Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four

I started missing my TV shows. Did he want to lay this piece of skirt or not? I had not come all the way over here to watch the G version of La boum ! And apparently I had an ally in this, because right as I was about to lose my patience for real, Birgit leaned forward and kissed Martin. On the lips. Finally! I wanted to pat the bunny on her soft shoulder, but unfortunately I lacked anything to pat with.

Still, it was a start, I thought. Now surely Martin will get down to business, slide his hands under her sweater, knead her warm skin, especially over the curvy bits—and by that I don’t mean her shoulders. But on this point I’d expected too much of Martin. He didn’t exactly stay totally passive; he even kept holding Birgit in his arms after they finished kissing, but he didn’t go any further than that. In any case, not at a speed that one might perceive with the naked eye. Apparently people who drive trash cans don’t screw like people who drive Ferraris.

Subsequent overtures proceeded in slow motion. It took another seventeen minutes for the sweater to land on the couch, and another twenty-five for Birgit’s pants to land next to it. Then they went into the bedroom where Martin also took off his sweater vest, shirt, pants, and socks. And off they went under the covers. At least they left the little nightlight on; I was quite grateful for that. They made out some more, felt each other up some more, all very carefully of course—but, still, we were heading in the right direction. Even Martin was getting revved up; at least he didn’t have some kind of physical problem. I’ll admit that was something I had been afraid of, because no normal person makes out for two hours if he doesn’t have to. And you have to if you can’t, you know, proceed. It’s as simple as that. Martin seemed able and willing, though, but something also seemed to be holding him back. I took a chance and got closer to his thoughts, but I couldn’t fathom what I found in there. Martin was hesitating because he didn’t have a raincoat with him and couldn’t decide if he should ask Birgit if she had one or if he shouldn’t say anything at all and just keep going as though this question were totally irrelevant.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I said, “Martin, stop making a big deal about it, just nail her, will you!”

His reaction was a disaster. Martin winced, everything in him went flabby, and his head writhed in a chaotic mess of ideas and feelings—horniness, shock, hatred (presumably for me), shame all mixed together. He leaped out of bed, stammered some incoherent babble in which the only understandable word was “sorry”; everything else was complete gibberish. He grabbed up all of his clothes, got dressed, apologized to Birgit once more, who was sitting in the bed bewildered, presumably wondering if she’d done something wrong or if the guy was just totally cuckoo, and he left the apartment.

I stayed with Birgit to try and console her, which of course didn’t work since she couldn’t hear me. She stood up, straightened up the apartment, looked unhappy, started to cry, drank another glass of white wine, although this time quite a bit faster. Funny how everything seemed to move faster when Martin wasn’t here. She went back to bed but got up after a half hour and turned on the TV. After she fell asleep on the couch around one thirty I snuck out.

It was a calm, dark night as I floated through the streets of Cologne unsure whether I should go to Martin’s place or back to the Institute. I didn’t do either; instead I spirited away the rest of the night, whooshing through the city, eavesdropping on people, and trying to establish contact with them. No use. No one could perceive me, no one could hear me, no one could share their thoughts with me. I felt alone. And I felt guilty. I regretted my outburst that had ended Martin’s nice evening so unpleasantly, maybe even putting an end to his relationship with Birgit, which had just been starting to blossom. I was going to have to ask him to forgive me. That’s not normally my thing, but I would definitely have to make an exception in this case.

The next morning Martin and I arrived at the Institute at the same time; he was climbing out of his trash can, and just as he closed the car door I said, “Martin, I’m sorry about last night. Please forgive me.”

He pretended he didn’t notice me at all. For a moment I panicked, thinking that now even this last connection to the world of the living had been severed, but then I sensed the amount of effort he was devoting to not noticing me.

I waited for another moment, but he didn’t give in. So I said again, “Martin, I asked you to forgive me.”

No reaction.

“I’m sorry, now don’t hold a grudge,” I tried again.

Nothing.

Martin entered the building, went into his office, hung his duffle coat up on the coat rack, put on his lab coat, and went downstairs. There was an autopsy waiting. I stayed close to him, although I didn’t look at the gory details, and I kept sending apologies in his direction. He by contrast had totally walled himself off. I begged again and again, and he ignored me again and again, in a huff. He was slowly starting to piss me off.

I gave him another hour, apologizing another three times. Then I changed tack.

He was standing alone in the break room waiting for the water for his tea to boil when I planted the idea in his brain that his fly was open. He looked down reflexively and checked the zipper—and right at the moment Katrin stepped into the break room, too. I had seen her coming; my timing was perfect. Martin blushed.

“Hello, Katrin,” he mumbled.

“Hi, Martin.” An embarrassed gesture toward the coffee machine. “Any coffee left?”

“Uh, yes, I think so.”

Katrin squeezed past Martin, grabbed a cup from the cabinet and poured herself some coffee. “Everything OK with you?” she asked as though in passing, but her intonation wasn’t as relaxed as the question was supposed to sound.

“Yes, yes, everything’s great,” Martin said, the whole left half of his face purple from his bruise and his eyes bloodshot. “Everything’s dandy.”

“Good,” Katrin said, pouring milk into her coffee and leaving the break room.

“That happened because you’re ignoring me,” I said. “Accept my apology and let’s be friends again.”

Martin didn’t respond. I was starting to get really mad. What else could I do? I couldn’t kneel in front of him, I couldn’t hang banners from an overpass over the autobahn, I couldn’t buy him a beer, and I couldn’t apologize to Birgit for him.

I had been practicing the only thing I could do, for hours. I had apologized. Mountains of apologies. And still he insisted on being pigheaded. He apparently wanted no peace.

Fine. Then war it was.

Martin walked down the stairwell with a couple of his colleagues, and I screamed, “Watch out, a step is missing!” He hesitated in the middle of stairs, gripping the arm of the colleague next to him in terror and throwing him off balance. They both staggered but didn’t fall. Everybody stared at Martin.

“Uh, somehow I twisted my ankle,” Martin mumbled.

His colleagues gave him compassionate or concerned looks, and much too quickly they added that people did sometimes twist their ankles on these stairs, even though that was only semibelievable.

He was in the middle of an autopsy, where he was wielding the knife, and as he reached for the liver I yelled, “Don’t touch!” Again he winced, his hands trembling, and his colleague with the Dictaphone staring at him with a furrowed brow. He opened the chest cavity, removed the heart, and in my saddest voice, which I normally reserve for very, very sad situations, I said, “You’re hurting him.”