by Dan Vyleta
‘Primum non nocere.’ First, do no harm.
At long last he shrugged, shoved it in his pocket, and bent down again to sort through the other items in the box.
Beer found nothing of value. There was a torn handbill announcing a cabaret act in Munich, with a picture of a long-legged woman hitching her skirt high over her knickers; five or six leather balls, sand-filled, with some seepage at the seams; a pack of cigarettes, and a pound of sugar wrapped in a brown bag; two crumpled tubes of grease-paint; and a pair of thick woollen trousers, tied into a bundle with a belt. He also found some photos, a series of three, all taken on the same day in a photographer’s studio: the backgrounds changed, from a monochrome curtain to a painted vista of the Alps, but the clothes stayed the same. It was a family of four, the boy and the girl of similar height, neither of them much older than Lieschen. Both parents and son were cheaply if neatly dressed, the Sunday outfit of a working family, starched white linens erupting from the coarse fabric of their trousers, jackets, skirt. Only the little girl was different. In the darkness of the room it was impossible to make a study of her features, but Beer saw enough to notice the little fur cape that had been thrown around her shoulders, from which issued a dress that looked like a crude imitation of an evening gown. Her eyes were outsize, bruised with eyeshadow, small lips vivid as though painted on to the blank little face. The feet were strapped into a pair of narrow boots that grew out of a two-inch heel. In all three of the pictures she held hands with the little boy, her legs spread shoulder-wide, as though struggling for balance. Puzzled, Beer returned the picture to its box; exchanged it for the pack of cigarettes, which he prised open after a moment’s hesitation. He had long since smoked the last of his own. Of all his impositions this seemed the least offensive to him, and he lit up the cheap tobacco, having carefully turned his back to the window before he struck the match. It was then, smoking, coughing lightly into one fist, that he returned to his patient’s bedside and sat down again on the edge of her bed. She had not moved, but her eyes were wide open. In the patch of moonlight that fell on her face, her features looked fragile, as though made from glass.
He sat and he talked. An hour passed, and the moonlight disappeared behind a drift of clouds, left only the residual glow of the city. Beer was unused to silent patients and found his repertoire consisted largely of questions, which he reeled off into the dark. At times her wink seemed to answer him, and, at a moment’s inspiration, he begged her to move her eyelids once for a yes, and twice for a no, then bent close to catch her answers, felt her breath upon his cheek and lips. In this manner he confirmed that she could indeed not speak, nor move her limbs; that she wasn’t in pain. When he asked her whether she feared the man in whose flat he had found her, she closed her eyes with what seemed like deliberate torpor and kept them shut. After a while her breathing suggested that she must be asleep. Beer shrugged, lit another cigarette, found he wasn’t done talking.
‘You must think me queer,’ he said into the darkness, one arm stretched to touch her in that bony curve where neck meets skull. ‘Sitting up all night in a stranger’s place, without so much as asking permission. I’m afraid it must strike you as impertinent.’
And a little while later: ‘My wife left me. I suppose I deserved it.’
The woman slept through his comments, her breathing even, the boyish hair thick and knotted underneath his petting, soothing hand. In the morrow, when she was awake again, one would have to comb it out. When he moved, to regain the circulation that had been lost to his left leg, the screwdriver he’d shoved into a trouser pocket bit sharply into the flesh of his thigh. He cursed, stood up, and waited for the mime to hurry up, come home.
2
The man returned to his flat at what might have been a little after four. It was too dark now for Beer to read the pale dial of his watch. He had managed to stay awake through much of the night, dozing off only once or twice, and then coming awake with a start as he felt his body falling forward towards his patient. Every ten minutes or so he had got up, paced the rooms, looked across the yard to where he assumed Zuzka might be watching. He saw nothing of her, and avoided standing close to the window for more than a few seconds at a time. A light breeze had struck up, drew a coy little dance from the tatters that served as curtains in the first of the two rooms. Beer had smoked ten or twelve of the man’s cigarettes, his throat raw with their tobacco. In his boredom he’d found himself clearing up a little of the front room’s clutter, had picked up socks, magazines and newspapers, and stacked them in a corner near the bed, then wet his hands, his face, the back of his neck.
