Until I Find You

ran the length of the interior walls. A piano, a C. Bechstein, shone a glossy black in the late-afternoon light—like the coat of a well-groomed animal.

“For the finger exercises, both the morning and the afternoon sessions,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said, pointing to the piano. “He plays again after the movie, in the afternoon. This time, not for dancers—it’s a yoga class. The music he plays is more atmospheric, softer—like background music, you might say. But he’s always blindfolded if there’s any daylight in the room.”

“The finger-cramping can be disturbing to the yoga class,” Dr. Berger interjected. “Less so to the dancers, even if William is in obvious pain.”

“He hates to have to stop playing,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “He pushes himself.”

“Ah, well …” Professor Ritter said. “After the yoga class, we have the ice water ready—and the hot wax, too, if he wants it.”

“And the ice water again,” Dr. Berger stated; he was making sure that Jack had all the facts, in proper order.

“Calisthenics!” Dr. Horvath continued, waving his arms. “Especially if there’s been no jogging. Just some abdominal crunches, some lunges, some jumping!” (Dr. Horvath was demonstrating the lunges and the jumping, his big feet thudding on the hardwood floor of the exercise hall.)

“We have group therapy three times a week—the patients discuss dealing with their disorders. Your father’s German is quite good,” Professor Ritter told Jack. “And his concentration is improving.”

“Just so long as no one starts humming a tune,” Dr. Berger interjected. “William hates humming.”

“Another trigger?” Jack asked.

“Ah, well …” Professor Ritter said.

“We have a movie night, every other Wednesday—in this case, usually not a Jack Burns movie,” Dr. Berger stated. “Once a week, we have an evening of lotto, which William doesn’t like, but he loves the storytelling cafe—this is when we read stories out loud, or the patients do. And we have a night when our younger patients visit the gerontopsychiatric ward. William is very sympathetic to our patients who are growing old.”

“Some nights we bring the older patients to the exercise hall, where they like to hear William play the piano in the dark,” Dr. von Rohr said.

“I like it, too!” Dr. Horvath cried.

“We have patients with schizophrenic or schizo-affective manifestations,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe told Jack. “I mean those who are in a relatively stable remission phase, the ones who have sufficient ability to concentrate. Well, you’d be surprised—the schizophrenics like listening to your father play the piano in the dark, too.”

“And the piano-playing seems to soothe our patients who suffer from panic attacks,” Dr. Berger said.

“Except for those who suffer from panic attacks in the dark,” Dr. von Rohr pointed out. (Jack saw that she was conscious of the light from the windows catching the silver streak in her hair.)

“Are there other patients in Kilchberg who have been committed by a family member—I mean for life?” Jack asked.

“Ah, well …” Professor Ritter sighed.

“It’s highly unusual for a private patient to stay here for a number of years,” Dr. Berger said.

“We are expensive,” Dr. von Rohr cut in.

“But worth it!” Dr. Horvath bellowed. “And William loves it here!”

“I’m not concerned about the cost,” Jack said. “I was wondering about the long-term effect.”

“Hospitalism, do you mean?” Dr. von Rohr asked in her just-asking way.

“What exactly is hospitalism?” Jack asked.

“The disease of being in a hospital—a condition in addition to your reason for being here, a second disease,” Dr. Berger stated, but in such a way that he didn’t seem to believe it—as if hospitalism were a speculative illness of the kind Dr. von Rohr was just asking about, an almost dreamy disease, which a fact man, like Dr. Berger, generally ruled out.

“There’s no medication for hospitalism,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said—as if the disease didn’t really exist for her, either.

“But William is happy here!” Dr. Horvath insisted.

“He’s happier in St. Peter,” Dr. von Rohr corrected Dr. Horvath. “Die Kirche St. Peter—the church,” she explained to Jack. “Your father plays the organ there—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, at eight o’clock.”

“Jack can hear him play tomorrow morning!” Dr. Horvath cried.

“That should be worth the trip—even all the way from Los Angeles,” Dr. Berger told Jack.

“One of us should go with Jack—he shouldn’t go with William alone,” Professor Ritter said.

“William never goes to St. Peter alone!” Dr. von Rohr exclaimed.

“They shouldn’t go with Hugo, either,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe suggested. “One of us should go with Jack and William.”

“That’s what I meant!” Professor Ritter said in an exasperated voice.

“I can take them!” Dr. Horvath shouted. “Your father will be excited to play for you!” he told Jack.

“Too excited, maybe,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “I should go, too—just in case there’s a need for medication. A sedative might be in order.”

“Too excited can be a trigger,” Dr. Berger explained.

“Can be, usually isn’t,” Dr. von Rohr told Jack.

“Anna-Elisabeth and I will both go to St. Peter with them. Nothing can happen that we’re not prepared for!” Dr. Horvath said assertively.

“Your father is special to us, Jack. It’s a privilege to take care of him,” Professor Ritter said.

“It is an honor to protect him,” Dr. von Rohr countered—in her hair-splitting way.

“And what does he do with Hugo, when they go to town?” Jack asked the team.

Dr. Horvath jumped on the floor of the exercise hall. Professor Ritter restrained himself from saying “Ah, well …” for once. Dr. Krauer-Poppe emphatically folded her arms across the chest of her lab coat, as if to say there was no medication for what William and Hugo did in town. Dr. von Rohr uncharacteristically covered her face with her hands, as if she momentarily thought she were Dr. Krauer- Poppe.

“Sometimes they just go to a coffeehouse—” Professor Ritter started to say.

“They go to look at women, but they just look,” Dr. Horvath maintained.

“Is my father seeing someone?” Jack asked.

“He’s not oblivious to women,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “And he’s very attractive to women; that hasn’t changed. Not a few of our patients here are attracted to him, but we discourage relationships of that kind in the clinic—of course.”

“Is he still sexually interested or active?” Jack asked.

“Not here, we hope!” Dr. Horvath cried.

“I meant in town,” Jack said.

“On occasion,” Dr. Berger began, in his factual way, “Hugo takes your father to see a prostitute.”

“Is that safe?” Jack asked Dr. Krauer-Poppe, who (he imagined) might have prescribed some medication for it.

“Not if he has sex with the prostitute, but he doesn’t,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.

“These visits are unofficial—that is, we don’t officially approve of them,” Professor Ritter told Jack.

“We just unofficially approve of them,” Dr. von Rohr said; she was back to her head-of-department self, sarcastic and on-the-other-hand to her core.