“There’s also the matter of-” Philipp began insistently.
“What if I track down the medications he was taking?” I cut in. “If I locate his doctor, could you give him a call?”
“What could his doctor tell us?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he did prescribe a new medication that backfired. Or maybe Schuler got some pills on his own, and the doctor could confirm that whatever he’d taken interfered with the medication he’d been prescribed. His doctor could even tell us whether he had a strawberry allergy and that someone might have made him eat a strawberry, or that he had asthma and might have had a fatal shock during an attack when he realized that someone had taken away his inhaler. If I know what might have frightened him, I’d have a better chance of finding out who it was.”
“If you come up with something, I’ll see to the rest,” Philipp said, trying his best to appear interested. But something else was preoccupying him. “You’ve got to stop Nägelsbach! You’ve got to stop him before it’s too late. I haven’t told you this, because I don’t believe in counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but I’ve been put forward for the directorship of the surgical department of an absolutely first-rate private clinic. Right now I need disciplinary proceedings like I need a bullet in the head.”
“I thought your retirement was in the works.”
“I’ll be retiring soon enough. But private clinics are more flexible when it comes to retirement age. Tending flowers on my balcony from morning to night and moving my boat around isn’t my cup of tea. And the nurses at the new clinic… Imagine, a chance to start all over again from scratch! And then the thought of working somewhere where Füruzan can’t keep an eye on me and frighten off all the other nurses! I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I feel like an old circus horse is because Füruzan’s never more than half a step away.”
“I’ve already had a word with Nägelsbach,” I said.
“His soul, his soul… My soul will go to the dogs if I no longer have my hospital!”
He looked at me in utter desperation. What did women find so attractive in Philipp? Was it that when he was in a certain mood, he was in every way totally in it?
“Even if you don’t like the idea of facing Nägelsbach,” I said, “if you want something from him, you’ve got to talk to him yourself.”
“I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
“Give it a try. He’s not stiff-necked-he’s just extremely conscientious. But he’ll take whatever you say very seriously.”
“I’ll make a scene, even if I’d rather not,” Philipp said sadly. “The nurses like it when I start bellowing at them, but Nägelsbach won’t.” He glanced at the clock and got up. “I’ve got to move on. What do you think-will Nägelsbach play along?”
“He’ll either go straight to the police when he’s discharged or he won’t go at all. But before he goes he’ll tell us. You’ll have to wait till he’s discharged.”
Philipp laughed and shook his head as if I ought to know better. “Do you expect me to wait that long?”
12 Traveling
I went to Schwetzingen and knocked on the doors of Schuler’s neighbors, asking them for his niece’s address, until one of them sent me to the Werkstrasse, beyond the railroad tracks.
There the garden gate stood open, and a note on the door said Frau Schubert would be right back. I waited. In the yard across the street some garden gnomes were being given a bath in a zinc tub, plunged into the water dirty sad, emerging happy and clean.
Frau Schubert came riding up on her bicycle.
“Oh, hello! I’ll make us some coffee,” she called out.
I helped her carry her groceries inside. The deliveryman for whom she had left the note on the door appeared, and I carried in the cases of beer, lemonade, and soft drinks that he unloaded at the gate. By the time I finished, the coffee was ready.
Frau Schubert struck me as being a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t remember your name,” she said, “so I couldn’t send you a death notice. Is that why you dropped by? The burial will be next week, on Tuesday.”
I promised her that I would attend, and she invited me to the reception after the service. I told her that I had lent her uncle some books that I needed, and she offered to drive me to his house so I could look for them. As we drove there, she told me about the offer she had gotten for her uncle’s library.
“Imagine. Fifteen thousand marks!”
“Are you his sole heir?” I asked.
“He didn’t have any children, and my cousin died a few years ago in a hang-gliding accident. I’m inheriting his house, though it will need so much work that I’d be very happy to get fifteen thousand for the books.”
I can’t tell what old books are worth, but as I looked around Schuler’s house I saw that he had amassed a rather unusual library. On the one hand, he had collected books about the area between Edingen and Waghäusel, and on the other, books about railways and banks in Baden. I couldn’t imagine that there would be anything published on these topics that wouldn’t be here. Most of the publications were small pamphlets, but there were also thick linen-and leather-bound volumes among them, at times whole series of works from the nineteenth century. About the channeling of the Rhine and the stabilization of its meadows by Major Tulla, the viaducts and tunnels of the railroad of the Odenwald Range, or the river police on the Rhine and the Neckar, from their founding until today. I resisted the temptation to claim as one of the books I’d lent Schuler a volume concerning the details of the construction of the Bismarck Tower on the Heiligenberg.
The cabinet above the sink in the bathroom was packed with medicines: pills for heart and blood pressure, insomnia, headaches, constipation, and diarrhea; pills for strengthening the prostate and calming the vegetative nervous system; ointments for varicose veins and rheumatism; corn plasters and corn scrapers. Many medicines were duplicated, and many had expired. Some of the tubes had dried out, and some of the pills that had once been white were now yellow. I ignored the scrapers, plasters, and ointments, the constipation and diarrhea pills, and the strengthening and invigorating medicines. But I took with me the tranquilizers, the sleeping pills, and the heart and blood-pressure pills-seven in all. The cabinet was still full enough for their absence not to be noticed.
Frau Schubert had opened all the windows and the spring air battled with Schuler’s smell. The kitchen no longer stank of rotting food but of lemony detergent. A sparkling cleanliness had settled in.
“You didn’t find your books?” Frau Schubert said, seeing me come out of the study empty-handed.
“I gave up. Your uncle had too many books.”
She nodded sympathetically, but also with some pride.
“Just like with his medicines,” I added. “He simply had too many. I had to use the bathroom, and noticed it was filled with them.”
“He couldn’t bring himself to throw anything away. And also, he liked those old medicines, the ones that came in little bottles. With his gouty fingers he couldn’t open the new plastic or aluminum packets. I always had to take out the pills and put them in little bottles for him.” She wiped a tear from her eye.
“Who was his doctor?”
“Dr. Armbrust in Luisenstrasse.”
As we walked to the front door we passed the wall where Schuler had hung his photographs. One was of him as a young man with a broad grin standing next to his Isetta, his hand resting on the car like a general’s resting on his map table. We looked at the photographs until Frau Schubert began crying again.
I called Philipp from the phone booth in the Hebelstrasse, the one Welker had not wanted to use. “It’s Dr. Armbrust in the Luisenstrasse in Schwetzingen.”