Until I Find You

by John Irving

  "Believe it or not, Hugo's here with the car," Dr. von Rohr announced. "He actually remembered."

  "You're too hard on poor Hugo," William said to Dr. von Rohr. "Wait till you meet him, Jack. He's a Herman Castro kind of fellow."

  A heavyweight, in other words--Jack could tell at first glance, when he saw Hugo hulking over the black Mercedes. Hugo was shining the hood ornament with the sleeve of his white dress shirt. He was attired more in the manner of a waiter than of either a limo driver or a male nurse, which he was. But--even in a long-sleeved white dress shirt--Jack could see that Hugo had the sculpted bulk of a bodybuilder.

  Whereas his older sister, Waltraut--the other Nurse Bleibel--was short and stout, Hugo was unambiguously huge. He had made himself huge. He'd developed those powerful shoulders, and his bulging upper arms; he'd worked to make his neck nearly as big around as William's waist. And Hugo had shaved his head, unfortunately--though it was not unthinkable that this might have been an improvement. His face had the flat, blunt purposefulness of a shovel. The one gold earring, signifying nothing, drew your attention to the fact that the other ear was missing a lobe. (An encounter with a dog in a nightclub, Jack's dad had told him on their trip into Zurich from Kilchberg.)

  "But don't feel sorry for Hugo," his father had said. "The dog got the worst of it." (Hugo had killed the dog for eating his earlobe, Dr. Horvath would later tell Jack.)

  It was easy to see what Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe held against Hugo. He was not the sort of young man women of education and sophistication liked, nor was he a man most women would feel attracted to. Alas, Hugo had not only the appearance of a bodyguard; he had the personality of one as well.

  At Kilchberg, those younger nurses--the ones who stood in line to shave Jack's father--wouldn't have given Hugo the time of day. The older women there--Hugo's sister and the doctors included--probably bossed him around. Hugo was a thug; he knew no other way to behave. But at least Jack had met someone who could tell him where a good gym was in Zurich, and Jack saw in their first meeting that Hugo doted on William.

  For a young man who consorted with prostitutes, Hugo, by his association with a handsome older gentleman like William Burns, had doubtless upped his standing in that community of ladies.

  "Hugo!" Jack's father hailed the big brute, like an old friend. "I want you to meet my son, Jack--den Schauspieler." ("The actor," William called his son--exactly as he'd introduced Jack to everyone on the number one-sixty-one bus.)

  William had insisted that Jack and Dr. von Rohr ride with him from Kilchberg into Zurich on the bus. Jack's dad was proud of his knowledge of the public-transportation system, and he wanted Jack to see how he usually rode to and from the city--on his shopping trips with Waltraut, and his other shopping trips with Hugo. (The black Mercedes was for nighttime travel only.)

  Most of the passengers on the bus seemed to know Jack's father, and to all of them William had said: "I want you to meet my son, Jack--den Schauspieler."

  "I've seen all your movies," Hugo said, introducing himself to Jack. "William and I have watched them together. They never get old!" he cried, shaking (and shaking) Jack's hand.

  Jack saw the look that passed between Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe--as if old were a trigger, maybe, or in certain contexts perhaps could be. But not this time. Jack's dad was smiling--possibly swaying on his feet more than he was bouncing on them. (Either old was not a trigger or the pill that Dr. Krauer-Poppe had given William was taking effect.)

  "I'm not saying good-bye to you, Jack," his father told him. William put his arms around Jack's neck; his head fell on Jack's chest as lightly as a baby's.

  "You don't have to say good-bye to Jack, William," Dr. von Rohr said. "Just say 'bis morgen' to him." ("Just say 'until tomorrow' to him.") "You're seeing him in the morning."

  "Bis morgen, Pop."

  "Bis morgen," his dad whispered. "I am already imagining that I'm tucking you into bed, dear boy, or maybe you're tucking me in."

  "I'm afraid it's time for Hugo to tuck you in, William," Dr. Krauer-Poppe told him.

  "Oh, what joy," Jack's father said, releasing his son.

  Jack kissed his father on the mouth--a dry kiss, just brushing his dad's lips with his own lips tightly closed--the way Heather had taught him. William kissed Jack the same way.

