by John Irving
“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. García 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. García,” 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.”
“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 ei
n 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.”
“I just meant that Emma must have helped him,” William said; he was indignant.
“You cried and cheered, William—we all did,” Dr. von Rohr replied.
It slowly registered with Jack, when he was walking with his father to the men’s room—that if they’d watched Jack Burns at the Academy Awards in 2000, his father had been in the Sanatorium Kilchberg for more than three years. No one, not even Heather, had told Jack how long William had been there.
“Of course Emma helped me, Pop,” Jack admitted. “She helped me a lot.”
“I didn’t mean I wasn’t proud of you, Jack. Of course I’m proud of you!”
“I know you are, Pop.”
In the men’s room, Jack tried to block his father’s view of the mirror, but William planted himself in front of the sink, not the urinal. They did a little dance. William tried to look over Jack’s shoulder at the mirror; when Jack stood on his toes to block his dad’s view, William ducked his head and peered around his son. They danced from side to side. It was impossible to prevent William from seeing himself in the mirror.
If mirrors were triggers, they didn’t affect Jack’s father in quite the same way as the word skin had. This time, he didn’t try to take off his clothes. But with every glimpse he caught of himself, his expression changed.
“Do you see that man?” Jack’s dad asked, when he saw himself. It was as if a third man were in the men’s room with them. “Things have happened to him,” his father said. “Some terrible things.”
Jack gave up trying to shield his dad and looked in the mirror, too. The third man’s face kept changing. Jack saw his father as William might have looked when he first caught sight of Jack as an infant, before the boy’s mother had whisked him away—a kind of expectancy giving way to wonder on William’s suddenly boyish-looking face. Jack saw what his father must have seen in a mirror that day in Copenhagen, when they pulled Niels Ringhof’s body from the Kastelsgraven—or when William learned that Alice had slept with the boy, and then abandoned him.
His dad was slumping in Jack’s arms, as if William wanted to kneel on the men’s room floor—the way he’d dropped to his knees at the waterfront in Rotterdam, when Els had to carry him to Femke’s car. Or when the policeman had brought Heather home—and the cop told William the story of how they’d mistaken Barbara, his dead wife, for a German tourist who looked the wrong way crossing the street at Charlotte Square.
“That man’s body is a map,” William said, pointing at the slumping man in the mirror. “Should we look at the map together, Jack?”
“Maybe later, Pop. Not now.”
“Nicht jetzt,” his father agreed.
“You said you had to pee, Pop,” Jack reminded him.
“Oh,” Jack’s father said, stepping away from his son. “I think I have.”
They both looked at his pants. William was wearing khaki trousers with the same pleats and sharply pressed pant legs that Professor Ritter favored, but William’s were stained dark; his feet were standing in a puddle of urine on the floor.
“I hate it when this happens,” his dad said. Jack didn’t know what to do. “Don’t worry, Jack. Dr. von Rohr will be coming to the rescue. What did you think her overnight bag was really for?” William turned abruptly away from the mirror—as if the third man in the mirror had insulted him, or made him feel ashamed.
Seemingly part of his father’s daily schedule, there came a head-of-department knock on the men’s room door. “Herein!” William called. (“Come in!”)
Dr. von Rohr’s long arm reached into the men’s room; she was offering Jack her oversize handbag without showing them her face. “Danke,” Jack said, taking the bag from her hand.
“It’s different when he sees himself in the mirror without his clothes,” she warned Jack, letting the door close.
Jack undressed his father and wiped his body down with paper towels, which he soaked in warm water; then he dried his dad off with more paper towels. William was as accepting of this treatment as a well-behaved child.
Jack was able to guide him out of sight of the mirror. But when William was standing there, naked—while Jack searched for the change of clothes in Dr. von Rohr’s big bag—a well-dressed gentleman entered the men’s room, and he and Jack’s father exchanged stares. To the gentleman, who looked like a middle-aged banker, Jack’s dad was a naked, tattooed man. To William Burns, if Jack could read his father’s indignant expression, the well-dressed banker was an intruder; moreover, he was intruding on a tender father-and-son moment. Furthermore, to the gentleman, William Burns was a naked, tattooed man with gloves on—and there was no telling what the gentleman might have made of the copper bracele
ts.
The banker gave Jack an overfamiliar, I-know-who-you-are look. (He had come to pee, but he’d walked into some twisted movie!)
“Er ist harmlos,” Jack said to the man, remembering what Nurse Bleibel had told poor Pamela. (“He’s harmless.”)
The banker clearly doubted this. Jack’s dad had filled his lungs and proceeded to puff out his chest like a rooster; he made two fists and held out his gloved hands.
Jack reached back for his Exeter German, hoping for the best. “Keine Angst. Er ist mein Vater,” he told the banker. (“Don’t be afraid. He’s my father.”) And this was the hard part: “Ich passe auf ihn auf.” (“I’m looking after him.”) The banker retreated, not believing a word of it.
Then the man was gone—the only actual third man to have momentarily shared the men’s room with Jack and his dad—and Jack dressed his father, trying to remember how efficiently and gently Dr. Horvath had dressed William in the clinic.
It seemed to soothe his dad to explain musical notes to Jack; William must have known that his son knew nothing about music. “Quarter notes are colored in, with stems,” his father told him. “Eighth notes are also colored in, with either flags or beams joining two or more together. Sixteenth notes are colored in, and they have a double beam joining them together.”
“What about half notes?” Jack asked.
“Half notes, which are white-faced—well, in my case, you could say flesh-colored,” his dad said; he abruptly stopped.
Flesh: they’d both heard it. But was it a trigger? (As unstoppable as skin, maybe, Dr. Horvath might have said.)
“Half notes, which are white-faced,” Jack prompted his father, to make him move on. “White-faced and what?”
“White-faced with stems,” Jack’s dad replied, haltingly—flesh perhaps flickering in the half-light, half-dark of his mind, where all the triggers lay half asleep or half awake. “Whole notes are white-faced and have no stems.”
