by Dan Rhodes
Doctor Fröhlicher walked back towards the scene of Hans’ choking fit. And there, in the middle of a puddle of slime, lay a large, dark brown penis.
The doctor had to think fast. ‘I am very sorry that Hans has embarrassed you in this way, Frau Klopstock,’ he said. ‘Please look away.’ She closed her eyes and he took a small plastic dog-mess bag from his pocket, bent down and picked it up. He tied the bag shut.
‘You may open your eyes.’ He lowered his voice and moved his head towards hers, emphasising that he was taking her into his confidence. His mind raced as he calculated the best thing to say, and the most doctorly vocabulary to use. ‘I am afraid, Frau Klopstock, that what you have just witnessed is something of a hazard of my profession. A general practitioner’s dog will often find himself party to very unfortunate, in this case tragic, incidents. And sometimes, in the mayhem of a medical emergency, the innocent hound, knowing no better, will . . . sample a foodstuff that he ought not to have sampled.’ He cast his eyes in the direction of the parcel in his hand.
‘Oh, Doctor Fröhlicher, I had no idea. How terrible – for you, and of course for the poor soul.’
‘I am, as you say, a man of medicine. It’s all part of a day’s work for me. However, you are absolutely correct to observe that this kind of episode is indeed awful. I can assure you, though, that I shall personally reunite this part of the poor man’s anatomy with the rest of his remains in good time for his interment.’
She nodded.
‘And of course, Frau Klopstock,’ he said, ‘you will understand that this all-too-commonplace aspect of the job is not one which the profession wishes to advertise. I have no doubt, though, that I can count on your tact in this matter – for the sake of the departed, of course.’
‘Doctor Fröhlicher, my lips are sealed. After all, it would be little comfort for the poor man’s family to know that this awful incident had occurred – here in a public park, as well. You doctors never cease to amaze me with your dedication and discretion.’
‘As I said, it is just a job like any other. Now if you will excuse me, Hans and I really must head home. We have something of a busy day ahead.’ He put the plastic bag in his coat pocket. ‘Come, Hans,’ he said, and they walked away.
When they had gone only a few metres Hans stopped, and once again began to retch. Something came out, but Doctor Fröhlicher, impatient to get away, pulled his dog along, not looking to see what had emerged this time. Frau Klopstock, on the other hand, found herself overwhelmed with curiosity and was unable to resist going to see what Hans had brought up. The doctor was stopped once again by the sound of her voice.
‘Doctor,’ she called. ‘Doctor Fröhlicher, your dog has just vomited something that looks to me like a . . . oh dear . . . oh, doctor, I wonder what the medical term is?’ She didn’t want to appear foolish by using the wrong words. She looked at the wrinkles, and the wire-like hair, and thought back to her Human Biology lessons at school. At last the phrase appeared in her mind, and her eyes lit up. ‘Doctor, it appears to be . . .’ she put her hand to her mouth. Remembering the importance of discretion, she continued in a stage whisper, ‘. . . it appears to be a scrotal sac.’
III
After sitting on a station bench for almost two hours, Madalena boarded her second train. As it idled at the platform she took a pen and pad from her bag and started making notes. She wrote that she felt as if she was being attacked by the world and by herself, and as if barbs were tearing at her skin. She read this back and could see how inadequate it was, how it didn’t come close to capturing how she really felt. Knowing she had to do better she carried on, writing that she hated herself, that she was an idiot, and a liar, and dangerous. She said she could see no light, that she knew she could never be a worthwhile person, or a happy one. This was more like it, but as she went on it became clear that so many of the feelings that were assaulting her couldn’t be pinned down by language: they were unique to her, and there was no reason for anybody to have come up with words for them. There were so many of them too, each one different from the next. She thought for a moment of the eyes of a fly, but flies’ eyes were orderly, and her feelings were a mess. To capture and record them she would have to create a whole new lexicon, and that would be pointless because only she would be able to understand it, and anyway most of these feelings didn’t give her nearly enough time to evaluate them, they just burst into her life for a moment, spitting their venom before going away to be replaced by something similar in its ferocity but different in every other way.
She carried on, writing simple words that she knew could never fill this vacuum but which she hoped would help the people she loved to know she had been released from something unbearable. She used words that they could at least begin to understand: pain, darkness, disgust. On the page they looked both melodramatic and feeble. She wrote that she was more frightened of living than she was of dying. I am scared, she wrote, over and over again. She finished with what she knew to be a clear, simple truth: that what she was going to do would be best for everybody.
She looked through what she had written. It read like notes for an awful, attention-seeking teenage poem. She would have to start from scratch later on. She tore the page in half, then half again. She looked out of the window, wondering when the train was going to start moving. A girl of about six was on the platform, standing beside her mother and waving to somebody in the next carriage along. Madalena hated her. The child was beautiful, and she would remain beautiful, and without even knowing it she would spend the rest of her life blithely trampling on the feelings of people who didn’t deserve to have their feelings trampled on. The girl’s waving was joined by face-pulling and laughing, and Madalena’s hatred spun around and savaged her. The little girl was wonderful, a lively, funny, happy little person. The realisation that she was capable of such vicious thoughts about somebody so perfect and so pure made her even more certain that she was doing the right thing.
