by John Irving
“Stop! Hold everything,” Jack suddenly said, pointing to his father’s right side. “What’s that one?”
The tattoo was neither words nor music; it more closely resembled a wound in William’s side. Worse, at the edges of the gash, there was a blood-red rim—like a ring of blood. (As for the blood, Jack should have known, but he’d been only four at the time.)
“That is where Our Lord was wounded,” Jack’s father told him. “They put the nails in His hands,” he said, holding his black-gloved hands together, as if in prayer, “and in His feet, and here—in His side,” William said, touching the tattoo on the right side of his rib cage. “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear.”
“Who did the tattoo?” Jack asked his dad. Some scratcher, Jack expected him to say, but Jack should have known.
“There was a time, Jack, when every religious person in Amsterdam was at least tempted to be tattooed by a man named Jacob Bril. Maybe you were too young to remember him.”
“No, I remember Bril,” Jack said, touching the blood-edged gash in his dad’s side—then drawing his father’s shirt over the wound.
It was a great restaurant, the Kronenhalle. Jack had been foolish to order only a salad, but he ate two thirds of his father’s Wiener schnitzel. William Burns was a finicky eater.
“At least Jack brought his appetite to dinner, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe scolded him, but both William and Jack were in a fairly upbeat mood.
They had weathered the word flesh, which turned out to be in the stoppable category of triggers—not in the skin category—and while Jack had seen a third man’s sorrow on his father’s face, he knew that they had also escaped the men’s room without confronting the worst of what mirrors could do to his dad. It was different when William was naked in front of one, or so Dr. von Rohr had said. Jack guessed that was das ganze Pulver—all the ammunition, which Dr. Horvath had spoken of. Jack would get to see it one day, and that day would come soon enough. Tonight in the Kronenhalle, Jack was quite content to wait.
They talked briefly about the younger nurses at the Sanatorium Kilchberg. How they virtually stood in line, or took turns, to shave his dad every morning; how William was such a flirt.
“You don’t shave yourself?” Jack asked him.
“You try it, without a mirror,” his father said. “You should try it with the younger nurses, too, Jack.”
“If you don’t behave yourself, William, I’m going to put Waltraut in charge of shaving you,” Dr. von Rohr told him.
“Just so you don’t put Hugo in charge of it, Ruth,” Jack’s dad said.
That was how William managed to steer their conversation back to Hugo, and the sex-with-prostitutes subject. Dr. von Rohr, in her head-of-department way, was smart enough to see it coming, but she couldn’t prevent it.
“It is chiefly Hugo whom these lovely ladies object to, Jack,” his dad began, “not the prostitutes.” (Sighing from Dr. von Rohr, of course; the head-in-her-hands thing from Dr. Krauer-Poppe.)
“You said prostitutes—plural. You see more than one?” Jack asked his father.
“Not at the same time,” William said with that mischievous little smile of his. (Fork-twirling, spoon-spinning, knife-tapping from Dr. von Rohr’s part of the table—and Dr. Krauer-Poppe had something in her eye again.)
“I’m just curious to know, Pop, if you see the same two or three women—I mean one at a time—or a different prostitute each visit.”
“I have my favorites,” his father said. “There are three or four ladies I keep going back to.”
“You’re faithful in your fashion—is that what you mean, William?” Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked. “Isn’t there a song that goes like that?” (She’d had more red wine than Dr. von Rohr.) “Or have I got the translation all upfucked?”
“All fucked up, Anna-Elisabeth,” Dr. von Rohr corrected her.
“And it’s safe?” Jack asked his father.
“I don’t have sex with them, if that’s what you mean,” William answered, with that now-familiar tone of indignation in his voice.
“I know. I meant is it safe in every way?” Jack asked. “The place, for example. Is it dangerous?”
“I have Hugo with me!” his dad cried. “I don’t mean in the same room with me, of course.”
“Of course,” Jack said.
The silverware, which Dr. von Rohr had set in motion, came crashing down.
“Wait till you meet Hugo,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe told Jack. “Your father is safe with Hugo.”
“Then what is it you object to about him?” Jack asked both doctors.
“Wait till you meet him,” was all Dr. von Rohr would say.
“Don’t pity me, Jack,” his dad said. “Don’t think of me as resigning myself to masturbation with a prostitute. It isn’t an act of resignation.”
“I guess I don’t understand what it is,” Jack admitted.
They all saw William’s right hand reaching for his heart again; once more the fingers of his black-gloved hand inched their way toward that tattoo with the semicolon in it. (He had, with Dr. von Rohr’s assistance, removed the gloves to eat. But now that he’d finished his meal, the gloves were back on.)
“I have had women in my life that I wanted to have—if not for as long as I wish I’d had them,” William began sadly. “I couldn’t do that again. I can’t go through losing someone else.”
