me for issuing a three-month passport to the author.”
“It is not for me to question that judgement, sir.”
“What other information do you have as regards the suspect, Fräulein? Please do not waste my time.”
“She calls herself an emancipated woman with liberal opinions, and a dedicated nationalist, both intellectually and politically. What is more, Němcová supports the unity of all Slav peoples. Yes, she is certainly involved in revolutionary politics, but I have not been able to discover much in this regard, because the arrival of her husband from Hungary, where he was held prisoner, put an end to any such investigation on my part. It is quite impossible to talk to her husband about Němcová’s politics. Indeed, it’s quite impossible to talk to him about anything.”
The woman, still young, accompanied the doctor to her bedroom. His eyes were shy but glinting, and gave the room a once-over.
“I’m just a medical student, but I hope that—”
“Everyone has had to learn sometime, even Purkyně.”
She smiled. She knew that a medical student working on his degree was legally allowed to work as a doctor, and decided that that was how she would address him.
“Yes, even Purkyně, you’re quite right. I’m fairly well acquainted with Central European medical methods and procedures. I’ve also travelled in the Orient, where I learned many things.”
She knew of the Orient only through a few of the tales from A Thousand and One Nights. She wasn’t at all sure if that was the kind of Orient he was referring to. Who knew why she imagined Bengal lights, the smell of sulfur, and a man playing a penetratingly loud flute in the middle of the brightness. She saw that the people around him were enraptured and watched him with crazed eyes while they all danced to the rhythm of the shrill, tremulous flute.
“Would you mind if I opened the curtains? In order to examine you, I need as much light as possible.”
She didn’t care for that very much. Why was she so averse to light? she asked herself. She wasn’t one of those women who were in the habit of kidding themselves and she told herself that the medical student was much younger than she, by eight or ten years at the very least. Light knew no mercy, she thought, and would lay bare all her wrinkles, even the least pronounced ones, and the ones she hid under her clothes, the worst ones. But there was nothing else to be done. She stood, touched the curtain, and watched the smooth movement of the rings on the curtain rod as the day was revealed.
The young man also got up and brusquely opened the other half of the curtain. The day burst violently into the room. He was surprised for a moment by the view of the Vltava River and the Smíchov Mountains on its far side. He stretched his arms lazily in the golden light of the afternoon. Like a leopard, like one of the Orientals, she thought.
“Show me your tongue, please.”
He studied it carefully and jotted something down in a notebook.
“Don’t blink.”
She looked up at the ceiling. The doctor’s breath smelled of coffee.
“Make a fist. Stay still.”
The woman heard blood pulse. Whose was it? Hers or his? It was banging away like a fire bell. Does a doctor really need whole minutes, which feel like hours, to find her heart rate? He stared at her with penetrating eyes.
“Kindly take off your blouse,” he said.
As if on purpose, the buttons refused to leave their button-holes. He looked at her with imperturbable calm. Only one left to go, at waist level. Her vest, too? Remember he’s a doctor!
She had never felt as demure as when the young man listened to her lungs. He’s a doctor, she told herself time and again. His mustache tickled. In that instant the whole world was in that mustache. She lost interest in everything but the movement of that gentle paintbrush against her body. He’s a doctor! Nonetheless, the mixture of modesty and sweet pain didn’t go away.
While she buttoned herself up, he never so much as looked at her.
The doctor left. But during the day she felt the gentle touch of his mustache against the different parts of her body. In the evening, when she sat under the yellow lampshade with a cup of tea in one hand and a book open on her knees, she had the feeling that a Bengal light burned in the room, and that something moved in the corner.
“This is the