Two women were sitting opposite her, talking in a language she didn’t understand. They had seen her tear the paper. One of them gave her a smile, and took a bunch of bananas from a bag and offered her one. Madalena shook her head, and looked out of the window. At last the train began to move, and the little girl jumped and waved as they rolled away.
The train entered a tunnel, and a face she never wanted to see again looked back at her from the black glass. She closed her eyes, and pretended to sleep.
IV
Irmgard Klopstock sat across the dinner table from her husband, Franz. As usual neither of them spoke, and all that could be heard was the tick of the grandfather clock, the clink of cutlery and the soft slurp of chewing. Franz hadn’t noticed that his wife had been in a state of turmoil since returning from her walk in the park, and as far as he knew this silence was as comfortable as ever. All day Irmgard had been agonising over whether or not she should say anything about her unusual encounter with the doctor and his dog. At last she decided that Doctor Fröhlicher, always such a reasonable man, would understand that there must be no secret between husband and wife, no anxious moment left unshared. On the eve of their marriage she and Franz had agreed to confide in each other no matter what situations were to arise, but theirs had been a marriage in which situations had rarely arisen, and it hadn’t been often that she had felt the need to confide anything. She braced herself, and began.
‘Aren’t general practitioners wonderful, Franz?’ she said.
Franz carried on chewing his potato salad as he nodded his agreement.
‘Of course,’ she continued, ‘there are all the things we think about straight away – their kindness to the sick, their patience, their dedication to their vocation, the way they put their own health at risk with all those germs flying around . . . But it’s not only these obvious things, is it Franz?’
Franz shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.
‘It’s not just offering diagnoses, they also have to consider all aspects of hygiene at every moment. And then there’s
the paperwork – they have to write everything down: the symptoms, the treatment given, any referrals made and so forth. It’s imperative that medical records are kept up to date, and it’s such a shame that we ordinary people so rarely give any thought to such a central part of their working day.’
Franz nodded again. ‘Yes.’
‘And when the weekend comes and the final patient has been seen, and the last piece of paper placed in its correct position in the filing system, and they think they can finally unwind by going for a nice stroll in the park, their dog opens its mouth and out comes a human penis. They really are astonishing people, aren’t they Franz?’
‘Astonishing, Irmgard.’ He carried on with his potato salad.
The meal continued, and all that could be heard was the tick of the grandfather clock, the clink of cutlery and the soft slurp of chewing. Then, halfway through dessert, Franz lay down his spoon, sat up straight and looked directly at his wife.
‘What was that you said earlier, Irmgard?’ he asked. ‘Something about . . . a penis?’
With great relief, Irmgard began the story of her walk in the park. She left out no detail, and when she had finished her husband said, ‘I agree with you – general practitioners are indeed remarkable people. And it’s not only doctors, Irmgard. Let’s not forget the nurses and the other staff who work in the medical field, facing horrors every working day. They put industrial packaging managers to shame, even industrial packaging managers who are really rather high in position.’
‘Oh, Franz, you mustn’t think that way. Your job is important too.’
His mouth downturned, Franz nodded.
Irmgard felt a weight lift from her shoulders. It seemed that even though he had never mentioned it, her husband already knew that this kind of episode was quite commonplace. She marvelled at the lengths to which men will go to shield their women from the darker side of everyday life.
Franz Klopstock liked to wind down after his evening meal by sitting in his favourite armchair and reading a chapter or two of a technical manual. This evening though, his mind kept wandering from the diagrams and data back to his wife’s account of her walk in the park. Just before nine o’clock, when Irmgard was upstairs writing a letter to her sister, he put down the manual, picked up the telephone and called Manfred, his cousin-in-law from Wolfenbüttel. Manfred just happened to be a general practitioner with a dog, an affectionate lurcher called Johannes, who brought a smile to the face of everyone he met.
Manfred sounded delighted to hear from his cousin-in-law, and straight away they started talking about the technology behind a proposed series of updates to the water purification process in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. On Franz and Manfred’s first meeting the subject of civic water supply had filled a silence as they stood beside an outdoor tap. Neither of them had had more than a passing interest in the subject, but each knew just about enough to sustain a short conversation. Thinking the other to be wildly keen on the topic, they each went away and made a point of reading relevant items in newspapers so they would have something to talk about at the next family gathering. From then on their conversation almost never strayed from the subject, and over time they found themselves becoming genuinely interested in what they found out, and they began to look forward to their encounters. ‘Look at them,’ the women would say. ‘They always have so much to talk about.’
After half an hour their telephone conversation was still going strong, but Franz knew that the time had come to broach the subject of Irmgard’s trip to the park.
‘And tell me,’ he said, ‘how is Johannes?’
