Authors: John Irving
“You’re doing a very good job,” Jack’s father told Dr. von Rohr sincerely. He was too cold for sarcasm; his teeth were chattering again.
“Your body is
not
naked, William. It is gloriously covered with hymns of jubilation, and with the passion of an abiding love of God—but also an abiding
loss,
” Dr. von Rohr continued.
Dr. Horvath went on dressing Jack’s father as if William were a child. Jack could see that his dad had completely succumbed, not only to Dr. Horvath dressing him but to Dr. von Rohr’s litany—which William had doubtless delivered to her on more than one occasion.
“You are wearing your grief, William,” Dr. von Rohr went on, “and your broken heart is thankful—it just can’t keep you warm, not anymore. And the
music—
well, some of it is triumphant.
Jubilant,
you would say. But so much of it is sad, isn’t it, William? Sad like a dirge, sad like a
lamentation,
as I’ve heard you say repeatedly.”
“The
repeatedly
was sarcastic, Ruth,” Jack’s father said. “You were doing fine till then.”
Dr. von Rohr sighed again. “I’m just trying to get us to dinner on time, William. Forgive me if I’m giving Jack the
abridged
version.”
“I think I get it,” Jack told Dr. von Rohr. (He thought she’d done a good job, under the circumstances.) “I get the idea, Pop—I really do.”
“Pop?
Was heisst
‘Pop’?” Dr. Horvath asked. (“What is ‘Pop’?”)
“
Amerikanische Umgangssprache für
‘
Vater,
’ ” Professor Ritter told him. (“American colloquial speech for ‘Father.’ ”)
“He doesn’t need to wear a tie, Klaus,” Dr. von Rohr said to Dr. Horvath, who was struggling to knot a necktie at William’s throat. “Jack’s not wearing a tie, and he looks fine.”
“But it’s the
Kronenhalle
!” Jack was certain Dr. Horvath was going to yell; however, Dr. Horvath put the tie away and was silent.
“There’s more to life than grieving and singing praise to God, William,” Dr. Berger intoned. “I mean, factually speaking.”
“I won’t use that word I used
again,
William,” Dr. von Rohr said carefully, “but allow me to say that you can’t go to the Kronenhalle wearing
only
your tattoos, because—as I know you know, William—they’re not socially acceptable.”
“Not socially acceptable,” Jack’s father repeated, smiling. Jack could see that being socially
un
acceptable pleased William Burns, and that Dr. von Rohr knew this about him.
“I want to say that I can see what good care you’re taking of my dad,” Jack told them all. “I want you to know that my sister and I appreciate it—and that my father appreciates it.” Everyone seemed embarrassed—except William, who looked irritated.
“You don’t need to make a
speech,
Jack. You’re not a
Canadian
anymore,” his dad told him. “We all can be socially acceptable, when we have to. Well, maybe not
Hugo,
” his father added, with that mischievous little smile Jack was getting used to. “Have you met Hugo yet, Jack?”
“
Noch nicht,
” Jack said. (“Not yet.”)
“But I suppose they’ve told you about the nature of the little excursions I take with Hugo, on occasion,” his father said, the mischief
and
the smile disappearing from his face, as if one word—not necessarily
Hugo,
but the
wrong
word—could instantly make him another person. “They’ve told you, haven’t they?” He wasn’t kidding.
“I know a little about it,” Jack answered him evasively. But his father had already turned to Professor Ritter and the others.
“Don’t you think a father and his son should have those awkward but necessary conversations about sex
together
?” William asked his doctors.
“
Bitte,
William—” Professor Ritter started to say.
“Isn’t that what any
responsible
father would do?” Jack’s dad went on. “Isn’t that my
job
? To talk about sex with my son—isn’t that
my
job? Why is that
your
job?”
“We thought that Jack should be informed about the Hugo business, William,” Dr. Berger said. “We didn’t know you would bring the matter up with him.”
“Factually speaking,” William said, calming down a little.
“We can talk about it later, Pop.”
“Perhaps over dinner,” his father said, smiling at Dr. von Rohr, who sighed.
