Making Angels Laugh Read online

  He looked at her for a long moment, clearly processing what was said. “You have discussed this desire with him, then?”

  “Yes. I have. At length. Vladika understands my concern. But he doesn’t feel that this is the way God would have me live my life. He recommends I find a nice man and get married, and raise a family of pious children while serving humanity through the practice of medicine. The doors to being a monastic are completely closed to me.”

  “I sometimes play with the idea of being ordained to the priesthood, then going out, starting a mission in some area of the country where there aren’t many Orthodox people and working as a general surgeon on staff in a small hospital in order to support myself and my family. You could be ‘matushka’, just in a different way. Would you like to be the wife of a surgeon who is also a priest?”

  “Am I to understand that to be a marriage proposal?” she asked, after a long silence, her voice both small and careful.

  “Da.”

  She sighed. “Being a mission priest with an outside practice as a surgeon would be a full and challenging life… And would require great time management skills... I should think it would be hard to do justice to both callings.” She sighed, and asked in English, “Can I be perfectly frank?”

  “I should rather you be simply Rita,” he teased in English. “But go on. I want to know your mind on this.”

  She shook her head, and continued in Russian, “I simply cannot envision you being satisfied in doing routine appendectomies, cholecystectomies, and the whole list of routine surgeries for the rest of your professional career. Not when you are so exceptionally good at trauma care.”

  “Honestly, I think I’d be bored doing routine care,” he admitted with a small grin. “I thrive on the challenge of piecing together trauma cases and giving them their best chance at regaining as normal of a life as possible after their injuries.”

  “Exactly. You were given certain talents which you spent years developing. You are absolutely brilliant as a trauma surgeon. Can you really see yourself being Father to a struggling mission, being on call constantly to comfort people, to deal with their crises, listen to their confessions and give them wise counsel, and having to tactfully mediate fights? To do this for little or no pay, and then to make an income for your family by doing work that bores you? Does that really appeal to you?”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Not really, no. It sounds dreadful when you look at it that way. But I don’t have to be a mission priest. I could be attached to an altar in a city and continue to work as a trauma surgeon while serving as a priest in a big city parish, say the Cathedral. Those sort of churches need priests too, to serve the people. And frankly, that is what Vladika has spoken to me about, being ordained and serving on the staff at the Cathedral. That’s where he wants me. He doesn’t expect me to give up medicine, just to make more room to serve the Church.”

  She patted his hand. He turned his hand over and grasped her hand gently. She drew a steadying breath as his touch sent shivers through her. Then she forced a smile and continued, “The priesthood is a special role. It takes a very special type of person to be successful as a presbyter. But then, it takes a very special, type of person to be an excellent trauma surgeon. You are not only excellent at your job, you are,” she slid into English, “a rock star”, then she resumed the Russian, “among trauma surgeons.”

  “Bahlshohye spahseeba,” thank you very much, he said with a broad smile on his face as he squeezed her hand slightly.

  She shook her head. “I am owed no thanks. God gives us the abilities to serve where he plants us. You save lives. This is a definite work of mercy. There is no need for you to look for another ministry. You only need to offer each case to God for His glory and then to do the best you can do, with God’s help and to pray for your patients.”

  “This is precisely what I already do with each case,” he replied, sipping his tea.

  “I had no doubt of it. You take your religion seriously, Dryusha. You wouldn’t be thinking of the priesthood, otherwise. You would always do your best to serve your people. You would do a wonderful job at it. You would serve the people in your care faithfully, because you would accept nothing less from yourself than that you serve faithfully. Your congregation would love you, and you would love them. I believe you would be happier and healthier continuing in your work here, both treating patients and training surgeons to save lives, than working as a general surgeon in some small hospital. If you want to become a priest, then that is between you and God. I wouldn’t dream of even talking you out of the priesthood, because if that is how God is calling you, then you will not be truly happy if you do not follow the call. But, please, don’t give up the Trauma Surgery that you love. Being good at this is a very special gift of God. Do not throw that away.”

  His grasp on her hand tightened a bit. “You seem to know me so well, and we’ve just met.”

  “It is like looking into a mirror.”

  “You think of yourself as a ‘rock star’?” he teased.

  She chuckled and sighed, “Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt either of us to work on our humility and gentleness. We both do appear to others as harsh, distant, proud, and even coldly fierce, at times. Likely, we do so more times than we appear kind and gentle. I know that is true of me. I suspect it may be true of you, as well.”

  He teased mercilessly, “When people are as great as we are, humility is hypocrisy.”

  She forced a smile and sighed. “I cannot speak for you. Personally, I have a great deal within myself to be humble about.”

  “As I do,” Dryusha said, his voice serious and thoughtful.

  “I know that I’m constantly working on improving myself, often to no avail.”

  “You look just fine, more than fine, to me.” After a moment, he asked, a hesitant smile on his face, “Are you willing to be courted by me, Rita?”

  “I believe you have already begun that process. Let us just see where this goes.”

