BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Sister Hermina, on duty in the surgical ward at Wenzel-Hancke Hospital, replaced the telephone receiver. She was as aggravated as an angry wasp. Yet again that day she had received instructions from Doctor Ruhtgard, and yet again, in the confines of her heart, she expressed her disapproval. What was it supposed to mean? Since when was she receiving instructions from a doctor in another department? She decided to complain to her immediate superior, Doctor Karl Heintze, Head of Surgery. What impudence! This Ruhtgard, as a dermatologist, ought to restrict himself to his rotting prostitutes and his lustful middle-class men devoured by tertiary syphilis! Sister Hermina chased away these bad thoughts, incompatible as they were with her gentle, understanding nature consolidated by years in the service of others. Through the glazed panel of the duty room, she watched as two orderlies pushed a wheelchair in which pot-bellied Herr Karl Hadamitzky, dazed with morphine, travelled towards the operating theatre, to encounter the drainage tube and scalpel that were destined to cut away the cancerous growth from his kidney.
The wheelchair was followed by a man who was running. His jacket was unbuttoned and he was fanning himself with a bowler hat. Sister Hermina stared at him for a while, her attention drawn to his sallow skin darkened by a considerable five-o’clock shadow, his broad shoulders and his black, wavy hair. He passed her duty room without a word of explanation as to who he was or what he was doing there. That was too much.
“Hey, my good man!” she shouted in a loud, almost masculine voice. “Are you visiting one of our patients? You have to report to me first!”
“Eberhard Mock,” the man said in a deep, hoarse voice. “I am indeed. I’m going to visit my father, Willibald Mock.”
Saying this he donned his bowler hat and then removed it, bowing to Sister Hermina. This greeting was as ironic as it was courteous. Without waiting for her permission, and disregarding any reaction she may have had, he walked briskly down the corridor.
“Mock Willibald, Mock Willibald,” the irate nurse repeated, running her finger down the column of names. A moment later her finger stopped short. “Ah, he’s the one who found himself on our ward on Doctor Ruhtgard’s instructions. He’s the patient requiring special care! What’s that supposed to mean, ‘special care’? They all require special care! Not only the elderly Willibald Mock! I’ll soon put a stop to this!”
Sister Hermina reached for the telephone and dialled Professor Heintze’s home number.
“Doctor Heintze’s residence,” said a well-spoken male voice at the other end of the receiver.
“It’s Sister Hermina from Wenzel-Hancke Municipal Hospital. May I speak to the doctor, please?”
The butler did not deign to reply and placed the receiver next to the telephone. She knew he always behaved like this when he heard someone introduce themselves with a name not preceeded by a scholarly title. She heard the strains of a piano, merry voices and the tinkling of glasses. The usual sounds of a party being held at the professor’s on a Saturday evening.
“Yes, sister,” Doctor Heintze’s voice was none too friendly.
“That Doctor Ruhtgard from the Department of Contagious Diseases, Professor, is bossing everyone around and giving me instructions as to that …”
“Ah, I know what this is about, Sister,” Doctor Heintze interrupted her snappily. “Please listen to me carefully. You may regard all of Doctor Ruhtgard’s instructions as if they were my own. Do you understand me, Sister?” The receiver crashed onto its cradle.
Sister Hermina was no longer annoyed, but curious. Who was this old man with concussion and a double fracture of the leg? Most certainly someone important. That’s why Ruhtgard had told them to transfer him to a private room and look after him night and day, despite the shortage of staff. And now this son of his … Elegant and arrogant.
Sister Hermina made her way down the corridor towards the private room where the older Herr Mock lay. The rustle of her starched housecoat and the sight of the broken wings on her bonnet animated the patients and filled them with hope. They propped themselves up in bed and paid no heed to their pain, certain that in a short while, with a single injection and an understanding glance, Sister Hermina would take them to a land of gentleness and peace. Their hopes, however, were in vain. Sister Hermina knocked on the door of the private room and, getting no reply, entered. It was hardly surprising no-one had invited her in: the older Herr Mock was lying unconscious while his son was pressing his father’s hand, riddled with needle marks, to his lips. She looked at the younger Herr Mock and was disgusted. She was always disgusted at the sight of a grown man crying.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
ELEVEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT
Sister Hermina, urine bottle in hand, approached the door to the private room and opened it wide, certain she would see the two men asleep again. One of them, as Sister Hermina told herself somewhat bombastically, had been lulled by physical pain, the other by spiritual. This time Sister Hermina’s otherwise faultless intuition had let her down. Neither of them was asleep. The older Herr Mock interrupted some lengthy utterance when he saw her and took the bottle with visible relief. The younger Herr Mock, obviously not wishing to disturb his father, went into the corridor and lit a cigarette. Sister Hermina carried out the embarrassing object and, remembering Doctor Heintze’s harsh words, restrained herself from pointing out to the smoker the unsuitability of surrendering to such a pernicious addiction in a place like this. The younger Herr Mock, as if reading her thoughts, extinguished the cigarette with his shoe, wrapped it in a scrap of paper and went back into the room. The sister slid the urine bottle onto the lower part of her trolley that was stacked with clean sheets, removed her impressively large bonnet and pressed her ear to a gap in the door.
“If you’d been at home at the time,” she heard the sick man’s muffled moan, “you’d have scared off that burglar who made such a racket in the night …”
“It wasn’t a burglar, Father,” the hoarse, bass voice interrupted him. “Burglars don’t make a noise … If you’d agreed to move out of the house, if you weren’t so stubborn, this accident wouldn’t have happened …”
“If, if …” The older man must have been regaining his strength since he was aping his son so well. “What a louse … Telling me it’s all my fault… Is that it? My fault? Who was it who went off with some whore to God knows where, and left the old man alone without any help? Who? Father Christmas? No, my own son, Eberhard … No-one else but he … And you, old man, you can snuff it, it’s time for you to go … That’s how grateful he is to his father …”