“Speaking of which, you should be
leaving
!” Dr. Horvath cried. But when they started for the corridor—his father bowing to Dr. von Rohr, who preceded him—Dr. Horvath grabbed Jack by both shoulders, holding him back.
“Which of the
triggers
was it?” the doctor whispered in Jack’s ear; even Dr. Horvath’s whisper was loud. “
Das Wort,
” he whispered. (“The word.”) “What was it?”
“
Skin,
” Jack whispered. “It was the word
skin.
”
“
Gott!
” Dr. Horvath shouted. “That’s one of the
worst
ones—that one is
unstoppable
!”
“I’m glad
some
of the triggers are stoppable,” Jack told him. “
Naked,
for example. Dr. von Rohr seemed to stop that one.”
“
Ja, naked
’s not so bad,” Dr. Horvath said dismissively. “But you better not bring up the word
skin
at the Kronenhalle. And the
mirrors
!” he remembered, with a gasp. “Keep William away from the mirrors.”
“Is a mirror one of the
unstoppable
triggers?” Jack asked.
“A mirror is more than a trigger,” Dr. Horvath said gravely. “A mirror is
das ganze Pulver
!”
“What?” Jack asked him; he didn’t know the phrase.
“
Das ganze Pulver!
” Dr. Horvath cried. “All the ammunition!”
Their evening at the Kronenhalle began with William complimenting Dr. von Rohr on the silver streak in her tawny hair—how it had always impressed him that she must have been struck by lightning one morning on her way to work. By the time she met with her first patient, he imagined, she was acutely aware of that part of her head where the lightning bolt had hit her—mainly because the lightning had done such extensive damage to her roots that her hair had already died and turned gray.
“Is this actually a
compliment,
William?” Dr. von Rohr asked.
They had not yet been seated at their table, which was in a room with a frosted-glass wall. They’d entered the Kronenhalle from Rämistrasse. Dr. von Rohr, who was much taller than Jack’s father, purposely blocked any view he might have had of the mirror by the bar. They passed both the women’s and the men’s washrooms, which harbored more mirrors, but these mirrors were not within sight of the corridor they followed to their glassed-in room. (The mirror over the sideboard was in another part of the restaurant.)
William was looking all around, but he couldn’t see past Dr. von Rohr—he came up to her breasts—and Dr. Krauer-Poppe held his other arm. Jack followed them. His father was constantly turning his head and smiling at him. Jack could tell that his dad thought it was great fun to be escorted into a fancy restaurant like the Kronenhalle by two very good-looking women.
“If you weren’t so tall, Ruth,” William was saying to Dr. von Rohr, “I could get a look at the top of your head and see if that silver streak is dyed all the way down to your roots.”
“There’s just no end to your
compliments,
William,” she said, smiling down at him.
Jack’s dad patted the little purse Dr. Krauer-Poppe carried on her arm. “Got the sedatives, Anna-Elisabeth?” he asked.
“Behave yourself, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.
William turned and winked at Jack. Dr. Horvath had dressed Jack’s father in a long-sleeved black silk shirt; because William’s arms were long, but his body was small, every shirt looked too big on him. His silver shoulder-length hair, which was the same glinting shade of gray as Dr. von Rohr’s electric streak, added to the feminine aspect of his handsomeness—as did the copper bracelets and his gloves. His “evening” gloves, as William called them, were a thin black calfskin. The way his father bounced on the balls of his feet reminded Jack of Mr. Ramsey. As Heather had put it, William Burns was a
youthful-
looking sixty-four.
“Ruth, alas, is no fan of Billy Rainbow, Jack,” William said, as they were being seated.
“Alas, she
told
me,” Jack said, smiling at Dr. von Rohr, who smiled back at him.
“Even so,” Jack’s father said, clearing his throat, “I gotta say we’re with the two best-looking broads in the place.” (He really did have Billy Rainbow down pat.)
“You’re such a flatterer, William,” Dr. von Rohr told him.
“Have you had a look at Ruth’s purse?” Jack’s dad asked him, indicating Dr. von Rohr’s rather large handbag; it was too big to fit under her chair. “More like a suitcase, if you ask me—more like an
overnight
bag,” William said, winking at Jack. His father was outrageously suggesting that Dr. von Rohr had prepared herself for the possibility of spending the night at the Hotel zum Storchen with Jack!