  "I know what you've been up to, dear boy. I can tell you've been kissing your sister!"

  Jack took a chance, but he felt it was the right time. After all, Hugo and the two doctors were with them--in case anything went wrong.

  "I love you, Pop," Jack told his father, heedless of whether or not love was a trigger. "I love every inch of your skin. I really mean it."

  Hugo looked as if he might punch Jack. Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe closely watched William. How was skin going to affect him? they all wondered. Were they in unstoppable territory, or--in this context--was skin suddenly acceptable?

  "Say that again, Jack," his dad said. "I dare you."

  "I love you and every inch of your skin," Jack told him.

  William Burns put his black-gloved hands on his heart and smiled at Hugo and the doctors, not looking at Jack. "He's got balls, hasn't he?" his father asked them.

  "That's not an area of my expertise," Dr. von Rohr answered.

  "I just do medication, William," Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.

  But Jack's father was fine. He was holding his heart because he wanted to feel it beating. "I love you and every inch of your skin, dear boy! Please don't forget to call your sister."

  Suddenly William seemed exhausted. Hugo helped him into the backseat of the Mercedes, where William Burns looked as small as a child on his way to his first day of school. The bodybuilder had to buckle the seat belt for him, and--before he got into the driver's seat--Hugo came up to Jack and shook (and shook) his hand again. Jack thought that Hugo might pull his arm off.

  "You've got balls as big as der Mond," Hugo told Jack. ("You've got balls as big as the moon.") Then Hugo got in the car and they drove away.

  "Bis morgen!" Dr. Krauer-Poppe called after them.

  "Now I'm taking a taxi home," Dr. von Rohr said. "I live in another part of the city," she explained to Jack.

  There was a taxi stand in the vicinity of the Bellevueplatz, where Dr. Krauer-Poppe and Jack waited with Dr. von Rohr until she found an available taxi. The two women kissed each other on both cheeks and said good night.

  "I assure you, Jack, I was never struck by lightning," Dr. von Rohr said, when they shook hands. "Not on my head, anyway. I think your father has hit me with a lightning bolt, not on my head but in my heart."

  Jack walked with Dr. Krauer-Poppe over the Quaibrucke; they walked back to the Hotel zum Storchen together. "Are you sure I can't walk you home?" he asked her.

  "I live near your hotel," she said, "but you'd never find your way back. The streets are small and go every which way."

  "Your children are how old?" he asked her. It was a beautiful night, with the lights from the city winking up at them from the Limmat.

  "They are ten and twelve, both boys," Dr. Krauer-Poppe told him. "If I ever had to say good-bye to them, the way your father had to say good-bye to you, I would kill myself. Or, if I were lucky, I would be in a place like the Sanatorium Kilchberg. I don't mean as a doctor."

  "I understand," Jack said to her.

  "I love your father and every inch of his skin," she said, smiling.

  "Will he ever get better?" Jack asked her.

  "He can be much worse than he was with you tonight. He was on his best behavior for you," she told him. "But he will neither get worse nor get better. William is what he is."

  "He's very lucky to be with all of you, in Kilchberg," Jack said to her.

  "You have to thank your sister for that, Jack. She has made her share of sacrifices," Dr. Krauer-Poppe told him. "Are you serious about buying a house here?"

  "Yes, very serious," he answered.

  "My husband knows something about real estate--he can p
robably be of some help to you. I'm just in the medication business."

  They were back in the Weinplatz, in front of the Storchen.

  "Are you sure--" Jack started to ask her again, about walking her home.

  "Yes, I'm sure," she interrupted him. "I'll be home in bed while you're still talking on the phone to Heather. Don't forget to call her."

  But Dr. Krauer-Poppe stood there, not leaving. Jack could tell there was something more she wanted to say, but perhaps she felt that she didn't know him well enough to say it.

  "You're not going home, Anna-Elisabeth?" he asked.

  She covered her face with her hands again; for such a serious (and such a beautiful) woman, it was a curiously girlish gesture.

  "What is it?" he asked her.

  "It's not my business--you have a psychiatrist," she said.

  "Please tell me what you're thinking," Jack said to her.

