Free The Girl from Krakow by Alex Rosenberg Page B

pondered. Then she had it: Otto von Bismarck! To complete the image of unapproachability, Dr. Pankow was wearing a frock coat and wing collar. When had she last seen someone dressed this way? At an undertaker’s?
    With no ceremony, Dr. Pankow motioned to the cloth-covered folding screen at the side of the room and said, “Be so kind as to undress, and put on the gown you will find on the examining table.”
    She could hear water running as he washed his hands, and then Pankow came around the screen, now wearing a white coat and pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. As he examined her, he asked several obvious questions. “How regular are your periods? Are they painful? Irregular in their flow? Ever been pregnant and miscarried? Is intercourse painful?” She thought, Why don’t you ask any of the important questions? Why is your husband uninterested in sex? Why is he no good at it when it does occur to him? Why did you marry him in the first place?
    Dr. Pankow’s examination seemed no different from others she had experienced, and she was beginning to wonder what special knowledge he might have. When he had finished, he put his instruments aside, pulled off the gloves, and said, “You may now dress, Pani Guildenstern.”
    A few moments later, they were again facing each other across the broad, heavy desk. “Well, everything seems in perfect order to me. But I want you to see a specialist.”
    Rita looked surprised. “I thought you were a specialist.”
    “My practice is limited to women. I want you to see someone who specializes in reproductive problems. I understand you have traveled some distance. I will call and try to get you an appointment today.” He picked up a telephone on his desk and opened a notebook next to it. Meanwhile, Rita took a train schedule from her purse and began to see how late she could stay. By the time she had located a nine o’clock evening train, he was putting down the telephone. Pankow picked up a pen, dabbed it in an inkwell, and scratched out a few lines on a pad.
    “Here is the address. It’s the gynecology department of Central Hospital. A cab will get you there. Your appointment is at three o’clock.” He pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat, glanced at it, and went on, “May I suggest that you spend the intervening period at the George Hotel, an excellent tearoom? My wife enjoys it very much. Good day.” He did not rise.
    Rita took the address, her departure, and the advice. Outside she found the same old Peugeot taxi. Within three minutes she found herself at the George Hotel. She might have walked and saved a zloty. It was another four-story stone structure, with three ranks of balconies above the main entrance. Rita swept across the entry as though she really were Pani Doctor Guildenstern. The doorman bowed slightly and stood expectantly. “The tearoom, please,” she said. Her eye followed his gesture beyond the arched stairway to double doors with triple brass bars across panes of frosted glass. As she arrived they were swung open by another liveried hand to reveal a scene of late Victorian probity. Elderly dowagers pouring tea for spindly spinster daughters, while fatter daughters-in-law polished off crustless watercress sandwiches. This was not a place Rita wanted to fit into, but it was too late to turn back.
    She took a seat and looked around again. Here on display was the life she was now being relentlessly sucked into. Correct and censorious, these women were dressed in so many layers that motion was almost impossible. They were squinting at menus through lorgnettes and looking down on almost everything. If she were lucky and her husband took her to Lvov often enough, surely she would become accustomed to this room.
    It took the better part of an hour to do justice to a pot of tea and a few buttered brioche. By then the thick damask of the tablecloths, the uncreasable starch of the napkins, the overbearing gleam of the silver metal tea service had begun to