said, My brother served. The king, I mean.
(I added that awkwardly, in case I hadn’t been clear.)
Dr. Lynn nodded. So many Irishmen have sacrificed themselves in the cause of empire and capital.
But it was you terrorists who began the shooting in Dublin, and treacherously, in the middle of a world war!
My hands froze. Berating a physician—what had I done? I thought Dr. Lynn might order me out of the mortuary.
Instead she set down her blade and said civilly, I saw the national question much the same way as you until five years ago, Nurse Power.
I was taken aback.
I took up the cause of women in earnest first, she added, then the labour movement. I pinned my hopes on a peaceful transition to a self-governing Ireland that would treat its workers and mothers and children more kindly. But in the end I realised that despite four decades of paying lip service to the principle of home rule, the British meant to keep fobbing us off. Only then, after much soul-searching, I assure you, did I become what you call a terrorist.
I said nothing.
Dr. Lynn picked up the big shears and worked it along each side of Ita Noonan. Then she lifted the breastbone and frontal ribs in one go, the raising of a portcullis.
That made me tremble. How frail my own rib cage; how breakable we all were.
I needed to get us off politics. So I asked, Did your own dose of flu leave you with any odd symptoms, Doctor?
She didn’t look up as she said, I haven’t had it.
Christ Almighty, the woman was up to her elbows in microbes. My voice came out shrill: Would you not put on a mask, even?
Interestingly, there’s very little evidence that they have any protective effect. I scrub my hands, and gargle with brandy, and leave the rest to Providence. Retractor, please?
I handed the doctor what she asked for; I measured and weighed. I didn’t want to disappoint her, for all the gulf between our beliefs.
Dr. Lynn went on, As for the authorities, I believe the pandemic will have run its course before they’ve agreed on any but the most feeble action. Recommending onions and eucalyptus oil! Like sending beetles to stop a steamroller. No, as a wise old Greek once said, we all live in an unwalled city.
She must have sensed she’d lost me, because she spelled it out: When it comes to death.
Oh, yes. Quite.
She lifted Ita Noonan’s lungs—two black bags—and dropped them wetly into my waiting dish. Dear me, what a mess. Take a specimen, please, though I expect the engorgement will obscure the image.
I shaved a thin layer; I labelled the slide.
You know there’s a brand-new expensive oxygen machine upstairs?
I shook my head.
Dr. Lynn said, I tried it out on two men with pneumonia this afternoon, quite uselessly. We trickle the pure gas right up their