The Tenuous Line of Sanity by Frank Siegrist - HTML preview

The doctor nodded and turned to the night watch: « Mr. Spör, please fetch a bed. »

The well-groomed man signalled with a head-movement to the unkempt man that he should follow.

Soon the bed was here. All together they lifted the wounded man onto it and rolled it off towards the operating theatre.

The doctor went ahead, the night watch trotting closely behind him - without the presence of Dr. Stucki he felt naked in front of the two thugs…

Then came Jack, feeling sort of left out as usual. He wasn’t really afraid - he was hardly a main protagonist in what was happening here. He felt more out of place than afraid, actually…

And finally came the two thugs with their wounded colleague. The well-groomed man was pushing the bed, the unkempt one was waving his gun in the air.

They reached the green entrance portal to the operating theatre in this order.

Before the doctor could get in, the unkempt man pushed his way past him to come first. He didn’t want anybody to get out of his control. The doctor showed no surprise. All he said was: « Please put on a pair of overshoes over your regular shoes. » The overshoes looked like traditional dutch clogs. The unkempt man laughed, but Dr. Stucki and the night watch had stopped finding this funny decades ago.

Dr. Stucki grabbed a box from a drawer.

« Slowly! » warned the unkempt man, suspiciously waving his gun at the doctor.

The doctor took a paper filter out of the box and tied it around his head so that it covered his mouth and nose. « Gentlemen, please help yourselves! » he said and handed the box over to them. Then he took out a pile of green blouses, slipped into one and handed the rest of the pile over to them too. When everyone was outfitted, he led the way through the main portal, along a short passage and into the actual operating room.

Dr. Stucki and the night watch stripped the patient’s shirt off completely. Dr. Stucki donned plastic gloves. The patient was carefully moved from the bed onto the operating table. The doctor filled a syringe, gave a little squirt upwards to make sure there were no bubbles left in it, then he laid the needle against the skin and pressed it in. The patient made no sound in reaction to this, the doctor took what looked like a big paint brush and spread a muddy-looking mass generously on the chest and abdomen of the patient. Then he bent down over the patient and said loudly: « Can you hear me? »

The patient didn’t react.

To everybody’s surprise he now raised his hand and gave the patient a slap across the face. The patient’s breathing faltered for a second, but then he breathed in and out again smoothly, as if nothing had happened.

« Okay, we can start, » said the doctor.

He gave the night watch two glistening clean tools that looked like forks for eating.

« Keep this wound open! » he ordered.

The night watch laid one of the forks gingerly on the edge of the wound and gently pushed a shred of skin aside. The doctor took the forks from his hands, inserted them both deep into the wound and pulled the two edges of the wound well apart.

« Like this! » he said, nodding to the night watch so that he would hold the forks again. « And now keep them like this so that the hole remains open! »

The night watch had to pull quite hard on the forks to keep the hole as open as the doctor wanted it, but the skin didn’t tear. Skin is just a big, elastic surface covering the body, Jack thought to himself, but actually there is much more to the body than just its skin. It’s like the sleek body of a sport’s car - you think it’s all one single solid object, all in one, but open the hood and you see all the messy mechanical parts in there… It’s the same with the human body too, and surgeons are the mechanics of the medical world.

The doctor pushed the huge lamp - made up of a whole array of smaller lamps and attached to a complex mobile arm - so that it would shine directly onto the patient’s chest. The light streaming from the numerous light-bulbs was bright and warm almost like sunshine, and it came from so many directions at once that it was practically impossible to throw a shadow over your hands while you were working. And yet, if you looked at the lamp directly, it still didn’t dazzle you because the individual light-bulbs were too weak for that. Wow, thought Jack, this is some lamp! He almost decided there and then that he was going to be a surgeon later on!

Now the doctor took a slender forceps (very delicate compared to the two crude forks that held the wound open) and slipped it into the wound. He picked around in the wound a bit. Sometimes he shifted the lamp with a quick shove of his elbow. From time to time he made a sign for the night watch to pull the edges of the wound in another direction.

Then suddenly he made a very concentrated face (and if his mouth and nose hadn’t been covered with a mask, one would undoubtedly have seen him poking out his tongue just a little bit…), stared down yet a bit more fixedly into the wound, and finally pulled out a slug!

He held it up in the light - an ugly leaden bullet whose deformed tip had once been conical before it had smashed into the body.

The doctor carefully disinfected the wound and now it was time to sew. With a pair of tweezers he took up a short, twisted needle on which a thread was hanging. He inserted all this into the wound and did some quick sewing. Jack didn’t see what exactly he was sewing nor did he grasp how the knots were made, because it all went too fast. Finally the doctor ordered the night watch to let go of the forks, and then he quickly sewed up the skin on the surface. And then it was the second wound’s turn.

The whole procedure was repeated.

The operation took a long time. The well-groomed man watched attentively while the unkempt one was walking up and down the room in his clogs.

Jack would have liked to leave now. It had been interesting to watch at first, but now he just felt out of place again, not knowing what he could do to help or how to participate in any way. He would have liked to go back to his room now. Undoubtedly he would hear all about the three thugs in the news the next day. Here and now he obviously wasn’t going to learn anything new.

Nobody even seemed to be aware of his existence. And yet, if he tried to slip away, the unkempt man would surely suddenly remember his existence and bark at him to stay still! Jack was also more afraid of the gun now - he had just seen what it can do to you, hadn’t he?

Finally the doctor had finished sewing up the last wound. With his thumb he opened up one of the eye-lids of the patient and directed the focal point of the lamp at it. The pupil contracted. The doctor smiled, satisfied.

« Done! » he said.

As he pulled off his plastic gloves, the night watch and the well-groomed man shifted the patient back from the operating table onto the hospital bed.

« Okay, let’s go! » said the unkempt thug. Jack helped the well-groomed one manoeuvre the bed out of the operating theatre and back into the corridor. The doctor and the night watch followed, driven by the unkempt man with his gun.

In the corridor the unkempt man suddenly asked: « What about the bandages? Wasn’t he supposed to be bandaged? »

« I’ll get them! » said the night watch and hurried off, the well-groomed man going with him.

« Do you still need me for anything? » asked Dr. Stucki.

« Wait till we’ve left ourselves, » grumbled the unkempt man.

The night watch and the well-groomed man came back with a box full of bandages and a bottle of disinfectant. The night watch generously poured the sharply-smelling disinfectant over the stitched wounds, and then he plastered and bandaged them expertly. Finally the night watch helped the well-groomed man dress the patient back up in his dirty, torn shirt. They pushed the hospital bed to the main entrance, and there they lifted the patient out of it and let him dangle from the shoulders of his two colleagues once more. He still looked livid and lifeless, but at least he was out of mortal danger, or so the doctor had assured them in any case.

« Okay, » said the unkempt man, « we’re leaving now. No police, okay? And I don’t want to see anyone outside till we’re gone! »

« At last! » thought Jack, thinking of his cozy little bed in his cozy little room.

But the unkempt one now pointed at him with his gun: « You come with us! » he said, not loudly, but with definite determination.

Jack sighed inwardly. Later on he wondered why he hadn’t been much more scared at this very moment, since it was now clear they were taking him with them as a hostage!

« Go ahead! »

Jack stepped through the big entrance door out into the cool night air. He felt the gun in the small of his back. The two thugs, with the wounded man between them, were right behind him.

« Where to? » he asked.

« Just straight ahead but not too fast, » answered the unkempt one.

They walked across the parking lot towards the road. At the corner of the road, Jack saw a parked car.

An impressive radiator flanked by two big eyes with angry eyebrows. Where the eyebrows met, on the bridge of the nose (or rather the radiator), stood a chrome-figure representing a « B » with wings…

The body was silver-plated grey and shimmered moistly in the blueish moon-light. Behind the long hood a broad windshield reared up, and behind the windshield the body fell away in a soft curve encompassing the rear window, down to the rear fenders that looked like a pair of muscular thighs.

The unkempt man stuck a key into the long, long door and swung it open. The open door reached way out into the middle of the road. He folded the backrest of the driver’s seat over onto the steering wheel, revealing a generous row of backseats. It seemed incongruous to Jack that there would be so much space back there when there wasn’t even a dedicated back door. Jack saw the thick leather upholstering and the expensive wood-panelling, all very dignified.

The well-groomed man climbed in backwards, pulling the wounded man with him. The unkempt man, standing behind Jack, said: « Give him a hand! »

Jack grabbed the legs of the wounded man that were dragging over the asphalt and handed them into the car. He was about to climb in after them when the unkempt man reached forward and folded the backrest back in place.

« Get in ! » he ordered.

« At the wheel? » asked Jack, uncertain.

« You know how to drive, don’t you? » asked the unkempt man, suddenly uncertain himself.

« Of course… » answered Jack.

« Okay then, let’s go! And no tricks! » The pitch black muzzle of the gun stared Jack in the face.

As Jack got seated at the wheel, the unkempt man walked around the long, long hood, opened the door on the other side and jumped into the passenger’s seat. They both slammed their doors (which instead of banging made a dignified clicking sound) and immediately felt how the outside world was shut out and became irrelevant. In here, everything was luxurious softness and comfort… All four of them were now enshrined in the belly of the beast with the huge, muscular thighs!

The unkempt man handed Jack the car keys. There was a big metallic plate attached to them, like a big coin, and on it Jack recognized the symbolic « B » with the wings once again.

To Jack’s surprise, the car, although definitely being of the extremely luxurious kind, had a manual transmission. Yes, yes, this British luxury brand didn’t just follow technological fads, even if contemporary Cadillacs surely already had automatic transmissions… And anyway, it was supposed to be somewhat sporty as well, or so the two doors (rather than four) suggested. But probably even the four-door model would still have had a manual transmission, Jack now mused - the four-door version might not be « sporty », but that also meant the owner wouldn’t drive it himself but would rather have it driven by a chauffeur… In either case, there was no need for an automatic transmission!

So Jack put his left foot on the heavy clutch and pushed it down as far as it would go. He felt his foot getting lost in the cavernous leg-room, deep under the highly polished wooden dash-board….

He stuck the key into its key-hole, touched the gear-lever (it was covered by thick, hand-stitched leather, which incongruously made Jack think of the stitched-up wounds of the wounded man in the back), just to make sure the first gear was engaged, and then he turned the key. First came the not-so-nice screeching of the starter-motor, but Jack’s foot wobbled on the gas expertly, sending little spurts of gas into the engine, so that the screeching was soon replaced by the deep, rich purr of eight big cylinders (or was it twelve, maybe? - Jack couldn’t tell…). Jack pushed the gas lightly once or twice, and each time the car as a whole gave a little shudder as the engine gave a low-key growl.

Now Jack cautiously clutched in, giving the engine progressively more gas, and the huge beast smoothly, smoothly got underway! Jack couldn’t help a feeling of elation!

He forgot the gun directed at him on his right side. He forgot the freshly-operated, wounded man in the back. He forgot that two thugs were taking him with them as a hostage. All he saw now was the long, long hood with the crest in its middle and the winged « B » at its end, the mud-guards on each side looking like silky paws and ending with the big, avid « eyes » (i.e., headlamps) next to the grill, as Jack had seen from the outside of the car before getting in…

And in front of all that there was the dark, endless road, ready to unwind like a vast ribbon.

When he had found the switch for the headlamps and switched them on, illuminating the road in the golden light of old-fashioned light-bulbs, he shifted into second and accelerated.

« Go right towards Freiburg, » said the unkempt man next to him. Jack turned the car into the main road.

Third gear, fourth gear. The big car swept over the asphalt like an elemental force, like a wave sweeping over the ocean.

The engine was doing about 2’000 revs per minute, never more, and it was just humming to itself in a deep, satisfied bass.

The last farmhouses that still belonged to Riggsiberg swept past, but Jack didn’t have the feeling he was moving. In the curves the car swayed ever so gently, the engine was humming its cozy song, and else everything was still and quiet in the rich leather interior of the car. It was rather the outside world that seemed to have lost its mind - it was this crazy Riggisberg that had plagued him for so long with all its Burris and Uhlers and gum-chewing head-nurses that was now suddenly rushing away to hide in the darkness behind the car!

Other villages swept past. Jack saw the road signs with unfamiliar names on them rear up in the light of the headlamps, and before he could wonder if these places had Burris and Uhlers of their own too, they had already long vanished in the distance behind the car…

« Just continue towards Freiburg, » said the unkempt man.

Jack gratefully forgot about Riggisberg. He now concentrated exclusively on the road ahead.

