I maintained that a persecuted group did not automatically gain virtue by the fact that they were persecuted; that all human beings were potential persecutors given power; and that persecuted groups once they gained power often became persecutors. I mentioned Jews as having become persecutors under the Maccabees. Wiesel said, “It was the only time.” I said, “It was their only chance.”

  45

  Coronary

  1

  On May 9, 1977, I was taking shirts to the dry cleaners at a distance of about three tenths of a mile from my apartment, and halfway there I became aware of a distinct discomfort just under my breastbone (the epigastric region) and a feeling as though I were short of breath. I stopped and the feeling passed. I started walking again, and it returned.

  A chill of apprehension flooded me. I knew what it was. I had never felt the pain before but I had been waiting for it, in a way, for fifteen years.

  My father had had angina pectoris at forty-two—and I had it now, at fifty-seven. My coronary arteries were clogging up. No wonder I had been feeling tired and aging through all the last half year when by the irony of circumstance my speaking schedule had been incredibly heavy.

  What to do? Logically, I should make Paul Esserman my first port of call. If I told Janet of the pain, that would certainly happen. She would be on the phone in half a minute.

  I might be wrong, though. It might be tension; it might be indigestion; it might be imagination. Why not wait, live normally, and observe the results? If the thing continued, I would see Esserman.

  Besides, the next day I had to drive to Hartford to give a talk, and the day after that, Janet’s institute was putting on their annual benefit show, of which I was the titular head, and after that there were other functions, other talks, to say nothing of my autobiography. I had no time for angina.

  I carried on, therefore, and despite occasional discomfort, I could almost persuade myself that it was my imagination until May 13, 1977 (Friday the thirteenth, as it happened).

  It was a busy day. Lunch with John Doherty of National Wildlife, followed by a party at Florence Freedman’s (an elderly widow in the neighborhood, of whom Janet and I were very fond). Then I broke away to dash out to the monthly meeting of the Gilbert and. Sullivan Society, and when that was over, I accompanied a group to the apartment of Jesse Shereff, president of the society. There I had sizable portions of a very rich and extraordinarily delicious cheesecake.

  I then went home, but as I got into bed at midnight, I found that the discomfort that had been obtruding itself on my notice in the course of the day had become a severe cramp. I could not lie down, nor could I hide the fact from Janet. The pains in my epigastric region were acute.

  Midnight it might be, but Janet, disregarding my panted protests, called Paul Esserman at his home. Paul said he would open his office the next day, even though it was Saturday, and I was to arrive at 11:30 a.m.

  By morning, of course, the pains were gone and I felt only mildly hung over from a sleepless night, fears of angina, and the knowledge that I had to be speaking at Queensboro Library that afternoon.

  Paul took an electrocardiogram and it proved to be normal. He said, “Now where was the pain last night?”

  I pointed to the epigastric region and he said, “Angina is typically felt distinctly higher than that. Did you eat anything before going to bed?”

  I mentioned the cheesecake.

  He said, thoughtfully, “It could be gastroenteritis, a hiatus hernia, or gallstones. Don’t eat anything after 6 p.m., stay away from rich, fatty foods, and we will arrange an X ray of the gall bladder.”

  So off I went to the Queensboro Public Library, knowing that whatever it was, I was going to have to reduce. Paul and Janet had been after me for years to do so, but now the pressure would be irresistible. The thirty pounds I had taken off thirteen years before were still off. I weighed 183 pounds on the day of the examination. I decided, morosely, that twenty more pounds would have to come off.

  2

  Meanwhile, it was commencement season again. On May 16, Janet and I drove to Haverford, Pennsylvania, so that I could give a commencement address at Haverford College, a Quaker-run school. On the morning of May 17, I attended a Quaker meeting for the first time in my life and found it rather unnerving. I just sat there until someone was moved to say a few words with no one else giving any sign of listening.

  The commencement was held out of doors, and the president of the college asked me to speak for fifteen minutes. I announced at the start, with some braggadocio, that I would speak for fifteen minutes, and one faculty member promptly checked his watch. After the ceremony he told me I had spoken for fourteen minutes, thirty-two seconds, and he had not seen me look at a watch. How had I done it?

  I said, “After speaking professionally for thirty years, I have a built-in stopwatch.”

  3

  We drove to Philadelphia in the afternoon, and that night Janet, being hungry, suggested a late snack to be delivered by room service. I ordered a piece of cheesecake and it proved to be an unusually rich, fluffy, and delicious one.

  I went to bed peacefully and woke at 1:30 a.m. of May 19, 1977, with an abdominal pain more excruciating than any I had experienced since my last bad kidney-stone attack eight years before. It was, again, in the epigastric region, higher than the kidney-stone pain, but otherwise like it.

  Unable to lie, sit, or stand, I staggered back and forth for an hour while a white and frightened Janet watched. I wouldn’t let her say anything. “Don’t talk,” I said, “just listen.”

  I then went on to explain, rather raggedly and incoherently, that if anything happened to me I didn’t want weeping and wailing and whining. She was just to live her life normally because my will would take care of her and of my children, and I wanted her to know she had made me very happy in those years that I had been with her.

