Saturday

Henry bids his family goodbye, noting that they still have much to discuss. Rosalind follows him upstairs, knowing that it is Baxter who he is being called in to operate on, and asks him why he is going. He replies, “I have to see this through. I’m responsible” (245). She makes him tell her that he will not try to take revenge, and the two share a passionate kiss. They acknowledge Daisy’s pregnancy; Rosalind informs him that the baby’s father is an Italian boy Daisy met abroad and they have already made arrangements to move in together. Paternal instincts make Henry worry about his daughter’s future, so he pushes the topic from his mind and leaves for the hospital.

Once again Henry observes the city, the debris from the march, the sanitary teams at work. Upon arriving at the hospital, he feels some relief at the familiarity of his surroundings. He goes into the room where Baxter is already on the operating table, surrounded by Jay Strauss and his registrar, the nurse, the runner, and Rodney, one of Henry’s two consultants. While looking at Baxter’s scans, Henry confirms that he does show physical signs of having Huntington’s Disease. Henry puts on the “Goldberg” Variations and begins to operate. He feels content as he works, competent and familiar with the task at hand. He muses on the beauty of the music and how a theme can change its entire emotional tone with variations. He thinks of the slow progress of science and medicine, optimistic that all the mysteries of the brain will one day be revealed.

After the operation, Henry makes his notes, and then goes to visit another patient, Andrea Chapman. He gets to tell her that her operation went well, and she is set to make a complete recovery. He notices that she has been journaling and asks her what she likes to write about. She tells him that she wants to become a neurosurgeon, full of excitement, and asks if she can see the video footage of her surgery. Before leaving the hospital, he stops in to check on Baxter and finds him resting peacefully, briefly catching his wrist and taking his pulse.

At home, Henry finds Rosalind sleeping in their bed and goes to take a shower, noting the bruise on his chest from where Baxter struck him during their initial encounter. Rosalind wakes and tells him she still feels fearful and angry and begins to tremble. Henry reassures her that she is just in shock. He comforts her and they speak of the bravery and strength of their children. Rosalind insists that they be supportive of Daisy’s pregnancy, and, feeling sleepy and generous, he agrees.

After these conversations on the edge of sleep, Henry and Rosalind once again make love, with more passion than the morning affair: “The moment is sharper, more piercing than Saturday’s lazy, affectionate beginning—their movements are quick and greedy, urgent rather than joyous—it’s as if they’ve returned from exile, emerged from a hard prison spell to gorge at a feast” (280). Their close encounter with violence forced them to confront their mortality directly, leaving in its wake a renewed hunger for life.

In the last section, Henry once more struggles to sleep. He goes to the window, noting that the streets have been cleaned. He thinks of the disparities in social class he witnesses in city life, noting that no amount of social justice can correct the variety of miseries that genetics and brain matter and background can inflict on the inhabitants experiencing homelessness, addiction, and other hardships.

Henry also thinks of his mother and how they cleaned out her house after her dementia got to the point where she could no longer safely live alone. As Henry sorts through the milieu of a house, he thinks of life’s temporality. Now, at the window, he thinks of how his mother will eventually die, and then John Grammaticus will as well. He thinks of how Theo will eventually move out and Daisy will marry and have a baby, and how he will slow down his lifestyle as he ages, perhaps moving out of the city itself.

Henry also thinks of the impending war, reconsidering his previous position in his argument with Daisy. The events of the day have caused him to reflect on the consequentiality of even a small action. He now worries about the repercussions of the war. His own encounter with violence has made him feel more acutely its moral complexities.

Henry decides not to press charges against Baxter, feeling some pity for the man’s ill-fated remainder of life. He also is awed by the fact that Baxter experienced something that Henry never has: being moved by a poem. He feels that this display of human depth has earned Baxter the right to live out his final days as a free man. Finally, he gets back into bed, and with the resolution to help the man who tried to hurt him, falls asleep next to his wife.