A Fight in Silence Read online

  ‘Paula darling, don’t change the subject. Felix and Eckehard were absolutely charming but overdid the wooing. It was rather like being a princess watching her jousting knights aiming to dent each other’s shining armour. They were more interested in outdoing one another with witty remarks than in paying any attention to me – it was exhausting. You should have come along to give me some support. But you had something more worthwhile of your own, am I right?’

  ‘Compared with what happened to you, then yes, you could say that. We had quite a serious discussion, and it really opened my mind.’

  ‘Right, now I’m really curious! You mean that men can actually talk about something serious in female company?’

  ‘Richard can.’

  ‘So it’s Richard – Richard who?’

  ‘Richard Hellmer.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard about him. The remarkable Richard, the man who divides opinion.’

  ‘In what way “divides opinion”?’

  ‘Did he tell you his father’s a carpenter?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything . . .’

  ‘What?’ Leonie cut across her. ‘Come off it, Paula! It’s considered so shocking that women are now allowed to attend university, but at least you and I come from the right stratum of society, even if there are certain elements who want to ruin it for us and send us off to be wives or nurses instead.’ She reached for her handbag, took out her cigarette case together with an elegant ivory cigarette-holder and lit up. Paula knew it wasn’t the smoking that Leonie enjoyed, so much as the disapproval of the tight-lipped married ladies nearby as she sat there posing like a flapper. ‘And now that even the proles are sending their children to university’—she paused for effect and drew on her cigarette—‘then the red revolution isn’t far off. And the people who go on about all this probably fear the red revolution less than their fathers’ wrath if a carpenter’s son should turn out to be the best student of his intake.’ Leonie sat back, her cigarette-holder poised between index and middle fingers, looking relaxed, elegant and seductive all in one go.

  ‘So you’re really saying he fits in well with us? He certainly doesn’t act like he’s trying to provoke, quite the opposite. And anyway, what a student’s father does for a living is irrelevant as long as it’s a respectable trade that pays the fees.’

  ‘And shouldn’t it also be irrelevant whether we’re male or female? Have you been swotting for your anatomy certificate? It’ll be very interesting to be examined by Professor Hempel on the internal pelvic organs. Knowing him, he’ll ask us idiotic questions about the uterus. Then he’ll repeat that ridiculous line about the atrophied uterus and its effects on a woman’s intellect. Or was it the other way round? Is it intellect that causes the uterus to atrophy?’ Leonie sent a smoke ring to the ceiling.

  ‘But you’ll still smile sweetly rather than giving your actual opinion?’

  ‘Indeed. As a psychiatrist’s daughter, you’ll know that when dealing with idiots it’s best to say, Yes, absolutely, you’re quite right, and give them a kindly smile to stop them throwing a fit and leaping around like crazed monkeys.’

  Paula giggled. ‘It’s a shame he doesn’t know what you really think of him.’

  ‘It’s just as well that he doesn’t! Unlike how the remarkable Richard sees us, in Hempel’s eyes we’re mere women. Not class warriors.’

  ‘He’s the son of a respectable master carpenter, not a class warrior. His father’s business seems to have weathered our period of rampant inflation well, given that he’s keeping three lads and two apprentices busy in his workshop – that’s something to be proud of and far from proletarian. It’s a solid professional trade, no different, as far as I can see, to the practice of a general practitioner.’

  As she spoke, she was also thinking of the husband of a cousin of hers, a consultant in general medicine, who’d lost all his inheritance to inflation and had hanged himself in the attic. Malicious gossip had it that he’d been too broke even to afford a pistol to finish the job in style.

  ‘I realise that,’ said Leonie good-naturedly. She smiled. ‘And the more you say about him and the more you defend him, the more curious I am. So what’s this about your discussion that opened your mind?’

  Paula hesitated before relating her conversation with Richard and describing his views on life. Leonie listened attentively, her light-hearted mood giving way to solemnity, something she hid as a rule behind the mocking face she showed in public.

  ‘I envy you,’ Leonie commented. ‘I don’t mean for the subject matter but for the fact that with you he felt at liberty to treat you as an equal. No wonder you’re thinking about him all the time.’

  Her reaction surprised Paula.

  ‘But if this is what you’re looking for, why do you make do with those shallow flirty types? What’s preventing you from seeing the chap opposite as a human being first and a man second?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to come across as icy.’

  ‘Charming. Is that why you smoke? To seem fiery?’

  Leonie, taken aback for a moment, burst out laughing. ‘Touché, my love. Now tell me, when are you seeing Richard again?’

  ‘Saturday. He’s picking me up after lunch and we’re going to the main city art gallery.’

  ‘How very elegant! Just make sure that all the cultural chit-chat doesn’t make him forget you’re a woman.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll do that, and if he did, I’d know how to remind him.’

