Wendt. Who are you, and what is she to you?” He held Leo's picture in his hand and looked at me coldly.
I handed him my card and told him of my search.
“I am sorry, Herr Self, but we can only provide patient information to authorized individuals.”
“So she is—”
“That is all I am prepared to say. Who was it who commissioned you to undertake this search?”
I had brought along Salger's letter and handed it to him. Wendt read it with a frown. He didn't look up, although he most certainly had finished reading it. Finally he got a grip on himself. “Please follow me.”
A few doors down he showed me into a conference room with a round table. This room also faced the park. The workers had not finished renovating here. The old frames and glass had been removed from the windows, which were now sealed with a temporary transparent plastic sheet. A fine layer of white dust covered the table, shelves, and filing cabinets.
“Yes, Frau Salger was a patient here. She came about three months ago. Somebody brought her here; he had picked her up…hitchhiking. We have no idea what happened before or during that car ride. The man just told us he'd picked her up and taken her along.” The doctor fell silent and looked pensive. He was still young, wore corduroys and a checked shirt beneath his open white gown, and looked athletic. He had a healthy complexion and his hair was artfully tousled. His eyes were too close-set.
I waited. “You were saying, Dr. Wendt?”
“As they were driving, she had begun to cry and simply wouldn't stop. That went on for over an hour. The man didn't know what to do, and finally decided to bring her to us. Here she continued crying till we gave her a Valium injection and she fell asleep.” Again he stared pensively.
“And what then?”
“Well, what do you think? I initiated her therapy.”
“No, I mean where is Leonore Salger now? How come you didn't contact anyone?”
Again he took his time. “We didn't have…well, it's only now that I find out from you what her real name is. If our receptionist”—he waved his hand in the direction of room 107—”hadn't happened to deal with her a couple of times…she doesn't usually get to see our patients at all. And then you come with a passport photo …” He shook his head.
“Did you notify the police?”
“The police?” He fished a crumpled pack of Roth-Händle cigarettes out of the pocket of his pants and offered me one. I preferred to smoke my own, and took out my pack of Sweet Aftons. Wendt shook his head again. “No, I don't like the idea of having the police here at our hospital, and in this case having her questioned by the police would have been utterly inappropriate from a therapeutic standpoint. And then she got better soon enough. She was here voluntarily and was free to leave any time she wanted. It's not like she was a minor.”
“Where is she now?”
He cleared his throat a couple of times. “I should inform you…I have to…um…Frau Salger is dead. She …” He avoided my eyes. “I am not exactly sure what happened. A tragic accident. Please extend my sincerest condolences to her father.”
“But Dr. Wendt, I can't just call her father and tell him that his daughter died in some tragic accident.”
“True…true. Well, as you see”—he pointed at the window—”we're installing new windows. Last Tuesday, she…On the fourth floor we have these large windows along the hallway from the floor to the ceiling, and she fell though the plastic cover down into the courtyard. She died instantly.”
“So if I hadn't happened to come to see you now you'd have authorized her burial without informing her parents? What kind of a crazy story is this, Dr. Wendt?”
“Of course her parents have been informed. I'm not certain of the exact procedure our office followed, but her parents were most definitely informed.”
“How could your office have informed them if you only found out her name from me?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“And what about the burial?”
He stared at his hands as if they could tell him where Leo was to be buried. “I suppose that is waiting on the parents' response.” He got up. “I've got to go back to my station. You can't imagine the commotion this has created: Her fall, the ambulance sirens, our patients have been very shaken up. May I show you out?”
I tried to take leave outside room 107 but