THE DOCTOR’S WIFE

THE POTENTIAL OF DARKNESS • HOW TO MEET A STRANGER • LOVE WHEN LOVE IS GONE

If this story was to be wrapped up and sent as a parcel to an impatient receiver, it should be labeled: “Handle with care”. On the declaration, you’d read: Contains light in darkness and chunks of civilization. Postage according to weight. But this parcel has the weight of life and nobody knows the price of that.

When things fall apart, what is most important? Is it possible to be prepared? The Doctor’s Wife balances between tension and tenderness. It’s easy to read, has a precious feeling to it, and makes you think of simple things like being welcomed by a stranger and finding joy in homemade food in the pantry. Even as darkness is falling.   

INFO:

Read it or listen to it (14 minutes), then proceed to the following questions and the memory exercise.

Relevance: The Doctor’s Wife is about fundamental, existential matters. Relevant for all of us.

Professional relevance: Educational contexts. Especially in relation to discussions of culture, war, and civilization.

Prefer listening? We’ve prepared a recording of The Doctor’s Wife for you. You can hear the full story below. Remember to check out the exercise and questions at the bottom of this page.

The boy enters the courtyard. He carries a teddy bear, covered by dust, and has a flip-flop on his left foot. His hair is stiff and grey, and it’s only afterwards that the doctor’s wife realizes that it was the sound of his steps that had made her think that a changeling had arrived. Flip, flip, flip ... He crosses the courtyard and looks up at her. “I’m hungry” he says. Then he sways, and she catches him before he falls. “Who are you?” she asks. “Where do you come from? What’s your name? Don’t you know it’s dangerous out there?” “I’m hungry,” the boy repeats. “Please.”

“I don’t have much left,” the doctor’s wife says as she sets the table. “And you’re not the first one passing by. Where are your parents?” The boy watches her from his chair. He has scrubbed his hands, but his arms and face are still covered by dirt and dust. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I got lost in the woods. They didn’t have time to stop. When can we eat?” The doctor’s wife prepares a leftover of mackerel, green beans, and potatoes. “I have eggs,” she says. “Do you like eggs?” The boy nods. She peels an egg and hands it to him on a plate. He eats it and hands back the plate. “Watch out,” she says. “Your stomach needs time.” “I’m hungry,” the boy says. “Please.”

The doctor’s wife watches the boy as he eats. She stands by the kitchen table and tries to think of more food to give him. She hasn’t been in town for weeks. It has been too dangerous to drive. “I’ve made a stinging nettle soup,” she says. “Do you like stinging nettle?” The boy shakes his head. “Have you tasted it?” she asks. He shakes his head again. “Then we’ll try a bit. May I sit down with you?” The boy nods. He sits with a straight back and the napkin folded on his lap. Someone has looked after him, taught him manners. “When did you last see your parents,” the doctor’s wife asks. The boy stares into his soup. Then he begins to cry.

It's early summer, and the swallows have returned. It hasn’t rained for weeks; the garden has turned hard and yellow. “It’s too early,” the doctor’s wife thinks as she steps into the courtyard and watches the clouds roll by. “We need rain. We need our gardens to be plentiful.” She wonders what to feed this hungry boy, this changeling with his wolfish appetite. Everything comes with a stale taste of clay, even the tiny leaves of ground elder that she shares with the rabbits in their rusty cage.

The rabbits belonged to the doctor, and he was always discreet about their endings. Can his wife find the same discretion within herself and serve the boy a full meal of rabbit, leeks, and potatoes? If the roads remain closed there’ll be no other way.

There’s a blast in the distance. The doctor’s wife locks the gate and unleashes the dogs. There are three of them, and they don’t obey her like they obeyed the doctor. One of them has taken to snaring. One evening it attempted to bite her as she fed it her leftovers. She wacked it on the head with the plate and felt a sense of relief as the dog whined and retracted to the doghouse. The plate lay splintered on the ground. She had it in her, she thought, the willingness to stand up for herself.

The boy is sleeping on the couch. He is clean by now and has brushed his teeth with the doctor’s toothbrush. The doctor’s wife rinsed it in boiling water before handing it to the boy; she didn’t tell him that it had belonged to the doctor. There’s was another blast, but the boy remained unfazed and kept brushing. “How old are you?” the doctor’s wife asked. “I’m not supposed to tell,” the boy answered. “I’m not supposed to tell strangers anything.” “Then I’ll guess,” the doctor’s wife said. “I think you’re seven years old.” The boy stopped, toothbrush still in mouth, and stared at the doctor’s wife in the mirror above the sink.

“Tomorrow I’ll guess your name,” she said.

“You’ll never guess it,” the boy answered. “It’s a very special name. It’s Erik.”

“I’ll make my guess tomorrow.”

The doctor’s wife is awakened by a blast. This one was nearby. It’s four in the morning, but the sky is already pale blue. She goes to check on the boy and feels a new weight on her feet, the full weight of her body. She feels aged but inexperienced, privileged but unknowing. What is she to do with this child that has landed on her doorstep? Why did he choose her house? And why did she allow the doctor to let her live without feeling the weight of life?

The boy is no longer on the couch, the front door has been opened. “Who did this?” she wonders. “Did his parents come looking for him?”

