fate. She did not yet suspect nor wish for anything more than companionship.
FOUR • The Speculum
When she arrived at the doctor’s address on Tuesday, she found she already knew the place by sight. Outside, a small gold plaque screwed to the entryway shone in the sun, and Margaret recognized it. Often when the day was bright and she rode her bicycle north to Wittenbergplatz, the gold of that plaque caught her eye.
The building itself was patrician Gründerzeit, with balconies heavily filigreed, and a cool, damp, white façade.
Margaret came into the courtyard and looked about. The walls were close around the quiet garden, looming and corpulent. But as for an entrance to a doctor’s practice, there was none to be seen. Margaret wandered about the instantly claustrophobic courtyard, her feet sinking into the mossy ground.
At the last moment before she turned about in frustration and went home, she spied a small green door, only as high as her shoulder and almost disappearing in the ivy that climbed the southern wall. Beside it was a sign, also caught in the ivy:
DR. GUDRUN ARABSCHEILIS
Gynaekologie und Geburtshilfe, 3.OG
Sprechzeiten ganztäglich
Dr. Gudrun Arabscheilis
Gynecology and Obstetrics, 3rd Floor
Doctor’s hours all day
Margaret’s eyes glided over the specialties. Funny, she thought. These had not been included on the letterhead. Her eyes flitted over the sign a second time. She thought of running away.
But then—there was something about the wax on the surface of the ivy, something about the damp moss catching its green against her shoes, something about the smell of the wet stucco (it had recently rained) that made Margaret press the buzzer after all, made her even a little light-headed.
The door chimed, and the lock sprang open with no comment from the intercom. Margaret ducked low to get through. She began to climb the stairs leading to the office.
In the stairwell, a familiar aroma overcame her, a smell she could not describe but which she knew well. At first she thought the smell came from the polished wood of the banister. It smelled of long-ago hardened varnish and dirt, like the smell of human skin after a day outside in the summer city. She heard her feet plodding beneath her and dipped her nose down toward the banister. All in a rush it came upon her: no, the scent did not come from the stairs, nor from the stairwell, nor even from the banister. It came from something within Margaret. It came from the experience of climbing the stairs. It wasn’t the emotion that was triggered by the smell, but the smell running out of the emotion within her. For a moment she forgot the doctor entirely and had a rampant euphoria.
At the top of the stairs she came into an empty waiting room. There was a rubber plant in the corner. The plastic chairs were bright, and white paneling lined the walls. A nurse-receptionist with hair drawn tightly back from her brow sat behind a counter so high, Margaret could not see her face.
“Name, please,” the nurse said.
Margaret had not yet caught her breath. “Margaret,” she said.
“Family name,” the woman corrected.
“Taub,” Margaret said. She went close on tiptoe and peered over the counter.
“Taub?” The woman looked up from her paperwork. Her irritated eyes were ringed by green and golden shadow.
“Yes, Taub.” The practice had a hospital style and Margaret felt a shock of cool.
“I’m going to enter you into the logbook as Margaret Täubner,” the receptionist said.
“But that’s not my name,” Margaret said. Her euphoria of only a few moments before was quickly ebbing.
The receptionist, for her part, thought little of the disagreement. Her head disappeared again. Margaret went higher on tiptoe. The nurse filled out a form with a calm left arm, not even asking to see Margaret’s insurance card. Margaret tried to see which name the woman had chosen but even tall Margaret could only see the top third of the woman’s body. The woman’s tightly drawn hair pulled ever more taut as she concentrated.
Margaret took a seat in one of the plastic chairs. She waited a long time.
At last another voice, a very loud, warbling voice, called out Margaret’s name, or rather Margaret Täubner’s name, from all the way down the hall.
“The doctor will see you now,” the nurse said. “Fourth door, all the way at the end.”
As she walked the long hallway, Margaret felt an old fear returning. By the time she came into the doctor’s room, however, it had vanished.
All at once in this spacious back room, gone, too, was the