Y's Revenge. Lou Bihl

He then explained the potential adverse effects of radiotherapy, such as mucosal irritation of the bladder and bowel, all of which sounded less frightening than Pampers-peeing. Finally, he showed me a typical treatment plan for prostate radiation on his computer screen. Circular areas and oscillating lines were rendered in radiant, smoothly blended colors indicating the prostate, bladder, and rectum. Schön’s contagious joy about his work tempted me to almost ask about gender-affirmative surgery after radiation, but the fear prevailed and, once again, I kept silent and the moment went by.

      “Let me know when you’ve made a final decision,” he said.

      On my way through the tiled corridor, I surrendered to the temptation of buying cigarettes at the kiosk.

      My congenial colleague had blurred the alleged clarity, rather than confirming my treatment preference, and had forced me to rethink about the da Vinci option. Again, the song “You Want It Darker” crossed my mind. If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game, if you are the healer, means I’m broken and lame?

      Half an hour later, the sky had brightened again. The late afternoon sun was shining through the skylights, flooding my flat with light. Discontented, I put the cigarettes back in my pocket as Mrs. Jablonski was still there. The earthy smell of the agent she used to polish the maple parquet floor mingled with the aroma of her physical self; she tended to deodorize her massive perspiration with the Old Spice aftershave used by her spouse Horst.

      Mrs. Jablonski had proven her skills in Irmgard’s practice, since my ex-wife was a merciless master of tidiness. She had soon recognized how badly I needed her and responded with the continuous expansion of her responsibilities, which included occasionally stuffing my fridge with healthy homemade foods. She felt that “the Professor” ate too much junk food deprived of vitamins.

      I politely thanked Mrs. Jablonski for the white cabbage casserole with meatballs and, pleading a severe headache, asked her to kindly call it a day.

      The quiet did not last. I found a message from Petra on the answering machine. “I thought, during your sabbatical, you would finally spend more time with me. I think we need to talk.”

      My first impulse was to ignore her call, but the checklist made me restless, and since Wolff’s diagnosis, I had felt the nagging necessity to sort out the priorities in my life.

      We had met at a training course for Pilates. At the age of forty-seven, mostly misjudged as being in her late thirties, Petra was in the dangerous phase when menopause is anticipated and libido becomes voracious and fearless. I appreciated her well-trained body of a sports teacher and her insatiable appetite for sex. However, recently, my illusion of sex as a medium of creating closeness without exposing myself too much had dissipated—even more so, as I was sure she would not get along with Kristina. So, I had never introduced them, and now this would no longer a relevant issue.

      I took my cell phone and sent an SMS asking her to meet me. She replied right away.

      I am totally excited and starving.

      Today, I would let her starve. Regrettably. Breaking up because of cancer is nothing personal; nobody gets mad at a cancer patient.

      Petra let me help her out of her raincoat. Before I could even offer her a drink, she had flipped open the snap fasteners of her blouse with a single move. Her striped push-up bra left half of the nipples free. She lifted her short leather skirt without bothering with the garter belt. As usual, she had already taken off her slip in the elevator and stuffed it into her handbag.

      I grabbed her hands. “No, please. Wait a moment!”

      Rather than taking me seriously, she mistook the deferral as part of the foreplay. With her muscular arms, she towed me toward the seat cushion, threw me into its smooth depths, and dropped herself on top of me.

      Smelling her apple shampoo and vanilla perfume and a whiff of her freshly washed pussy made my willful intent to resist simply evaporate. If God provides males with only one blood supply for the cock and brain, this clearly was a moment of distal rather than cerebral perfusion. Petra verified my flesh’s readiness with a proficient grip and put herself on top of me straightforwardly.

      Catching our breath afterward, I offered champagne. Then I broke the news in plain language—separation because of cancer. Nothing personal … appreciation of the time together.

      For a moment, she was misty-eyed and excused herself to the bathroom. When she got back, she looked extremely pale. I added that an aging cancer patient, potentially disposed to disintegration, was in no way a reasonable partner for a lady of her league.

      She refilled her glass with champagne and, with the color returned to her cheeks, replied, “Of course, I would have been there for you, even with cancer, but if you prefer to go through this on your own, I’ll regretfully respect your decision.”

      She fished the slip out of her handbag, closed the snap fasteners, wished me good luck, and headed for the door.

      Taking a long sip, I waited for relief, which turned out to again be more elusive than a vague and unexpected disappointment— along with a feeling of shame for overestimating my importance. I had expected pity and had feared overprotection. What I had witnessed was the impulse to get straight away from me and my cancer. In any case, one more task on my list was taken care of.

      I was in a shoe shop, searching for sneakers for my road trip, when Micky’s call reached me.

      “Grandpa, can we please have cemetery cake today?”

      Micky’s voice on the phone sounded excited. Her mother took over. Rumors had spread at school about Micky’s grandfather’s cancer. Tina, a twelve-year-old girl from the neighborhood, was even asserting that Micky’s grandpa would soon be gone. Could I explain the whole subject to Micky and reassure her?

      I was happy for the distraction from my anxiety and the tedious shopping in preparation for the trip. Micky, Maren, and I always enjoyed having cake in the vicinity of the Dorotheenstädtischen Friedhof and afterward we would visit the grave of Maren’s grandmother. While Maren took care of the flowers, Micky and I would walk around the gallery of former celebrities. She loved to listen to me tell stories about the deceased, either by heart or sometimes with the assistance of my smartphone. Maren was not always happy with our tours; for instance, she had found it inappropriate when I tried to explain the basics of life in a commune at the grave of Fritz Teufel.

      The cake was almost gone when I arrived at the cafe twenty minutes late, except for a few crumbs of bitter chocolate Micky had scratched off her tart. She held the emptied plate under my nose.

      “This is all you get, Grandpa. You’re late again.”

      Shaking her softly, I lifted her tiny figure and snarled, “Ok, my dear Chocolate Crumb, then I will feed myself on you.”

      “You are not supposed to call Micky ‘Chocolate Crumb’,” Maren reprimanded. She found that a racist term and had once confessed she did not like to be reminded that Micky had resulted from an ecclesiological ecstasy during her encounter with a member of the Tewahedo Ethiopian Orthodox Church—a man she had met seven years ago at a protestant church congress, which was an event she attended regularly since falling in love with a boy from the YMCA.

      “Why don’t you leave Grandpa alone,” Micky pleaded. She loved the grandfatherly pet name and secretly enjoyed her mother’s resentment. Micky grabbed my hand and only let go while I was paying the bill.

      Unfailingly, and irrespective of season, this cemetery