Manfred was a little surprised by this uncharacteristic sidestep, but it was a simple question which he had no difficulty answering. ‘He is in good health,’ he said, ‘and as affectionate as ever. He still brings a smile to the face of everyone he meets.’ Hoping to steer the conversation back to familiar ground, he added, ‘He seems to take to our tap water very well. He laps it up from his bowl with considerable enthusiasm, even more so since our local piping system was updated.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ said Franz. ‘I’ve been wondering about his diet. Does he eat the usual things for a doctor’s dog?’
‘Oh yes, he eats the usual dog food, primarily a combination of biscuits and tinned meat . . . all washed down with water.’
‘And is this diet ever supplemented by . . . oh, you know . . . miscellaneous human body parts, and things like that?’
‘Well, no, of course not. We do sometimes feed him some appropriate leftover food from our plates, but by and large he eats – and drinks – quite conventionally.’
‘So he never snacks on, for example, the genitalia of a male corpse?’
‘No.’
There was a silence.
‘Franz,’ said Manfred, his tone grave. ‘Is there something you wish to tell me?’
Franz replaced the receiver with a heavy heart. Irmgard was still upstairs writing to her sister, and he took Manfred’s advice and dialled his old friend Horst for an informal chat. Horst was a policeman, and though Franz had known him since childhood he had never before had cause to call him in his professional capacity.
‘I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,’ said Franz, ‘but I wonder if I could talk to you about something that has arisen. Something rather unsettling.’
Horst could tell from his friend’s voice that this would be best dealt with in person. ‘I shall be with you in nine minutes,’ he said.
Not long into their courtship, Franz Klopstock had addressed his wife-to-be by a pet name: Mein kleines Glühwürmchen. My little glow-worm. She had looked at him as if he had suffered a blow to the head. Feeling compelled to explain himself, he said that he had called her that because his life had been one of darkness until she had come along, bringing with her a beautiful and unexpected light. Her expression hadn’t changed, and he carried on, telling her that it had seemed as if he had been walking lost through a forest in the night-time and had suddenly seen a brilliant symbol of hope, a reminder that dawn would arrive, heralding a bright new day.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see.’
She had seemed so taken aback at being addressed in this way that he never used this pet name, or any other, again, but as he stood at the foot of the stairs he knew that this was a time when a gentle term of endearment was required, and it was the only one that came to mind. ‘My little glow-worm,’ he called, gently, and moments later his wife appeared. She was smiling, but her face betrayed her fear that he would never have used those words unless something serious had been afoot.
‘What is it?’ she asked, as she made her way downstairs.
‘Horst is coming to visit.’
‘How nice,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid it won’t be very nice, my . . . my little glow-worm. He will be visiting us in his capacity as a police officer. I think he will be asking you to tell him what you saw in the park today.’
She turned pale, and put her hand to her mouth. It had been hard enough for her to use those awful words in front of her husband, and she moved her hand to her heart at the thought of going over the same details with somebody else. ‘Must I, Franz?’
Franz nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. But remember, Horst will be speaking to you not as a friend, but as a police officer. You are not to feel embarrassed by the subject matter.’
‘But Franz, you don’t think, do you, that . . . that Doctor Fröhlicher has been up to no good?’
‘Oh, no. No, no.’ He dismissed this notion with a wave of his hand. ‘No, no, no. There will be a perfectly reasonable explanation. This time tomorrow we will have forgotten all about the whole episode.’
They moved together into the living room, where they sat in silence, and waited for Horst to arrive.
V
The old man sat at the kitchen table, and stared straight ahead. With a long, grey finger he slid a pamphlet towards himself. Pavarotti’s wife had handed it to him at their last meeting, wanting his opinion before deciding whether or
not they should add a bundle of them to the rack of similar pamphlets beside the front desk. He unfolded it, and started to read. It was titled Nature’s Life Raft, and its subject was the antidepressant qualities of serotonin. It explained how leaving some serotonin-enhancing snacks, particularly cashews and bananas, within easy reach of the afflicted could make the difference between life and death. He couldn’t understand why people felt the need to interfere with the lives of others, why they had to bother them with fruit and museums, but he would tell Pavarotti’s wife what she wanted to hear: that the pamphlet was pertinent, that he believed it must be added to the rack as a matter of urgency, and that it might even save a life.
He went back to staring straight ahead. As much as he believed that people should be left alone, he had accepted that in order to keep the doctor under control there was a likelihood that he would soon be interfering in somebody’s decision-making process, possibly even overriding their free will. This would be an inconvenience, but no more.
For now, though, there was nothing he could do. He had kept a close eye on his visitors that day, and knew he would not be disturbed in the night. Seven people had come in, and seven had left.
The doctor would have to wait.
VI
At Irmgard’s request Horst had gone back out to his car, and when he returned he was wearing his policeman’s cap. She knew that recounting her experience to a friend would have been too much to cope with, but if she could keep telling herself that she was offering information to an official investigation it would be different.
‘Thank you, officer,’ she said. ‘That will be a great help to me.’
