The One from the Other

SIX

Three days later I received a certified check drawn against the baron’s personal account at Delbrück & Co. for one thousand deutschmarks. It had been a while since I’d made any real money of my own, and for a while I just left the check on my desk so I could keep my eye on it. From time to time I picked it up and read it again, and told myself I was really back in business. Feeling good about myself lasted for the whole of one hour.

The telephone rang. It was Dr. Bublitz at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. He told me that Kirsten was ill. After developing a fever her condition had worsened and she had been transferred to the city’s General Hospital, near Sendlinger-Tor-Platz.

I ran out of the office, jumped on a tram, then hurried across Nussbaum Gardens to the Women’s Clinic on Maistrasse. Half of it looked like a building site; the other half looked like a ruin. I walked through a gauntlet of cement mixers, around a redoubt of new bricks and timber, and up the stone stairs. Builder’s dust ground under the soles of my shoes like spilled sugar. Hammering echoed loudly in the hospital stairwell with monotonous force, as if some prehistoric woodpecker was making a hole in an even larger tree. Outside, a pair of jackhammers were finishing a battle for the last foxhole in Munich. And someone was drilling the teeth of a very long-suffering giant while someone else was sawing off the leg of his even more long-suffering wife. Water was splashing into the courtyard outside, as if in some subterranean cavern. A sick coal miner or injured steelworker would have appreciated the peace and quiet of that place, but for anyone else with eardrums, the Women’s Clinic sounded like hell with all the windows open.

Kirsten was in a small private room off the main ward. She was feverish and yellow. Her hair was matted against her head as if she had just washed it. Her eyes were closed and her breathing rapid and shallow. She looked extremely ill. The nurse with her was wearing a face mask. From what I could see of her face it looked like a good idea. A man in a white coat appeared at my elbow.

“Are you the next of kin?” he barked. He was stout, with a center part in his fair hair, rimless glasses, a Hindenburg-size mustache, a stiff collar you could have cut corns with, and a bow tie off a box of chocolates.

“I’m her husband,” I said. “Bernhard Gunther.”

“Husband?” He searched his notes. “Fräulein Handlöser is married? There’s no record of that here.”

“When her family doctor referred her to the Max Planck, he forgot about it,” I said. “Maybe we didn’t invite him to the wedding, I don’t know. These things happen. Look, can we forget all that? What’s wrong with her?”

“I’m afraid we can’t forget it, Herr Gunther,” said the doctor. “There are regulations to be considered. I can only discuss Fräulein Handlöser’s condition with her next of kin. Perhaps you have your wedding certificate with you?”

“Not with me, no,” I said, patiently. “But I’ll bring it with me next time I come here. How’s that?” I paused and endured the doctor’s indignant scrutiny for a moment or two. “There’s no one else but me,” I added. “No one else will be visiting her, I can assure you of that.” I waited. Still nothing. “And if all that leaves you uncomfortable then answer me this. If she’s unmarried, why is she still wearing a wedding ring?”

The doctor glanced around my shoulder. Upon seeing Kirsten’s wedding ring still on her finger, he searched his notes again as if there might be some clue as to the proper course of action to be taken. “Really, this is most irregular,” he said. “However, given her condition, I suppose I will have to take your word for it.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

His heels came together and he nodded curtly back at me. I was quickly getting the impression that he had obtained his medical degree at a hospital in Prussia, somewhere they gave out jackboots instead of stethoscopes. But in truth it was a common enough scene in Germany. German doctors have always regarded themselves as being as important as God. Indeed, it’s probably worse than that. God probably thinks he’s a German doctor.

“My name is Dr. Effner,” he said. “Your wife—Frau Gunther—she is extremely ill. Gravely ill. Not doing well. Not doing well at all, Herr Gunther. She was transferred here during the night. And we’re trying our best, sir. You may be assured of that. But it’s my opinion that you must prepare yourself, sir. Prepare yourself for the worst. She may not survive the night.” He spoke like a cannon, in short, fierce bursts of speech, as if he had learned his bedside manner in a Messerschmitt 109. “We will make her comfortable, of course. But everything that can be done, has been done. You understand?”

“Are you saying she might die?” I asked, when, at last, I was able to get a shot back at him.

“Yes, Herr Gunther,” he said. “I am saying that. She is critically ill as you can see for yourself.”

“What on earth’s wrong with her?” I asked. “I mean, I saw her only a few days ago and she seemed fine.”

“She has a fever,” he said, as if this was all the explanation that was required. “A high fever. As you can see, although I don’t advise you to get too close to her. Her pallor, her shortness of breath, her anemia, her swollen glands—these all lead me to suppose that she has a bad case of influenza.”

“Influenza?”

“The old, the homeless, prisoners, and people who are institutionalized or mentally retarded, such as your wife, are especially vulnerable to the influenza virus,” he said.

“She’s not mentally retarded, “I said, frowning fiercely at him. “She’s depressed. That’s all.”

“These are facts, sir, facts,” said Dr. Effner. “Respiratory disease is the most common cause of death among individuals who are mentally retarded. You can’t argue with the facts, Herr Gunther.”

“I’d argue with Plato, Herr Doktor,” I said, biting my lip. It helped stop me from biting Effner on the neck. “Especially if the facts were wrong. And I’ll thank you not to mention death with such alacrity. She’s not dead yet. In case you hadn’t noticed. Or maybe you’re the kind of doctor who prefers to study patients instead of trying to cure them.”

Dr. Effner took a deep breath through flaring nostrils, came to attention even more—if such a thing were possible—and climbed into the saddle of a horse that was at least seventeen hands high. “How dare you suggest such a thing,” he said. “The very idea that I don’t care about my patients. It’s outrageous. Outrageous. We’re doing everything we can for—Fräulein Handlöser. Good day to you, sir.” He glanced at his wristwatch, turned smartly on his heel, and cantered away. Throwing a chair after him might have made me feel better, but it wouldn’t have helped Kirsten, or any of the other patients. There was enough noise already in that builder’s yard.