Page 82 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. V #7

Choir Seat (continued from page 40)
brain before cutting it. It comes naturally. Fetch a
and surgery our group studied obstetrics. We were at the maternity hospital on the edge of the downs. She and I shared a floor in a strange fifties house—all fibre-board and plywood; you could hear the other medical residents breathing, let alone doing anything else that came to mind— with Tall Martha; the other room on our floor was empty. I spent many of my night-hours with my head between women’s legs, sewing up vaginal tears and episiotomies.” The student paused. “It wasn’t long before Martha and I started to take dawn gas-sessions together. It was how romances
bucket of formalin, please.”
The student went out and asked the technician for the same.
“She often likes to pickle her brains,” said the technician tolerantly. He wondered how this shy young man was apparently able to keep the com- pany of two intelligent and independent women harmoniously and successfully: and Jane du Lac seemed so possessive of him.
The student returned with the bucket and placed it often began.”
on the floor next to the slab. Jane du Lac supported the brain with her outspread left hand while she severed the cervical cord beneath the medulla. She placed a loop of string around the basilar artery at the base of the brain: carrying the brain in cupped hands rather than a bowl—and it fitted her rather large hands neatly—she laid it in the balance
“Nitrous oxide and oxygen?”
pan and weighed it (“1,550 grams: quite heavy:
it makes you wonder about the clinical diagnosis of pre-senile dementia. Still, we’ll see.”) She then stooped over the bucket and immersed the brain in the formalin. She slid a cane through the loop
of string; the brain hung in the fixative, suspended base-upwards from the cane which rested on the sides of the bucket. “Put an addressograph on both lid and bucket, please,” she said. “Then place it in the cupboard with the others. We’ll have a cut-up in six weeks when it’s fixed.”
“I’m glad you didn’t neglect the oxygen,” said Jane du Lac. “Talking of which, the lungs. Both are of normal appearance.” She took up a lung-knife
and made long slices. “The cut surface reveals a little pulmonary oedema.” She squeezed the lung tissue and a little fluid exuded from the severed airways. She slit open the trachea and main bron- chi, and then separated the lungs from the organ bloc and placed them aside the body. “Moving on. Oesophagus. Normal appearance.” She looked across at the student. “I am always amazed that such a delicate structure can stand so much insult throughout life,” she said. “I am going to have to have a talk with Martha. She must believe that my wish for your friendship is cerebral and inno- cent.”
The student lifted the bucket and walked towards the organ-fixing store.
“How did you two meet?” asked Jane du Lac, rais- ing her voice a little to accommodate the distance between them.
At that moment Tall Martha entered the postmor- tem room. The technician stood at the door of the preparation room, his eyebrows raised, his gloved hands resting on the hips of his long, enveloping apron.
The student returned; he looked across the evis- cerated body at Jane du Lac.
“I made Tall Martha’s acquaintance during the preclinical course; then, at the start of the clini- cal, when we made our self-selecting groups, Tall Martha collected her group together and asked me to join. I felt rather honoured. After medicine
Tall Martha slowly walked across the floor. She stood at the head of the slab, resting her hands on the raised edge. She shook back her long, black hair. She looked at the male student. “I thought I’d
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“That’s right. In the little auxiliary theatre above the chapel. It was never used outside the work- ing day.”