Blameless in Abaddon Read Online Free PDF

lesson, Walter would bring in an artificial Christmas tree decorated with miniature chocolate doughnuts and, seeking to help his students empathize with Eve’s ordeal of temptation, forbid them to eat.
    â€œI’d like a second opinion,” Martin told Hummel.
    â€œIn your shoes, so would I.”
    By canceling the speeding ticket that Ralph Avelthorpe, son of a prominent Deer Haven neurosurgeon, had acquired in Abaddon Township, Martin was able to wrangle an early appointment with Benjamin Blumenberg, chief of urology at New York City’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He hated to abuse his office so blatantly, but he was desperate.
    Whether Dr. Blumenberg turned out to be old or young, Martin was determined to find him impressive. If old, he would be thankful so much experience was being marshalled against his illness. If young, he would decide he was in the hands of a prodigy, the Bobby Fischer of urology. But Dr. Blumenberg, when Martin finally got to see him, did not appear to be any particular age—somewhere in his late forties, perhaps his early fifties—nor was there anything striking about his appearance: doughy face, thinning hair, tortoiseshell glasses. His only remarkable feature was his voice, which had the raspy, beleaguered quality of Montgomery Clift in
Judgment at Nuremberg.
    This great doctor, this urologist’s urologist, studied the pathology report, palpated Martin’s gland, and said, “I’m glad you didn’t opt for the prostatectomy.”
    Relief flooded through him. “You mean—it’s not so bad?”
    â€œFar as I can tell, the hard area on your left lobe is close to the prostatic capsule. Truth is, I suspect it’s gone outside the capsule to involve the seminal vesicle.”
    Martin gulped audibly. His bowels turned to water. “It’s . . . spreading?”
    The specialist nodded. “A radical prostatectomy is justified only when there’s a solitary nodule the surgeon has a chance of removing in toto. Don’t despair, sir. Alternatives exist. We could try synthetic estrogen—you know, female hormones. Menaval, maybe, or Feminone.”
    â€œEstrogen?” groaned Martin.
    Blumenberg offered a grimace of commiseration. “The side effects are crummy. Erosion of the sex drive. Gynecomastia.”
    â€œGyneco—?”
    â€œYou’ll grow breasts. And the hormones alone won’t be enough. I’d have to do an orchidectomy.”
    â€œMy orchids?” said Martin with a nervous little laugh. “Your orchids.”
    â€œPlease.” He squirmed. “I’m only fifty-two.”
    â€œHappily, there’s another route, equally promising: radiation. We can shield your testicles, shlong, the whole package. With any luck, your sexual functioning will remain intact. Step one is a lymphangiogram to determine whether the tumor has migrated beyond the vesicle. Can you go into the hospital on Thursday?”
    Â 
    Lymphangiogram: lovely word—wouldn’t you say?—so layered and mellifluous, its syllables rising and falling like the soft, gentle slopes of a woodland meadow.
Lym-phan-gi-o-gram
. Someday I shall embroider LYMPHANGIOGRAM on the back of my red velvet smoking jacket.
    Did I ever tell you how I sold our Creator on cancer? I walked into the pitch meeting and said, “Got a new pathology for You.”
    â€œShoot.”
    â€œSolipsistic cannibalism. Your body starts eating itself alive.”
    â€œLike it.”
    â€œThought You would. I call it
glutch
.”
    â€œGlutch? Glutch? Come on, Sarkos, what the hell kind of name for a dread disease is glutch? You can think of something more euphonious than that.”
    Thus did my masterpiece acquire its association with a half dozen of the world’s most soothing and musical sounds.
Cancer. Metastasis. Carcinoma. Tumor. Oncology. Lymphangiogram.
    Â 
    Martin’s lymphangiogram disclosed three