What’s keeping Wolf? How can it take them so long to brew up this bit of stuff? But I’m not going to complain, it’s a good sign that he’s not back right away, it means they really are making up the medicine. If he’s back fast, it can only mean they’ve rejected the prescription. I’m going to have morphine in a minute! And I lay the syringe on the seat next to me, to have it ready.
Here’s Wolf now. I can tell at a glance he hasn’t got it. He tells the driver the next address, sits down next to me and shuts his eyes, and I notice he’s panting, wiping the sweat off his brow with his hand.
‘They’re no human beings in there, they’re beasts, they’re filth! How can they inflict such suffering on innocent people? I had to plead with them not to call the cops.’
‘I thought this was a tame pharmacy?’
‘The old apothecary wasn’t there, there was one of those young chaps instead. They’re all so sharp they cut themselves, you know the type.’
‘I can’t keep going much longer, Wolf. Shouldn’t we maybe call it quits, and check ourselves into an institution?’
‘Do you think they’ll give you any? You’ll wind up in a padded cell and left to scream to your heart’s content. Bobby hanged himself eight times one night from his bed-leg; in the end the warders left him till he was almost blue, so that it would take him a bit longer to get his strength up to do it again. But they still didn’t give him any.’
The cab stops. Wolf tries again. While he’s gone, I resolve to come off morphine by myself. If I am to rely on Wolf and his pharmacies, I’ll never get my eight fixes a day.* I’ll just have to lessen my dose, I can manage that. Only now, I need two or three fixes right off, just to get good and full.
Wolf is back already, gives the next address, and we set off.
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing!’
It’s looking bleak. And outside people are running around with their heads full of plans, looking forward to stuff, and there are flowers and girls and books and theatres. All of it doesn’t exist for me. I’m thinking that Berlin has hundreds of pharmacies, and every one of them has stacks of morphine, and I’m not getting any of it. I’m suffering, even though it would be so easy to make me happy, the pharmacist has only to turn a key … I don’t mind paying, I’m happy to give him all the money I have.
Wolf moves on.
Suddenly it occurs to me that this repeated parking next to pharmacies must be making the driver wonder. What if he tells the police? I start a conversation with him, give him some rigmarole about the two of us being not exactly dentists but sort of dental technicians. And as such we aren’t supplied with anaesthetics for pain-free extractions for our patients, we get prescriptions from dentists, and these prescriptions cost money. That’s why we’re going into all these pharmacies …
The driver keeps saying, yes, I see, and nodding his head. But there’s something uncertain about his smile, so I remain suspicious of him and resolve to pay him off as soon as we can find a moment, only not right away because then he’ll just go to the nearest policeman.
3
Wolf is back. ‘Lose the car.’
My heart starts to beat. ‘Did you get some then?’
‘Lose the car.’
I pay the driver, and give him a ridiculous tip. Then: ‘Have you got the stuff?’
‘Like fun! Today’s such a rotten fucked-up day none of these bastards is going to accept my prescription. We’d better go about it differently. I’ll keep on with the pharmacies, and you go to a doctor and see if you can’t steal some prescription forms.’
‘Sorry, I can’t do that. In my present state any doctor can tell at a glance that I’m a morphinist.’
‘Well, let him. We just need the prescription forms.’
‘And what will we do with them? If it says morphine, they just ring the doctor.’
‘Then we’ll take the midday train to Leipzig. Just be sure to take a good stack, enough to see us through a couple of weeks.’
‘Okay, I’ll give it a go. And where do we meet?’
‘One o’clock at the Pschorr beer hall.’
‘What if you get lucky before that?’
‘I’ll try and hook up with you sooner.’
‘All right, then!’
‘See you!’
I head off. It’s not my first shot at a tour like this. I’m better at this game than Wolf because I am better-dressed and look more trustworthy. But today I’m in a pathetic state. I can’t seem to walk properly; though I keep wiping my hands on my handkerchief, a minute later they’re running with sweat again; and I have to yawn incessantly. This isn’t going to work, I can tell already.
Passing a bar, I think a drink or two might help to settle me. But after one glass I need to get out, like before with the coffee my stomach is mutinying, I can’t seem to keep anything down. Then I’m sitting on the grim bog, crying. As soon as I’ve recovered a little, I head off again.
The first doctor’s I come to, the waiting room is chock-a-block. Panel-doctor, to make matters worse. They issue so few prescriptions to private patients that they usually keep the block of them inside their desks. I decide not even to try, and sneak out.
On the stairs I feel so ill, I need to sit down. I can’t go on. I decide to lie here and wait for someone to find me and take me to the doctor. Who, out of sympathy, will give me an injection. At least that way I’ll get faster service than if I sit in the waiting room for my turn.
Someone is coming up the stairs. I hurriedly get up, pass him, and go out onto the street. A few doors along I see another doctor’s plate and I go up. He’s not open for business for another fifteen minutes, fine, I’ll go in and wait. I sit there all alone, looking through his magazines.