“It’s not every day you meet a man who compliments a woman’s
accessories,
” Dr. von Rohr told Jack, smiling.
Dr. Krauer-Poppe didn’t look so sure, nor was she smiling; despite her supermodel attire, Dr. Krauer-Poppe’s dominant personality trait radiated medication.
Jack also knew that Dr. Krauer-Poppe was married, and she had young children, which was why his father had focused his embarrassing zeal for matchmaking on Jack and Dr. von Rohr. (She was no longer married but
had
been, Heather had said; she was a divorced woman with no children.)
“Jack’s been seeing a psychiatrist—for longer than I’ve known you two ladies,” William announced. “How’s that been going, Jack?”
“I don’t know if there’s a professional name for the kind of therapy I’ve been receiving,” Jack told them. “A psychiatric term, I mean.”
“It doesn’t need to have a psychiatric term,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “Just describe it.”
“Well, Dr. García—she’s this truly wonderful woman in her early sixties, with all these children and grandchildren. She lost her husband some years ago—”
“Aren’t most of her patients women, Jack?” his dad interrupted. “I had that impression from one of those articles I read about the Lucy business—you remember that episode, the girl in the backseat of Jack’s car?” William asked his doctors. “Both she and her mother were seeing the same psychiatrist Jack was seeing! From the sound of it, you’d think there was a shortage of psychiatrists in southern California!”
“William, let Jack describe his therapy for us,” Dr. von Rohr said.
“Oh,” his father responded; it gave Jack a chill that his dad said, “Oh,” exactly the way Jack did.
“Well, Dr. García makes me tell her everything in chronological order,” Jack explained. Both doctors were nodding their heads, but William suddenly looked anxious.
“
What
things?” Jack’s father asked.
“Everything that ever made me laugh, or made me cry, or made me feel angry—just those things,” Jack told him.
Dr. Krauer-Poppe and Dr. von Rohr weren’t nodding their heads anymore; they were both observing William closely. The idea of what might have made his son laugh, or cry, or feel angry seemed to be affecting him.
His dad had moved his right hand to his heart, but his hand hadn’t come to rest there. He appeared to be inching his fingers over the upper-left side of his rib cage—as if feeling for something under his shirt, or under his skin. He knew exactly where to find it, without looking. As for what might have made William Burns laugh or cry, her name was Karin Ringhof—the commandant’s daughter. As for what might have made him cry
and
made him feel angry, that would have been what happened to her little brother.
“It sounds as if this therapy could be quite a
lengthy
endeavor,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said to Jack, but she’d not taken her eyes from William’s gloved hand—black-on-black against his shirt, touching the tattoo she knew as well as Jack did.
The commandant’s daughter; her little brother
From the pained expression on his father’s face, Jack could tell that William had his index finger perfectly in place on the semicolon—the first (and probably the last) semicolon Doc Forest had tattooed on anyone.
“Your therapy sounds positively
book-length,
” Dr. von Rohr said to Jack, but her eyes—like those of her colleague—had never strayed from his father.
“You’re putting
in chronological order
everything that ever made you laugh, or made you cry, or made you feel angry,” his dad said, grimacing in pain—as if every word he spoke were a tattoo on his rib cage, or in the area of his kidneys, or on the tops of his feet, where Jack had seen his own name and his sister’s. All those places where Jack knew it hurt like Hell to be tattooed, yet William Burns had been tattooed there—he’d been marked for life everywhere it hurt, except for his penis.
“And has this therapy helped?” Dr. von Rohr asked Jack doubtfully.
“Yes, I think it has—at least I feel better than when I first went to see Dr. García,” he told them.
“And you think it’s the
chronological-order
part that has helped?” Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked. (In her view, Jack could tell, putting the highs and lows of your life in chronological order was not as reliable as taking medication.)
“Yes, I think so . . .” Jack started to say, but his father interrupted him.
“It’s
barbaric
!” William shouted. “It sounds like
torture
to me! The very idea of
imposing
chronological order on everything that ever made you laugh or cry or feel angry—why, that’s the most
masochistic
thing I’ve ever heard of! You must be
crazy
!”