It was agreeably quiet in the car. Nobody disturbed Jack as he drove. They reached a kind of ravine and the road hugged the cliff as it plunged down. Jack swung the car elegantly around the curves. On a short straight stretch of road, he decided to shift down to third. He did it very professionally, even double-clutching out of respect for the old car, and without the slightest jerk the engine brake smoothly set in as the engine started humming a few notes higher.

At the bottom of the ravine came a hairpin curve, and then the road wound its way up out of the ravine again on the other side. Jack took the tight curve in second gear, gave the engine some gas and changed back to third.

The car had no problem with the grade that came now. Jack’s foot just sank a tiny bit further down on the gas and the humming of the engine became ever so slightly more pressing, but that was all. The bottom of the ravine was disappearing below them fast, and Jack felt as if he were sitting in an airplane taking off!

They reached the top and the road flattened out again - nothing but a long, straight rural road. The car relaxed in fourth gear.

After a while Freiburg became visible. Jack would never forget how the illuminated cathedral suddenly became visible from the top of a knoll, clearly silhouetted against the dark night-sky.

« Follow the directions towards Lausanne, » said the unkempt man.

The road led them through the outer districts of Freiburg, but always in the general direction of the cathedral. They got closer and closer to the town centre, and finally Jack was really maneuvering the big car along the venerable old stone-walls of the cathedral itself!

« Onto the highway? » asked Jack.

« Stay on the national road, » answered the unkempt man.

So Jack followed all the blue signs directing to Lausanne (rather than the green ones that would have led to the highway, since Switzerland uses the opposite colour-combination for this than the rest of Europe), and he was happy when he could at last leave all the traffic lights, street signs and various lanes (from which you had to choose the correct one) behind him and the national road was once again stretching ahead of him, reaching out into the night.

Jack thought to himself that now or never - at gunpoint in this undoubtedly stolen car - was his chance to do something forbidden: he was going to test the limits of this venerable old car! So he gradually, gradually pushed the gas further and further down…

The deep humming of the engine progressively became a drone - it started sounding like a muted jet-engine! The trees at the edge of the road started blurring together into a dark mass. The road, which had seemed dead-straight a moment ago, now seemed to become curvier and curvier and Jack had to concentrate harder and harder. His knuckles became white on the mahogany steering-wheel and his eyes pierced into the darkness ahead as a bead of sweat formed on his forehead. But otherwise everything remained calm and still inside the car. In such a majestic vehicle where nothing rattles or shakes or makes any other excessive noise, you just can’t feel the speed in your guts. Whatever speed you reach, once you’ve reached it, it just seems natural.

So Jack gradually relaxed, and when he overtook another car (which was already going way above the speed-limit), he took it for a tractor because he was going so much faster.

None of his three passengers said anything even though the unkempt one (if not the others) must have noticed that they were going rather fast.

After a surprisingly short time a road-sign flew past on which it said: « Servion ». Jack realized they had almost arrived in his home-town Lausanne. In « Servion » there is a zoo where Jack had often been with his parents when he was a boy. Lausanne was only a few more kilometres away. A bit later came the turnoff leading to Theresa’s place. Jack hadn’t thought much about her lately, but now he remembered vividly how he had once driven along this exact same road with her on the back of his motorbike!

Then, on the left, came the snobbish riding-school where Jack had learned his meagre horse-riding skills thanks to a discount rate offered to students.

Jack had already slowed down, and now that the road became illuminated by street-lamps he slowed down even further. The national road took a long left-curve and finally ended in front of a set of traffic lights.

Jack shifted gears - down to third, and then to second - and each time the engine thrummed a note higher as if in protest. Finally he brought the car to a stop at the red light. The snoring in the back (which he hadn’t even noticed before) faltered but then started again.

« Drive to the lake and then towards Vevey until we tell you where to stop, » said the unkempt man next to him.

The traffic light turned green and Jack let the car roll towards the town centre together with some other cars that had now appeared on either side of him. In the bight light of the street-lamps everybody in the car woke up and even got a bit edgy. They drove down to Ouchy and from there took the road along the lake towards Vevey. Within town Jack had mostly left the gear-lever in third, and at some point (when he forgot it there) he realized that he could even quite easily drive off from a stop in this gear. The big engine managed this feat quite easily - you just needed to clutch in more progressively, that was all.

Everything had grown calm in the back of the car again as Jack drove through Pully, and then came the tiny municipality of Paudex which is squeezed in between Pully and Lutry. As he passed a petrol station he automatically looked at the fuel gauge in the car and saw it was getting dangerously close to zero. Of course, all that fast driving earlier hadn’t been very fuel-efficient!

« We’re running out of gas, » he said in a neutral voice.

« What are you saying? » asked the unkempt thug in an irritated tone of voice and leaned over to hit the gauge with his finger. The needle didn’t budge.

« We’ll have to stop at the next petrol station… » he admitted, biting his lower lip.

As Jack paid attention to the side of the road so he wouldn’t miss the next petrol station he suddenly saw a weakly illuminated blue sign on the side of a nondescript housing block. It said: « Police ».

Of course! This was where the police of the minuscule municipality of Paudex had their offices!

Jack switched the indicator on and pulled over to the kerbside in front of the building. He did it so naturally that the unkempt thug at first didn’t even get suspicious. The car was still rolling as the unkempt thug roused the half-asleep well-groomed thug in the back: « You point the gun at him while I fill up the car! »

The well-groomed thug only shrugged, making sleepy noises.

The car was standing still. Jack sat at the wheel quietly. He had turned off the engine. He waited to see what would happen now.

The unkempt man suddenly started having his doubts. « Are you sure this is a petrol station? » he asked.

Jack hesitated as though he were unsure himself. The unkempt man opened the door and got out.

The well-groomed one in the back had apparently gone back to sleep.

The unkempt man stood next to the car, looking around. He didn’t see the blue sign saying « police ». He only saw the nondescript grey building and wondered where on Earth the gas-pump was…

His forearm was still reaching into the car and the ugly snout of the gun was still pointing at Jack. Jack advanced his right hand towards the thug’s hand. The unkempt man didn’t notice anything because he was standing outside, looking around, above and beyond the roof of the car. The roof of the car below him was hiding his hand holding the gun as well as Jack’s dangerously advancing hand.

Jack slowly, slowly bent over the front passenger seat where the unkempt thug had been sitting a moment ago. He was really close to the gun now - the gun that the thug was still pointing into the car.

Was Jack going to do it or not? It was now or never!

So he did - with one swift movement of his left hand he reached for the barrel of the gun from underneath. As soon as his fingers felt the cold metal, he grabbed the thug’s hand with his other hand and violently pushed it away, all the while holding on to the barrel of the gun with his left hand. He made sure that he pushed the barrel of the gun well upwards, away from himself, so that the shot wouldn’t hit him if one should go off.

With the gun held by the barrel tightly in his left hand, he sprang out of the car, almost fell over, caught himself just in time and started running towards the building. Cursing, the unkempt thug came after him. Jack stopped, turned around while slipping the gun into his right hand, grip first this time. The unkempt thug realized his only chance was to get back to the car and drive away.

Jack pushed the slide back, hard, just like he had seen action heroes in films do. This moved up a bullet from the magazine and cocked the gun.

The unkempt thug was trying to get into the driver’s seat. Jack pulled the trigger. The grip of the gun buckled in his hand as if it had become alive and gone wild (so that’s what they call « recoil », Jack realized) and the report of the gun was absolutely ear-splitting, much louder than Jack would have imagined and certainly much louder than guns ever sounded in action films.

For his second shot, Jack tried to take aim. He even took a few steps towards the unkempt thug to be closer, stared down along the barrel of the gun towards his target and only then pulled the trigger. And this time he even saw a little flame spurt out of the snout of the gun as the shot went off, the gun once again buckled and slipped in his sweaty hand and the sharp report rang in his ears.

Yes, he had hit him! The thug’s left leg caved in and he collapsed next to the car. Jack had hit him in the calf!

Jack remembered the well-groomed thug in the back of the car. He must be awake by now and he must have a gun too. Jack ran to the front of the car and bent down behind the radiator so that he wouldn’t be hit by a bullet coming through the windshield.

The main door of the house sprang open and a policeman with his gun out took up a broad-legged shooter’s stance at the top of the stairs. A second one appeared behind him.

The first policeman slowly stepped towards the car, gun pointing, in a dignified manner. The second one came towards Jack.

Jack slowly got up and dropped his stolen gun.

« Hands up! » called out the policeman harshly, and Jack obeyed. The policeman took position behind him and violently pushed him on the hood of the car. With his face pressed against the panel sheet, Jack felt the hand of the policeman gruffly running over his body.

« Okay! » said the policeman and pulled Jack up again.

Now Jack saw that a third policeman had joined them. The three thugs (even the freshly operated one had apparently learned to stand upright again) were all forced to bend over the car in the same rough way as Jack had been and were searched too. Then they got pulled up again just like Jack had been, and then they were all led into the building and into an office in the back with small, barred windows.

« Well now, » said the fattest of the three policemen and took out a piece of paper and a pencil to take notes. « Can one of you explain what all this was about? »

Jack saw the stony faces of his three kidnappers who probably wouldn’t say a word unless it was to ask for a lawyer, so he quickly decided to give his own version of what had happened first: « These three men took me as a hostage. They sat me at the steering wheel and forced me to drive towards Vevey. I stopped here, pretending we were just stopping for gas. I managed to grab the gun from this man here, » and Jack pointed at the unkempt one, « and to flee from the car. I fired two shots to stop this man from driving off again. »

The unkempt thug flared up angrily: « That’s absolutely not true! This guy… »

« Shut up! » hissed the well-groomed thug. He was deadly pale, but his stare was as blank as ever.

The fat policeman winked at one of the two other policemen and Jack was escorted out of the room. He was led into another office, barely friendlier than the first.

« Please take a seat! » said the policeman who had come with him.

First he took Jack’s personal data, and then he made Jack tell his version of the story in more detail. He often interrupted and questioned him and sometimes played dumb when he wanted Jack to spell out some detail word for word. He was a bit puzzled that Jack lived nearby, while he had been kidnapped many kilometres away, in Riggisberg. It took a while before he accepted that it was just a coincidence that the thugs had taken him towards his home address after kidnapping him.

The policeman made Jack repeat about three times that the man he had shot at had had « a menacing attitude » and Jack finally understood that he had to say he had shot at him out of self-defence rather than to stop him from getting away, else he might get in trouble himself!

Indeed, there is no concept of « citizen arrest » in Swiss law. Even if you catch a burglar in your own home, you must let him go rather than delivering him to the police, else you might face charges of abduction, which is even worse than burglary…

Once Jack’s story had settled into a consistent narrative, the policeman was eager to get some independent confirmation. Jack didn’t have any ID on him (which was logical since he had been eating supper when he was kidnapped) and couldn’t even prove his identity.

« Are your parents at home at this hour? » asked the policeman.

« I guess so, » answered Jack.

« Dictate their number to me, » ordered the policeman.

So Jack did, thinking to himself: « Always the parents! They always have to hear about everything! » He felt like a naughty child who was about to be returned to his parents.

The policeman was silently holding the receiver against his ear for a long time, waiting for an answer at the other end of the line.

Finally someone answered. It was Jack’s mother. The policeman introduced himself, not in an unfriendly tone, but quite dryly. Then he asked: « Do you have a son currently doing a practical at Riggisberg hospital? »

« Yes… » said Jack’s mother, her voice calm but somewhat fearful.

« His name is Jack? »

« Yes… »

« Can you identify him? »

« In God’s name, what happened? » Now Jack’s mother’s voice had snapped - she was going to get hysterical.

« He’s fine! » the policeman laughed grumpily. « He’s sitting here in front of me, fresh as a daisy! Can you identify him from his voice? »

Jack’s mother was audibly relieved: « Of course. What has he done? »

She laughed nervously.

The policeman gave another grumpy little laugh and said: « He didn’t do anything wrong, but I can’t tell you more right now. I’m passing the phone to him now. »

Jack took the phone and simply said: « Hello ». He didn’t like to add « mom » in front of the policeman.

« Jack, what are you doing in Paudex? »

« Oh, that’s a long story, » said Jack. « Is everyone fine? »

« Yes, daddy is already asleep and Joe is watching a film in his room… »

The policeman winked at Jack.

« Okay, I have to go now. See you! »

« See you, Jack… »

Jack gave the receiver back to the policeman.

