by John Irving
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 fur '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 unacceptable 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 Ramistrasse. 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. Garcia--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. Garcia 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. Garcia," 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!"
"I think it's working, Pop. The chronological-order part keeps me calm."
"My son is obviously deluded," William said to his doctors.
"Jack's not the one in an institution, William," Dr. von Rohr reminded him.
Dr. Krauer-Poppe covered her pretty face with her hands; for a moment, Jack was afraid that the word institution might have been a trigger. The Doc Forest tattoo on the upper-left side of his father's rib cage was clearly a trigger, but a stoppable one--or so it appeared. Jack's dad had returned both his hands to the table.
Just then their waiter materialized--a short man bouncing on the balls of his feet, as vigorously as William or Mr. Ramsey ever had, although the waiter was fat. He had a small mouth and an overlarge mustache, which seemed to tickle his nose when he spoke. "Was darf ich Ihnen zu Trinken bringen?" he inquired. (It sounded as if "What may I bring you to drink?" were all one word.)
"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."
"Schwyzerdutsch," 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."
