John Irving - Until I Find You

But when it came to William Burns’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, Dr. Krauer-Poppe had prescribed an antidepressant; the medication had had a calming effect. She’d tried two drugs, in fact, Zoloft and Seropram. Each one had its merits, both being selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors used to treat depression.

As for the side effects, Heather had said, their father had tolerated the dizziness, the dry mouth, the drowsiness, and the loss of appetite; the latter was the most persistent problem. (But William was so devoted to being thin that his loss of appetite probably thrilled him.) He’d complained about occasionally painful and prolonged erections, and there were certain “changes”—which Heather had not specified to Jack—in William’s sexual interest and ability. But over time, William Burns appeared to have tolerated—or at least accepted—these side effects, too.

The drugs did not impair William’s motor functions. His keyboard skills were unaffected by the antidepressants. The music he’d committed to memory remained intact, and he could sight-read music as quickly as ever.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe had worried that William’s ability to concentrate might suffer, and he admitted to being more easily distracted; it took him longer to memorize new pieces, and he occasionally complained of fatigue, which was unusual for him. He was used to having more energy, he said; on the other hand, he was sleeping better.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe had also watched William closely for signs that prolonged administration of the drugs might make him feel indifferent or less emotional; this was sometimes referred to as “the poop-out syndrome,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said, but William had shown no such signs. According to Heather, their father was indifferent to nothing or no one—and he was, “regrettably,” as emotional as ever.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe thought that, in William’s case, the antidepressants had been successful. She noted that his sexual “changes” did not include impotence, another possible side effect; she called the drugs “an acceptable trade-off.” (Dr. Krauer-Poppe was a woman at ease with hyphens, apparently. No one like her came to Jack’s mind.)

Jack couldn’t wait to meet these people, and he was relieved that he was meeting them first—that is, before he would see his father.

William Burns had been twenty-five when he met Jack’s mom; he’d been twenty-six when Jack was born. At that age, how long would Jack have stayed married to anyone? And what if he’d fathered a child at twenty-six, when he and Emma were burning the candle at both ends in L.A.? What kind of dad would he have been?

Jack knew what Dr. García’s answer would be—her less-than-one-word response: “Hmm.”

Jack checked into the Hotel zum Storchen on the Weinplatz. His room overlooked the Limmat, where he watched a tour boat drifting past the hotel’s riverfront café. He was staying in the Old Town—cobblestoned streets, many of them for pedestrians only. The church bells seemed to ring every quarter hour, as if Zurich were obsessed with the passage of time. He shaved and dressed for dinner, although it was still only midafternoon.

In the taxi—at the airport, in Kloten—Jack had considered going directly to the Sanatorium Kilchberg, but his appointment with Professor Ritter and the others wasn’t until late afternoon. He didn’t want to risk running into his father before he’d met with the doctors. Although he wasn’t expecting Jack, William would surely have recognized him.

Jack had questioned the clinic’s decision not to tell his father that he was coming, but both Heather and the psychiatric team had thought it best if Jack’s dad didn’t know; if he knew, he would be too anxious.

Nor had Dr. Krauer-Poppe recommended upping William’s dosage of the Zoloft or the Seropram, whether they told him about Jack or not. Even Dr. von Rohr had refrained from making her usual, on-the-other-hand argument; in fact, she said that giving William more antidepressants might make him near-catatonic or completely out of it for his son’s first visit.

Dr. Horvath, the hearty Austrian and deputy medical director who often jogged with William, had told his patient to expect “a special visitor.” Since it was too soon for more visiting time with his daughter, William was probably expecting someone from the world of music—a musician from out of town, a fellow organist making a guest appearance at a concert or playing in a church in Zurich. (Such distinguished visitors occasionally came to Kilchberg to pay William Burns their respects.)

Jack had asked the concierge at the Storchen to recommend a restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. William would be allowed to have dinner with his son, although Professor Ritter or one (or more) of the doctors at the clinic would accompany him.

“Better make the reservation for three or four people,” Heather had told Jack. “They won’t want you to take him away from the sanatorium alone. And believe me, Jack, you wouldn’t want to do that—not the first time, anyway.”

The concierge—a laconic man with a hoe-shaped scar on his forehead, probably from hitting a car’s windshield with his head—had booked a table for four at the Kronenhalle. It was an excellent restaurant and a pleasant walk, the concierge had assured Jack. “And because you’re Jack Burns, I actually managed to get you a table—even on such short notice.”

Jack went outside the hotel and watched the swans and ducks swimming in the Limmat. He checked the time on his watch against the clock towers of the two most imposing churches he could see from the Weinplatz, where he could also see a taxi stand. It was only a ten- or fifteen-minute drive to Kilchberg from the Storchen, and he didn’t want to be early or late.

Jack felt guilty about how much he had blamed his mother for everything. If she’d been alive and Jack were waiting to meet her for the first time, he believed he would have felt as nervous and excited about that as he felt about meeting his dad. It suddenly seemed ridiculous that he couldn’t forgive her; in fact, Jack missed her. He wished he could call her, but what would he have said?

It was Miss Wurtz who was waiting to hear from him; it was Caroline Jack should have called. But all he could think about was talking to his mother.

“Hi, Mom—it’s me,” he wanted to tell her. “I’m not doing this to hurt you, but I’m on my way to meet my dad—after all these years! Got any advice?”

Jack took a taxi out of town, along the shore of Lake Zurich—a nice drive, the road passing close to the lake the whole way. A theater festival had set up tents along the waterfront. It was sunny and warm, but the air was dry—mountain air, not nearly as humid as it had been in Edinburgh. There were these sudden, dramatic moments when Jack could see the Alps beyond the lake. Everything was clean, almost sparkling. (Even the taxi.)

Kilchberg was a community of about seven thousand. Because of all the sailboats on the lake—and the stately homes, many with gardens—the town somewhat resembled a resort. Jack’s taxi driver told him that the right shore of the lake was slightly more prosperous. “Europeans prefer to face west,” he said. Kilchberg, on the left shore of Lake Zurich, faced east.

But Jack thought Kilchberg was charming. There was even a small vineyard, or at least what looked like a working farm, and the sanatorium was high on a hill overlooking the lake, with a spectacular view of Zurich to the north; to the south were the Alps.

“Most of the patients take the bus from the Bürkliplatz—there’s a sanatorium stop in Kilchberg,” his taxi driver told him. “I mean the patients who are free to come and go,” he added—looking warily at Jack in the rearview mirror, as if he were certain that Jack had escaped. “You might want to consider taking the bus next time—the number one-sixty-one bus, if you can remember that.”