John Irving - Until I Find You

“But I suppose they’ve told you about the nature of the little excursions I take with Hugo, on occasion,” his father said, the mischief and the smile disappearing from his face, as if one word—not necessarily Hugo, but the wrong word—could instantly make him another person. “They’ve told you, haven’t they?” He wasn’t kidding.

“I know a little about it,” Jack answered him evasively. But his father had already turned to Professor Ritter and the others.

“Don’t you think a father and his son should have those awkward but necessary conversations about sex together ?” William asked his doctors.

“ Bitte, William—” Professor Ritter started to say.

“Isn’t that what any responsible father would do?” Jack’s dad went on. “Isn’t that my job ? To talk about sex with my son—isn’t that my job? Why is that your job?”

“We thought that Jack should be informed about the Hugo business, William,” Dr. Berger said. “We didn’t know you would bring the matter up with him.”

“Factually speaking,” William said, calming down a little.

“We can talk about it later, Pop.”

“Perhaps over dinner,” his father said, smiling at Dr. von Rohr, who sighed.

“Speaking of which, you should be leaving !” Dr. Horvath cried. But when they started for the corridor—his father bowing to Dr. von Rohr, who preceded him—Dr. Horvath grabbed Jack by both shoulders, holding him back.

“Which of the triggers was it?” the doctor whispered in Jack’s ear; even Dr. Horvath’s whisper was loud. “ Das Wort, ” he whispered. (“The word.”) “What was it?”

“ Skin, ” Jack whispered. “It was the word skin. ”

“ Gott! ” Dr. Horvath shouted. “That’s one of the worst ones—that one is unstoppable !”

“I’m glad some of the triggers are stoppable,” Jack told him. “ Naked, for example. Dr. von Rohr seemed to stop that one.”

“ Ja, naked ’s not so bad,” Dr. Horvath said dismissively. “But you better not bring up the word skin at the Kronenhalle. And the mirrors !” he remembered, with a gasp. “Keep William away from the mirrors.”

“Is a mirror one of the unstoppable triggers?” Jack asked.

“A mirror is more than a trigger,” Dr. Horvath said gravely. “A mirror is das ganze Pulver !”

“What?” Jack asked him; he didn’t know the phrase.

“ Das ganze Pulver! ” Dr. Horvath cried. “All the ammunition!”

Their evening at the Kronenhalle began with William complimenting Dr. von Rohr on the silver streak in her tawny hair—how it had always impressed him that she must have been struck by lightning one morning on her way to work. By the time she met with her first patient, he imagined, she was acutely aware of that part of her head where the lightning bolt had hit her—mainly because the lightning had done such extensive damage to her roots that her hair had already died and turned gray.

“Is this actually a compliment, William?” Dr. von Rohr asked.

They had not yet been seated at their table, which was in a room with a frosted-glass wall. They’d entered the Kronenhalle from Rämistrasse. Dr. von Rohr, who was much taller than Jack’s father, purposely blocked any view he might have had of the mirror by the bar. They passed both the women’s and the men’s washrooms, which harbored more mirrors, but these mirrors were not within sight of the corridor they followed to their glassed-in room. (The mirror over the sideboard was in another part of the restaurant.)

William was looking all around, but he couldn’t see past Dr. von Rohr—he came up to her breasts—and Dr. Krauer-Poppe held his other arm. Jack followed them. His father was constantly turning his head and smiling at him. Jack could tell that his dad thought it was great fun to be escorted into a fancy restaurant like the Kronenhalle by two very good-looking women.

“If you weren’t so tall, Ruth,” William was saying to Dr. von Rohr, “I could get a look at the top of your head and see if that silver streak is dyed all the way down to your roots.”

“There’s just no end to your compliments, William,” she said, smiling down at him.

Jack’s dad patted the little purse Dr. Krauer-Poppe carried on her arm. “Got the sedatives, Anna-Elisabeth?” he asked.

“Behave yourself, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.

William turned and winked at Jack. Dr. Horvath had dressed Jack’s father in a long-sleeved black silk shirt; because William’s arms were long, but his body was small, every shirt looked too big on him. His silver shoulder-length hair, which was the same glinting shade of gray as Dr. von Rohr’s electric streak, added to the feminine aspect of his handsomeness—as did the copper bracelets and his gloves. His “evening” gloves, as William called them, were a thin black calfskin. The way his father bounced on the balls of his feet reminded Jack of Mr. Ramsey. As Heather had put it, William Burns was a youthful- looking sixty-four.

“Ruth, alas, is no fan of Billy Rainbow, Jack,” William said, as they were being seated.

“Alas, she told me,” Jack said, smiling at Dr. von Rohr, who smiled back at him.

“Even so,” Jack’s father said, clearing his throat, “I gotta say we’re with the two best-looking broads in the place.” (He really did have Billy Rainbow down pat.)

“You’re such a flatterer, William,” Dr. von Rohr told him.

“Have you had a look at Ruth’s purse?” Jack’s dad asked him, indicating Dr. von Rohr’s rather large handbag; it was too big to fit under her chair. “More like a suitcase, if you ask me—more like an overnight bag,” William said, winking at Jack. His father was outrageously suggesting that Dr. von Rohr had prepared herself for the possibility of spending the night at the Hotel zum Storchen with Jack!

“It’s not every day you meet a man who compliments a woman’s accessories, ” Dr. von Rohr told Jack, smiling.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe didn’t look so sure, nor was she smiling; despite her supermodel attire, Dr. Krauer-Poppe’s dominant personality trait radiated medication.

Jack also knew that Dr. Krauer-Poppe was married, and she had young children, which was why his father had focused his embarrassing zeal for matchmaking on Jack and Dr. von Rohr. (She was no longer married but had been, Heather had said; she was a divorced woman with no children.)

“Jack’s been seeing a psychiatrist—for longer than I’ve known you two ladies,” William announced. “How’s that been going, Jack?”

“I don’t know if there’s a professional name for the kind of therapy I’ve been receiving,” Jack told them. “A psychiatric term, I mean.”

“It doesn’t need to have a psychiatric term,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “Just describe it.”

“Well, Dr. García—she’s this truly wonderful woman in her early sixties, with all these children and grandchildren. She lost her husband some years ago—”

“Aren’t most of her patients women, Jack?” his dad interrupted. “I had that impression from one of those articles I read about the Lucy business—you remember that episode, the girl in the backseat of Jack’s car?” William asked his doctors. “Both she and her mother were seeing the same psychiatrist Jack was seeing! From the sound of it, you’d think there was a shortage of psychiatrists in southern California!”

“William, let Jack describe his therapy for us,” Dr. von Rohr said.

“Oh,” his father responded; it gave Jack a chill that his dad said, “Oh,” exactly the way Jack did.