« So that was undoubtedly your son, ma’m? »

« Yes, of course! »

« Okay, thank you for your help, ma’m. Good night! »

The policeman rang off.

« Well then, » said the policeman. « So far so good. Now I need to reach Riggisberg hospital. Please wait a moment. »

And with these words he went out of the office and left Jack alone.

After a few minutes he came back and said: « We got the night watch on the line. Unfortunately he couldn’t confirm your name, but otherwise he corroborated your story. »

He patted his moustache. « Okay, let’s go see the chief! » he said finally.

The fat one was all alone in his office. As the other policeman came in followed by Jack, he looked up and said: « So, the story of this young man seems to hold up? »

« As far as I can tell, it does. »

« Okay, » said the fat one. « Then he just needs to read through the statement we prepared for him and sign it if he agrees with it. » He handed over a printed sheet of paper to Jack. Jack read through it. They weren’t his words - he could have formulated things better himself, he felt - but the meaning was correct, so he signed it.

« Thank you, » said the fat policeman. « So everything’s in order for now and you may go. »

« Sorry, » said Jack, « but where shall I go? I don’t have any money on me and I need to be back in Riggisberg tomorrow morning! »

« Hm, yes…, » said the fat policeman, he too stroking his moustache absentmindedly, « and the car needs to go back to Thun… That’s where it was stolen… »

« So it was really stolen! » said Jack.

The police chief looked straight at Jack: « Does that surprise you? »

« Well, a bit… » said Jack. « Why didn’t they steal a less conspicuous car? »

The policeman put on a slightly quizzical air and said: « The car belongs to a classic car enthusiast. He has a whole collection of classic cars, so of course he doesn’t carry all the keys in his pocket, you know? He just leaves them in the cars. The three men you brought in broke into his garage and took the foremost one, that’s all! »

Such a simple explanation!

« I didn’t understand what they were doing with a car like that, » said Jack, « but on the other hand it seemed kind of fitting as well… »

« Fitting? » asked the policeman, raising an eyebrow.

« Well…, » said Jack, « like in an gangster film, you know? Something crazy! »

« I see, » said the policeman, smiling. « Anyway, it needs to get back to Thun somehow. I was wondering if you would like to take it back as far as this place Riggisberg, since you need to go there anyway? »

Jack blushed a bit and hoped it wasn’t visible. Of course he would love to drive back in that fantastic car!

« Why certainly! » he answered, trying not to sound over-enthusiastic.

« Okay, I’ll see with the owner if he might agree to this, » said the policeman and reached for the telephone.

He found the number, dialled it and held the receiver against his ear, his eyes wandering up to the corner of the room while he listened to the dial tone, waiting for an answer. Somebody had obviously just answered, because now he introduced himself in broken High-German. The voice on the other end sounded annoyed. The policeman asked his question, listened to the answer patiently and finally said: « Very well. Goodnight! » Then he rang off.

« He agreed », he said to Jack. « You shall leave the car keys at the reception of the hospital. »

Jack explained that the tank of the car was empty. The policeman gave him eighty franks from a locked box and made Jack sign a receipt for it. Then he typed a short text with the title « to whom it may concern », put a stamp on it, signed it and gave that to Jack too.

« In case there’s a police control on the way, » the policeman explained, but then he added that it was in no way a licence to break any traffic rules!

« Of course, of course » Jack mumbled as he took the piece of paper and folded it.

The police chief led him to the car that was now standing on a parking-space marked « police » in front of the building.

« Okay, drive carefully now! » said the police chief and opened the door for Jack.

Jack mumbled some answer and seated himself at the elegant mahogany wheel in the posh leather interior once more, started the engine which made a deep, deep rumbling sound like the deepest note of an organ, winked goodbye and drove off.

After a quick stop at a petrol station he settled down comfortably in the soft leather seat, intending to enjoy his ride in this venerable old car to the full!

He would never forget this drive back to Riggisberg! Alone in this noble, luxurious classic car, nothing but the deep, reassuring purr of the huge engine for company, the outside world (with all its gum-chewing head-nurses and such) reduced to nothing but dark blurry outlines swiftly sweeping by and unable to touch him here in the cozy leather-bound interior…

After slightly more than an hour he cruised elegantly into the parking lot of Riggisberg hospital.

Yes, there under the bike-stand stood his crude little motorbike!

 

Jack awoke early the next morning from a slightly troubled sleep and looked out the window. The silver-grey Bentley was already gone. Probably the local police had picked it up, unless it was the owner in person. Jack couldn’t quite imagine that the rich owner was already up, but who knows? If this Bentley was his pride and joy, he might have gotten up in the middle of the night to come and fetch it!

Jack’s motorbike was standing forlorn and alone under the bike-stand. Jack suddenly felt all moved by its trusty faithfulness - his crude motorbike wasn’t a crazy gangster-car that gets stolen in the night, but just a modest two-wheeler that faithfully waits for its master, going quite unnoticed by strangers in the meantime. He was so touched by this that tears of emotion almost came to his eyes, and he wondered what on Earth was going on with him!

Maybe it was all the adrenaline from last night that hadn’t quite flushed out of his body yet…

He went back to bed and looked at his watch on the bedside table - still almost an hour to go before he would need to get up. He lied back down, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. He couldn’t relax, knowing that he was going to be woken up again within an hour. He hadn’t slept enough tonight, and he wondered how he would manage to get through the long day with Burri, Uhler and company…

He grabbed his little pocket-TV on the bedside table and ran through the channels. Nothing was being broadcast yet. This wasn’t like in the United States where you could watch a Western even at five o’clock in the morning!

So he grabbed the book he had been reading. It was the story of a young man who was a teacher in a primary school in the Australian Outback. The long summer holidays had just begun and he was looking forward to leaving the boring Outback behind and going back to Sydney to see his family and a girl he knew there… But on his way to Sydney he gambled away all his money and stayed stuck in the Outback!

Jack read about his futile efforts to tackle the huge distance by hitchhiking. It wasn’t so much that nobody stopped for him - people from the Outback are very friendly. They keep offering you beer. The young man kept drinking and getting ensnarled in the most unlikely adventures, always awakening from his drunken stupors somewhere on the baking, dusty, brick-red soil of the Outback, while Sydney - and its green lawns full of sprinklers, and his love-interest in her breezy miniskirt… - receded ever further away.

Jack felt for the young man - just like him he was surrounded by well-meaning people who just didn’t understand him!

When the young man from the novel refused a beer, people felt offended. But the young man didn’t at all want to offend them - he just really couldn’t bear any more beer! Why couldn’t anybody see that?

When Jack did his job here in the hospital, clumsily and slowly but better than he himself would have expected, since all this was so new to him, the nurses just got annoyed with him for his clumsiness and slowness. They felt he didn’t show interest. Of course he was interested, and of course he wanted to do his best - it just wasn’t all that easy for him! Why couldn’t anybody see that?

Okay, Jack probably wasn’t an easy person… Going to the toilet was a complicated business for him. For a long time - when he was a little boy but still gradually getting too big for the potty - he hadn’t even dared to sit on a toilet-seat because of some irrational fear that he could « fall in »…

Now he wasn’t scared of falling in anymore, but he was still afraid of other people’s dirt he might get in touch with, and the sight of a toilet-seat still filled him with dread (especially if it wasn’t his own where only he himself ever sat). So he needed a whole ceremony of cleaning and disinfecting the toilet seat before squatting above it (because even after all the cleaning he still tried as much as possible not to touch it with his behind). And if he felt sufficiently at peace with how he had cleaned it and how it smelled, then maybe his stool would deign come out!

So all this was a complicated matter for Jack. It was complicated enough for him to go to the toilet himself. Taking other people there, seating them, wiping their bums…, that just took the whole thing to a whole new level!

But he still did it. Somehow he still managed to do it! It wasn’t THAT impossible! Somewhere deep in his heart Jack was even proud that he actually COULD do it!

But nobody here at the hospital knew anything about all that. All they knew was that he was slow and clumsy. And it annoyed them!

Jack felt for the young man in the novel, and so he read on and on at this early hour until his watch rang because it was time to get up. He got up and started dressing for the day. Somehow he felt a bit depressed. Was it just the sad story of the young man in the novel? Or the lack of sleep? Or was something else the matter with him?

Dressed in his white clothes (not just the white lab-coat, but the white trousers as well!) he went down to his ward where the patients were just getting their temperature measured. During the patients’ breakfast, Jack was given the task to spoon-feed Mr. Pulver with chunks of bread dunked in coffee. Mr. Pulver was a heavy-set man without legs whose left arm was permanently cramped in an unnatural position. He could move his head freely, and sometimes he made soughing noises about which you never knew whether they expressed some feeling or just represented breathing difficulties (or in any case Jack never knew which it was). Whenever Jack spoke to him, he turned his head towards him and looked at him with big blue eyes. His big eyes permanently expressed surprise, and he looked and looked as if in utter amazement but never said a word.

He had long eye-lashes, and that made him look unbearably ingenuous when he blinked!

His face was permanently filled with wonder. There were no worry-lines, just utter trustfulness and wonder. A trustfulness full of admiration. He was like a little bird that has just come out of its egg, turns its little head and greets whatever object it sees in front of itself as its mother!

A baby goose will offer all the devotion it is capable of to the first moving object it encounters after hatching from its egg. This was first described in detail by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz who had inadvertently become the surrogate mother of a gosling he had watched struggling out of its egg! Anyone with even just the semblance of a heart will immediately realize that the life-long friendship of a big strong adult goose is worth more than a roast goose of a few grams that wouldn’t even fill your mouth. One is tempted to think that even a leopard would feel merciful and adopt the little creature rather than eat it!

Mr. Pulver looked up at Jack just like such a gosling would look up at its mother (or whatever other moving object it encountered after hatching).

Jack hadn’t ever had a goose as a pet, but he had once raised a baby blackbird he had found on the ground after it had presumably fallen out of its nest. It laid still in his hand, probably frightened stiff, as he tried to offer it a meal-worm. Jack had called his brother Joe to help him. He made Joe hold the bird, and with both hands free he managed to force the bird’s beak open with his finger-nails. Once the beak was open, he stuck a finger between the jaws to keep the beak open, and then he grabbed a meal-worm with his other hand. He slipped the meal-worm into the beak from the side, just below the finger jammed between the two jaws (do you really call the two halves of a bird-beak « jaws » ? Jack didn’t know…). When the meal-worm had slipped in deep enough and the bird seemed to be gagging on it, he quickly pulled his finger out and held the beak shut. And sure enough, the bird swallowed the meal-worm!

They repeated the procedure several times that day, but by the next day the bird had started chirping and opening its beak on its own as soon as it saw Jack’s hand! It had accepted Jack (or in any case his hand) as its mother!

So Jack had done all that, his hands not shy, neither of the bird beak nor of the meal-worm, but when it came to bringing a fellow human being to the toilet and wiping his bum, that was a huge problem? Well yes, those were two different things, somehow…

Jack had also never minded brushing down a horse after riding it, but washing a human body was completely different too! Actually it sometimes helped to imagine that he was just brushing down a horse… He didn’t mind horse-sweat so much, nor horse-shit. He respected horses, but he also knew that they were different from him, and that made it okay if they slobbered on him or whatever. A human being, on the other hand, was too similar to him for this to be okay! But sometimes he managed to ignore the fact that the patients were human like himself, and then it became sort of okay too…

Anyway, Mr. Pulver was a bit like this baby-bird Jack and his brother Joe had once saved together. Mr. Pulver opened his mouth when a spoonful of coffee-soaked bread chunks approached, so Jack just shovelled the bread-chunks in there, not quite sure they were really being swallowed… He never saw the previous chunks lying on the tongue or anywhere nearby, but that wasn’t definite proof that they had really been swallowed. And indeed, his suspicion was confirmed when Mr. Pulver suddenly started coughing. The moist chunks had gradually slipped down his throat until they had started tickling him there, and now the bits and pieces were flying everywhere and frothing at the edge of his mouth!

When Jack opened Mr. Pulver’s mouth, holding him by the brow with one hand and the chin with the other, he saw that the whole mouth was still full of mush. He pushed Mr. Pulver’s head back, at the same time tickling his throat, hoping this would make him swallow, but nothing happened. Should he dare clamp Mr. Pulver’s nose shut, forcing him to swallow (because he would need to free his mouth for breathing)? Jack didn’t dare. Instead, he set the coffee-cup to Mr. Pulver’s lips and poured some coffee into his mouth. He waited a moment with Mr. Pulver’s head forced well back, but finally he let go. Mr. Pulver’s head straightened up and the coffee ran out of the corners of his mouth while he looked at Jack with his big, blue eyes full of wonder.