She enters the courtyard and feels the wind. It smells of rain but later it will be dry and dusty again. The gate is still locked. She looks around, trying to suppress a feeling of relief. Then she sees him sitting by the dogs, scratching them and letting them lick his hands and face. “Watch out!” she yells. “They’re dangerous.”

“I like them,” he says. “They’re nice dogs. Can they come and sleep with me on the couch?”

“They’re guard dogs,” she answers. “They live out here and protect us.”

“They can protect us from the couch.”

“Come on,” the doctor’s wife says. “I don’t want you to be cold.”

The boy spends the day by the gate, examining the stream of people flowing down the road. Most of them are on foot, some of them are hauling bicycles, pushcarts, or wheelbarrows loaded with suitcases, sport bags, clothes, shoes, paintings, food, crying children, a screaming parrot in a cage. The doctor’s wife stays in the kitchen. “Maybe he will spot a relative,” she thinks. “Maybe someone will knock on my door and thank me for taking care of him.”

But nobody knocks on the door, and the boy looks disheartened. She brings him a plate of food and sits down with him. “I’m sure your mommy will come looking for you,” she says. The boy sobs. “What if she doesn’t come?” he says. “Then what?”

“Then we’ll go looking for her,” the doctor wife’s answers. “Do you want me to guess your name?”

The boy nods.

“I think your name is Bjørn.”

He smiles. “See? I told you it was a special name. You’ll never guess it. Now I’ll guess yours.” He squints, but nothing comes. “I can’t,” he says. “It’s too difficult.”

“People just calls me the doctor’s wife,” she says. “It has been like that for many years. Maybe you can find a new name for me.”

“Does the doctor live here too?” the boy asks.

“He used to,” she answers. “But he had to leave to help people in town.”

“Will he be coming back soon?”

“No,” she says. “He will not be coming back.”

It’s late afternoon. There’s a smell of smoke and burnt rubber in the air. The boy comes running into the kitchen. “There’s a bus in the courtyard,” he yells. “It’s full of men. They say that they’ll shoot the dogs if they don’t stop barking.”

The doctor’s wife follows the boy. An old, rusty van has been parked in the courtyard. A group of men stand by the gate, smoking and laughing. They’re dressed in odd uniforms and carry hunting rifles. “Which side are they on?” the doctor’s wife thinks. “What do they want from me? Which side am I on?”

One of the men lifts a hand in greeting and makes an excuse. He could be her age, with a grey beard and horn glasses, maybe an accountant or publisher who’s doing his best in this new situation. “Like an owl,” she thinks, “flying in from the bell tower to put things in order. The doctor would have liked him.”

The man asks about the status. How many are they? Is the boy hers? Do they have food? Will the dogs bite? Is there a basement in the house?

“We have a basement,” the doctor’s wife says. “But it’s too small for all of you. We only use it as a pantry.”

“We’ll be up here,” the man answers, “but you must go down with the boy. And tomorrow morning you must leave. The people coming after us will not be nice. And the dogs will have to be quiet.”

“I can’t control them,” the doctor’s wife says. “They belonged to my husband. They will only obey him.”

“I can control them,” the boy says and runs towards the dogs.

“Come back,” the doctor’s wife calls. “They’ll bite you.”

But the dogs don’t bite the boy. They lick him and whine as he kneels and whispers to them. The doctor’s wife can’t hear his words, but the dogs fall silent, and the man with the grey beard shrugs before returning to his comrades.

“See?” the boy says. “They’re nice dogs.”

“What did you tell them?” she asks.

He giggles. “That’s a secret.”

The doctor’s wife make coffee for the men and let the boy bring it to the courtyard. She carries pillows and blankets to the basement, and a basket filled with tea, sandwiches, and biscuits. The blasts come more frequently and seems to be circling in on the house. “Will we have time?” she thinks. “Will we be able to make our way out?”

The boy stands at the top of the stairs but doesn’t want to go any further. “Come,” the doctor’s wife calls. “It’s nice and cool down here. I have tea and biscuits.”

“It’s too dark,” he says.

“Come down and I’ll tell you a secret.”

The boy hesitates, then – one slow step at a time – makes his way down the stairs. The doctor’s wife leads him by the hand. He sobs and shakes, and she puts her arms around him.

“It’ll be all right,” she says.

“What’s the secret?” he asks. “You promised to tell me a secret.”

“Sit down,” she says and feels overwhelmed by responsibility. No one taught her how to handle this, how to look after a boy. She always wished for a child of her own to arrive, but it never happened. Instead, she found another life, a pleasant life with the doctor. She never prepared for this.  

“Let me tell you about darkness,” she begins, not knowing where to go next, but then she tells the boy of the pantry, of the pickles and marmalades, of the doctor’s brandies and aquavit with herbs from the garden, of the blue porcelain platters from her grandmother and the bouquet of wildflowers hanging on its head but still smelling of a distant summer. She tells of berries, of mushrooms and old knives, of the winter evenings when she pours honey in her tea and think of lavenders and the heat of August. She tells of darkness and of that which is not darkness, and she holds the boy’s hand throughout the night, and just before he falls asleep, he sits up straight and asks: “And tomorrow? What will we do tomorrow?

“Tomorrow we will go find your mommy,” the doctor’s wife answers.

“Can the dogs come with us?” he asks.

“Only if you tell them to behave.”

“I will,” he says. “I promise.”

Credits:
Written and produced by The Empty Square
Illustration: Samuel Toi
Voice artist: Lena Fiszman