  “What would you think of a spring wedding, the Sunday after Pascha?”

  She laughed. “That’s extremely fast.”

  “Nyet. Fast would be us going to get the license as soon as we finished eating and talking with Vladika today for his blessing, so that we could get married before Great Lent begins.”

  She chuckled. “That would be moving faster than I’m willing to move.” She felt her face grow warm and knew she was blushing, again.

  “Blushing?” he asked in amazement. “Why this time?”

  She shook her head and looked away from him, “Marriage immediately before the Great Fast? Rather a stressful way to be newlywed; to avoid the marital bed just when that intimacy is otherwise allowed to a couple. Even if I’d agree, the Church probably wouldn’t.”

  “Look at me, Rita,” he asked in a gentle and amazed voice.

  She fought her embarrassment and looked at him, knowing from the heat on her face that she was likely still blushing boldly.

  He smiled slightly and nodded. But when he spoke, his voice was gentle and thoughtful. “That is the strictest observance of the Fast; to avoid marital relations as well as to limit food and increase both prayer time and almsgiving.”

  “I tend to be very strict with myself,” she replied. “I can’t imagine that changing, were my state of life to alter.”

  He squeezed her hand again, “I am strict with myself, as well. As you said, it is like looking in a mirror.”

  She sighed and sipped her tea.

  “I am rushing you?” he asked.

  “Da. Let’s just slow down and get to know one another better. Marriage is very important. It is far too important to act hurriedly on. Rushing into this wouldn’t be wise.”

  “And you try always to act with prudence?”

  “I try. I don’t always succeed.”

  He nodded, then confessed, still in Russian, “Maybe I’m afraid you would run screaming from me if you knew me better?” There was something very honest, very vulnerable, in h
is tone which touched her deeply. “I do not want to lose you. I can’t imagine living without you, now that I’ve finally found you.”

  “I know your reputation for being fierce and harsh with people. Of being a perfectionist. Of demanding the best out of the people in your department and getting precisely that from them.”

  He nodded. “This is who I am. I tolerate fools poorly. I am often seen as abrasive and harsh. If I were a cloth, I would be used to clean and polish grimy barbeque grills.”

  She laughed. “That’s a wonderful image.”

  He chuckled in return. “A true one, certainly. I am under no illusions as to who I am. There are times that I am…” He hesitated and changed to a very British English, “a right bastard.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the startled glances of several of the residents. They obviously weren’t used to seeing either the Great Zornov, or probably herself, if she were honest, laughing. Neither of them had a public reputation for having a large sense of humor.

  “The abrasive cloth is an image that would be equally applicable to me, at times, I fear,” she replied, keeping the Russian.

  “That is not what I hear,” he said in English, with real affection in his voice.

  She asked, maintaining the Russian, as she was very conscious of the other people in the room paying attention to them. “What do you hear about me? And from whom? Please be conscious of the listeners. We do not need to give them more to gossip about. That the two of us are sitting here enjoying one another’s company over this beautiful meal is going to be seed for enough talk about us as it is.”

  He answered in Russian, “Let them talk. I do not care what is said. As for what I have heard about you and from whom I have heard it, I placed a telephone call to your head of service this morning.”

  She sighed. “You didn’t!”

  “I most certainly did. When I want to know about people, I go to someone in a position to evaluate that person.”

  “Gospodi pomilui,” Lord have mercy, she said under her breath.

  She looked at him and asked, “And just what did he say?”

  “I don’t think I’ll tell you. It would just inflate your ego,” he teased her. “And you did say you needed to work on your humility. Telling you would not be helpful to you in that regard.”

  “Tell me, what did Michael Davisson have to say about me? I can’t believe that it would have been overly complimentary.”

  “Why do you believe that?” Dryusha asked, clearly in disbelief.

  “The man never gives me any encouragement. Barely gives me any acknowledgement that I’m even there. He just listens to my reports, nods, and goes on to the next fellow. He’ll drag me into the conversations he has with some of the other fellows, using my answers as a way of bludgeoning them. He seldom questions me on my own cases, these days, although he did, often, at the beginning. He never complains at me. Which is a good thing I suppose. The other fellows get far more of his attention, but not in a good way. I never know whether to be relieved or worried that he shows me so little attention.”

  “He said that you are one of the few fellows he’s ever had that he hasn’t had to treat as a child and guide through diagnosis and treatment options on every case. He says you have a natural feel for diagnosis and treatment, an unerring sense of the proper way to handle each case. That you are beyond brilliant, competent, confident, professional, and a… I believe his actual words were…” Again, he reverted to English, “‘a ball breaker’.”

  She sighed but retained the Russian. “Hmmm… He finds me threatening?”

  “Anyone who has seen you wrestle a violent mental patient to the floor would find fresh respect for your personal power,” he replied in Russian with a smile and a warm chuckle. “Personally, I have difficulty reconciling that violence I have seen you capable of inflicting with the lovely, gentle, woman seated before me now.”