When he finally heard steps approach the door, followed by the jingle of a set of keys, he was back at the woman’s bedside, crouching low next to her sleeping features. Quickly, abiding by a decision he had made some hours before, he moved a step or two into the other room so that the man might see him at once. Beer had no desire to surprise or frighten him, and felt certain he would not sound any alarm. His hand was shoved down his trouser pocket, fingers wrapped around the screwdriver. It took an age for the man to understand the door wasn’t locked. It was possible, Beer thought, that he’d had too much to drink.
When he finally entered, he did not deign to notice him at first: shrugged his coat off near the door, threw down a cloth bag no larger than a school satchel, reached behind one ear to retrieve a cigarette that was wedged there against a dark tousle of hair. His neck, torso, arms and legs were all dressed in the same jet-black cloth; even his hands were covered, rose invisible in the dark. It was only the cigarette that moved, left its perch and was thrust into the centre of a ghostly face. A match was struck, lit up his eyes, dark, bulging orbs that stared across the distance of the room. The man had yet to close the door. It occurred to Beer that he was making up his mind whether or not he should run. He took his sweet time.
It puzzled the doctor.
In the hours of the wait, going over in his head what Zuzka had told him, and walking amongst the squalor of his room, Beer had resolved that this was a primitive man, easily angered. He’d expected shouting: a drunk and clumsy charge. But the man who was walking towards him now was composed, the white face a wall, unreadable, dark eyes staring from it with a wet sort of passion for which the doctor could not find a name. He was heading for Beer, his eyes fixed beyond the intruder, on the doorway to the back room. As soon as Beer realised the man’s intent, he got out of the way, took three, four quick steps to one side, his hand sweaty against the screwdriver’s grip. The mime disappeared: Beer heard him step up to the woman’s bed, then quickly turn to draw the curtains, the spare light growing dimmer yet. When he returned to the front room, he was holding a pocket knife, the blade opened over a handle made of bone. It might have been four inches long. The bone shone white in his gloved hand: it seemed to reflect the pallor of his face. Beer spoke, wishing to forestall the man’s decision to attack.
‘Is she your wife?’ he asked.
There might have been better places to begin.
The mime just looked at him with that blank of a face. His forearm rose, the one with the knife, wiped hard across the length of his lips: greasepaint staining the cuff of his black sweater. A mouth emerged, thick, heavy lips gaping open like a wound. All of a sudden his anger was obvious. When he spoke, the words rushed out amongst a shower of spittle.
‘Who the hell are you?’
The knife was stretched forward, pointing at Beer.
‘I’m a doctor. I live in the house. Anton Beer.’
The man nodded at the name, as though he’d heard it before. The upper half of his face remained as unreadable as before.
‘How did you get in here?’
‘All I want is to help your wife. We can call the police if you like.’
With an effort of will, Beer let go of the screwdriver and showed the man both his palms. His fingers looked thin to him, the knuckles chapped and swollen. He must have lost weight in the past few months. The man observed the gesture, but
did not lower his knife. Only the mouth showed emotion, a tremendous, quivering anger. Regardless, the doctor pressed on.
‘She will die if nobody sees to her. I know you don’t want that. You–’ He searched for something definite, something that would convince the man. ‘You brush her teeth. Even the molars. It must take a lot of patience to do that. A lot of love.’
Slowly, gradually, the man relaxed his arm; bit his lip and tucked away the knife, slipped it into some invisible pocket of his trousers. The anger remained on his mouth, and, as though to master it, he turned away, walked over to the sink, stripping off his gloves and sweater as he walked. Beer watched him as he bent low over the sink and began to wash his face. The mime’s eyes never left the intruder, were fixed on the mirror. Halfway through, he flicked on the bulb, and they both of them winced at the sudden flood of light. A mix of grease and water was travelling down the man’s muscular chest and back, left streaks upon his skin. When he was done, there remained only a thread of white, framing his hairline and the cut of his chin. The face that emerged looked raw with emotion. Whatever composure he had was washing down the plughole. Even the voice seemed changed, seemed coarser, Bavarian vowels laying siege to his Viennese.