Jack tried some more until a nurse came by because it was time to clear away the breakfast remains, and Jack gratefully gave up feeding Mr. Pulver.

Once everything was cleared away, Jack’s next task was to « wa-wa-wash » Burri. And after washing Burri (and agreeing about today’s date and about how many days were left till Jack’s next day off), Jack’s next task was to help make beds.

Burri was now sitting in his wheelchair in the common room, safely out of the way, so it was time to tackle his bed. In this bed’s case, the case was really quite clear - every sheet, every cover and every surface had to be cleaned or changed because everything was full of shit! Everything needed to be pulled away down to the bare mattress and put into the container for dirty bed-clothes. Then Jack went to the wardrobe to fetch new bed-clothes - this wasn’t hard, because you just needed one item from each pile (well, except for the towels - you didn’t need any of those to make a bed). Jack brought the whole collection to Burri’s bed and now came the hard part!

The nurse who had fetched Jack earlier stood on one side of the bed, Jack on the other. The nurse took one of the sheets from the pile Jack had brought from the wardrobe and started unfolding it. Jack of course wanted to help her, but when he grabbed a corner of the sheet it was obviously the wrong one because she pulled it out of his hand. Oh well, then he just waited for her to hand over another corner of the sheet to him!

She pulled the sheet over the mattress, and he copied her movement on the other side of the bed, symmetrically. Like this he still had the feeling he was helping her, in spite of not knowing by himself what to do. They folded the sides of the sheet under the mattress. At the corners of the mattress, some special folds had to be made. Jack knew these special folds, he had learned them on his very first day at Riggisberg hospital. But he was afraid of doing something wrong nevertheless, or doing it at the wrong time, so he waited for her to initiate the movement so that he could copy it symmetrically on the other side of the bed.

The following sheets were laid over the first one. There were lots of special folds that even had their own special names, and they were all (apparently) essential to a well-made bed. Jack knew them all by now. He would probably have been able to make a bed that looked just like all the other ones all by himself with hardly a mistake in any of the folds. Maybe he would have turned the sheets around a few times before finding their correct position, but he would have managed. And after the first bed he’d have made all by himself, he would have managed to make the second one even more easily.

But it never came to that. On the other side of the bed, the nurse was standing, ever watchful. So Jack didn’t even try to initiate any movement on his own. He just waited for her to initiate the movements, and then he copied them symmetrically.

He still felt that he was being helpful and that the beds got made faster that way. Surely the nurse should be happy that he was here, that he copied all her movements faithfully and quickly (since he had performed all of them before and had become adept at them)?

But that’s not how the nurse felt. On the contrary, annoyance became ever more visible on her otherwise pretty little face. It was clear that Jack wasn’t a beginner. He made all the folds quickly and adeptly. But he wouldn’t ever initiate any movement. Obviously he just wasn’t interested. Obviously he was aloof. It made her mad!

And that’s how it was with every damn thing Jack ever did here in this hospital! The days passed and passed, and still he stayed aloof. As if deep down he despised the nurses’ job and wouldn’t lower himself to become part of their world… Maybe that was the real reason why they all got mad at him.

When the beds were ready (some with new sheets, some with the old sheets straightened up), the morning program was over. Till lunch-time there were just special tasks to perform and Jack wasn’t needed for any of them right now. Once again, not knowing too much what to do, he went over to the common room and stared out of the window a bit.

He had barely stood there for a minute when he was spoken to from behind. The head-nurse once again! The one with the boyish haircut, the big bright eyes and the jaws always busy with some chewing-gum! Jack turned around confused and embarrassed, because he had been totally lost in thought and hadn’t really understood what she had said.

The big eyes were looking brightly at him as she asked: « Don’t you have anything to do, Jack? »

The woman obviously knew Jack’s name, but Jack kept forgetting what hers was. And he wasn’t completely sure he knew what her role in this hospital really was either. She seemed to command even the personnel manager, that tall man with the big beard, didn’t she? So what was she really? Just a head-nurse or yet something bigger? In any case she knew everything and handled everything. Jack, on the other hand, knew nothing and handled nothing…

Jack gave himself a sheepish look, which he always did when he prepared himself to get scolded.

« You’re here to LEARN! » she exclaimed. « Don’t just stand around doing nothing! Don’t waste your time here! »

« I’m sorry… » mumbled Jack, stifling a yawn. It wasn’t a boredom-yawn, but rather an embarrassment-yawn (if such a thing exists at all). Or maybe he was just genuinely sleepy - after all, he definitely hadn’t slept enough the previous night!

When a nurse rushed past, the head-nurse called out to her: « Don’t you have a job for this guy here? »

« He can do the pill-dishes! » she called back and disappeared around a corner.

So Jack went to the personnel kitchen and washed all the colourful little plastic dishes in which the pills were served to the patients. This kept him busy until it was time to serve lunch to the patients. When the patients had eaten and the remains were cleared away, it was time for the nurses’ own lunch break. Jack went down to the canteen and silently ate whatever was being served there. Then he went up to his room, took off his white uniform and lied down on his bed half naked. He felt he was sinking and sinking into the bed-clothes…

But still he didn’t fall asleep.

His thoughts wandered to the deep, cozy drone of the classic car he had driven the night before, and how it compared to the hysterical scream of his little motorbike’s engine. That deep drone had been with him for a long time. A long time that had seemed even longer because it had been of such crucial importance - after all, a pistol had been pointing at Jack the whole while! And behind that pistol there had been a man desperate enough to kill Jack even though Jack was a citizen of this country where murder was strictly forbidden…

What would have happened if a police car had started chasing the Bentley?

Surely the unkempt thug wouldn’t have harmed Jack straight away. He would rather have saved him up as a trump card. But he would definitely have threatened to kill Jack if the police got too close. And he might have seriously harmed Jack just to substantiate the threat. Just to show the police that he really meant business and that he might as well end up killing Jack…

So this wouldn’t have gone so well for Jack, and maybe it had been really foolish of Jack to do all that speeding… It would have been better to keep a low profile!

What if the unkempt thug had decided to cut off Jack’s fingers, one by one? The police still wouldn’t have let themselves be outdistanced too much, would they? They would have kept reappearing, and each time Jack would have lost another finger!

Jack’s life had been protected by the fact that it was the only one the thugs could extinguish. Once they had really extinguished it, they would have had nothing more to threaten the police with. But Jack had ten fingers, and a lot of other organs that weren’t absolutely essential to life! What if the thugs had decided to barter those?

Jack wouldn’t have felt like losing one or even several of his fingers! He didn’t care much about the fight between the thugs and the police. He didn’t care much about Riggisberg hospital. He didn’t care much about human society altogether, and he sure wasn’t going to sacrifice his fingers!

But it had been quite natural for the thugs to take Jack as their hostage - the night watch had to stay to look after the patients for the rest of the night and Dr. Stucki needed his sleep so he could perform his operations in the morning. Only Jack was disposable.

The well-being of many patients stood on one side of the balance, and Jack stood all alone on the other. It was only natural that Jack should lose out and sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Human society may ask you to make the ultimate sacrifice. In exchange for this, human society provides you with everything you need to live. Jack couldn’t have lived without human society. If he had tried to live independently and free of other human beings in the woods, like a deer, he would have frozen and starved to death in his very first winter there! Everything he owned he owed to human society. And that is why human society may at some point demand the ultimate sacrifice of the individual!

You owe EVERYTHING to human society, and that is why human society may demand EVERYTHING from you in return, even the ultimate sacrifice.

All this was perfectly logical, except that Jack had never signed any paper saying that he agreed to these conditions!

Everything he owned he had received from human society, but he had never promised to pay anything in return. He had never asked to be conceived and born. All this had just happened…

Jack had come into being and grown within the bosom of human society. Nobody had warned him beforehand that this incurred a cost and asked him whether he agreed to it. He had only learned about this after the fact!

Jack wasn’t grateful to society for all it had provided for him. Yes, everything he possessed had been given to him by society, but that was just because society had taken possession of everything of interest that existed in Jack’s world. For Jack, human society was a kind of extension of his parents - you owe them everything, but at some point you still need to tear yourself free of them and become a full-fledged individual of your own. Practically all human beings become independent of their parents at some point, and even though you can never pay back your parents, you might one day become a parent yourself and then you don’t expect to be paid back either. That’s how it works.

Yes, that’s how it works with parents. You become a parent yourself and that’s how you pay back the debt you have towards your own parents - even if you don’t pay it back to those you really owe it to, you still pay. This doesn’t quite work with human society as a whole, though, because you get much more from human society than what you will ever be able to contribute to it. You’re so damn indebted to human society that - whatever it asks of you - there is no justifiable way for you to refuse. It can send you to get killed in a war, and you are supposed to accept that, else you’re a deserter!

In Jack’s mind, before getting indebted this much, you should be offered a choice. If he had been offered this choice, he would still probably have accepted to become a member of human society. But then he would also have accepted all the commitments that go with that choice more easily, because it would have been HIS choice. The problem was that he had never been offered this choice. It wasn’t his choice at all. He had been born into the bosom of society without having had a say in the matter, and now that the corresponding commitments were forced on him one by one, this just made him angry!

Yes, Jack was bristling with anger! He hated Riggisberg hospital with all their rosters and their whole organization! He hated university and that he was supposed to go there by bus with all the old women or freeze the whole way, perched on his motorbike! He hated everything because he had never chosen any of it! And perhaps that was why things didn’t work out for him. Maybe his attitude was the real problem, just like all those nurses and head-nurses claimed.

He just fumed when they criticized his attitude and he claimed he didn’t know what they meant by « attitude ». Why couldn’t they name something concrete he could change rather than criticizing something as vague as his « attitude »? He always felt he did his best, but it apparently wasn’t ever good enough for them and in the end they always criticized his « attitude » (probably because they didn’t know what else to say).

But probably they were right - his « attitude » was really the problem, whatever exactly they meant by it… The nurses themselves probably couldn’t explain exactly what they meant, but they probably felt his general hatred for everything, and they didn’t like it. It was as if he despised them and their jobs, instead of being open to them and really wanting to learn.

Jack felt his fingers, all ten of them, but his arms felt so heavy that he almost had to wonder if he would ever manage to move them again. Then suddenly the little finger of his left hand gave a little twitch, all by itself! A diffuse muscle soreness seemed to spread through his whole body.

What was happening to him? Was he becoming feverish?

Ah, he thought to himself, maybe it was just the taste of power he had gotten while driving the classic car with its many huge cylinders! His life up till now had been like the screaming little two-stroke engine of his motorbike, but now he had tasted true power! The power coming from huge cylinders…

Jack was going to change now. He was never going to be nervous about little details anymore. He was going to relax like the relaxing drone of the Bentley’s engine… Yes, a few twitches here and there were still resisting the release of tension that was gradually flooding his body.

Some part of his mind (the medically trained part) was telling him that this was just his body getting rid of the excess adrenaline from last night’s adventure, and that it had nothing to do with screaming two-stroke engines or the drone of a classic car’s many cylinders. But other parts of his mind were interpreting this like an almost religious revelation - his life would change now! It would become more meaningful. He would talk less now, become silent and mysterious, and other people would respect him for that! And if he opened his mouth, he would speak low and slow (like the drone of a venerable Bentley’s engine rather than the nervous scream of a little two-stroke engine!), and everybody would mark his words! The times of fussing around and being treated like a stupid little boy were over now!

When it was time to get up again and go back to work, Jack felt heavy and stiff. He wondered if he would manage. As he raised himself to a sitting position, he felt dizzy.

He still pulled on his white pants and white lab-coat, slipped into the hospital slippers and set off down the corridor. He walked down the corridor as though he were following an invisible funeral cortege. When he got to his ward, he was told to empty a urine bottle, which he did grudgingly. When he brought back the empty urine bottle, the same nurse told him brightly: « You could take Mr. Streit for a walk! »

Mr. Streit had spent the whole night in his bed and the whole day (up till now, in any case) on the chair next to his bed. On the little table in front of him there was a half-full glass of « Rivella » (some Swiss drink based on milk serum) and a half-eaten box of biscuits. An old magazine with his glasses on top of it lay on the floor, out of reach.

There were crumbs from the dry biscuits on Mr. Streit’s chin. Jack had heard he was only in his thirties, but he was already totally wrinkled and completely bald. He didn’t have any teeth of his own anymore either. He had a denture that was in his mouth during the day and spent the night in a glass of water on his bedside table.