  It didn’t seem to reassure her.

  Then at 3:00 a.m., the pain began to ebb away precisely as it would in my kidney-stone attacks, and I made motions with my hand as though I were leading an orchestra and indicating a softer and softer diminuendo. When it was gone, I got into bed and lay there on my back with all the relief of nonpain after agony.

  “How do you feel, Isaac?” asked Janet.

  “As though I’d died and gone to heaven,” I said, and drifted off.

  After I woke, there was a mild, continuing epigastric pain that made me feel poorly, but I followed my schedule. The show must go on. I attended a Planned Parenthood luncheon and, though I ate little, I gave my talk, which went well.

  4

  In the evening, Janet called Paul Esserman long-distance, told him what had happened, and put me on. He wanted me to describe exactly what happened, and seemed irritated when I told him I had once again eaten cheesecake.

  “What was the pain like, Isaac?”

  “Exactly like a kidney stone in the wrong place, Paul.”

  Paul said, “That’s exactly how gallstones are described by people who have both. Janet says you’ve already made an appointment for a gall-bladder X ray. Till then, take it easy, rest, and for heaven’s sake, stay away from rich food. A piece of cheesecake is just the thing to trigger gall-bladder contractions and cause the pain.”

  5

  On May 19, we spent the morning sight-seeing while I countered Janet’s repeated questions as to how I felt with a gaiety I did not exactly feel. In the evening I gave my third talk of the trip, this one to a group of cardiologists.

  I was back in New York on May 20 and that night attended a Trap Door Spiders meeting at which I was far from my usual scintillating self. The deficiency was so marked that I had to explain, with considerable embarrassment, that I might be having a gallstone problem.

  6

  Janet was after me to go to Paul’s for another examination, but I refused any appointment till the afternoon of May 25. I was lunching with Doubleday publisher Sam Vaughan and Ken McCormick, editor-in-chief emeritus, and as nearly as I can judge from universal reports, the best-loved man in publishing, and I wanted nothing to interfere with it. I was adamant, and Janet had to agree.

  That meant I had time to give a talk (without fee) for Pauline Bloom, who, thirty-five years before, had introduced me to the Brooklyn Authors’ Club, and for whom, thirty years before, I had given my first public talk. I warned her not to expect a free talk from me every thirty years, however.

  The next day, the twenty-fifth, I had my lunch with Sam and Ken and we discussed the autobiography. I broke the news that it would be a long one and they took it calmly.

  7

  I left them in very good spirits and with ample time to get to Paul’s for my appointment. The weather was pleasant, I felt good—why not walk, then, and test the angina business?

  It was about a mile to Paul’s office and I walked it briskly and jauntily, with scarcely any discomfort. Coming to his place, I ran up a flight of stairs and burst into his office. I was panting a bit and Paul’s assistants wanted to know what was the matter.

  I said, “Just testing. I walked a mile to get here and ran up the stairs. See, I feel fine.”

  Paul, who had emerged from his office in time to hear this, sputtered, “Who told you to test yourself? That’s not the way to do it. We’ll test you. Suppose you had had a cardiac arrest? Sit down and I’ll be with you in a minute.” I’d never seen him angry, and I don’t think he had it in him to be angry, but he must have come as close to that emotion as he could at that time.

  Janet walked in a moment later and I told her about the lunch and how I had tested myself. I was quite euphoric.

  Paul then came to get me, strapped me down, attached the leads, and began taking another electrocardiogram.

  The instrument had not been ticking for two seconds when he came back to me to make sure the leads were all making good contacts. One look at his face and I knew everything. Poor Paul had no poker face and I am not slow of comprehension.

  “Uh-oh,” I muttered.

  Paul said nothing. He took the full EKG, then called in his partner, Howard Gorfinkel, showed him the strip, and said, “Any doubts?”

  Howard said gravely, “None whatever.” They then turned to face me and Paul said, “What you had on May 18 wasn’t a matter of gallstones, Isaac. You had a coronary, even though the symptoms were entirely atypical.”290

  “Oh boy,” I said. “How bad?”

  “A mild one. We know it was a mild one from the fact that in the seven days since you’ve been carrying on like mad. If it hadn’t been a mild one you would have died some time in this last week, probably as you ran up the stairs to my office.”

  “Well, I didn’t, Paul. So let’s forget it and I’ll be a good boy and lose weight.”

  “We can’t forget it. You’re going into the hospital. Now.”

  “Why? I’ve been doing fine for a week, and I’ve got to give a commencement address at Johns Hopkins day after tomorrow. I can’t let them down.”

  “You’ll have to.”

  “But if I lived a week, I can live two days more.”

  “What if you die on the speaker’s platform?”

  “It would be an honorable death.”

  That got Paul, Howard, and Janet all unaccountably furious, and I could see I had no choice in the matter.

  Paul asked if I wanted to “go public” on the matter. I gathered that some people didn’t like to admit they had a heart problem lest it affect their employability. I shrugged. “Sure I’ll go public. I’ll probably write articles about it.”