  "I'm thinking that you should finish this chronological-order therapy," she told him, "and when you do finish, you should ask your doctor about a little something she might give you. You just wouldn't want to take this while you were still trying to put everything in chronological order."

  "You mean a pill?" he asked her.

  "Yes, a pill," Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. "It's not unlike what we give your father, but it's newer and a little different from Zoloft or Seropram. It's Cipralex; it's like the Seropram we give William, but this one has a new agent in it, escitalopram. You get a more rapid onset of action--a week compared to two or three weeks--and because of the higher potency, a normal dosage would be ten milligrams instead of twenty."

  "It's an antidepressant?" Jack asked.

  "Of course it is," she said. "I think the brand name is Lexapro in the States, but Dr. Garcia would know. With escitalopram, there were supposed to be fewer side effects. But not all studies have shown that this is true. You might not like the loss of libido, possible impotence, or prolonged ejaculation." Dr. Krauer-Poppe paused to smile at him. "You definitely wouldn't like what it might do to your ability to tell the story of your life in chronological order, Jack. So first finish what you're telling Dr. Garcia. Then try it."

  "Do you think I'm depressed, Anna-Elisabeth?"

  "What a question!" she said, laughing. "If you're putting in chronological order everything that ever made you laugh, or made you cry, or made you feel angry--and if you are truly leaving nothing out--then of course you're depressed! I'm surprised you're not in a place like the Sanatorium Kilchberg yourself, Jack. I don't mean as a visitor."

  "But how will I know when I'm finished? It just goes on and on," he said to her.

  "You'll know when you're finished, Jack," Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. "It ends when you feel like thanking Dr. Garcia for listening to you. It ends when there's someone else you feel like telling everything to--someone who isn't a psychiatrist."

  "Oh."

  "Gott!" she said. "Who would have thought the way someone said, 'Oh,' could be genetic?"

  Dr. Krauer-Poppe shook Jack's hand; walking away, with her high heels somewhat unsteadily navigating the cobblestones, she called over her shoulder. "I'll meet you right where you're standing in the morning, Jack. I'll take you to the church. William will come with Dr. Horvath."

  "Bis morgen!" he called to her. Then he went into the hotel and called his sister.

  On the little pad of paper for messages--on the night table, next to the telephone--Jack recognized his handwriting in the morning.

  Cipralex, 10 mg

  (Lexapro in the States?)

  Ask Dr. Garcia

  What had Professor Ritter said? "Your father has suffered losses." The losses alone were enough to make anyone feel cold; maybe William's tattoos had nothing to do with it.

  The conversation with Heather had gone well; even though Jack woke her up, she was happy that he called.

  "Well, I finally met him. It took long enough! I've been with him for several hours," Jack began. "Dr. von Rohr and Dr. Krauer-Poppe and I took him out to dinner at the Kronenhalle. I met Hugo, of course--and all the others."

  "Just say it!" his sister yelled.

  "I love him," he told her quickly.

  "That's all you have to say, Jack," she said; she started to cry.

  "I love him and every inch of his skin," Jack told her.

  "My God--you didn't say the word skin, did you?" she asked him.

  "In the context of telling him I loved him, I got away with it," Jack said. "He thought I had balls for saying it."

  "I'll say you have balls!" Heather cried.

  "There were just a few episodes--nothing too terrible," he explained.

  "There will always be episodes, Jack. I don't need to hear about them."

  "Are you okay about the prostitutes?" he asked her.

  "Are you okay about them, Jack?"

  Jack told her that he was, all things considered. "He can't get in trouble if Hugo's with him," was how he put it.

  They talked about whether or not Jack should tell Miss Wurtz about the prostitutes. Jack was eager to call Caroline and tell her everything. ("Maybe not everything, Jack," Heather had cautioned him. "Maybe save the prostitutes for a later conversation?")

  They asked themselves if Hugo--having lost part of one ear to a dog in a nightclub--could have conceivably done anything more preposterous than dangle a gold earring from his remaining earlobe. "Do you think Hugo wants to draw attention to the earlobe the dog bit off?" Heather asked Jack.

  "He could have put the earring in the top part of the damaged ear, and not worn anything in the good one," Jack suggested.