« Alcohol… » Jack had been told in a meaningful whisper when he had once wanted to know more about Mr. Streit and what was wrong with him.

Jack bent down over Mr. Streit and asked: « So, Mr. Streit, what about a little walk? »

« I want to lie down a bit… » grumbled Mr. Streit.

« A little walk will be good for you! » claimed Jack.

« Uhhhh! » complained Mr. Streit, but he let himself be lifted out of his chair. His feet stuck in some warm-looking house-shoes that seemed oversized with respect to the rest of the scrawny body. He stood there so bent over that his shrunken chest hung limply on Jack’s strong arm. Like a puppet on a string he set one foot in front of the other. But his body was so bent that if Jack hadn’t been there to hold him up, he would have fallen on his nose.

« Don’t slouch! » Jack told him as they made for the corridor.

Like a turtle stretching its neck out of its shell, Mr. Streit lifted his head a bit and looked down the length of the corridor ahead of him. But his upper body remained bent over as before, hanging on Jack’s arm as Jack was holding him up. Jack felt the slim, cable-like tendons in Mr. Streit’s armpit move against his upper arm. Jack tried to straighten him up, but somehow Mr. Streit seemed unable to lift his legs unless his upper body was bent forward. They moved down the corridor quite fast, but Mr. Streit’s legs were pedalling in the air rather than really contributing to the motion…

Whenever Jack tried to straighten him up, his legs pedalled even more helplessly in the air, holding even less of his weight.

« They didn’t let you slouch like this in the army, did they? » Jack had often heard the nurses ask Mr. Streit. Maybe they hoped he would straighten up if they appealed to his manly pride. Jack didn’t feel confident enough to ask that same question, because he hadn’t done any military service himself so far.

Jack and Mr. Streit reached the end of the corridor. They left the corridor and stepped into the lounge where Jack had gotten his very first impression of Riggisberg hospital on the day of his arrival. The main entrance to the hospital was to the right, and today Jack considered it as the exit towards freedom rather than an entrance and looked at it wistfully… The reception area was on the left, where a young receptionist was sitting behind a telephone.

Jack and Mr. Streit didn’t go to the reception, since Mr. Streit had undoubtedly been registered there years ago. They didn’t go to the big exit door either, since Mr. Streit’s world ended at that door. All they did was to make use of the width of the room to make a U-turn.

A big fat man with a round face just came in through the main entrance. His eyes beamed through his golden-rimmed glasses at the humble creature in Jack’s arms as he suddenly recognized him.

« Hey Röbi! » he called out, and his voice resounded throughout the lounge.

« That’s Röbi Streit, isn’t it? » he asked Jack, since Röbi didn’t react.

Jack nodded. He didn’t know about « Röbi », but it sure was Mr. Streit.

« We were under the flag together in the Romandie! » the man went on with his thundering voice. His frog-eyes in his fat face looked down at poor, scrawny, bent-over Mr. Streit, and his voice thundered on: « Hey Röbi! How’s it going, Röbi? I’m Stöffu, don’t you recognize me? »

The big fat man looked from Mr. Streit to Jack again and said softly (or rather in a normal tone of voice since he had been so loud before): « Did he have a stroke? »

« No idea, » said Jack truthfully, « I’m just an assistant caregiver. »

The fat man turned back to Mr. Streit: « Okay then, till later, Röbi! Nice seeing you! »

Then he walked off to the reception area, his back vertical, perfectly straight, showing off his fat tummy proudly. Jack wondered if he would shove away anyone standing there before him, with that big fat tummy…

Mr. Streit hadn’t shown any reaction the whole time. The walk had tired him out. But now that his friend was out of earshot he still finally lifted his head a bit and muttered: « Hey, Stöffu, hey… »

But big fat Stöffu had disappeared long ago.

So Jack led Mr. Streit back along the corridor to his room. He felt a bit sorry for him, he admitted to himself.

Jack was now standing in the little kitchen of his ward, once again washing up the colourful little dishes that were used to serve the pills to the patients. And that’s when the head-nurse appeared. Jack groaned inwardly. What new complaint did she have this time? What had he done wrong again?

She had obviously been looking for Jack, and of course she was in a hurry as always.

« Ah, here you are! » she said brightly (but that didn’t mean anything, because she said everything brightly). She took a deep breath (but maybe that was just because she was out of breath, not because she had anything ominous to say, Jack mused hopefully…). She looked at him brightly, and for once her mouth wasn’t chewing on any chewing-gum, Jack noticed.

« I have to apologize, » she began quite unapologetically. But at least there was no trace of that kind of superficial niceness she put on whenever she had something nasty to say. Was it possible that for once her manner was simply honest? Jack was too mistrustful to believe it… Some disguised reproach was coming, he was sure of it. She hadn’t come looking for him just to say something nice. This was surely just the preamble to something REALLY nasty. The nastier the message, the more vapid the preamble. She was probably going to announce that she was so sorry to have realized this only now, but that he was clearly totally incapable of doing his practical here and that he should please pack up his things and leave immediately - something like that.

She shook her head, making her boyishly short hair jump, and said: « I only just heard what you went through last night. It’s not right that you should work today. You may go and rest, if you like. »

Jack was so flabbergasted that he mumbled: « It’s okay, I can manage… »

« Feel free to take a rest! »

« Thank you, » said Jack. But, as usual, the head nurse was already gone.

Jack finished washing up the little dishes, then he dried his hands and thought to himself it would really be nice to go back to his room and rest a bit. And as soon as he had thought as much, he felt a mountain of tiredness pressing down on him…

He left the kitchen and took the lift up to his room. He took off his slippers, lab-coat and white trousers and let himself drop on his bed.

An erotic fantasy came over him.

He was standing on a beach of golden sand, naked from head to toe. Little wavelets were lapping at his bare toes. In the distance he saw a girl of his age sauntering along the water’s edge. She too was devoid of cumbersome clothes. She was just herself, nothing else attached, just her body - slim, elongated and rounded in all the right places…

Jack felt himself go towards her. He was taking ordinary steps, but somehow the sand under his feet rushed by at great speed, and she was getting closer and closer! He was already close enough to see individual water droplets glistening on her golden skin!

She jumped aside with spread-eagled legs, and then she started running, giggling excitedly! Jack, himself laughing, lunged out at her. The laughing escalated into hysteria, and then they fell into the shallow water together.

Jack didn’t have time to imagine the scene any further. Hardly noticing, he had begun touching himself, and now the dam burst. All he saw in front of his inner eye was the water splashing around them, again and again…

And then it was over and the vision flagged. He suddenly felt totally exhausted. For a while he just remained lying there. But eventually he still got up, washed himself and put a CD in his « Discman ». Then he lied down on his bed with his book in his hand. He read a few lines, then his eyes drifted off to the ceiling of his little room. They swept around there idly for a while, the disc was playing, and his book rested uselessly in his hand. Minutes went by and Jack’s thoughts were quite empty, but he didn’t notice and even less mind, because somehow he needed this emptiness right now…

But then a feeling started nagging at his consciousness. It was the feeling that he needed to go to the toilet, not just for a pee (that wouldn’t have been a big deal) but rather for a shit, or rather - as they called it here - to stool (although Jack doubted « stool » even existed as a verb in the dictionary).

Jack didn’t want to stool, because he hated stools with holes in their middle. Yes, he needed to defecate, but the stool on which he had to sit for that - i.e., the toilet seat - that was the problem! That « defecating » would be called « stooling » just made Jack angry, because defecating is natural, while the stool, especially if you need to share it with other people, is a whole problem in itself that was added to the act of defecating later in the history of mankind! It’s one of those things human society provides for you, and you just can’t escape from it!

Jack didn’t have his own toilet here in this room. The toilet was further away, at the end of the corridor. There was a door, and behind that door there was a kind of small anteroom where you could wash your hands, and behind that there was another door leading to the actual toilet. That’s where the toilet bowl was, an old-fashioned one, low on the ground and not very deep… Its inside had partly become yellowish after decades of use.

When you were sitting on this bowl (well, not directly, there was the ring-shaped toilet-seat to be put between you and the bowl’s edge), you couldn’t get up again so quickly, first of all because you were low down, and secondly because you were in the midst of some arduous business, namely pushing out the shit (eh, I mean the « stool », because what you sit on is obviously a « stool », what comes out of you is « stool », and what you’re doing is « stooling », at least in Riggisberg hospital shoptalk).

Anyway, since you’re sort of vulnerable in there (unable to get up again in a hurry should someone want to attack you) such places have a lock and can be locked from inside. Or that’s what the lock was for in Jack’s mind anyway.

On the door to this ominous place there was a poster. It depicted a chimpanzee sitting on the toilet, wearing a blue T-shirt and with a pair of trousers dangling from its feet. The chimpanzee seemed to laugh (Jack couldn’t imagine what there was to laugh about, though).

This poster showed with absolute clarity what was to be found behind the door. Such clarity normally isn’t allowed, since « stooling » is considered a private matter (well, except when you have nurses help you do it…). But in this case, the poster « only » depicted a chimpanzee, not a human, so no human could be offended because of being seen by others or being forced to see others.

Jack didn’t like the poster. He didn’t like it when animals were used to serve human stupidity. Of course the chimpanzee hadn’t suffered in this case… But being used that way was part of a pattern that might well hurt another animal in another circumstance. There are so many people who laugh their heads off while watching monkeys at the zoo, and the very same people would absolutely deny that human beings are related to monkeys in any way, precisely because monkeys are so ridiculous.

But Jack wondered if there would have been anything to laugh about if monkey-behaviour had really been completely alien to humans…

Hardly anybody ever laughs at elephants or whales. These animals are just too different from us, so there’s nothing to laugh about. But monkeys remind us of ourselves.

There are a lot of things in ourselves - thoughts and feelings we can’t admit even to ourselves - that we carefully hide away. Monkeys are less good at hiding them away, so we see these things expressed freely in their behaviour. Monkeys expose themselves! On one hand this sort of shocks us, but on the other hand we’re also relieved that it’s exposed in someone else and not in ourselves. And this combination of shock and relief gives rise to laughing. Laughing, after all, is the relief of tension when something potentially scary turns out to be completely harmless. When we scream out in terror, we utter something like « haaaaaaaaaa! ». But when there is no reason to be afraid, because the source of fear turns out to be harmless, the scream gets chopped up into little pieces: « Ha-ha-ha! ». And that’s what laughing is. In our lives, the first time we laugh is generally when we play peekaboo, when the scary something behind the veil is really just mummy! And then we move on from there to more elaborate jokes, where some kind of mysterious situation turns out to have a perfectly simple and harmless, even stupid, explanation.

We don’t laugh at elephants or whales, because we hardly understand their behaviour anyway. But when we see monkeys, we are shocked at how much they resemble us, and at the same time bloody relieved that we can distance ourselves from them, by claiming that they are « only » animals.

So, in actual fact (at least in Jack’s mind), laughing at monkeys is just a proof of how closely related we are to them.

And denying that they are related to us, or even being offended by the idea, is yet more proof of how closely related they really are to us! Who would be offended if they were told that they are related to tigers or elephants? These animals are so different from us that there’s no reason to be offended. But monkeys are very close to us - in some ways they are really just a more ridiculous version of ourselves - that the idea of being related to them is offensive!

So on one hand we deny being related to these animals - we consider ourselves highly special and highly above them. But on the other hand this doesn’t stop us from using them as symbols - in this case to mark a place as a toilet…

Jack hated this type of attitude towards animals. Yes, he admitted, the chimpanzee on the poster had come to no harm, so why care? But the same kind of attitude also leads to animals being used in scientific experiments, with the same kind of flawed reasoning - namely that they’re « only » animals, so we’re allowed to hurt them. But if they are sufficiently similar to us that the results of such experiments can be relevant to humans, then why shouldn’t they also be sufficiently similar to us that we should treat them with more dignity, namely the same kind of dignity with which we treat fellow human beings?

To show that this was a place to shit, it would have been uncomely to depict a complete human being, so just a monkey was depicted. As if a monkey were some kind of incomplete human…

But animals aren’t incomplete humans, just as little as humans are animals with something additional. A chimpanzee is just as little an incomplete human as a cat is an incomplete dog! A cat is a cat and a dog is a dog and a human is a human, and each of them is unique and special in its very own way! The question « what is the difference between animals and humans? » is just as stupid as the question « what is the difference between a flea and all other animals? ».

