The Doctor and the Diva Read Online Free PDF Page A

and instructed the driver to meet them over at Ravell’s address.
    As they walked, von Kessler adjusted his muffler. “So how is the treatment progressing? Are my sister and her husband—?”
    Ravell avoided answering. At Clarendon Street, as a cart clattered past in the darkness, he put out an arm to caution his companion before crossing.
    “I don’t mean to pry,” Doctor von Kessler said, “but it’s dreadfully hard on Erika, prolonging things.”
    Ravell sensed the doubts and barely disguised judgments of the other physician. If you don’t feel capable of handling the case—just say so, von Kessler might as well have been saying, and we’ll move on to another man in the profession who may be.
    “What’s the prognosis? Is my sister able to conceive, in your estimation?”
    “Your sister is as fertile as any woman in my practice.”
    “Then why— ?” von Kessler said, frowning.
    “Confidentiality is at stake here,” Ravell said. “If you persist in conveying such impatience to your sister, it won’t help matters.”
    Under a lamppost on Marlborough Street, von Kessler stopped mid-stride. A tall, large man, he loomed over Ravell in the darkness. “Are there techniques you haven’t tried? Is there any cause for optimism?”
    With all the bravado he could muster, Ravell caught himself uttering words he knew he should not have said. “Of course. Absolutely.” At this, the other man’s shoulders softened and relaxed, and Ravell felt he had just made an awkward promise.
    By the time they reached Ravell’s house on Commonwealth Avenue, von Kessler’s rig was waiting at the curb. Once again they had to rouse the driver, a man who clearly had a gift for dozing anywhere. The other physician raised his hat to Ravell as they drove off.
    The telephone was ringing inside his office as Ravell unlocked the door. He hastened to catch it before the caller hung up.
    “Are you coming back to the house?” Peter said. “We are waiting for you. Knock softly ,” he added, “ so as not to wake the servants. ”

    It was Peter himself who opened the stout front door as soon as Ravell’s knuckles grazed the wood. Peter tightened the belt of his silk dressing gown, which he wore over pajamas. “I thought we’d never be rid of my brother-in-law,” he muttered.
    As they stole up the grand public staircase (the steps creaked less there than on the second, narrower staircase along the side of the house, Peter confided), Ravell wondered if he ought to be carrying his shoes in his hand. Peter led him into the family’s private quarters, careful to lock the bedroom door behind them.
    Erika lay on a peach velvet chaise longue in her own silk robe and matching gown, reading a ladies’ magazine. “I see you’ve come to help us out,” she remarked, sounding amused.
    He’d never seen her hair fully unleashed from its pompadour before; it rippled and streamed across the back of the chaise, the strands reaching her elbows. Contrary to what she’d told her brother, she didn’t appear fatigued after her performance. With her body outlined under silk, she looked ready to leap, quite impetuously, from her long chair.
    A chambermaid had already turned down the fine linens of their great bamboo bed. The pillows lay smooth, the sheets folded back in parallel triangles, his and hers. The bed had been a wedding gift, built in Japan, they told Ravell.
    “This isn’t the sort of house call I usually make,” Ravell said lightly. He thought of the great Doctor Sims. Back in the 1840s and 1850s, Doctor Sims had not hesitated to bring his newfangled instruments into a married couple’s home and stand at the ready, behind a wall, to assist conception—an arrangement that shocked any number of people.
    “I suppose we ought to begin,” Peter said, his hands hidden in the pockets of his long robe.
    The three of them looked at one another. Ravell brought his heels together and stood straighter. He reached into his black bag and gave