Suddenly I get an idea. I stand up and press my ear to the surgery door. Nothing. Very slowly I turn the doorknob, the door opens a crack, I peep in and I don’t see anyone. Inch by inch I open the door, I creep on tiptoe into the surgery. There’s the desk, and there in that wooden tray … I’m already reaching out my hand when I think I hear a noise, and I leap back into the waiting room and sit down.
No further noise, no one comes in, it was a mistake. But now I’m too demoralized to chance it a second time, I sit there idly, unable to do anything. The minutes pass, I could have emptied the desk, I could have had my pick of his medicine cupboard, but I don’t dare; today just is an unlucky day.
Just keep still, Hans, and take your medicine.
4
The doctor half-opens the door and asks me in. I get up, enter the surgery, bow and give him my name. Suddenly all my hesitation and feebleness are fallen from me, I’m no longer a slimy dissolute something or other at the end of my rope, but a calm man of the world, expressing himself succinctly and effectively.
I know I’m making an excellent impression. I smile, I use a racy expression with the assuredness of someone in full control of his language, I throw in a little gesture and cross my legs to show off my silk socks.
The doctor sits opposite and keeps his eyes riveted on me.
I get to the point. I am just passing through Berlin and have a very painful abscess on my arm, would the Medical Councillor perhaps have the goodness to examine it, and see if it might be possible to lance it?
The doctor asks me to take my jacket off. I show him the swollen, purple place on the inside of my forearm where pus is seething under the skin, ringed by dozens of puncture marks, from angry pink to brownish and almost healed.
He says: ‘Are you a morphinist?’
‘Used to be, Medical Councillor! Used to be! I’m in the withdrawal phase. The worst is behind me, Medical Councillor. Nine-tenths better.’
‘Good. Very well, then I’ll operate.’
Just that. Not another word. My serenity vanishes, I stand there pale and shaking, afraid of the knife which I know is going to hurt. The doctor has his back to me, is looking in a glass case for scalpel, pincers, swabs … I take one large soundless step on the carpet, my fingertips
brush against paper, and –
‘Be a good fellow, and just leave them where they are,’ the doctor says curtly.
I’m reeling. I can see the city before my eyes, rushing by, where I am so all alone, victim to a despair that is like nothing else. I see the streets full of people going places, going to other people, only I am abandoned and washed up. A sob wells in my throat, forces my mouth open.
Suddenly my face is running with tears. I’m wailing: ‘What shall I do? Oh, Medical Councillor, please can’t you help me out, just one little jab?’
He’s at my side, grasping my shoulder, he leads me back to the chair, he lays his hand across my forehead. ‘Calm down, calm down, sir, we’ll talk everything over. Help is at hand.’
My heart surges with gratitude, in a few seconds I will be released from this nameless torment and will receive my injection. The words tumble over one another, life is already getting easier, I will break myself of the habit, this will be my last, my very last injection, followed by no more. I swear. ‘Can I have it now, please, right away? But it will have to be three per cent solution, and five mls, otherwise it won’t have any effect.’
‘I’m not giving you an injection. You have to get to the point where this life becomes so unendurable for you that you freely decide to institutionalize yourself.’
‘I’ll kill myself first.’
‘No you won’t. No morphinist will kill himself, except indirectly or inadvertently by overdose. He’d rather go through the most atrocious sufferings than give up the smallest chance of getting another injection. No, you won’t kill yourself. But it’s high time for you to go to an institution, if it’s not already too late. Do you have money?’
‘A little.’
‘Enough to afford treatment in a private clinic?’
‘Yes! But they won’t give me any morphine there either!’
‘You’ll get some to start off with, then gradually less while they wean you onto something else, tranquillizers. Then one day you’ll take a deep breath, and you’ll be over it.’
I picture the bed-leg where the poor wretch kept trying to hang himself. The doctor’s a canny bastard all right, trying to talk me into going, and then once I’m inside none of what he said will come to pass.
‘Well,’ says the doctor, ‘what will you do, decide! If you agree to let me take you to a clinic right away, then I’ll give you an injection first. Well?’
I look away, defeated. Yes, I will undertake to go through these sufferings, I agree to be cured. I nod my consent.
The doctor continues: ‘It’s important you understand I won’t let myself be duped. After giving you the injection, I’ll keep you locked up in the waiting room while I get myself ready. I’m not going to let you out of my sight, is that understood?’
Once more, I nod. All I’m thinking about is the injection which I’m going to get now, now … And then we get into some argy-bargy about the dose, which goes on for fully fifteen minutes, and in which we both lose our tempers. In the end, of course, the doctor comes out on top, and I am to get just two mls of three per cent solution.
He goes over to a cupboard, unlocks it and prepares the injection. I follow him, look over his shoulder at the labels on the ampoules to be certain I’m not going to be rooked. Then I sit down to wait. He injects me.
And now … I quickly get up, go into the waiting room and lie down on a sofa. I hear him lock the doors.
