It is also rumoured that another surgical team had been standing by to operate on Marc Lucas, who is said to have needed a liver transplant himself. This would seem to corroborate the district attorney’s suicide theory, because Benjamin Lucas could never have donated both halves of his liver and survived. On the other hand, if he had wanted to save the lives of his brother and the unborn child, why did he jump in company with Marc Lucas?
An unnamed source in the district attorney’s office doubts that charges will be brought. ‘Establishing the facts in a family drama of this kind is always difficult. Constantin Senner could undoubtedly be struck off the medical register for unethical conduct, but he intended in any case to cease practising and sell his hospital because of financial problems.’
It is doubtful, therefore, whether the underlying circumstances will ever be entirely clarified. Marc Lucas will probably take most of the truth to the grave with him. As for his brother, who is now out of intensive care, he has invoked his right of refusal to testify. He does at least appear to have made a good recovery from his living-donor operation, which is permissible between relatives and when only part of an organ is involved. If any blame attaches to Sandra Lucas, on the other hand, she may have been sufficiently punished. Not only has she lost her husband, but it is still uncertain whether her brother-in-law’s lobus sinister, or left lobe of the liver, will be accepted or rejected by her child’s body. The baby is doing well, all things considered, but it is still far too early for a definite prognosis.
Ken Sukowsky
‘BOSS OF THE BOUNCERS’ ON TRIAL
Berlin – The trial opens today of Eduard Valka, head of the criminal organization that controls the city’s nightclub and disco doormen. He stands accused, in addition to other charges, of procuring the murder of Magda H., an underage prostitute from Bulgaria, and of conspiracy to murder a journalist employed by this newspaper, who was conducting research into Valka’s criminal activities. In view of the evidence against him, which the district attorney’s office describes as overwhelming, an early verdict is expected.
MANY YEARS LATER
Sunlight slanted down through the barred windows, projecting an elongated trelliswork of shadows on to the floor. Although the patient’s room was regularly cleaned and aired, the minuscule motes of dust dancing in the sun’s rays lent them the appearance of a spotlight.
‘She’s not responding,’ said the doctor in charge. A peppermint – a vain attempt to disguise the stale cigarette smoke on his breath – glinted between his teeth as he spoke.
‘How long has she been like this?’ asked Marc Lucas. He propped the unwieldy cardboard tube, which he’d had to bring all this way, against the foot of the bed.
‘For ages.’
The doctor stepped aside and cast a judicial glance at the drip that was giving the old lady an electrolytic infusion. The plastic container was still full.
‘I wasn’t even working here when she was admitted, but according to her record her psychosis was already very pronounced.’
‘Hm,’ Marc grunted. He took her hand, which was lying on the starched bedspread. It felt rough and heavy.
‘Who sent her here?’ he asked.
‘Her mother was still alive then. If you ask me, the court should have appointed a legal guardian far sooner. The situation was too much for the poor woman. Her first mistake was to begin by putting her daughter in the Bleibtreu Clinic. You know the old story?’
Marc pretended he was hearing it for the first time.
‘No? It made quite a splash in the press. Anyway, her paranoid episodes, some of which were schizoid, got worse in there. At the start of her treatment she thought she was an interpreter, although she didn’t speak a single foreign language. Then she believed herself to be taking part in a secret amnesia experiment – the Bleibtreu Clinic was actually conducting one, but only with the aid of volunteers. Having overheard a conversation between two doctors and jumped to the wrong conclusion, she felt threatened and ran away. She was recaptured, fortunately, and her mother at last managed to ensure that she was confined in a secure and respectable hospital.’
The doctor crunched up his peppermint with a satisfied air. The idea that his hospital had been preferred to a private institution evidently pleased him.
‘We couldn’t cure her. Still, at least she now knows she isn’t an interpreter, and that nobody means her any harm. Don’t you, Frau Ludwig?’ The doctor gave her knee a clumsy pat through the bedclothes.
The elderly patient seemed unaware of what was going on around her. She was asleep with her eyes open and breathing exclusively through her mouth.
She looks thin, Marc thought. Almost emaciated. Quite unlike his mental picture of her.
‘Look…’ The doctor cleared his throat. ‘No offence, Doctor, but I can’t imagine how you hope to get through to her. She’s very suspicious of strangers.’
‘I’m not a stranger, actually,’ said Marc, removing the lid of the cardboard tube. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, turning to look at the woman as he turned it upside down and carefully shook out its contents.
No response.
‘What on earth is that?’ the doctor asked a minute later, when Marc had completed his preparations. He went over to the wall with his hands extended in the direction of the canvas which his young visitor had temporarily secured to it.
‘An heirloom,’ Marc replied. From now on, he concentrated on the patient alone.
‘Look.’
He stepped aside to enable her blank gaze to dwell on the picture facing her bed. ‘I’ve brought you something.’
‘“Haberland’s House”?’ queried the doctor, reading the little inscription in the bottom-right corner of the painting. He turned round. ‘All I can see is a white expanse.’
Marc took no notice of him. He was now standing right beside the old woman, at the head of the bed. In spite of her severe mental illness, her face hadn’t entirely lost its gentle expression.
‘My uncle Benny told me you liked it a lot,’ Marc whispered, too softly for the doctor to hear. ‘You were the only one who grasped what it was meant to represent when you spotted it in his flat. Benny took it to the house in the forest later on. Do you remember?’
No change. Still no response.
‘You see, my young friend!’ The doctor sounded almost triumphant. ‘She won’t let anyone get through to her.’
Marc Lucas nodded absently.
‘I’ll leave it here for you,’ he whispered in the old woman’s ear. ‘And I’ll come again. Next weekend. Perhaps you’ll feel like talking to me about my father then.’
About the man to whom I owe my life in every respect.
‘I think you were a great help to him.’
Marc continued to whisper, although Emma’s face betrayed not the least sign of comprehension.
‘Anyway, you knew him better than I do.’
He brushed the hair off her forehead and stepped back. Emma Ludwig’s mind really didn’t seem to be in the same room as he was. Her face remained blank and expressionless as she gazed inertly at the coarse-grained white canvas.
She didn’t react when he gave her hand a farewell squeeze, nor did she stare after him when the doctor escorted him out.
She didn’t even blink when, a long time afterwards, her eye shed a single, impotent tear.
LEARN TO FORGET
We are a self-help group looking for former participants in a psychiatric amnesia experiment. You yourself may have been a patient and cannot now remember the experiments to which you were subjected. If you have the slightest doubt about your memories, please visit our self-help page on the Internet under:
www.mpu-berlin.org/anfrage/