hours is deemed to be a medical emergency.â
Lukas was no longer complaining; he nodded at me to read on.
âFour hours, it says. How long did you say itâs been like this?â
âDays, on and off.â
â
Days?
â
âYes, for a while it seemed to be getting better, but then it got worse again.â
âBut listen: the condition requires immediate medical attention, to prevent scar formation that could result in permanent inability to maintain an erection.â I looked at him as he stood in front of me, legs wide apart, with the face of a maniac.
âImmediate medical attention, it says here. Doesnât that mean . . . today?â I traced down the page with my finger, searching for the answer:
âTreatment involves draining the blood by inserting a needle into the penis.â
âAagh!â Lukas looked as though he were trying to cast off something that had scalded him, but his hands were empty and it was a pitiful, disembodied gesture.
âThe area is numbed with local anesthetic and the blood is drawn off fromââ
âNo thanks!â
ââfrom the erectile tissue until the swelling goes down.â
âCan you stop!â
âWait. Thereâs an alternative: ice can be put on the perineum to reduce the swelling. Perineum? Whatâs that? Well, you can put ice on it anyway. Climbing stairs is sometimes effective, as the exercise can send the blood flow to other parts of the body.â
âShut up now.â He groaned and sank to the floor, but I kept on reading:
âIn serious cases prolonged accumulation of the blood can lead to necrosis, spontaneous tissue death, gangrene. Fully developed gangrene cannot be cured. In cases of dry gangrene the affected tissue falls off of its own accord. In cases of wet gangrene the affected area must be amputated, i.e., a surgical removal of the penis, known as penectomy.â
Lukasâs face turned pale green, and with his hands at his crotch he stood up and backed out of the room, moaning.
Stairs and iceâhe had no choice.
Lukas was not welcome in our home, preferably not to be seen at all in my vicinity. But there were no stairs at his house and no freezer with ice either, so we had to get into my house unseen. While I made sure it was safe, he started to race up and down the steep stairs between the cellar and the floor above.
âThis feels likeââhe looked as though he would be prepared to have it amputated after allââa sadistic joke,â I caught him saying on the way down.
âBut is it working?â I asked impatiently.
No one trusted him before, and now he was running up and down our stairs half naked and could be discovered at any moment. Still, it was this or a needle in his penisâthat was the choice. I saw his lean suntanned back disappear up the stairs. A back I knew so well, and yet it often seemed so unfamiliar, as changeable as his face. When his height increased, out of control, last spring, his body had not managed to adjust its proportions. He was in disharmony with everything, as if there were no longer enough room in his body, as if he had stretched out rather than grown. Become a tall thin shadow of himself, almost worse than Papa the summer before he left.
â
âHow does it feel?â
âSore.â
âBut has it gotten softer?â I asked next time he passed me as I stood on guard on the landing. He thrust his hand down to see.
âHas it hell.â
Ice was now his only hope. If the stairs were hard work, the ice was humiliating. Lukas was doubtful, but in the absence of ice cubes I had already fetched two bags of frozen mushrooms and stood in the food cellar with them dangling from my hands. He took off his trousers, but I told him to put them on again, that it would be cold enough without putting them directly on his skin. It would be no consolation if he brought it down and it suffered