I nodded.

“Would you like anything while you’re waiting? Coffee? Tea? A sandwich?”

“No.”

He had backed out and was about to close the door when I changed my mind.

“Actually, yes. One of those application forms, you know the ones.”

“What kind of application form?”

“One of those you fill in when you want to make a final donation as soon as possible.”

An expression of dismay appeared on Birthmark’s face.

“Are you sure?” he said. “You’re… you’re expecting a child, aren’t you?”

I didn’t reply, just gave him a long stare. He looked away, slightly embarrassed I thought; he looked as if he felt stupid.

He went away, came back with an application form, and left me alone once again. I sat down at the desk. The first question was:

1. This application comprises

 A. a request to be moved to another section. (Proceed to question 2)

 B. a request to be moved to another unit. (Proceed to question 5)

 C. a request to make a final donation. (Proceed to question 8)

 D. a request for postponement of a final donation (Proceed to question 9)

I ticked box C and went on to question 8, where I ticked box A:

8. I wish my final donation to be carried out

 A. as soon as possible.

 B. with effect from this date: year ____________________, month ____________________, day ____________________.

Right at the bottom on the other side of the form, under “Further information,” I wrote: I am six weeks pregnant. Request transplantation/abortion of fetus to be carried out in conjunction with final donation.

Then I signed my name, wrote my ID number and the date, then turned my chair to the window. While I was waiting I looked at the pond, the trees, the snow, the birds. Watched a male wild duck as he emerged from the water, shook himself so that the droplets of water formed a ring around him, then began to waddle across the ice, up over the uneven and obviously slippery bank where he stumbled and slid several times before he managed to get up onto the flat, snow-covered ground where he stopped for a few seconds, as if to catch his breath. Then he waddled off across the snow on his orange duck’s feet which seemed to work extremely well as snow shoes, because he didn’t break the surface once, not until he began to run, clumsy and without any real rhythm, as he flapped his wings, flapped and flapped, and took off. He flew in a wide, shimmering green arc above the pond, then in among the trees where he disappeared from view.

24

Johannes was breathing. Or to be more accurate: the respirator was breathing for him. The respirator was an air pump with a thick plastic tube going into a mask that covered half his face. The respirator hissed and clicked and sucked, hissed and clicked and sucked, at regular intervals. Meanwhile the heart frequency wrote its monotonous message on a monitor next to the respirator, accompanied by a mechanical beep, also at regular intervals.

I was sitting next to the operating table on a high stool, wearing a protective lab coat, plastic gloves, a hairnet, and a mask. Most of Johannes’s body was covered with green surgical sheets, with only his head, neck, shoulders and arms visible. His skin had a yellowish tone. From beneath the covers snaked various tubes containing different-colored fluids, attached to different machines. There was another tube running between a needle inserted into the back of one hand and a drip behind the headboard.

I ignored the instructions I’d been given, took off the plastic gloves and placed one hand cautiously on the green sheet above the left side of his chest. His heart was beating as usual. Exactly as usual, just a little more evenly, the rhythm as steady as a drumbeat, and it was not affected by either my presence or my touch; no increased pulse rate, no surprised or happy double beat, no short, breathless pauses. Just this sucking noise followed by the hissing, the clicking, and the monotonous little beep.

I wished I had lived at the time when people still believed in the heart. When people still believed that the heart was the central organ, containing all the memories, emotions, capabilities, defects and other qualities that make us into specific individuals. I longed to go back to an age of ignorance, before the heart lost its status and was reduced to just one of a number of vital but replaceable organs.

The fact that Johannes’s heart was beating, that I could feel the warmth of his body and a steady pulse against my hand meant nothing more than that the blood was being pumped around the body that had been his. He was alive, but he no longer existed. And yet I leaned over, took off my mask and whispered in his ear:

“Why? Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you say you were happy? Why didn’t you let me grieve with you? While we still had the chance.”

I got no reply, of course. I straightened up, slid my hand up from the covered chest to his bare shoulder and the area around his collarbone. The skin was so warm, and the throbbing veins beneath made it feel so alive that for a fraction of a second I expected him to raise one hand and stroke my cheek gently, consoling me, just as he had done that first evening at the welcome party, exactly a year ago. I closed my eyes, caressed the length of his upper arm and lower arm, ran my fingers through the coarse hairs there and on the back of his hand, grasped his hand between both of mine. It was limp and heavy, but otherwise it felt just the way it always did: broad and rough, like that of a person who did physical labor, but with long, sensitive fingers-dream fingers for a pianist, or why not a surgeon. I turned the hand over, touched its cupped shape: the deep lines in the palm, the smooth calluses on the surfaces of the otherwise soft cushions at the base of the fingers-the hand’s equivalent of pads. With my fingertips I felt his fingertips, which had so often and so passionately touched the most sensitive parts of my body. Then I bent over his palm and kissed it. As I did so I felt-close, so close-the scent of his skin, his body. I drew that scent into my body.

“Dorrit…” The voice made me jump and open my eyes; I hadn’t heard anyone come into the room.

I straightened up immediately, let go of Johannes’s hand and turned in the direction of the voice. It was Birthmark.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But the team needs to carry on. You’ll have to…”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.” And without either looking at or touching Johannes’s body again I slipped down from the stool and followed Birthmark out.

Outside the operating room he stopped, turned to me and looked at me with the same sincere expression that Petra Runhede favored.

“What is it?” I asked crossly.

“You’re very pale,” he said. “You look completely worn out. You look as if you need to talk to somebody about what you’ve just been through.”

I didn’t feel at all worn out, oddly enough. But life had taught me that reactions after traumatic experiences are sometimes delayed, and perhaps Birthmark could see something reflected in my face that I was not yet aware of. However, I had no desire whatsoever to talk to someone right then, particularly as I suspected he meant that the someone should be him. Because what could someone like him do for someone like me in a situation like this?

As if I had spoken out loud, he said:

“As you are perhaps aware, all unit staff are trained in trauma management. Let’s go back to the break room.”

I didn’t know that, in fact, but said nothing, merely shrugged my shoulders and allowed myself to be escorted back to the little room with the view over the park.

The light had altered slightly outside. A bluish twilight was falling slowly over the whiteness.

“Sit down,” said Birthmark, closing the door then checking the handle to make sure it was locked. I presumed this was a reflex action, just like when I had tried the window.