  ‘Paula dearest, you really are a dark horse! People whisper about me, saying I’m out to catch a husband when I’m only flirting, but the truth is you’ll catch one long before I do. But that won’t be too difficult because I’ll probably never marry.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’

  Leonie took a last puff on her cigarette. ‘Oh, but I am! The times we live in offer so many opportunities: we’ve got the vote, we’re allowed to study, but the moment we marry we’re nothing and not even allowed to work without the express agreement of the dear spouse. And because men want to hold on to their power over us, nothing will change. There’s only one thing that makes us superior and that’s our brain. A saucy wink, a bit of a wiggle in all the right places and they’re panting after us like lovesick puppies, and we can get them to do whatever we want, provided they believe they still have something to conquer. For a while, it’s an entertaining and harmless way of making up for all the other indignities.’

  ‘Is that why you seek out men who can’t compete with you? Isn’t that terribly boring?’

  ‘Mostly it’s amusing, and it proves again and again that I’m right. Men aren’t good for much more than that. Still, I’ll see how it goes with you and Richard, and then I’ll either envy you for finding something quite special, or I’ll pity you if it turns out to be a fantasy and all men are in fact the same; if they appreciate your femininity, they overlook your intellect, or they appreciate comradely intellect and overlook the femininity.’

  This gave Paula plenty more to think about. Her father had always told her how much he’d appreciated her mother’s excellent mind, first as a nursing professional and then as a married woman sitting in on lectures in medicine as a guest and, to general astonishment, successfully completing the course of study. Paula remembered her father’s description of the obstacles encountered by her mother, who, purely on the grounds of her sex, was refused a licence to practise medicine in spite of passing all the examinations. She had nonetheless worked with him in his surgery until Paula was born, although only rarely thereafter. Paula had never had the chance to ask her mother why, as she had died from diphtheria when Paula was only six.

  From that moment on, Paula’s father had tried to take on her mother’s role as well as his own, to encourage and support her. It was only much later that she realised how she had helped to fill the gap in his own life. Although there had been quite a few ladies only too willing to become the new Frau Engelhardt, he had never remarried because he wa
nted to devote himself to his daughter. And in any case, no other woman came close to Paula’s mother in his view, while not one of them was anything like good enough so far as Paula was concerned. She was aware of her power over her father and was not prepared to share him with some stranger, neither as a child, nor as she grew up.

  Only as a grown woman could she see how her relationship with her father had influenced the way she herself dealt with men. She had never felt excluded and had always believed that her views and opinions would be taken seriously as a matter of course. She wondered what her father would make of Richard Hellmer.

  Chapter 3

  Richard hated the operating theatre but knew how to conceal his loathing. It would never have occurred to Professor Wehmeyer that his model student experienced profound revulsion at every operation.

  Because he could name every artery, nerve and muscle like a shot but opened his mouth only when asked, unlike his friend and fellow student Fritz Ellerweg, who was forever asking questions, Richard was regularly given the honour of holding the clamp while the professor performed the procedure. Fritz, meanwhile, who definitely wanted to be a surgeon, had to content himself with a place in the second row, behind the theatre sister. He knew that Richard would gladly have made way for him and so felt no resentment, especially as Richard had told him the real reason for this silence that the professor valued so much. He battled with nausea, not because of what he could see – that didn’t bother him, quite the opposite. In fact, Richard found the positioning of the inner organs, nerves and blood vessels absolutely fascinating, particularly as no two bodies were quite the same and the varying courses taken by arteries and veins were remarkable. Consequently, he had always been enthusiastic about dissection in anatomy classes, although that was all about dead bodies that had been drained of their blood and kept in formalin for months before their use on the anatomy course, when they were stripped down little by little over the course of a whole semester.

  No, for Richard it was because of the odours. He struggled with this mix of disinfectant, blood and other body fluids. Even worse was when a suspected stomach ulcer turned out to be a malignant growth that had eaten into the gut. This gave off an absolutely vile odour. Eventually, his sister had suggested that he sprinkle a few drops of eau de cologne on his surgical mask beforehand and this at least had helped him deal with the smell, but did nothing to address the nausea. To distract himself, he would silently recite the name of every artery and nerve he could see, and as a result, when the professor asked a question, Richard generally knew the answer immediately, whereas Fritz found he was still thinking about it.

  Richard had tried to get Fritz to practise with him, so that the role of the professor’s favourite could go to his friend, but in vain. Fritz was so fascinated by the precision and practicalities involved in making the incisions that he paid far more attention to the professor’s hands than to the human body in front of them.

  ‘Can I really not persuade you to devote yourself to the right part of the medical profession?’ Professor Wehmeyer asked him yet again on the day Richard had correctly named the branches leading off from the truncus coeliacus and the various arteries leading away from it. ‘You have real talent, more than most others.’

  ‘Thank you, Professor.’ Richard kept his reply short and wondered how Professor Wehmeyer could possibly have formed this opinion, as he’d never yet used a scalpel. For sure, the professor had twice left the stitching to him, but in Richard’s view stitching was quite different from the art of surgery itself.

  ‘I gather you’re preparing a dissertation on mental illness,’ continued the professor. ‘Do you really want to squander your talents by becoming a mad-doctor?’

  ‘I fear you overestimate my capabilities, Professor. Anyone can hold the clamp.’

  ‘But it’s not just anyone who can perceive beauty in the bodies placed before us and feel so immediately at ease with such a complex anatomical structure.’

