The Cider House Rules

"I don't know," Dr. Larch said. "I assume that if you drive into something to see the movie, you must stay in your cars."

"But what do you drive into, Wilbur?" Nurse Edna asked.

"That's what I don't know!" Larch shouted.

"Well, aren't we in a lovely mood?" Nurse Angela said.

"Why would you want to bring your car to a movie in the first place?" Nurse Edna asked.

"I don't know the answer to that, either," Dr. Larch said tiredly.

Unfortunately, he looked tired during the trustees meeting, too. Nurse Angela tried to present some of the orphanage's priorities for him; she didn't want him to get bad-tempered with anyone on the board. The two new members seemed in an awful hurry to demonstrate that they already understood everything--and Nurse Angela detected Dr. Larch looking at these younger members with something of the look he had formerly reserved for Clara, in the days when Larch would discover that Homer's cadaver hadn't been put away properly.

The new woman on the board had been appointed for her abilities at fund-raising; she was especially aggressive. She'd been married to a Congregationalist missionary who'd committed suicide in Japan, and she had returned to her home state of Maine with a zeal for putting her considerable energies to work for something "doable." Japan had not been at all "doable," she kept saying. Maine's problems, by comparison, were entirely surmountable. She believed that all Maine needed--or lacked--was organization, and she believed every solution began with "new blood"--a phrase, Nurse Angela observed, that caused Dr. Larch to pale as if his own blood were trickling away from him.

"That's an unfortunate expression for those of us familiar with hospital work," Dr. Larch snapped once, but the woman--Mrs. Goodhall--did not look sufficiently bitten.

Mrs. Goodhall expressed, albeit coldly, her admiration for the severity and the duration of Dr. Larch's "undertaking" and her respect for how much experience Larch and his assistants had with administering St. Cloud's; perhaps they all could be invigorated by a younger assistant. "A young intern--a willing toiler, and with some new ideas in the obstetrical field," Mrs. Goodhall suggested.

"I keep up with the field," Dr. Larch said. "And I keep up with the number of babies born here."

"Well, then, how about a new administrative assistant?" Mrs. Goodhall suggested. "Leave the medical practice to you--I'm talking about someone with a grasp of some of the newer adoption procedures, or just someone who could handle the correspondence and the interviewing for you."

"I could use a new typewriter," Dr. Larch said. "Just get me a new typewriter, and you can keep the assistant--or give the assistant to someone who's really doddering around."

The new man on the board was a psychiatrist; he was rather new at psychiatry, which was rather new in Maine in 194_. His name was Gingrich; even with people he had just met, he had a way of assuming he understood what pressure they were under--he was quite sure that everyone was under some pressure. Even if he was correct (about the particular pressure you were under), and even if you agreed with him (that there indeed was a certain pressure, and indeed you were under it), he had a way of assuming he knew other pressures that preyed upon you (which were always unseen by you). For example, had he seen the movie that began with the Bedouin on the camel, Dr. Gingrich might have assumed that the captive woman was under great pressure to marry someone--although it was clearly her opinion that all she wanted was to get free. His eyes and introductory smile communicated a cloying sympathy that you perhaps did not deserve--as if he were imparting by the imposed gentleness of his voice and the slowness with which he spoke, the assurance that everything is much more subtle than we can suppose.

The older members of the board--all men, all as elderly as Larch--were intimidated by this new man who spoke in whispers and by this new woman who was so loud. In tandem, they seemed so sure of themselves; they viewed their new roles on the board not as learning experiences, or even as an introduction to orphanage life, but as opportunities for taking charge.

Oh dear, Nurse Edna thought.

There's going to be trouble, as if we need any, Nurse Angela thought. It wouldn't have hurt to have a young intern around, or an administrative assistant, either; but she knew that Wilbur Larch was protecting his ability to perform the abortions. How could he accept new appointees without knowing the person's beliefs?

"Now, Doctor Larch," Dr. Gingrich said softly, "surely you know we don't think of you as doddering."

"Sometimes I think of myself as doddering," Larch said defensively. "I suppose you might think so, too."

"The pressure you must be under," Dr. Gingrich said. "Someone with all your responsibilities should have all the help he can get."

"Someone with my responsibility should stay responsible," Larch said.

"With the pressure you must be under," said Dr. Gingrich, "it's no wonder you find it hard to delegate even a little of that responsibility."

"I have more use for a typewriter than for a delegate," Wilbur Larch said, but when he blinked his eyes he saw those bright stars that populated both a clear Maine night and the firmament of ether, and he wasn't sure which stars they were. He rubbed his face with his hand, and caught Mrs. Goodhall scribbling something on the impressively thick pad before her.

"Let's see," she said--sharply, by comparison to Dr. Gingrich's wispy voice. "You're in your seventies, now--is that correct? Aren't you seventy-something?" she asked Dr. Larch.

"Right," said Wilbur Larch. "Seventy-something."

"And how old is Missus Grogan?" Mrs. Goodhall asked suddenly, as if Mrs. Grogan weren't present--or as if she were so old that she was incapable of answering for herself.

"I'm sixty-two," Mrs. Grogan said pertly, "and I'm as lively as a spring chicken!"

"Oh, no one doubts you're not lively!" said Dr. Gingrich.

"And Nurse Angela?" Mrs. Goodhall asked, not looking up at anyone; the scrutiny of her own writing on the pad before her required every ounce of her exhaustive attention.

"I'm fifty-eight," Nurse Angela said.