That would be like asking: « What is the difference between a tree and the forest? » or « What is the difference between a house and a town? » or « What is the difference between Jack and human society? »

You can only compare two things that are on the same level. Two individuals or two species. Two houses or two towns. But not a house and a town - that makes no sense!

The chimpanzee on the poster was meant to show something general - that this was a place to shit. Showing an individual human being would have been offensive - if a man had been shown, you could easily conclude that this toilet was only for men. If a black person was shown, you might wonder whether white people were allowed to shit there too. Or maybe you might conclude that the poster somehow implied that black people shit more than white people. Or that black people care less about being shown in the process of shitting than white people…

Showing a monkey instead of a human being solved all these problems. Humans are distinct enough from chimpanzees that they can’t necessarily tell a chimpanzee’s gender (unless the most obviously gendered body-parts are shown, of course), its ethnicity or indeed its individual personality. So this poster only gave the information it was meant to give, namely that this was a place to shit (and anyone could guess that it didn’t mean it was a place for monkeys to shit, because there were no monkeys here anyway)!

Jack hated the poster because its whole purpose was built on the fact that humans are unable to see chimpanzees as individuals, something that - in his opinion - shouldn’t be encouraged, since it led to more ominous things like animal experimentation…

And yet, Jack admitted to himself grudgingly, most human knowledge of biochemistry and physiology (the kind of knowledge he learned about in his studies and was even interested in) had been acquired through animal experimentation…

Even molecules to alleviate something as psychological as depression had mostly been discovered by studying rats! In order to test whether a molecule alleviates depression, you first need a depressed rat. How do you make a rat depressed? By putting it in a small cage with a more dominant rat who will mob it, that’s how - it’s an established protocol! Easy!

Easy, but definitely not respectful towards the rat…

People look upon nature as if it were something similar to human society. In this analogy, each species represents an individual in the society. But if a species represents an individual, then what does an individual represent?

Individual animals are often considered like nothing more than representatives of their species without any individual personality of their own. An individual chimpanzee is, in most people’s minds, just a representative of something more general, namely its species.

In the case of this poster, the chimpanzee wasn’t even a representative of its species, but rather served to represent the act of shitting, something yet more general that even encompasses humans.

Nothing’s wrong with an individual chimpanzee standing in for the general need of humans to shit, of course. But when an individual chimpanzee - with its personal will to live and its personal ability to suffer - must stand in for the whole of humankind (i.e., the greater good) in a medical experiment, that’s just atrocious!

The attitude that makes such experimentation possible should be fought wherever you find it! And that’s why Jack should now tear that poster down from the door so that it could be replaced by a simpler symbol - a stick figure or something.

And just when this thought occurred to him, he had already forgotten how it had started. Here was this harmless poster of a chimp sitting on a toilet, seeming to laugh, and Jack wanted to tear it down! What was the logic of that? How had he possibly been able to come to this conclusion? The chimp was rather sweet, wasn’t it? Why should he want to tear it down? Just because he was so angry at needing to go to the toilet and not having his own toilet to go to?

Was he going crazy or what?

For a moment Jack just felt homesick. He didn’t have his very own toilet at home either, since he lived with his parents. But at least he knew who else used that toilet - it wasn’t public and it was usually very clean (unless his father had just used it…). There were no yellowish traces in the bowl. It was in a big, sunny bathroom, there was a wooden stool you could place in front of you, and so Jack would take an illustrated magazine with him to put on that stool. An illustrated magazine with lots of colourful pictures and some intellectually undemanding articles. That already made the act of shitting much less rebarbative…

The problem wasn’t just that shitting was rebarbative. The problem was also that it could easily be inhibited by external circumstances. In order to shit, Jack needed peace of mind. The kind of peace of mind you get by reading a mindless article in a colourful magazine…

If Jack didn’t have peace of mind, if he concentrated too hard on getting the shit out as fast as possible, then he got stressed, and the stress clamped his asshole shut! So the only way to shit was not to be pressed for time. Not to think about the shit at all was actually best. That’s why looking at illustrations of beautiful sports’ cars was a very good idea. While marvelling at the superb body work and reading about the technical data (how much horsepower, how fast from 0 to 100…), his asshole relaxed and opened and the shit came plopping out happily!

Jack couldn’t imagine how somebody like Mr. Uhler managed to shit without any of this, and on a public toilet to boot!

The problem with public toilets was that there were signs of previous occupation everywhere! There was the smell of other people, the dirt of other people, and then there was the noise of other people just beyond the cubicle, which could even culminate in someone rattling at the door!

On a public toilet, you can smell and hear the outside world, and the outside world can smell and hear you too! They can guess - more than guess, actually: they KNOW - what you’re up to in there. How can you relax and let yourself go under such circumstances?

When you’re in that crouched-down position, you’re vulnerable. That’s why you lock the door. You need to feel secure.

For every toddler, learning to go to the toilet is quite a big deal. Probably something had gone wrong with Jack in his toddler years. Some minor trauma of some kind. He was too big for this kind of thing now, he knew. He should just « get over it ».

And he tried. Simply with willpower. Just stop being stupid. Yes, he could force himself to sit on a public toilet (or at least to crouch down in front of it without touching it) - he could force himself with nothing but pure willpower! But what he still didn’t manage was to really make the shit come out. For that you needed more than brute willpower. You needed a technique to relax, to trick your body into feeling that everything was fine so that the asshole would open up (instead of clamping shut) and the shit would come out. And THAT was the hard part!

It was the same with working here in Riggisberg hospital. Yes, Jack did what he was told. He obeyed the nurses to the letter. He did whatever they asked of him, even things that required overcoming his deepest feelings of disgust and shame. He did it with sheer willpower. But he failed to show the kind of enthusiasm and openness that was expected of him at the same time. To not only do these things, but to do them enthusiastically, that required MORE than just willpower. That required somehow tricking himself into feeling fine with everything, into feeling normal, maybe even into feeling happy… You needed to develop a technique for that. Maybe he would get there one day, but he wasn’t there yet. And nobody seemed to understand how much was needed to get there and how hard it was for him. All these nurses just seemed to think it should come to him naturally!

Of course they did - they didn’t know what had happened to him in his toddler years. Actually Jack himself didn’t know. Perhaps his parents had been too impatient with him or something. But it was too far away for Jack to remember consciously…

The problem with willpower is that even though you can use it to force yourself into all kinds of situations that you perceive as dangerous, you can’t force yourself to do it without FEAR!

Fear is a natural instinct that serves to protect you. If you’re afraid you could be attacked any moment, you may withstand the desire to flee through willpower, but your body will still automatically prepare itself for battle, among other things by clamping shut the asshole (together with a lot of other automatic responses like raising the heart-rate and blood-pressure, for example, so that your muscles would be irrigated well and ready for action).

If you feel there is still some time before the dangerous situation, your body might decide to quickly empty the bowels before clamping shut the asshole, and then you have diarrhea!

That’s exactly the kind of reaction Jack got from his body - when he was merely PLANNING to go to the toilet, he felt the diarrhea coming, and as soon as he was actually sitting on the toilet, he was hopelessly constipated!

With willpower you can create a readiness in your body - the readiness to confront a dangerous situation, for example. Or the readiness to defecate.

But if two readinesses are mutually exclusive, then no amount of willpower will ever be able to create them both at once. Readiness to confront a dangerous situation (or even a situation that isn’t REALLY dangerous, but that you perceive as dangerous) means clamping up, while readiness to defecate means relaxing. They are mutually exclusive.

As long as his asshole was under willful control, it hardly managed to hold the shit back, so he ran to the toilet, and as soon as he was sitting there, it got under control of the autonomous nervous system and no amount of willpower would open it up anymore!

All this wasn’t Jack’s invention or Jack’s stupidity! It’s just how the body works!

Why didn’t anybody ever understand this? Throughout his childhood Jack had suffered in holiday camps and such, because he just couldn’t go to the toilet there! It’s not that he WOULDN’T - he tried, but it didn’t work, because he COULDN’T!

Yes, he really HAD tried. Some very bad memories came to his mind - crouching in front of the toilet bowl until his legs got too cramped to hold him in this position any longer, and as soon as he stood up and stretched out, he suddenly had the squits and it all came pouring out, falling next to the toilet bowl, splashing against his legs and against the hitched down trousers waiting at his ankles to be hitched up again…

Bloody, bloody hell! He wished such memories never came to him ever again!

He consciously suppressed them and was relieved to find he was still lying in his bed in his little room at Riggisberg hospital.

After all this thinking, his need to « stool » had quite vanished, luckily, so he wondered what he should do now. He looked at his watch and saw that it was seven o’clock. But this didn’t tell him much, because he didn’t remember what time it had been when he had lied down. Had he been lying here for minutes or hours? Had he slept or just daydreamed? And more importantly, what was he going to do NOW?

Then he remembered - seven o’clock meant the afternoon-shift was over and it was time for supper! His supper was surely already waiting for him downstairs in the canteen!

The canteen where three thugs had come to interrupt his previous supper, ages ago it seemed while in fact it had only been the day before…

Anyway, this wasn’t going to happen a second time, Jack was sure of it, so he stood up, got dressed, had a look at himself in the mirror above his toothbrush, and then he walked down the corridor to the lift so he could take a ride down to the canteen and eat supper.

The canteen was orderly, deserted and dark. Jack found his supper on a hot-plate behind the checkout. Today there was no note with it saying he should please switch off the hot-plate. He had never forgotten to do so and apparently the staff from the kitchen considered him trustworthy enough now.

Jack carried his meal to a table and switched on the lamp above it. In the window-pane next to him he saw his reflection, because it was dark outside, just like on that fateful night so long ago (yesterday, actually) when a pale face had materialized in the dark behind the window. Jack would have taken it for a phantom born from his own imagination if there hadn’t been the knocking on the window-pane to show there was something real out there…

But today there was nothing to be seen behind the window-pane, just darkness against which his own reflection was clearly visible.

Jack turned away from the window and jabbed his fork into some kind of spring roll (or whatever it was). It was still steaming hot, and as Jack hesitated to put even the tiniest bit of it into his mouth, he was once again bothered by the feeling that he had to « stool ».

He saw the toilet sign in a corner of the room and looked in the direction of the toilet-door. It was quite possible nobody had used it anymore after the cleaning ladies had passed in the evening. Jack knew it was a modern toilet, nicely tiled and with a powerful ventilation (which was loud enough to cover the sound of farts too, giving you a sense of privacy). It was a toilet for the staff and for visitors, not at all comparable to the ominous concrete waste station in the ward where the toilet cabins for the patients were, one next to the other, all of them contributing to the smell which was further enhanced by half-full urine bottles lying around, waiting to be emptied and washed…

No, this toilet down here next to the canteen was not for Burris and lame Uhlers. This one was for normal people like Jack!

He left his supper on the table and went in there. It was indeed spotlessly clean. There was a somewhat aggressive, lemony smell of artificial freshness left over from the cleaning agent that had been used on it, but it wasn’t disagreeable. Next to the soap-dispenser there was also a dispenser of disinfectant. Jack found that just perfect and disinfected the toilet-seat with plenty of it. Now it smelled of alcohol.

Finally Jack was satisfied that here he would be able to get it done. Which he did at last.

Pleasantly relieved and after having washed his hands with plenty of liquid soap from the dispenser, he came out and got back to his supper which had cooled down enough in the meantime to be edible.

 

Jack was sitting all alone in the dark canteen, eating his supper which wasn’t half bad. And his appetite wasn’t bad either, now that one of the more stressful activities of the day was behind him.

The big room was pleasantly quiet. Jack heard his own munching. But then the silence was interrupted by a gaggle of laughing girls charging down the staircase.

Jack wished a pleasant evening to two nurses, now dressed in plain clothes, who rushed past him to collect something in the cloak room.

The third one went to the toilet. Ah, the toilet! Luckily Jack had already finished his business in there (hopefully he hadn’t left too much of a smell, since she would immediately guess it must have been him)! He had thought nobody would use that toilet anymore till tomorrow morning, but obviously he had been wrong. How lucky he wasn’t in there anymore - he hated it so much when someone rattled at the door while he was trying to… okay, let’s not get into this yet again!

He had thought all the nurses had gone home long ago and only the night watch was left, but obviously he had been wrong. There you are - you just can’t ever be safe from nurses!

He heard some piano chords being plonked away on the piano in the common room behind the canteen. Jack had noticed there was a piano there when he had walked past previously. A fourth girl was apparently trying to play a tune while waiting for the third to finish in the toilet. In the meantime a fifth girl came down the staircase. There really was a whole gaggle of them!