  I called up Harry Walker’s and spoke to Carol Bruckner, the young woman who handles my speaking engagements (short, zaftig, intelligent, and with a ribald sense of humor) that I was being hijacked into the hospital and would have to cancel my talks till further notice. Then I called Cathleen to break the news to her and to assure her I would stay alive. And then I was forced into a taxi and taken away.

  In the hospital, I was hooked up to an EKG machine, transfixed with an intravenous needle (in case of emergencies, they said), and filled full of Valium.

  8

  From then on, the procedure was much as it had been during my stay for the thyroidectomy five years before. I was constantly bothered by nurses, and every morning a goon squad of residents, interns, and fourth-year students would gather around me.

  Naturally, I joked with them, and was suave with the young women among them, and when I finally made them laugh, I told them they were displaying heartless merriment over a suffering patient. That made them laugh even harder, and when the cardiologist, Dr. Kahn, arrived, I promptly accused them, one and all, of unethical behavior.

  Kahn proved a pleasant person, so I went through some of my repertoire of doctor jokes during the intervals of his examination. I had to admit, though, that I didn’t know any cardiology jokes.

  “I know one,” said Kahn, “which I’ll tell you if you’re not sensitive about your condition.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said.

  He said, “A fellow had a coronary like you, and was taken off sex, as you have been. He stayed in the hospital, as you are doing, then spent a period confined to his house, as you will be, and finally visited his doctor for an examination. The doctor was pleased with his progress, so the patient said, ‘Well, doctor, can I have sex again?’ The doctor considered carefully, then said, ‘Well, all right—but only with your wife. I don’t want you to get too excited.’ ”

  I laughed heartily and added it to my repertoire.

  Fun and games with the goon squad continued as a matter of course, and when some of them left because it was time for their rotation to other wards, they came to shake hands and say good-bye and how sorry they were to leave.

  “I don’t blame you,” I said, “for being sorry. This seems like a fun ward.”

  Whereupon one of the women members, not recognizing irony, said, “Oh no, Dr. Asimov. This is a terribly depressing ward. Everyone is so downhearted and sad.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Yes,” said she, “and we don’t understand it. We talk about it at breakfast.”

  (Of course, it helped me keep my spirits up when Janet came in every day to be with me, and Robyn came in on the twenty-seventh, and I was simply flooded with all kinds of well wishes.)

  9

  By May 28, the doctors were confident enough of my progress to take me out of the intensive-care unit and put me up in a private room. On the way out, I passed Ben Grauer, the veteran radio announcer. He had once interviewed me and, hearing I was in the unit, wanted to see me. They wheeled me over.

  He had also had a coronary, a worse one than I had had, and he was lying in bed with an oxygen mask over his face. We talked for a few seconds and I was wheeled onward. Two and a half days later he was dead.

  10

  In my private room, I could have visitors at all hours, and they came in a steady stream: Stan and Ruth, Austin Olney, Don Laventhal and his partner, Bob Zicklin, Larry Ashmead, Cathleen Jordan, Sharon Jarvis, Chaucy and Les, Eleanor Sullivan, Jesse Shereff, Sam Moskowitz, and so on and so on.

  Lester and Judy-Lynn came a couple of times and, of course, Ben Bova, who was substituting for me in several of the talks I had had to cancel291 and who had actually, to my great indignation, tried to get them to send the checks to me. I had absolutely refused any such arrangement, of course.

  “How can you sit there, Ben,” I said hotly, “in your Italian innocence and remorselessly activate my Jewish guilt by trying to refuse to accept the fees?”

  “It’s not Italian innocence,” he said, “it’s Italian superstition.”

  “What Italian superstition?”

  “The one that says it’s bad luck to profit through the misery of others.”

  “What are you talking about? The Mafia . . .”

  “Oh well,” said Ben, “it’s different if you cause the misery.”

  11

  Even though I wasn’t hooked up to an EKG machine in my private room, I did wear little monitors that recorded my heart behavior somewhere—just in case. It meant I couldn’t be too suave with the nurses or they’d come in to see what was wrong. And sometimes at night when I’d knock one of the leads loose as I turned in bed, an orderly would come in and manhandle me to fix it up again.

  12

  Paul Esserman had been worried that being in the hospital with nothing to do would drive me crazy. He consulted Janet, who said I had over a thousand pages of first draft of my autobiography that I could easily go over and revise.

  “Good,” said Paul. “Bring it in to him.”

  Then, just in case I might be nervous about having an irreplaceable manuscript taken out of the house, Janet arranged with Doubleday to have every page photocopied. Cathleen’s secretary, Al Sarrantonio, took care of it personally and never let the manuscript out of his sight till it was done.

  Janet then brought it in on May 27, and for the rest of my stay in the hospital, I went over the manuscript, correcting and revising to my heart’s content.

  Janet also brought in my mail and phone messages daily.

  13

  I let my beard grow while I was in the hospital and found, to my chagrin and embarrassment, that it was almost pure white. Toward the end of my stay I had the raffish look of Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

  There were some silly suggestions that I keep the beard, but I had it shaved off before leaving the hospital. White sideburns are enough,

  14

  I did have some fears that once people found out I had had a coronary, they might no longer be interested in asking me to do stories or articles for them, figuring I was as good as dead.