  Richard said nothing. He didn’t want to go any deeper into this, particularly as the professor had only recently witnessed another student making insulting comments about Richard’s family background. The professor had kindly but firmly informed the culprit that a trade is the best of foundations for a good living and that the grandfather of the famous surgeon Professor Sauerbach had been a cobbler. ‘Never forget,’ he’d said, ‘that we’re skilled craftsmen too, and it’s the medical trade that we put to practical use for the good of humanity.’

  A further question from the professor cut across Richard’s recollections.

  ‘Where are you with your thesis?’ he asked as he deftly tied ligatures on the adjacent blood vessels before performing a resection of the stomach.

  ‘I’ve completed about half of it.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘I meant it’s a shame for me. I would have liked to make you part of my working team but it wouldn’t be right to make you an offer if you’re already so far into your PhD work.’ He sighed.

  ‘No, sir.’

  As with the two previous operations, Professor Wehmeyer left the stitching to Richard and once more praised his manual dexterity. Meanwhile, Fritz stood silently in the background. He remained silent long after they’d left the operating theatre and got rid of their masks, gloves and gowns.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Richard in the changing room as he put on his outdoor shoes and tied the laces. ‘Are you annoyed he asked me about moving up into his team?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fritz admitted. ‘For months I’ve been wanting to ask him if he’d take me on as one of his PhD students, but he barely notices me and would rather promote someone who’s not really interested.’

  Richard straightened up. ‘Then don’t go on waiting. Speak to him about it.’

  Fritz was staring at his shoes. ‘I don’t think I’d have much success. You know how he looks at me whenever I ask him a question.’

  ‘Listen, I’ve told you so many times, he doesn’t want to discuss how to perform the incision and other surgical technicalities, he wants to test your knowledge. The rest comes later.’

  ‘Well, what should I say to him? What can I offer him now?’

  Instead of answering, Richard said, ‘Why d’you want to be a surgeon?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ Fritz said, rising to his feet with a sigh.

  ‘Try. Explain to me why this is the only thing in life you want to do, why it’s the dream that possesses you day and night.’

  Just then the doors to the changing room flew open and two other students came in to gown up for the next operation.

  ‘Let’s talk about it outside,’ Fritz said, reaching for his coat and briefcase.

  Richard nodded, packed his bag and casually threw his coat over his shoulder.

  It was a beautifully warm October day with more than a trace of summer still, even though yellowing leaves had begun to drift here and there around the hospital grounds. Aside from a nurse pushing a man in a wheelchair along the neat sandy pathway, there was nobody to be seen.

  ‘I always wanted to be a surgeon,’ Fritz said at last. ‘My father’s a general practitioner and I’ve seen all too often how he’s the one to make the right diagnosis but then has to leave the rest of the treatment to hospital-based colleagues. I want to do more than just prescribing pills and potions, taking temperatures and offering the right tincture for every little ache and pain. Right from the very first time I ever stood in an operating theatre I realised how fascinating it is to explore the human body anew every time. Yes, there are fixed structures, but you can’t ever be sure what else you’re going to come across, and then you have to find a complex solution, and fast. I love the challenge and feel sure I’d be up to it.’

  ‘But that’s precisely what he’s testing for every time he asks how quickly we recognise which artery or nerve we’re looking at. Why d’you always take so long to answer?’

  ‘Maybe because I spend too long thin
king it through. For me, it’s not just about coming out with the Latin as fast as possible, it’s because I want to weigh up what it might mean for the course of the whole operation. And by then you’ve already given the answer,’ Fritz said, giving his friend a playful cuff on the arm.

  ‘You already know why I do that – to try and take my mind off how ill I’m feeling in there.’

  ‘Yes, of course, and that’s why I’m not angry with you about it. But it still annoys me sometimes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I still think you should explain all that to Professor Wehmeyer. Best do it today.’

  Fritz lowered his gaze.

  ‘Hey, Fritz, no one who earns his living cutting open bellies or sawing off legs can afford to be a coward.’

  For a moment Fritz was taken aback but then he gave a shout of laughter. ‘You do realise you’re a complete crackpot, don’t you?’

  ‘I can live with the insult if you’re a budding surgeon, but to be called a crackpot would be really worrying if it came from a psychiatrist.’

  ‘And you say that with a straight face.’ Fritz couldn’t stop laughing.

  ‘Now you’re in a good mood, seize the moment. As far as I know, Professor Wehmeyer’s always in his office around two o’clock.’

  And so Fritz sought him out the same day. Quite how the conversation went, Richard never knew, but when they both walked into the operating theatre the following day Professor Wehmeyer asked Fritz to hold the clamp and asked him very specific questions about the operation and incision procedures, all of which Fritz, after brief consideration, was able to answer to the complete satisfaction of the professor.

  ‘It seems to me I have underestimated you, Herr Ellerweg. I’m going to keep my eye on you, and if you continue to prove so convincing, I can well imagine bringing you on to my professional team.’

  He turned then to Richard. ‘I hope you will not consider it disrespectful regarding your own ability if Herr Ellerweg takes your usual place during the next operation.’