Sea Music. Sara MacDonald

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       Chapter 15

      Berlin

      He sits in his flat studying a street map of London. He stares down at the tiny row of houses where Hans has told him the woman lives. He circles the house, the law courts and her chambers in the city with a soft lead pencil.

      He makes another little circle on his English map, right down in the toe of England where the woman grew up. Far from London, but London is not far from Berlin, London is only a few hours away.

      He pours coffee, then goes to open the glass doors and sits on the small balcony. If he took up Scheffell’s offer he would have a valid reason for going to London. A two-week seminar would be good for him, keep his hand in, stop his brain from atrophying.

      He looks across the swathe of park in front of him to the city glinting below. The faint roar of muffled traffic comes to him from the autobahn. He thinks of his working life, the years flying by too quickly, the time so easily taken for granted. That time when you are young and single-minded. Striving to get to the top of your profession. Strands of a life gathered up in careful calculated threads. Career, travel and women. In that order. Each thread separate, unless he wished it otherwise.

      Academically fulfilling years. Exciting. Because of the power. Every surgeon becomes aware of the seductive power in his hands, the thrill of learning, teaching, becoming expert. Healing tired, diseased and broken bones. Mending, stapling together, piecing like an intricate jigsaw smashed limbs. Devising new ways of operating and post-operative care. Becoming eminent. All this, behind him.

      Every doctor, at some time, abuses that aura of godlike status. Not necessarily with his hands as he heals, but with his heart, as he so casually picks up and discards the people who pass through his life.

      Women, you mean. He sips his coffee and watches the wind get up, filling the air with pollen. Is it not amazing the euphemisms one uses to delude oneself? A third party detachment. A collective every and we to distance ourselves from our own responsibility.

      I have spent my life distancing myself. How many women, young or old, professionally and personally, have I hurt by my actions? Theatre nurses berated for a simple mistake. Patients and young doctors sycophantic to avoid my sarcastic tongue.