“Fortuitous,” Jack’s father said, meaning the timely appearance of the waiter, but the waiter thought that William had ordered something.
“Bitte?” the waiter asked.
“Ein Bier,” Jack said—pointing to himself, to avoid further confusion. (“A beer.”)
“I didn’t know you drank!” his dad said with sudden concern.
“I don’t. You can watch me. I won’t finish one beer,” Jack told him.
“Noch ein Bier!” his father told the waiter, pointing to himself. (“Another beer!”)
“William, you don’t drink—not even half a beer,” Dr. von Rohr reminded him.
“I can have what Jack has,” William said, acting like a child.
“Not with the antidepressants. You shouldn’t,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.
“I can unorder the beer,” Jack suggested. “Das macht nichts.”
“Jack’s German will improve over time,” William said to his doctors.
“Jack’s German is fine, William,” Dr. von Rohr told him.
“You see? She likes you, Jack,” his father said. “I told you that was an overnight bag!”
The doctors, choosing to ignore him, ordered a bottle of red wine. William ordered a mineral water. Jack told the waiter that he’d changed his mind. Would the waiter bring them a large bottle of mineral water, please—and no beer?
“No, no! Have the beer!” William said, taking Jack’s hand in his gloved fingers.
“Kein Bier,” Jack said to the waiter, “nur Mineralwasser.” (“No beer, only mineral water.”)
Jack’s dad sat sulking at the table, making an unsteady tower of his knife and spoon and fork. “Fucking Americans,” William said. He looked up to see if that would get a rise out of his son. It didn’t. Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe gave each other a look, but they said nothing. “Don’t have the Wiener schnitzel, Jack,” his father continued, as if the menu, which he’d just that second picked up, had been all that was on his mind from the beginning.
“Why not, Pop?”
“They butcher a whole calf and put half of it on your plate,” William said. “And don’t have the Bauernschmaus,” he added. (A Bauernschmaus was a farmer’s platter of meats and sausages; it was very popular with Austrians and sounded like something Dr. Horvath would have ordered, but Jack could see that it wasn’t even on the Kronenhalle’s menu.) “And, above all, don’t have the bratwurst. It’s a veal sausage the size of a horse’s penis.”
“I’ll stay away from it, then,” Jack told him.
Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe were talking rapid-fire Swiss German. It was not the High German Jack had studied in school—Schriftdeutsch, the Swiss call it, meaning “written German.”
“Schwyzerdütsch,” Jack’s father said contemptuously. “They speak in Swiss German when they don’t want me to understand them.”
“If you didn’t talk about horses’ penises, maybe they wouldn’t have to talk about you, Pop.”
“I think you should find a new psychiatrist, Jack. Someone you can talk to about things as they come up—not necessarily in chronological order, for Christ’s sake.”
Jack was surprised by the for Christ’s sake, and not because it was exactly the way Jack always said it—he only occasionally said it—but because Jack had never said it in any of his films. (As Dr. Berger had told him, William had made quite a study of his son; as Dr. von Rohr had warned Jack, she didn’t mean only his movies.)
“Interesting what he knows, isn’t it?” Dr. von Rohr asked Jack.
The waiter—that timely, bouncing fat man—was back to take their orders. Jack’s father unhesitatingly ordered the Wiener schnitzel.
“William, I know how you eat—you can’t possibly eat half of it,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said to him.
“I’m just like Jack with his one beer,” William said. “I don’t have to finish it. And I didn’t order the pommes frites that come with it—just the green salad. Und noch ein Mineralwasser, bitte,” he told the waiter. Jack was surprised to see that the liter bottle was empty.
“Slow down, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said, touching the back of his black-gloved hand. William pulled his hand away from her.
The restaurant was lively, but not too crowded; their reservation was on the early side of when things get really busy at the Kronenhalle, or so the concierge had told Jack. But everyone in the restaurant had recognized Jack Burns. “Look around you, William,” said Dr. von Rohr—her voice as commanding as the silver-gray, lightning-bolt streak in her hair. “Be proud of your famous son.” But William wouldn’t look.
“And all these strangers who recognize Jack can’t help but see that you are his father—they are recognizing you, too, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.
“And what must they be thinking?” William asked. “ ‘There is Jack Burns’s old man with what must be his second or third wife’—that would be you, Ruth,” William said to Dr. von Rohr, “because you’re obviously the older of the two lovely ladies at this table, but you’re clearly not old enough to be Jack’s mother.”
“William, don’t—” Dr. Krauer-Poppe began.
“And what must they be thinking about you, Anna-Elisabeth?” William asked. “ ‘Who is that pretty young woman with the wedding ring? She must be Jack Burns’s date!’ They haven’t figured out the part about Ruth’s overnight bag.”
“Dad—”
“ ‘Pop’!” his father corrected him.
“Let’s just have a normal conversation, Pop.”
“Would that be the sex-with-prostitutes or the Hugo conversation?” William asked. Dr. Krauer-Poppe opened her purse with a snap. “Okay, I’ll stop. I’m sorry, Anna-Elisabeth,” Jack’s dad said.
“I was looking for a tissue, William. I have something in my eye,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “I wasn’t even thinking about your medication; not yet.” She opened a small compact—it held a tiny mirror, no doubt, although Jack’s father couldn’t see it—and dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue.
“Perhaps we could talk about the time we all woke up at two in the morning and watched Jack win the Oscar!” Dr. von Rohr said, taking William’s gloved hand. He looked at her hand holding his as if she were a leper.
“You mean Emma’s Oscar, Ruth?” William asked her. “That screenplay had Emma written all over it. Didn’t it, Jack?”
Jack didn’t respond; he just watched Dr. von Rohr let go of his father’s hand. “When the food comes, William, I’ll help you take those gloves off,” she told him. “It’s better not to eat with them.”
“Ich muss bald pinkeln,” Jack’s dad announced. (“I have to pee soon.”)
“I’ll take him,” Jack told the two doctors.
“I think I should come with you,” Dr. von Rohr said.
“Nein,” William told her. “We’re boys. We’re going to the boys’ room.”
“Just behave yourself, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe warned him. Jack’s dad stuck his tongue out at her as he stood up from the table.
“If you’re not back in a few minutes, I’ll come check on you,” Dr. von Rohr said, touching Jack’s hand.
“Jack, your father cried when you won the Oscar—he cried and he cheered,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “He was so proud of you—he is so proud of you.”