Dr. Schroeder
Harmony and Goodness
The three gunas in the Bhagavad Gita are Satva (harmony/ goodness), Rajas (passion/activity), and Tamas (inertia/ignorance). They are the fundamental forces of nature that influence all human behavior, thoughts, and actions. No one is just one but a combination of all three. Dr. Schroeder is heavily proportioned with harmony and goodness.
We see this throughout the novel: Colonel Shephard is heavily proportioned with passion from his ability to kill without hesitation in the mistaken belief that he is protecting his country from communism; Dr. Smiley by ignorance from his desire for money and a beautiful home in Westmount; and Dr. Schroeder (the dermatologist who treated Sonny for his skin) by harmony and goodness from her desire to help others and not to judge. How these people got to be who they are is through karma. We can only hope that the world is filled with more people like Dr. Schroeder.
We see Dr. Schroeder’s true character on full display in the Epilogue.
“Anna gave 50 percent of her patients discounts, and 20 percent paid nothing. She saw herself as a doctor who made things fair to everyone. Let the rich subsidize those who can least afford my services. If she could have done more, she would have, but there were only so many days in the week to work, and she had Rubin (her dying husband) to care for.
After Rubin dies, I will move to Israel, she told herself. She missed the country, the friendly banter between Jews who spoke Hebrew and had lived through the war. But then she reconsidered that idea; her daughters and grandchildren were in Montreal, and she wanted to stay close to them. Life was full of adjustments, especially as you aged and needed the support of family. She would probably stay in Montreal and occasionally travel to Israel.
Her patient, Mrs. Gottlieb, was a Virgo, a driven perfectionist who planned everything. She was in her third marriage and looked haggard, with a patch of skin cancer on her nose from too much exposure to the sun, which Anna removed. She recommended that Mrs. Gottlieb see a therapist. “Mrs. Gottlieb, you need to stop seeking perfection. No one can ever be perfect; we all make mistakes. Lighten your own demands on yourself and others. I say this to you as a friend, not as your doctor.” She prescribed a mild tranquilizer and told her to avoid the sun. But she doubted that Mrs. Gottlieb would follow her advice or ever change.
God has made her the way he has, and I must do what God tells me to do to help her overcome her problems, physical and mental.
She thought about karma—you reap what you sow—and yet everything came from God, good and bad. She knew in her heart that she was born to serve others, because everyone was God’s creation, and she had always felt the need to serve others because it was beautiful, satisfying, and in itself a gift from God. She did her best never to judge anyone.
If you judge, you will be judged. Who knows what others have suffered or how they came to be as they are? No one, not a single soul, not even the greatest psychiatrist or the wisest rabbi.
“Anna, are you coming?”
“Yes, Rubin, I am coming to you, honey, Sheli my love,” she said.
He worries about death, she thought. I can see it in his eyes; he is sad that he does not know what will happen after death. He is unsure, worried that he will disappear, when he should know that he will be reborn, just like he goes to sleep every night and wakes in the morning, and during the night has dreams and nightmares, and believes that he is someone else. And he fails to realize that everything is given to him, every last thing, as I was given to him and he was given to me, and if he did believe, he would see that the God who made him will resurrect him, if not the way he was born, then as someone else, and not to worry. The morning will come, and with it the sunshine, and the rain, thunder, and lightning.
God loves him, and why? Because Rubin, like others, is too beautiful not to be reborn, and I will see him, surely as I will see the morning sun, and him walking along a road, a young, handsome man waiting to meet his girlfriend, and her looking at him, smiling and knowing what she has always known: The world, with all its sorrows, injustice, heartache, and horrors, is truly beautiful, wonderful, and satisfying.
I am blessed to have been born. I am blessed to have Rubin. I am blessed. Modeh ani lefanekha melekh hai vekauyam shehehezarta n nismati b’hemiah, rabah emunatekha.[1]”
[1] I give thanks before you, King living and eternal, for You have returned within me my soul with compassion; abundant is Your faithfulness!