‘She’s not my wife,’ he said. ‘She’s my sister. Eva.’
Beer remembered the photo, nodded. ‘You two are close?’
‘Twins,’ said the man, though his face looked nothing like the woman’s, looked meaty and boorish and burdened with anger.
‘Why do you say that she’ll die?’
‘She has bedsores. From lying still for too long. Some of them are very advanced. Very dangerous. They are prone to infection.’ Beer paused, trying to gauge whether the man was following what he was telling him. ‘How long has she been like this? Paralysed, I mean?’
The mime shrugged, ran his fingernails along his chin, scraping off flecks of paint that were hiding there.
‘She’ll die from lying still?’ he murmured, something passing through his face that took Beer a few moments to place: the thought, light and evil, of a life without his twin.
The doctor nodded. ‘She might. She needs medical attention. How long has she been paralysed?’
‘Ten years.’
‘Ten years? And she doesn’t speak?’
‘Not since she was thirteen. Mother used to care for her. Now she’s with me.’
‘And nobody knows she’s here?’
The mime shook his head. ‘I carried her in at night. A friend helped me. We pretended she was drunk. She wasn’t sick then.’
‘She is now,’ said Anton Beer and reached for a cigarette. While he stood there, lighting it, he noticed the man notice that the cigarette was one of his. His face darkened with the thought of the doctor rifling through his things. For a moment it threatened everything: his fists bunched, the weight of his body shifting into shoulders and arms. It cost the mime great effort to unclench himself, and accept the half-empty packet that Beer held out to him.
‘You must decide what you want to do. We could bring her to a hospital, but–’
‘They’ll kill her.’ It came out as a snarl; in his eyes once again that sly look of longing. It passed through like a wedge of geese giving chase to summer: you’d blink and they were gone. The rest of his face was busy with his anger and his grief. ‘I’ve heard stories.’
He gestured widely with his hands, cigarettes scattering from the open pack. Beer didn’t contradict him. He’d heard stories, too. They had been there even before the war had started. By now they were taking on a more definite shape.
‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘They might.’
He took a breath, made his play. It wasn’t until the words were out that he realised how anxious he was for their acceptance.
‘You have to leave Eva in my care,’ he said. ‘She needs to be turned, four, five times a day, and massaged head to toe. The wounds have to be seen to, the dead tissue removed. I live in my practice. You can’t help her. Nobody needs to know.’
The man took it in, brow creased in thought. His hand rose, thumb and forefinger taking hold of his nose. He blew snot into his open palm, then wiped it on the seat of his trousers: a fluid gesture, untroubled by breeding. Next Beer knew, that same thumb and finger had come together once again and hung in the air rubbing one another, in a gesture as old as the gods.
‘How much–?’ the man began to ask, but Beer interrupted him.
‘You needn’t pay,’ he said. ‘It is my duty as a physician.’
The phrase came out pat: it irritated the man. Beer could see he was struggling with the implications of his offer. He wondered how long it was that he had been his sister’s only caretaker. It remained hard to believe that they were twins.
‘We better carry her up right away, while it’s still dark. The fewer people know, the better. We don’t want anyone to call the hospital. Or the police. If we do meet someone, we’ll say she fainted and we are taking her to my practice.’
‘All right.’
With two words, the man had settled it. He turned away from Beer, thus hiding his face, and walked his dark passions over to his sister’s room.
They were busy lifting the woman out of her bed, Beer holding the feet, and her brother steadying head, neck and shoulders, before he spoke again. He had put his sweater back on, and turned off the light; was a smudge of skin suspended in the dark.
‘If you touch her–’ he said, and pursed his lips in a manner calculated to give meaning to the phrase.
‘You needn’t worry. I’m a doctor.’
‘If you touch her,’ he resumed as though Beer had not spoken, ‘I will come break your neck.’
