CHAPTER

28

The summer was still at its height: the sky was broad and open, Gloria was on her knees, picking vegetables in the garden, while Karl lay dozing at the foot of a birch tree. While everything was bright and clear, not a cloud in a perfect sky, a wagon hitched to two strong horses wheeled into the courtyard. A man dressed in a long raincoat and boots stepped down from it slowly, deliberately, like a man who had come to avenge an insult.

“Karl,” the man called out.

“I’m over here,” said Karl, sounding trapped.

It was Freddy.

“What are you doing here?” asked Karl, as if in a dream.

“I was worried about you,” answered Freddy, a little short of breath.

“There’s nothing to worry about. We have a roomy house,” said Karl, embracing him.

“I’m upset about your leaving.”

“Everything is fine. Here’s Gloria.”

Gloria rose and approached, an embarrassed blush glowing in her tanned face. Then for a moment she froze, as if caught in a hiding place. Freddy lowered his head, realizing he was intruding.

Later, they sat at the table and Gloria prepared coffee and sandwiches. Freddy looked more and more uncomfortable, with both his innocence and clumsiness blossoming anew. Karl tried to console him, but didn’t yet know how. He was sorry Freddy had dragged himself such a long distance.

“How long have you been on the road?”

“For two days. I’m used to travel. People are always calling for me, but this time I myself chose the way,” he said, his guileless smile standing out more than ever.

“Whom do you see in the city?” Karl tried to draw him out.

“Nobody, just patients.”

“I help Gloria. We have a garden,” Karl said. Something of Freddy’s awkwardness clung to him.

“And this is how you see your future?” Freddy, never far from a cliché.

“What do you mean—‘my future’?”

“How else should I put it?”

“I feel good here.”

“And you don’t miss people?”

“Life is simple here. The mountain accepts you as you are. And it costs very little.”

Freddy was astonished, as if he realized it wasn’t a matter of madness but of will.

“If you feel good here, I suppose I have nothing to say.”

“I feel excellent. These peaks are marvelous. I don’t need anything more.”

“I guess I was wrong,” said Freddy, narrowing his shoulders.

Gloria once again assumed the demeanor of a housemaid, of one who doesn’t sit at the table but who serves and immediately withdraws into her corner.

“There is everything a person needs here. I wasn’t happy in Neufeld.”

“You won’t return to us?”

“No. I’ve resigned.”

“I miss you,” said Freddy, smiling foolishly.

“I’m not going back to Neufeld.”

“Father Merser asked after you.”

“I wasn’t very happy with him during the past year. He’s grown arrogant. Why did he baptize Elsa Ring? You don’t baptize an eighty-year-old person. Someone that age should die in his own bed and be gathered unto his ancestors in peace. At that age you don’t confuse people’s minds. Do you understand me?”

“Could I have a drink?” Freddy lifted his head.

“Let’s go down to the village. We can have one there.”

When Freddy got up, Karl saw how he had aged. His bright face, which had been kneaded by his good-heartedness and concern for the community, had gotten very fat, his eye sockets had turned black, and his posture had become bent. It made Karl angry that peasants called for him night after night, because they were too lazy to go to his clinic. What thankless work. Devoted people like Freddy should have good wives, merciful wives, wives devoted in heart and soul—not grasping, selfish wives, he wanted to cry out. He hastily put on his jacket and said, “Gloria, I’m going down. I’m going to show Freddy Rosow. Should I bring something for you?”

“We have everything we need.”

The tavern was overflowing. Peasant men and women crowded around the bar, the air was thick with the smell of vodka, and a wall of tobacco smoke blunted one’s vision. Karl pushed his way through and returned immediately with two glasses of cognac.

“I need a drink,” Freddy confessed.

“I do too. But, you know, here sometimes you can sink into yourself without it. You should watch your health, Freddy.”

“I do. I’m absolutely fine,” he mumbled.

“I wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night anymore. They should come to the clinic.”

“What can I do? I’m a doctor.”

“You’re a doctor, not a priest.”

“I take good care of myself. I have a warm sheepskin coat for traveling at night, and it protects me.”

The warmth of their youth seemed to return as they sat and sipped. Karl promised Freddy that this wasn’t his last stop, that he still had it in mind to do things. Perhaps one day he would come and visit him.

It was sunset, and the tavern was crammed with people. “Why don’t we go out for a stroll,” Karl suggested. But Freddy preferred the noise. After a few drinks he forgot his reason for coming and spoke about the plans he had never realized: the clinics he would open to the general public, and the assistance he would offer the needy. At first he thought he could gain the support of the owners of the estates and mines for his plan. They had insisted on seeing written memoranda, so he wrote out very detailed proposals. In the end, they didn’t even reply. Now he would turn to the Ministry of Health.

Don’t do that, my dear fellow, Karl wanted to say. I know them very well. No good will come from them. But seeing his hurt face, he refrained.

As they drank, Freddy spoke about Martin and his blood pressure, his frequent trips to Winterhof, how much he drank, the women who had driven him crazy, and his impudent clients. Finally, he blamed himself for not sending him to get a second opinion.

“You should know that he had contempt for you as a doctor.”

“That doesn’t change a thing. A physician can’t pay attention to insults. A physician has to be able to endure that sort of thing.”

“But we expect a certain loyalty from friends,” said Karl, unwilling to give in.

“A physician must overcome that, too.”

Karl was astonished. He had never seen such submis-siveness, as though Freddy had taxed himself all these years in order to reach this level. Nor could he stop now. He would wander from village to village, and patient to patient, until he wore out his soul.

“Why won’t you use your clinic in the city?”

“My patients are scattered among the villages.”

“You should make them come to you.”

“No, they’re all infected with typhus.”

“Isn’t there a danger of your becoming infected?”

“The physician is immune,” said Freddy, and a mischievous smile brightened his eyes.

Later, silence fell upon them. Darkness clung to the windows, and the peasants were already drunk. They cursed the owner of the bar and his wife, and the tax officials who had come by train the day before to confiscate property and to arrest people.

“It’s late, where’s the train?” Freddy awoke.

“Why don’t you stay with us for a few days?”

“I can’t. A typhus epidemic is raging.”

“Too bad.”

“I brought you some money.”

“No, my dear fellow. I got severance pay from the municipality. Don’t forget, I worked there for seventeen years.”

“But you don’t have a regular salary.”

“I received a lot of money. You have nothing to worry about.”

Even on the way to the train, half drunk and leaning on Karl’s arm, Freddy kept talking about how Martin had failed to take care of his body, which he called “the temple of the soul.” Karl wanted to scold him and say, you’re wasting your devotion on people who are unworthy of it. But seeing his misery, he merely said, “Everything will be fine, my dear fellow, everything will be fine,” and he pressed him to his heart.