  Rita countered, “No more than I have difficulty reconciling the Great Zornov with the man who was kind enough to take time to make lunch for me today. Still, I don’t know why this should surprise me, since I’ve seen you at Church. I’ve seen you be kind to small children and speak respectfully to the elderly. I’ve seen you practice your faith. And if anyone should know about putting on a professional face, it is me. I’d say we both have professional faces which are at odds with our normal, if any physician is normal, selves. Face it, we’re all a bit on the odd side, or we wouldn’t put ourselves through the rigors of the training or the stress of the work.”

  “I suppose that’s true enough. No one ever called me normal.”

  “’Normal’ is boring. I can see many things being true about you, but boring you are not.”

  He chuckled. “I doubt anyone is ever bored around you, either. Challenged, amused, infuriated, frustrated, amazed, stunned, bemused, and bewildered, perhaps, but never bored.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “True enough. I can’t deny it. But I suspect much the same could be said of you.”

  “Indeed it could be, and has been, said. Do you really have an earned doctorate in mathematics?”

  “Statistics. I like math and am good at it. The doctorate was exceptionally easy. I took examinations for all my required coursework and then wrote my dissertation during the last year of my residency.”

  “You created a whole new technique in statistical analysis.”

  She shrugged. “It was a thought that I wrote down. It has proven useful for researchers. I’m happy for that.”

  She finished her meal and helped herself to a second glass of tea.

  “Have a petit four. Or two,” he offered.

  “Thank you. No. I seldom eat cakes, pies, or candy. I prefer to take my sugars in the forms of fresh fruit and the occasional jam, curd, or fruit butter.”

  “Healthier for you, I am certain.”

  “Not that there is anything really wrong with sweets as an occasional treat. But I can’t eat many of them without putting on weight. I try to eat well and stay fit.”

  “You look more than just fit to me. How do you exercise?”

  “Right now, I do very little except work and sleep. Normally, I’ve taught Krav Maga a couple of times a week.”

  He looked puzzled. “Krav Maga? Is that some new form of aerobics?”

  “It’s an Israeli form of martial art.”

  He smiled again. “It is what you used on the man this morning. And you teach this? Why?”

  She sighed and debated about changing the subject. But decided he might as well know the truth. “I was the target of bullies when I was in high school. I decided I would never be a place again where I was helpless before a man who was intent on beating me to death.”

  “That was not a metaphor? You were beaten that seriously?” he asked, looking carefully at her face. Then, with tightly controlled anger in his eyes and voice, he said, “Your jaw and nose were broken?”

  “Among other injuries. It doesn’t show except to a trained eye, and then only when looking closely. I had good doctors,” she dismissed. “I survived, obviously. Still, I resolved that I would never be that helpless again, that I would never be in a place where I would ever be defenseless.”

  “Why would anyone even think to try to bully you, let alone hurt you like that?”

  She sighed. “There is never any good reason for bullying. But it happens, more often than not, to people who are different.”

  “How are you ‘different’?”

  “You might as well know, I’ve always been something of a ‘wunderkind’. I was eleven years old when I graduated from high school.”

  “Eleven,” he echoed, clearly stunned. “Eleven years old?”

  Figuring that she had given him part of the story so he deserved it all, she continued, “Thirteen when I took my Bachelor’s. Seventeen when I graduated Medical School at the top of my class. Nineteen when I defended my doctoral dissertation. Twenty when I finished my residency. And now I’m the second year of the fellowship here.�
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  “As neat of a line of stitching as you did, you could be specializing in surgery.”

  “No, thank you. I did my rotation in general surgery during my residency. But I’m far happier in cardiology.”

  “Why cardiology?”

  “I could equally ask you why you became a trauma surgeon.”

  “No, really, I’m interested.”

  “And you think I’m not?”

  He smiled again, “What about cardiology interests you enough for you to work in it for the rest of your life?”

  “It’s like asking a person why they love who they love. It’s not a question that is objectively definable. I can tell you, all day long, the things I like in cardiology. But that doesn’t mean I could give you an answer about the why of it that would make any sense to you. Any more than it makes sense to me why I have fallen in love with you, now.”

  He nodded and smiled, joy literally radiating from him. “Now, that’s more definite than the ‘there is something between us’ which was your earlier answer.”

  “I am still trying to absorb the magnitude of this. Be patient with me, Dryusha. I’ve never felt anything like this for anyone.”

  “Neither have I, not really.”

  She shrugged, “Oh, I once had a crush on a boy, puppy love, but nothing would have come of it as he wasn’t Orthodox.”

  “He could have converted.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “He never offered to convert, and I never asked him to do so. Honestly, it was more than religion separating us. He had accepted a full ride scholarship to college and medical school with the condition that he would return to the town where we went to high school, and practice general medicine there for at least twenty-five years. I never want to return to that town where I was so terribly unhappy. So, I never allowed myself to even dream about him, or at least I dismissed the dreams as irrelevant, impossible…”