The Fourth Hand by John Irving Read Free Book Online

Medea.)
    Irma had never met Rudy. She didn’t work weekends. What she knew was only what she could glean from photographs, of which there were an increasing number after each of the blessed son’s visits. While Irma had sensed that Rudy’s room was a shrine, she was unprepared to see Zajac and Medea in their embrace in the little boy’s bed. Oh, she thought, to be loved like that!

    That instant, that very second, Irma fel in love with Dr.
    Zajac’s obvious capacity for love—notwithstanding that the good doctor had evinced no discernible capacity for loving her. On the spot, Irma became Zajac’s slave—not that he would soon notice it.
    At that life-changing moment, Medea opened her selfpitying eyes and raised her heavy head, a string of drool suspended from her overhanging lip. To Irma, who had an unrestrained enthusiasm for finding omens in the most commonplace occurrences, the dog’s slobber was the haunting color of a pearl. Irma could tel that Dr. Zajac was about to wake up, too. The doctor had a boner as big around as his wrist, as long as . . . wel , let’s just say that, for such a scrawny guy, Zajac had quite a schlong. Irma thereupon decided that she wanted to be thin. It was a reaction no less sudden than the discovery of her love for Dr. Zajac. The awkward girl, who was nearly twenty years younger than the divorced doctor, was scarcely able to stagger into the hal before Zajac woke up. To alert the doctor that she was nearby, she cal ed the dog.
    Halfheartedly, Medea made her way out of Rudy’s room; to the depressed dog’s bewilderment, which quickly gave way to fawning, Irma began to shower her with affection.
    Everything has a purpose, the simple girl was thinking. She remembered her earlier unhappiness and knew that the dog was her road to Dr. Zajac’s heart.

    “Come here, sweetie-pie, come with me,” Zajac heard his housekeeper/assistant saying. “We’re gonna eat only what’s good for us today!”
    As has been noted, Zajac’s col eagues were woeful y beneath his surgical skil s; they would have envied and despised him even more if they hadn’t been able to feel they had certain advantages over him in other areas. It cheered and encouraged them that their intrepid leader was crippled by love for his unhappy, wasting-away son.
    And wasn’t it wonderful that, for the love of Rudy, Boston’s best hand surgeon lived night and day with a shit-eating dog? It was both cruel and uncharitable of Dr. Zajac’s inferiors to celebrate the unhappiness of Zajac’s six-year-old, nor was it accurate of the good hand surgeon’s col eagues to deem the boy “wasting-away.” Rudy was crammed ful of vitamins and orange juice; he drank fruit smoothies (mostly frozen strawberries and mashed bananas) and managed to eat an apple or a pear every day. He ate scrambled eggs and toast; he would eat cucumbers, if only with ketchup. He drank no milk, he ate no meat or fish or cheese, but at times he exhibited a cautious interest in yogurt, if there were no lumps in it.
    Rudy was underweight, but with even a smal amount of regular exercise or any healthy adjustment in his diet, Rudy would have been as normal-looking as any little boy. He was an exceptional y sweet child—not only the proverbial
    “good kid” but a model of fairness and goodwil . Rudy had simply been fucked up by his mother, who had nearly succeeded in poisoning Rudy’s feelings for his father. After al , Hildred had three weeks to work on the vulnerable six-year-old; every third weekend, Zajac had scarcely more than forty-eight hours to counteract Hildred’s evil influence.
    And because Hildred was wel aware of Dr. Zajac’s idolatry of strenuous exercise, she forbade Rudy to play soccer or go ice-skating after school—the kid was hooked on videos instead.
    Hildred, who in her years with Zajac had half kil ed herself to stay thin, now embraced plumpness. She cal ed this being
    “more of a woman,” the very thought of which made her