5
Ah …
There …
There it is again. Ain’t life beautiful? A gentle, happy stream flows through my joints, in its wash all my nerves gently bob about like water plants in a clear lake. I see rose petals. And again I can appreciate the beauty of a single small tree in a backyard. Those petals again. Are those church bells? Yes, life is mild and holy. Those endless sunny Sundays when I used to work, before I decided I preferred death instead. Getting up at the crack of dawn, seeing the sun on the curtains and the sun in the leaves, and hearing bells and birdsong. Then the sound of a whistle, and across the little square with the feathery acacia trees comes my girl in her Sunday best. I’m thinking about you too, sweetheart, long-lost sweetheart, I have a new sweetheart, she’s called Morphine. She’s angry with me, she makes my life a misery, but she also rewards me more than I can fathom.
How limited you used to be, woman. I always reached past you and over you, I thought I’d reached you, but actually I was somewhere completely different … This girl, though, she gets under my skin. She fills my brain with clear, candescent light. I know now that everything is vanity, and the only reason I remain alive is for her intoxication. She lives inside me, I’m no longer a primitive beast so dependent on sex that even in exhaustion it thrashes about unappeased and wild in its yearning for the other, no, I’m sophisticated, man and woman in one, and the mystical union is celebrated at the point of a needle, there is my flawless beloved and my consummate lover, they’re celebrating Whitsun together somewhere under the canopy of my scalp.
I feel like reading, I think I’ll read the stupidest nonsense I can find in this doctor’s waiting room, and a new dazzling sense will illuminate the high-flown bluestocking twaddle, one advertisement will smell like flowers, and in another I think I’ll find the taste of fresh bread that my stomach can no longer … stomach. I feel like reading.
I open a book. There’s a flyleaf, a smooth, white flyleaf, and that gives me pause: the cautious doctor has rubber-stamped his name, address and phone number on this white flyleaf. Don’t worry, Mr Medical Councillor, it’s not that I’m about to steal your book, I would just like to keep your flyleaf in my pocket for a keepsake. Because once it’s been nicely trimmed by a good pair of scissors, it’ll be indistinguishable from one of those long-desired prescription forms that are good for maybe fifty or a hundred happinesses. For today I’m laughing.
I’m beside myself. I lift my hand a little and then quickly let it fall again, so that the renewed rush of poison into it – briefly interrupted by my movement – can immediately affirm the presence of my possessive sweetheart. The effect of the injection isn’t over yet, I can still take pleasure in my life. And for later, for later, I have the prescription.
Then I hear my doctor’s footfall. Have I not committed myself to entering an institution? My sweetheart smiles, I’d forgotten all about that, but her mere being here with me means that nothing can stop me or force me to do anything. I am all alone in the world, I have no commitments, everything is vanity, only pleasure counts, only my beloved I must not betray.
And I think how rich and happy I am. Haven’t I got enough money to buy my morphine? What do I need a woman for? Do I want for anything? I think of a book I have at home, a book by a Viennese author* who fell victim to a similar poison to me, I will read in it about his desperation and his fanatical faith in his poison, and I will smile and know that I am just as desperate and fanatical in the upholding of my own faith.
The doctor comes and unlocks the door. I take my feet off the sofa and slowly and cautiously sit upright, so as not to alarm the poison in me by a sudden movement. ‘Are we ready, then, Medical Councillor?’ and a cocky smile.
‘Yes, we can go now.’
‘But one more injection before we go, please, the drive will be at least an hour, and I can’t last that long.’
‘But my dear fellow, you’re quite full.’
‘I tell you, it’s already wearing off. And when we’re all alone together, I’m afraid I’ll make a fuss. With another injection in me, I’ll follow you meekly as a lamb.’
‘Well, if you really think …’
He leads the way into his surgery. I follow in triumph. Little does he know me. He doesn’t know that he could get me to do anything by dangling a syringe in front of me, but that when my sweetheart is on board I am strong and resolute.
I get my second injection, and then we leave. I walk down the stairs extremely cautiously. I can feel the good trickling in my body and the lovely, secret warmth. I have a thousand thoughts,
because my brain is strong and free, it’s the most resolute brain in the world.
There, the doctor opens the rear door of his car. I get in, and while he’s starting the motor and getting settled and fussing with blankets, I open the other door and leap out, because my body is young and agile, and I go under in the crowd and disappear. And never clap eyes on the doctor again.
6
I knew I shouldn’t go too far so as not to diminish the effect of the morphine by too vigorous movements. I looked at my watch, it was not quite noon. I thought of going straight to the Pschorr where I was going to meet Wolf later. But right away I realized that that was precisely the wrong thing to do. What if he was early too, he would see I had got some stuff, and then kiss goodbye to any chance of getting help from him, who was hard up himself.
Did I even have to see him at all? Hadn’t I got a prescription form in my pocket that could be exchanged for loads of lovely shots? If I let Wolf have that, if I so much as indicate the existence of this piece of paper, then fully half those joys were as good as lost to me already. And I was hard up myself.
I am sitting on the nicely padded and sprung sofa of a wine bar, in front of me an ice bucket with a bottle of Rhine wine. I have the first glass already poured, lift it to my mouth and in deep draughts I inhale the nose of the wine. Then I quickly look aside to the waiter, see that he isn’t looking, and empty the glass into the ice bucket. The alcohol would only fight with the morphine in my stomach and limit its effects, my only thought is to extend those effects for as long as possible. And I had to order something to be able to sit here unmolested.