"I don't suppose you have any indication of osteoarthritis," Dr. Huber said. "You're too young," she added. "Mind you, I'm not saying that William's arthritic hands are anything you need to worry about. You don't play the piano or the organ, do you?"
"No. And I don't have any symptoms of arthritis," Jack said.
"Any medications we should know about?" Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked. "I don't mean for arthritis."
"No, nothing," he told her. She looked somewhat surprised, or disappointed--Jack couldn't be sure.
"Now, now!" Professor Ritter called out, clapping his hands. "We should let Jack ask us some questions!"
The doctors cheerfully tolerated Professor Ritter, Jack could tell. The professor was head of the clinic, after all--and he doubtless bore lots of responsibilities of a public-relations kind, which the doctors probably wanted nothing to do with.
"Yes, please--ask us anything!" Dr. Horvath, the skier, said.
"In what way are mirrors triggers?" Jack asked.
The doctors seemed surprised that he knew about the mirrors--not to mention triggers.
"Jack had a conversation with Waltraut, about taking William shopping for clothes," Professor Ritter explained to the others.
"Sometimes, when William sees himself in a mirror, he just looks away--or he hides his face in his hands," Dr. Berger said, sticking to the facts.
"But other times," Dr. von Rohr began, "when he catches a glimpse of himself, he wants to see his tattoos."
"All of them!" Dr. Horvath cried.
"It might not be the appropriate time and place for such a detailed self-examination," Professor Ritter explained, "but William seems not to notice such things. Occasionally, when he starts taking off his clothes, he has already begun a recitation."
"A what?" Jack asked.
"His body is a tapestry, which he can recite--both a history of music and a personal history," Dr. Huber said. Her pager beeped, and she went back to the phone by the door. "Huber hier. Noch nicht!" she said, annoyed. ("Not yet!")
"The problem for someone with your father's meticulousness is that he can never be meticulous enough," Professor Ritter told Jack.
"He's proud of his tattoos, but he's very critical of them, too," Dr. Berger said.
"William thinks that some of his tattoos are in the wrong place. He blames himself for a lack of foresight--he has regrets," Dr. Horvath elaborated.
"Other times," Dr. von Rohr chimed in, "it's a matter of which tattoo should have been closest to his heart."
"But you can have only a limited number of things that are truly close to your heart," Dr. Krauer-Poppe interjected. "He has marked his body with what he loves, but he has also recorded his grief. The antidepressants have calmed him, have made him less anxious, have helped him sleep--"
"But they don't do much for the grief," Dr. von Rohr said, bluntly--turning her head-on-a-coin profile to Jack.
"Not enough, anyway," Dr. Krauer-Poppe admitted.
"It might be overwhelming to discuss specific diagnoses right away. For now, let's just say that your father has suffered losses," Professor Ritter told Jack. "The Ringhof woman, the German wife, but first of all you."
"He is an absurdly emotional man," Dr. Berger said, shaking his head--wishing that William Burns were more of a fact man, apparently.
"The antidepressants have helped--that's all I'm saying," Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.
"Keeping him away from mirrors helps," Dr. von Rohr remarked in her silver-streaked, head-of-department way.
"Are there other triggers?" Jack asked the team.
"Ah, well . . ." Professor Ritter said. "Maybe Jack should meet his father first?" (The team, Jack could tell, didn't think so.)
"Bach!" Dr. Horvath roared. "Anything by Bach."