At first Jack didn’t recognize her, because she always wore her hair tied back during work, but now it flowed freely over her shoulders. Her narrow face looked fuller as a consequence and her finely chiselled features much prettier.

She was the little Austrian girl, Mr. Uhler’s favourite. The one who criticized Jack because he never initiated a move on his own when it came to folding bedsheets. She was a small, slight girl, mostly had a rather severe look and only spoke High-German although she understood the local dialect pretty well. She had small, light-blue, darting eyes. She usually made Jack feel ill-at-ease at work, and he suspected she was the one who had mostly complained about him to the head-nurse, although who knows?

She came over towards Jack and asked: « And what did you get for supper? »

« I don’t really know what it’s called… » answered Jack, poking at it with his fork.

Now he remembered her name as well, even though she wasn’t wearing her little name-tag anymore: she was Rita.

She was the one who always came over to Jack to say: « May I ask you a question? »

And when Jack answered « of course » she always had something nasty to say, like: « Is this what you call clean? » about something Jack hadn’t even cleaned at all, but obviously should have. Or: « Why did you leave Mr. Uhler’s urine bottle in the waste station? »

But right now she wasn’t angry. Her shift was over, she was relaxed, and believe it or not, she had come over towards Jack just for a chat!

« Is it good? » she asked.

Ah, if only Jack knew how to make conversation! He came up with crazy theories all the time about posters of chimps sitting on the toilet and who knows what other stuff, but when it was a simple matter of saying something nice and friendly to a girl, he didn’t know what to say!

Once, during the midday break, he had for some reason mentioned the pocket-TV he had in his room, and then he had explained the difference between cathode-ray displays and liquid crystal displays in great detail, and this explanation had been so perfect and so complete that nobody had found anything to say about it, and so the conversation had abruptly dried up. Jack didn’t even know if anybody had listened to him at all…

But then, some time later, during the morning coffee break when the nurses were discussing a film that had been on TV the evening before, an assistant nurse called Ursula - who lived at the hospital just like Jack - had said that she had missed it because she hadn’t felt like going down to the canteen to watch it. She had even thought of asking Jack whether she could borrow his pocket TV, but then she hadn’t dared.

And what did Jack say? He stared at Ursula directly and said: « But my pocket TV is really small, you know? Good for watching the news, you know, but not so much for a whole film! »

Why the hell had he said that? It’s as if he had said: « My TV wouldn’t be of any use to you anyway! Don’t even think about asking me for anything! »

Why hadn’t he rather said something nice, like: « Don’t be so shy next time! You can have my TV whenever you like! »

Anyway, this was proof that Jack had been listened to previously when he had talked about his pocket TV. And it was proof that the nurses and assistant nurses thought about him even when he wasn’t around. If only he had been friendlier, more easy-going, perhaps they wouldn’t have felt that he was so unmotivated and nonchalant.

And they wouldn’t have felt (as they probably did, Jack admitted to himself) that he, as a medicine student, was looking down on them because they were nothing but simple nurses. That was what enraged them most. He looked down on them while he himself wasn’t even capable of learning the proper folds to make a bed? That just made them want to lash out at him!

But it was still interesting that these nurses - who spent the whole day patronizing him - wouldn’t dare to knock at his door in the evening to borrow something from him!

And that was a real pity, because in the evening after work, when everybody was relaxed and in plain clothes, that would have been the occasion to get to know each other more personally and perhaps get a less negative image of each other!

And this was the chance he had now with Rita! The working day was over, they were both in plain clothes, and she had come over to him just for a chat!

And Jack knew he probably had only this one chance. If he missed it by brushing her off, she might be a bit hurt by that - in any case sufficiently hurt that she wouldn’t come sauntering over towards him another time!

It was the same with Ursula - he had had that one chance to tell her she was welcome any time to come borrow his pocket TV, but he had blown it. She definitely wouldn’t even think of coming to knock at his door ever again!

Jack just wasn’t confident enough with other people. When he was surprised like this by someone’s comment, he didn’t know what to say or how to react. It was easier to hold a speech about cathode ray tubes versus liquid crystal displays (something he was completely confident about since he completely understood the underlining principles) rather than just saying something spontaneous and nice that he needed to make up on the spot.

And yet that’s how human relationships are built up - normally you don’t go straight to bed with a stranger! At first you only stretch out your hand. And if that works out well, with a nice, warm hand-shake, you might go a step further towards him. Next time you might offer your cheek. And if that goes well too, with a soft gentle kiss, then after the cheek it just goes on and on…

If your hand gets bitten, though, you will never approach that person again!

Hand-shaking has become so ritualized in our Western society that it has become meaningless, so maybe it’s not such a good example anymore. But sauntering over, exchanging a few words about something totally banal, that was like an outstretched hand too, but a less ritualized one. It was more meaningful than a literally outstretched hand, precisely because it was less ritualized - Rita really had no need to do this if she didn’t feel like it. It was spontaneous, and now it was up to Jack to respond spontaneously too!

If he brushed her off, she would be a bit hurt. Not terribly hurt, of course, since she had only offered her hand. You don’t offer everything, heart and soul, right from the start. You begin with the hand.

But if he brushed her off now, she might be sufficiently hurt to want to hurt him back. Some icy comments about his incompetence would follow the next day!

So it was up to Jack now. And he knew that just undressing completely and masturbating in front of her definitely wouldn’t work! First the hand, then the cheek, and so on. Why not the whole lot in one go? Break the ice with one big bang?

Jack knew it didn’t work like that, but actually why the hell not?

Well, he mused, if someone did that in front of you, he couldn’t just let you go afterwards, could he? He would have shown too much of himself in one go, so either you undressed too and had sex with him (in which case the two of you would be on equal footing once again) or you screamed and ran away, hoping he wouldn’t catch up with you before you managed to escape!

And the latter was much more probable than the former, because in the former case you would have to be completely sure you sexually wanted that guy, and how could you know that on such short notice? So if he just undressed right there in front of you, then you would run away and that’s it. You definitely wouldn’t have sex with him there and then, even if the possibility of sex had been on your mind previously.

So there was really no alternative to the cautious approach, Jack decided - first the hand, then the cheek… with always the possibility to slow down or even leave it at that. But if it felt right step after step, yes, then you might end up stark naked in each other’s arms! There just isn’t any realistic shortcut, that’s all. You need to dance the dance, else you’ll never get there….

« Is it good? » Rita had asked about Jack’s supper.

« Yes, it’s quite good, actually! » answered Jack, hoping it sounded sufficiently enthusiastic that the conversation might go further.

But now it was Rita who apparently didn’t have anything more to say. Jack should encourage her with a question or something before the silence became too awkward.

The piano was still playing in the other room. Not knowing what else to say, Jack asked: « Who’s playing the piano over there? »

« It’s Anna, » answered Rita, « she started taking piano lessons not too long ago, but it’s already starting to sound like something, isn’t it? »

« Yes, » lied Jack, because actually it sounded like mindless plonking to him, « and she sure is enthusiastic! That’s the way to do it! The audience will happily forgive a false note or two if you just keep on playing, putting your heart and soul into it! »

He saw on Rita’s face that this had been quite the right thing to say, even if it wasn’t true. But then he couldn’t help adding: « Once you reach a certain level, though, it becomes harder and harder to progress. That’s when I gave it up! »

He could have slapped himself for saying that! Why did he always need to come up with something pessimistic!

« You play the piano? » Rita asked, surprised.

« Yeah, I used to… » admitted Jack.

Maybe it hadn’t been such a wrong thing to say, after all. He saw an admiring look on Rita’s face. She had probably secretly admired him all along, however much he also got on her nerves. She knew he must have finished school with high distinctions to get enrolled in medicine, and he had already passed the first year of medical school. He was on the way to become a doctor…

And he played the piano as well!

Not to mention he had brought in three thugs all by himself! Rita had only heard the rumours, and she was burning to hear the whole story from Jack!

The nurse who had gone to the toilet came out and called out « Good night ! » to Rita and Jack. Then she went into the common room next door where the other nurse had been plonking away on the piano while waiting for her. Then they both left, leaving Rita and Jack to themselves.

While Jack was finishing off his supper, Rita asked him how long he had played the piano. Jack didn’t quite know what to answer. He had begun as a child, but then he had practised it on and off over the years, never too seriously. He hadn’t reached such a high level, he said.

But as he put away his supper plate, Rita was still with him.

« Won’t you play me something? » she asked. And Jack was surprised that she even seemed to blush a little.

« Well, it’s been a while since I last sat at a piano… » answered Jack reluctantly.

But then he thought to himself: « What the hell? »

So they walked together into the common room next door and Jack sat down at the old piano there. And, sitting there, he suddenly had quite an urge to hit the keys! It had been such a long time since he had last done that!

When he sat down to practice at home (which always brought about a disgusted sigh from his brother Joe who couldn’t help having to hear and bear it), he never felt so motivated. But right now he wasn’t going to practice, mindlessly going over the same hard passage again and again. He was just going to play whatever came to him! He needn’t be ashamed if it didn’t sound like much, because it would be better than what that other nurse had played anyhow!

He played a bit of the beginning of Beethoven’s « For Elise » (a piece that never fails to impress, even though it isn’t even technically difficult), and when he was unsure how to continue because he didn’t remember the rest of it, he just happily improvised. He wasn’t so bad at improvising - his fingers knew by themselves which chords sounded good together. And he followed his own advice to just keep going enthusiastically without minding the occasional false note.

When he risked a peek at Rita, he saw she was all enraptured! Who would have thought? She who was dissatisfied about everything Jack did at work, who criticized every one of his moves, was now suddenly so satisfied with this far from perfect piano performance!

He played and played and eventually found a way to get back to the beginning so that he could end the piece (if this thrown-together thing he had played qualified as a « piece ») with the main theme of « For Elise » once again, drawing it to a heartfelt conclusion.

« Why, that was wonderful! » exclaimed Rita.

« Thank you, » Jack said modestly.

« You could really go somewhere with this! » exclaimed Rita.

« Yes, » said Jack, « if I put in the hard work… »

« Why do you keep decrying yourself like that! » exclaimed Rita. « You’ve been annoying me ever since you first appeared on my ward by not believing in your own abilities and behaving as though you were some idiot! Why do you do that? »

Since Jack didn’t answer, she continued: « Look at all your abilities! You even brought in three criminals single-handedly! I don’t know HOW you did it, but the whole hospital is talking about it! »

« Ah, » said Jack, staring down at the piano keys, feeling embarrassed, « that was nothing! I don’t know what you heard, but I was just lucky. I didn’t plan anything. It just somehow worked out that way… »

Rita looked him in the eye earnestly: « Why don’t you tell me the whole story? »

« Okay, okay… » relented Jack. And he started telling her how everything had happened. Rita listened carefully, and this made Jack into a more confident speaker.

« You definitely have guts! » Rita finally said, admiringly.

« It didn’t feel that way as it happened, » Jack said truthfully. « I was in the flow, I reacted to each situation as it unfolded, things came quite naturally. It’s only when I got back here that I fully realized what danger I had been in and how badly wrong things could have gone for me! »

« Wow! » said Rita, « it wouldn’t have worked that way for me. I live in the present moment and my emotions are always foremost! Sometimes I guess my emotions get in the way… »

« Get in the way of what? » asked Jack. He really didn’t understand what she meant. She seemed like such a well-adjusted girl, knowing every fold by heart to make the hospital-beds exactly right!

« In the way of what I really want! » said Rita.

« But if you really want something, that’s an emotion too, isn’t it? How can you say that emotions ‘get in the way’? » asked Jack.

Rita thought about this for a moment, then she said: « Well, what about the classical dilemma between the head and the heart? »

« Like when you want another piece of cake but you know you shouldn’t eat it because it would be bad for your figure? » asked Jack. It sounded stupid even to his own ears as soon as he said it. Besides, it sounded like he was commenting on Rita’s figure disparagingly. Which didn’t make sense anyway, though, because if anything she was too thin rather than too fat!