The doctors and Jack knew everything about the tattoo William Burns had for Karin Ringhof, and where it was. But Jack didn’t know if his father had a tattoo for Barbara, his German wife—or where it was, if he had it. Maybe that one was in the music; Jack would ask Heather about it.
“I get it, Pop. I understand,” Jack told him.
He wondered if William ever touched his rib cage on the other side, where Jacob Bril had pierced him and made him bleed. Jack wanted to know if that tattoo was ever as tender or sensitive to his father’s touch as the tattoo of the commandant’s daughter and her little brother. He hoped not. Of all his dad’s tattoos, Jacob Bril’s rendition of Christ’s blood was the only one with any color.
“It’s time for us to be going along, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe told him gently. “What are you going to play for us tomorrow—for Jack and me, and Dr. Horvath?”
It was a good trick, and Jack’s father seemed to be unaware of it. His right hand drifted away from the area of his heart and the upper-left side of his rib cage. He spread the fingers of his black-gloved hands on the white tablecloth—his feet shuffling under his chair, as if he were familiarizing himself with the foot pedals. You could see it in his eyes—there was a keyboard in his mind. There was an organ the size of the Oude Kerk in his heart; when Jack’s dad shut his eyes, he could almost hear it.
“You don’t expect me to hum it for you, do you, Anna-Elisabeth?” William asked Dr. Krauer-Poppe. She hadn’t fooled him, after all. In fact, she held her breath—as Jack and Dr. von Rohr did—because they all knew that hum was a possible trigger. As Dr. Berger had warned Jack, his father hated humming. (Although maybe it was the humming itself and not the word he hated.)
“Why not wait and surprise them in the morning, William?” Dr. von Rohr suggested. “I’m just asking.”
“Why not?” Jack’s dad said; he was looking tired.
“I have a little something to make you drowsy in the car,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe told William.
Jack’s dad was shaking his head; he was already drowsy. “I’m not going to be happy to say good-bye to Jack,” William said testily. “I’ve said good-bye to you before—too many times, dear boy. I’ve said good-bye to you here,” his father said, the gloved hand touching his heart again, “and here,” he said, pointing to his eyes, “and in here!” William was weeping now, holding his index finger to his temple.
“You’re going to see me in the morning, Pop.” Jack held his father’s face in his hands. “You’re going to see me again and again,” Jack promised him. “I intend to keep coming here. Heather and I are buying a house in Zu
rich.”
William instantly stopped crying and said: “You must be crazy! It’s one of the most expensive cities in the world! Ask Ruth, ask Anna-Elisabeth! Tell him!” he shouted at the women. “I don’t want my children to bankrupt themselves,” he moaned, wrapping both arms around his chest and hugging himself as if he were cold.
“Sehr bald wird ihm kalt werden,” Dr. von Rohr said to her colleague. (“Very soon he’ll feel cold.”)
“Mir ist nicht immer kalt,” Jack’s father argued. (“I don’t always feel cold.”)
Dr. Krauer-Poppe had stood up and put her hand on William’s shoulder; he sat shaking in his chair. “Open up, William,” she said. “If you take this, you won’t feel cold—you’ll just feel sleepy.”
Jack’s father turned his head and stuck his tongue out at her. (Jack realized that he might have misunderstood when his dad had done this before.) Dr. Krauer-Poppe put a pill on the tip of William’s tongue; she raised the water glass to his lips and he swallowed.
“I’ll just see if Hugo has the car here. He was supposed to,” Dr. von Rohr said, leaving the table.
“Professor Ritter has a home in one of those overpriced monstrosities across the lake from the sanatorium,” Jack’s father started up again, as soon as he’d swallowed the pill Dr. Krauer-Poppe had given him. “It’s in Zollikon or Küsnacht—one of those precious places.”
“It’s in Küsnacht, William—it’s very beautiful,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe assured Jack. “That side of the lake gets more sun.”
“My taxi driver told me,” Jack said.
“But do you know what it costs?” Jack’s father asked him. “Four million Swiss francs, and for what? A house of three hundred or four hundred square meters, and you pay more than three million dollars? That’s crazy!”
“The house has a view of the lake; it has a garden, too,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe explained. “The garden must be a thousand square meters, William.”
“It’s still crazy,” Jack’s dad said stubbornly; at least he wasn’t shivering. Dr. Krauer-Poppe stood behind William’s chair, massaging his shoulders. She was just waiting for the pill to kick in.
“William, Jack could buy a small house in town—something not that expensive,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “I’m sure he doesn’t care if he can see the lake.”
“Everything in Zurich is expensive!” Jack’s father declared.
“William, you go shopping for clothes and prostitutes. What else do you go shopping for in Zurich?” Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked him.
“You see what I’m up against, Jack? It’s like being married!” his dad told him. William saw that Dr. von Rohr was back. “To both of them!”
“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 Quaibrücke; 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.”
