Consumed by David Cronenberg Page B

hat. “I was wrong. You can see after all.”
    â€œThank you.”
    Nathan walked over to Roiphe’s booth and stood for a moment while the doctor tried to saw through one of his three pork chops, face low to the plate, oblivious. Nathan subtly swayed on his feet, studying the man. He had by now of course watched lectures, interviews, and news footage of Roiphe, and had read his learned papers—no trace of humor there—which often included photos of the man going back to his graduation from the University of Toronto medical school, class of 1957. But he had not recognized him: the collapsed posture, the big glasses with those distorting bifocal blobs, the weird hat. Roiphe’s head eventually came up, the eyes smeared behind the lenses, the glasses crooked on the notched, reddened nose. The doctor looked puzzled. Why was this young man just standing there? Was he a waiter?
    â€œDr. Roiphe? Nathan Math. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
    A hint of a delay, like an old transatlantic phone call, and then a thin-lipped smile. “Oh, yes. Sit down, sit down. Just having a couple of pork chops. They’re tough, but I need the exercise.” Roiphe worked his jaw comically; the effect was grotesque. Nathan slid into the narrow booth and felt the rough texture of the scarred seat through his jeans. “You want anything?”
    â€œNo, no thanks,” said Nathan. “Hope I’m not taking you away from your patients.”
    â€œOh, no. Man’s gotta eat, doesn’t he? And, too, I’m pretty much retired. Well, I still practice a bit. Just to keep my hand in. I’ve become a bit of a tinkerer, though. A bit of an experimenter. So, tell me again. What’s this all about?”
    From his research, Nathan had calculated that Roiphe would respond to a fairly melodramatic pitch about his life and his work; he came across as a failed but still eager self-promoter. “For one shining moment, you were the king of fear,” he said.
    Roiphe’s eyes managed to startle into sharpness behind the bifocals. “What? What are you talking about?”
    â€œRoiphe’s. Roiphe’s disease. You made the cover of Time magazine.”
    Irritated, Roiphe went back to his pork chops. The way he chewed suggested false teeth, but Nathan couldn’t be sure. The doctor’s jaw sawed sideways; maybe it was an eating style. Still chewing, Roiphe came up for air, blinked, spoke. “Not me, for god’s sake. The disease. Surely you don’t equate the two. And the politics surrounding the disease. All sex, all hysteria, very American.” He wiped his mouth with a thin paper napkin. The stubble on one side of his poorly shaven chin shredded it, so that in effect he wiped his mouth with his fingers. He sucked those fingers as he squinted suspiciously, as though trying to focus on an especially noxious varmint. “Why is it, exactly, you wanted to talk to me?”
    Nathan figured he had to scale back the drama. “I’m writing a piece about medical fame. The scary kind. You know—Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s. Names that people are terrified to hear. Afraid that their doctors will speak those names to them.”
    The doctor burst out laughing, a short, liquid bark that spewed shreds of chop across the table. “Roiphe’s disease was a leaky pecker or a mucky twat. Hardly in the same league.”
    â€œBut Roiphe’s could be lethal if it was left untreated. I mean, Wayne Pardeau died of Roiphe’s.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œWayne Pardeau,” said Nathan. “A famous country-and-western singer.”
    â€œNever heard of him. But it was probably drugs that killed him. Usually is.”
    â€œDo you have an inferiority complex about Roiphe’s? Was it not a potent enough disease to bear your name?”
    â€œWhat an odd young man you are. You sound like a headline in a Victorian yellow newspaper. I suppose