Beer told the man he understood. He wondered when would be a good time to ask him whether or not he had killed Speckstein’s dog.
3
The janitor saw them carry the body across the yard. He did not recognise them at first. The night was very nearly black, dawn still some hours away, the city around them leaking a faint yellow glow. All he could see was the shadow of two men, a bedsheet between them, in which lay rolled the body of a slender corpse. They almost dropped it as they tried to open the door that led to the main stairwell; there was a stumble and an oath. The janitor recognised the voice, and put a name to the first of the shadows. Otto Frei. He had shown up not a month back, secured a sublet from the previous tenant who’d gone home to live with his mother; had paid extra for a second bed, for ‘women friends’ as he’d nervously explained. A man in his twenties, shifty like a vagrant. Thus far, the janitor had not seen him bring home any tarts. He worked at night and slept during the day, had brought his own curtains and hung them out back. The night watchman, Neurath, had told him that he worked as a clown. He couldn’t be earning much more than he ate.
The second man he recognised by his movements. There was something slow about the doctor. It was there even now, when he was bent on haste, a pair of ankles in his hands and a man for company who was little other than a bum: the leaden patience of a man who thinks before he steps. The janitor remembered Beer’s wife: a striking, long-limbed woman, very much a lady. Once, some weeks before she left, Frau Beer had stopped by his cellar workshop to complain about the plumbing, and led him to their private toilet with a proud self-assurance that did not flinch when he lifted the lid upon her pungent mess. She’d looked tired then, a little heavy in the midriff. One story went that she was pregnant with another man’s child: Frau Vesalius had told him that while she beat a carpet in the yard. Perhaps it was true, but the janitor did not think so. The bricks, they told another tale. It was now thirty-seven years that he’d been working in their service. At times they spoke to him directly, whispered to his fingertips as he ran them past their frames of mortar. Or else it was the house’s dead who came forward, a story on their lips: the little babe who’d died of suffocation, four days old, the inquest queasy about the bruises near its neck; or the fat old woman it had taken four to carry out, a judge’s daughter he was told, gone to seed on cr
eam puffs and morphine, hand-delivered every morning. Lately, it had been the dog that came sniffing: nipped his feet sometimes when he had nodded off, or crawled under the blanket in search of warmth; talked to him quietly, in whimpers and in growls. You had to kick it, make it shut its bloody gob, a trail of pee when it ran yelping to its grave. Of course, all it was: his head was growing soft. He drank too much, often started in the morning, talked to himself, heard voices. ‘Janitor’, he called himself, ‘Janitor’, the tag of his profession. Seventy years old and a frame on him like he was thirty; chasing the murmur at the bottom of an earthenware jug filled with rowanberry schnapps. He had been working through much of the night; had stepped into the yard just now to breathe the air and smoke a cigarette, an apron tied around his neck and waist. Out came the doctor and that bum of a clown, carrying a corpse, whispers, stories, rising from its linen sheet.
His instinct was to follow them, see where they were going: up to the fourth floor and the doctor’s rooms, or out the main door, into the street. The janitor took a step, plodding, soundless, the way he knew how, then remembered his apron, the blood smeared across his stomach, chest, and hands. It was drying now, drying into skin and cloth; smelled of metal, sea and salt. The taste was so thick, he wondered whether some had strayed into his face. The cigarette smelled of it, as though it had been dunked in blood; he had yet to light its tip. So he stood and he listened, and heard precisely nothing: not the slamming of a door, nor the twin tread of men, carrying a dead-weight up the stairs. The janitor looked up and found the doctor’s rooms, waited to see whether he would turn on a light. He didn’t. The minutes passed, dawn inching nearer, a breeze in the chestnut leaves, picking up force. Behind him, in the darkness, the janitor became aware of the swing of the cellar door, heard the wheeze of Neurath’s breath rising laboured from his wasted lungs: a wet sort of breathing, a man drowning on clean air. Fräulein Speckstein had breathed like that, just a little, bringing back his keys.