  Heather wondered if Jack might meet the particular prostitutes their dad was in the habit of visiting--that is, if Hugo would introduce him. "Just to see if they're nice, and to ask them to be nice to him," Jack's sister said.

  "He has very little privacy as it is," Jack said. They agreed that you have to give the people you love a little privacy, even if you're afraid for their lives.

  "Don't you love them all?" she asked him. "I mean his doctors--even Professor Ritter."

  "Ah, well . . ." Jack started to say. "Of course I do!" he told her.

  "Will you call me every day?" his sister asked.

  "Of course I will! If I forget, you can call me collect," he said.

  She was crying again. "I think you've bought me, Jack. I've completely sold myself to you!" she cried.

  "I love you, Heather."

  "I love you and every inch of your skin," she said.

  Jack told Heather how their dad had thrown a tantrum over how expensive Zurich was, and that the issue of his children buying a house there had struck him as crazy. (This objection from a man who had no idea how expensive the Sanatorium Kilchberg was--or that the money had run out to pay for his care, which was why Heather had contacted Jack in the first place!)

  Jack and his sister also talked about mundane things--those things Jack had imagined he would never talk to anyone about. The specific details of the house they were going to share in Zurich, for example: the number of rooms they needed; how many bathrooms, for Christ's sake. (Exactly as William would have said it.)

  It seemed too obvious to put into words, but Jack realized that when you're happy--especially when it's the first time in your life--you think of things that would never have occurred to you when you were unhappy.

  What a morning it was! First the light streaming into his room at the Storchen, then having coffee and a little breakfast in the cafe on the Limmat. Simple things had never seemed so complex, or was it the other way around? Jack was as powerless to stop what would happen next as he had been that fateful day William Burns impregnated Alice Stronach.

  And standing in front of the Hotel zum Storchen--on the same cobblestones where Jack had stood when he'd called, "Bis morgen!" to her, in the Weinplatz--was that supermodel of medication, Dr. Anna-Elisabeth Krauer-Poppe. Once again, she was wearing something smashing; Jack could understand why she wore the lab coat in Kilchberg, just to tone herself down.

&nbs
p; They walked uphill on the tiny streets to St. Peter; one day he would know the names of these streets by heart, Jack was thinking. Schlusselgasse, opposite the Veltliner Keller, and Weggengasse--he would hear them in his head, like music.

  "It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked him. She was nice about it, when she saw that he couldn't speak. "St. Peter has the largest clock in Europe--a four-sided clock on its tower," she told him, making small talk as they walked. "Would you like a tissue?" she asked, reaching into her purse. Jack shook his head.

  The sun would dry the tears on his face, he wanted to tell her, but the words wouldn't come. Jack kept clearing his throat.

  By the blue-gray church, there was a small, paved square with lots of trees; there were plants in the window boxes of the surrounding shops and houses. Some construction workers were renovating what looked like an apartment building. The building was across the square from the church, and the workers were standing on the scaffolding--working away. A hammer was banging; two men were doing something complicated with a flexible saw. A fourth man was fitting pipes--to build more scaffolding, probably.

  It was the pipefitter who first spotted Dr. Krauer-Poppe and waved to her. The three other workers turned to look at her; two of them applauded, one whistled.

  "I guess they know you," Jack said to Anna-Elisabeth, relieved that he had found his voice. "Or are they just like construction workers everywhere?"

  "You'll see," she told him. "These workers are a little different."

  It seemed strange that there were people going into the church and it was not yet eight on a weekday morning. Was there some kind of mass? Jack asked Dr. Krauer-Poppe. No, the Kirche St. Peter was a Protestant church, she assured him. There was no mass--only a service every Sunday.

  "We can't keep them away," Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. "St. Peter is open to the public."

  More people were walking up the broad, flat stairs to the church; they looked like locals, not tourists. Jack saw men in business suits, like the banker his dad had surprised in the men's room at the Kronenhalle; he saw women with young children, and whole families. There were even teenagers.

  "They all come to hear him play?" Jack asked Anna-Elisabeth.

  "How can we stop them?" she asked. "Isn't it what sells books and movies? What you call word of mouth, I think."