« I was thinking about something more romantic, like when you want to join a lover in a distant country but know you can’t because you need to finish learning your profession first, something like that… »

« Oh, I don’t subscribe to this ‘head versus heart’ thing, » said Jack with conviction. « Wanting to finish learning your profession, wanting to become independent from your parents, financially and emotionally, and to have a role in society - I mean a profession - all these wishes are emotional too! So it’s just a ‘heart versus heart’ thing, not a ‘head versus heart’ thing! »

« Oh yes? » asked Rita a bit mockingly, « then what’s the head for? »

« Well, » said Jack, « the head just shows the heart the consequences of various actions. If you drop your training as a nurse so that you may follow a distant lover, you might be happy at first, but on the longer term you might lose your chance to get a good job, you might lose out on professional satisfaction and so on… So in the end the heart decides this is not such a good scenario, but it’s still the heart’s decision. The head is just some counsellor or something. »

Rita mused: « I never quite looked at it like that… »

But after thinking it over for a moment, she said: « When we say ‘follow the heart’, what we really mean is just that we do what feels right in that very moment. When we steer towards more distant goals, then we say we follow the head, even though it’s true you could argue that the more distant goals are dear to the heart too and that the heart is always involved at some level… »

And before Jack could answer, she added: « And that might be your problem! You keep focussing on distant goals and so you’re never in the present moment! Maybe that was the right attitude to have while you were held hostage by those thugs - in your place I would just have been overwhelmed by momentary emotions and couldn’t have reacted rationally like you did. But when it comes to working in a group with other people, you should let go and just be yourself in the here and now! »

« And that would help me learn how to make all the folds right when making a hospital-bed? » asked Jack, incredulous.

« Yes, it would! » answered Rita with conviction. « You want everything to be linked to some super-important, distant goal! Like becoming a great doctor, I suppose… But making a hospital bed right is just a small thing you need to learn right now. There is no direct connection to lofty and distant goals - you won’t ever learn it by trying to connect it to lofty and distant goals. It’s just something you need to learn in the here and now to make someone happy in the here and now, that’s all! »

« You mean it would make you happy if I learned it? » Jack asked.

« That’s right! » said Rita. « I wouldn’t need to be annoyed with you all the time. So yes, it would make me happy! And if you knew these stupid little things at last, we could also have more interesting conversations, couldn’t we? »

Rita was right, Jack guessed… Before he knew what to say, she added: « So why don’t you just loosen up a bit and let yourself go? »

« And then I would learn to make the hospital beds right? » asked Jack.

« Forget the hospital beds for a minute, » said Rita. « Try to be in the ‘here and now’ - there aren’t any hospital beds here and now, are there? »

« Okay, » said Jack, « so what do you want me to do? »

« Just be natural, » said Rita, « let yourself go, be cool! »

Since Jack looked quite perplexed, Rita asked: « Are you afraid of what might come out of you if you just let yourself go? »

« Maybe… » answered Jack.

« Don’t be! » said Rita, « there’s only me here. Nobody else will see anything! Just give it a try! »

Rita would be quite disappointed if she knew what really was on his mind, he thought. Indeed, all he could think of was that here in this hospital he had a room of his own. And between this common room - in which they were sitting right now - and his room where he had his bed, there were just a few empty corridors, nothing else. No mother, brother or father who would see anything if he took Rita there…

But surely that’s not what Rita meant when she told him to « let go » and « be himself ». Women just don’t realize - and refuse to believe and accept - that men really only ever have sex on their mind and nothing else!

Although maybe they don’t, actually - maybe it’s just frustrated men like Jack who have nothing else on their minds!

In any case, right at this moment Jack just didn’t find anything else within himself that he could « let go » in oder to just « be himself ».

After a few seconds, Rita said: « Well, I need to go home now! After all, we start early again tomorrow morning! »

Shit! Whatever chance she had given him, it was gone now! Jack had blown it once again!

He glanced at his watch - he had no better idea what to do or how to react.

« What time is it, actually? » Rita asked. And Jack had to look at his watch again, properly, since he hadn’t really registered the time when he had glanced at it a moment ago. It made him feel self-conscious and stupid.

« Half past eight, » he said.

« Damn! I missed my bus! » exclaimed Rita.

Okay, okay, Jack still had a chance!

But then he straight away dashed his own hopes by saying: « I can take you home. »

He stood up and Rita followed suit.

« I don’t have a car, » he felt compelled to add, « just a motorbike. I hope the evening air is not too cold. Else I can get you a sweater or something from my room… »

« It’ll be okay, » said Rita, « this jacket is quite warm and keeps the wind out! »

They took the lift up to the ground floor where the main entrance was and walked out together. Jack felt very self-conscious passing through the main entrance of the hospital with Rita in tow. They had never been together outside of this hospital, or even outside of their ward. This was new territory!

Jack unfastened the helmet and gave it to Rita. She put it on - reluctantly, Jack felt. Maybe she was just afraid it would upset her hairdo…

Jack pushed the bike off its stand, loosened the passenger foot-rests and threw his leg over the saddle. He couldn’t offer her to get on first, because it’s much harder to get on in front of somebody rather than behind somebody. Besides, he needed to keep the bike upright for her, and for that he needed to already be seated. And he also needed to kick-start the engine. Luckily it started up easily.

Maybe it wasn’t the first time Rita got on a motorbike as a passenger, because she climbed on behind him without waiting for an invitation amidst the clattering of the engine, moved close up to him and threw her arms around his middle to hold on. Their thighs were touching. They were like spoons lying against each other in a cupboard.

Jack gently loosened the clutch giving the engine a bit of gas and they were off!

« To the right or to the left? » he cried out at the exit of the parking lot, loudly enough that she would hear it above the clatter of the engine.

« To the right! » she called into his ear.

Jack accelerated, and he felt her hands reflexively claw into his belly as she clung to him.

Whenever he came to a crossroads, he slowed down and waited for her directions. As soon as she had told him which way to go, he accelerated again and felt her fingers boring into his tummy as she clung on.

After a quarter of an hour or so they came to a group of houses, and Rita directed him to an old farmhouse that had been converted to an apartment building. Jack stopped the motorbike and waited for her to get off. He looked up at the starry night sky and saw the overhanging roof of the house, weakly illuminated from below. A big, heavy supporting beam caught his attention as the engine of his little motorbike kept clattering under him.

« I beg your pardon? » he said suddenly when he realized Rita was talking to him.

« I just wanted to ask if you would like to come in for a drink! » Rita said with a somewhat flushed face. Was it flushed because of the wind during the drive or for some other reason? Jack couldn’t tell…

Jack switched off the engine of the bike and muttered: « Yes, okay, that would be nice… If you don’t mind… »

He pushed the bike under the awning and followed Rita to a big wooden door. The lock clicked noisily and the heavy door squeaked as Rita pushed it open. Then they went up a creaking wooden staircase to a narrow corridor with many doors. One of those doors was Rita’s. She unlocked it and pushed it open for Jack to go in, fumbling for the light switch on the wall right behind him. As he stood self-consciously in the unfamiliar room, she asked him what he would like to drink.

« Some fruit juice or something… » he said absently.

She opened the fridge and asked: « Apple juice okay? »

« Sure, » he answered.

Soon a box of apple juice, two glasses on a small, rickety table, two wooden stools and Rita and Jack on them formed a little world of their own in the pool of light from a small lamp hanging from the ceiling.

« You don’t really enjoy working as a caregiver, do you? » asked Rita, but it wasn’t really a question.

« It’s the atmosphere of the hospital I don’t like, » answered Jack. « Everything has to be done quickly, quickly, quickly, and it’s a bit impersonal. I guess I wouldn’t like it much as a patient either. »

« But you’re not always that respectful towards the patients yourself, are you? » asked Rita. « I saw how angry you got with Mr. Burren once! »

« Well yes, » said Jack, « I got angry with him because he deserved it! »

« But you can’t reason like that about someone like Mr. Burren! He doesn’t make you angry on purpose! He has a handicap! »

« I know about his handicap, » said Jack. « But he still has moods, you know. And I guess his moods need to be acknowledged. When he’s in the mood to make you angry, I think he deserves it that you would really get angry. Just blandly treating him the same way whatever he does or says, that’s not right. That’s like you don’t take him seriously! »

« But you CAN’T take him seriously! » exclaimed Rita. « He’s not like you or me! He’s severely handicapped! »

« I know, I KNOW! » Jack said vehemently. « I just think his moods should still be acknowledged. He should still be treated accordingly. Of course I wouldn’t hurt him or anything. But when he makes me angry - and he does that on purpose sometimes, I assure you - he still needs to feel that I really got angry. If I react blandly like a machine, never getting angry, never showing any emotion at all, he will just feel utterly powerless and frustrated! I guess it’s better to show anger towards him sometimes, and also to react kindly when he himself is kind. »

Rita looked thoughtful, and Jack added: « Besides, you’re the one telling me to let go and be myself! So that’s what I do with Burri! »

« Within reasonable limits, of course… » he added, because of course he knew you couldn’t treat Burri like an equal.

Rita said, musingly: « It’s true you seem to get along with Burri… The other day he even told me the list of your days off for this month! »

« You see? » said Jack, pleased. « Just because I got angry with him once doesn’t mean we hate each other now. On the contrary, he feels I take him seriously, and he likes that! »

« Yes, maybe there’s something to that… » Rita mused. « You see him as a person worthy even of getting angry at - if he deserves it… »

But then she added: « Still, I don’t think you can treat all patients like that. Some are too far gone for that. With some, you just need to be patient, patient and patient again! And getting angry at them won’t get you anywhere. It will just scare them, if indeed they are still capable of fear… »

« Sure, » said Jack, « but those like Burri are a bit like a child. Parents get angry at their children too. And learning to deal with anger and then making peace again, that’s an important skill children learn with their parents… »

« Sure, » said Rita, « children learn and learn and learn and progress and progress and progress. But Mr. Burren is a grown man. He’s going to stay pretty much as he is. You’re not going to teach him who knows what social skills anymore! It’s too late for that! All he needs now is a peaceful life for the time he’s got left… You mustn’t ask too much of people like that! »

« Well, » said Jack, « here’s perhaps another thing I disagree about. People like Burri - or any living being of any kind, actually - shouldn’t just have a peaceful time for the time they have left. That’s not what life is about. That’s not the purpose of life! »

« Oh? » said Rita, « so what IS the purpose of life? »

« Think about your own life, » said Jack. « When you have a day off, you might enjoy sitting around quietly, just reading a book or watching TV. But you couldn’t bear to spend your whole life like that! You feel the need to go out there, » and Jack pointed to the window, « learn a profession, do stuff… »

« Yes, but I’m not old and handicapped! » said Rita.

Jack said: « I know I lack experience with old and handicapped people - even though I gained a bit of it in the last few weeks - but I think even old and handicapped people need to feel that they contribute to something bigger than themselves, that they make other people happy, that they don’t live just for their own amusement, but rather that they still have a kind of ‘mission’, something to live for beyond themselves… »

« Do you believe in God? » asked Rita.

Jack looked at her slightly confused: « Why do you ask that? »

« Well, » said Rita, « this whole idea of a ‘mission’ and living for something bigger than yourself, that sounds kind of religious to me… »

Jack answered: « I guess the whole idea of God is born from this need to live for something bigger than yourself. But this need to live for something bigger than yourself is purely biological. Those who didn’t have it - those who just lived for themselves - they didn’t pass on anything and they’re not with us anymore! »

« You mean they didn’t have children? » asked Rita.

« Yeah, » said Jack, « or even if they did, they didn’t raise them properly, didn’t feel the need to support them properly - emotionally, financially and in any other way - so perhaps those children didn’t do so well later on and didn’t have children of their own, and that’s how this kind of people died out. Something like that… While those who keep feeling the need to pass on something - their wisdom, their wealth or whatever - they support not only their own children, but also their grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and so on, and that’s how they promote the survival of their genes, and that’s how these genes that make us want to live for something bigger than just ourselves get passed on and survive. In the meantime, genes that make us too selfish just die out. Something like that. »

Rita tried to summarize what Jack had just said: « So you think everybody has the need to pass on something, to contribute to something bigger than themselves, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be here with us? Because if they didn’t, they would have died out long ago? »

« That’s right, » said Jack.

« So that’s why you asked Mr. Zbinden so many questions about his farm instead of reading to him? To give him the feeling he could instruct you, pass on something to you? You think that ultimately makes him happier than just being read to? » asked Rita.

« That’s right, » said Jack. « That’s what I believe! »

Rita bit her lower lip thoughtfully. « It’s an interesting idea… » she admitted. « It’s an unusual idea… Generally we just try to let these old and handicapped people have an agreeable and peaceful end of life. But maybe you’re right and that’s not what they really need. Apparently Mr. Zbinden got quite lively talking to you about his cows and the community steer and all that. Maybe he really enjoyed that more than just being read to… »