After a week, the doctors pronounced Mircea’s kidneys out of danger. They waited until that all clear before the dental surgery. As Dr Weber, the lead doctor on Mircea’s case explained, they thought they would give him a break between medical interventions.
“It would be no picnic for you if you had to go in for surgery on your kidneys with your mouth wired up,” he told Mircea in his perfect if slang-filled English.
“No problem, bro,” Mircea fired back, not wanting to be outdone when it came to English. Dr Weber smiled, but looked faintly puzzled. He’s probably relieved that I won’t be able to speak for a while!
They brought Mircea to a dental clinic to get his mouth wired up. The orthodontist, a bald elderly man named Professor Steinholz, made a big show of clicking his tongue over Mircea’s dental x-rays. He spoke English irritatingly well, too, and talked down to Mircea as if he were a child.
“Good heavens, young man! What have you done to your teeth? I have never seen so many fillings in one mouth! Were you eating sugar by the bowlful?” Mircea opened his mouth to reply, but Professor Steinholz tapped it shut with one finger. “I’ll have to remove those before we can do the wiring – if we leave them in, we might as well not have bothered! I’ll put you under a general anaesthetic – when you wake up, you’ll be unable to talk or eat solid foods, but the pain will stop!” Mircea groaned at the thought of the treatment, and Professor Steinholz waggled a stern finger at him. “We’ll have none of that. If you had taken care of your teeth, none of this would be necessary! Your case is not like the one I treated recently, where this poor girl had her mandible smashed to pieces by some psychopath! She had a right to moan!”
Briefly, Mircea wondered if the Professor was allowed to talk about his other patients when he realised who that other patient was. He closed his eyes and stifled another groan. He heard Professor Steinholz grunt in satisfaction.
“I’ll have to clear my calendar for this afternoon – this will take a few hours!”
Mircea felt a change in the air current, and when he opened his eyes, he found a red-haired dental assistant had rolled up a chair beside him. She smiled as she put a mask on over her mouth, and began swabbing Mircea’s arm. She deftly stuck a needle in his vein, and Mircea saw some blood rise up in the line attached to the needle before he blacked out.
He awoke hours later, his face completely numb. He had been moved to a cot in another room. As if by magic, the dental assistant who had given him the anaesthesia appeared, knowing he was awake. She greeted him in German, and bent over to pour some water from a cup into his mouth. Not fully in control of his lips, some of the liquid spilled out of his mouth, which the assistant quickly wiped up. The assistant patted his mouth, which he didn’t feel at all, and went out of the room. She reappeared with Professor Steinholz.
“Good afternoon, young man, or should I say evening?” The orthodontist glanced at the window at the side of the room, where Mircea could see the sun had gone down. “We had quite a time fixing you up today.” He gestured to his assistant, who handed him a mirror. He held this over Mircea’s head, and reached down with gloved hands to pull Mircea’s lips open. “Have a look – you’ll be wired up for the next four weeks.”
In the mirror, Mircea saw a network of wires covering his teeth. He shuddered at the sight, noting his gums were red and raw. Professor Steinholz clicked his tongue again.
“Yes, it’s very elaborate. The anaesthetic will wear off in an hour or two, so we’ve prescribed you some painkillers. I had to extract some teeth, which were completely rotten under those cheap fillings. I put in some enamel fillers as placeholders for the false teeth we will have to put in after the wiring is over. It was tempting to extract them all, but I am not a fan of prosthetics when there are natural teeth there!”
Mircea thought of the dentures that poor Milla had to have put in and shuddered again. Professor Steinholz shook his head at Mircea. “Don’t be a big baby!” he scolded. “We have some work to do, but in a few weeks your jaw will be as good as new and not hurting you anymore. We’ll do some x-rays when the wires come out, and I’ll be damned if your mouth won’t look completely healthy and realigned. Although we will have to replace the fillings – you’ll have to change your diet, young man!”
Young man? Not even my grandmother used to talk down to me like this! If he hadn’t felt so woozy from the medication, Mircea would have been tempted to make a rude gesture with his fingers at Professor Steinholz. The orthodontist said something to the assistant in German. She went out of the room.
“I’ll check on you in a week, and see how the wiring is going,” Professor Steinholz told Mircea. Two men wearing the uniform of paramedics came in, wheeling a gurney. “Ah, your transportation is here!” Professor Steinholz took Mircea’s limp hand into a handshake, and the paramedics lifted him up on to the gurney. “See you in a week!” the orthodontist called as Mircea was wheeled away.
When he got back to his hospital room, Mircea could feel the anaesthetic start to wear off. He wasn’t sure how to communicate that with his mouth wired shut, but German medical professionals seemed to be equipped with ESP. The nurse who wouldn’t take Dr Weber’s grandstanding appeared instantaneously with a shot, clucking over Mircea like a mother hen. She patted his arm after she swabbed the injection site.
Michael seemed to have special access to all hospitals, as he came in after the nurse had fed Mircea his pureed dinner. “You’ll be taking all sustenance through a straw for a while,” Michael translated for the nurse. She patted Mircea’s head before she left.
“I brought you these so you can communicate,” Michael explained, putting a pad of paper and a pencil on Mircea’s bedside table. Grunting approvingly, Mircea grabbed the pad and wrote спасибо – thank you in Russian. I better not bring the pad and pencil with me when I see that snotty Professor Steinholz next week! Taking a deep breath, Mircea furrowed his brow and began writing something else. He was still a bit dizzy from the anaesthetic, or maybe it was the painkiller shot; his writing looked a bit furry, and he hoped Michael could read it. He handed Michael the pad.
Michael could read his drug-addled handwriting. “You want to write to Milla?” he gasped. Mircea nodded his head, even though it made the room shake. “She hates you,” Michael told him, and Mircea nodded his head again, this time seeing stars. He closed his eyes, and motioned for the pad.
His head had cleared a bit when he felt the pad in his hands, and he opened his eyes. Concentrating on every letter, Mircea wrote that he wanted to tell her he was sorry. He nearly tore the page when he scratched that out. I’m sorry is too weak, Mircea thought. He wrote how he felt pain – pain not from his jaw, but from what he had done. Michael’s eyebrows raised when Mircea gave him the pad and he read this.
“She probably won’t read anything you send her,” Michael argued. Groaning, Mircea reached up and took the pad back. I will keep writing her until she does! he wrote. Michael sighed. “This isn’t about what you want, you know,” Michael chided. “You can’t force forgiveness.”
I will deliver each note on my hands and knees, Mircea wrote. He remembered what Professor Steinholz had unwittingly said about him, and felt tears come to his eyes. I deserve this pain. Milla does not.
He was crying softly when he handed the pad to Michael. Michael pulled the chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. He looked down at what Mircea had written, touching the page where Mircea had crossed out I’m sorry.
“I’ll deliver the notes,” Michael finally promised. He put the pad down on the table, and took the pencil from Mircea. “I think you should rest. I’ll be by in the morning, and we can talk about writing notes to Milla.” He put the pencil on top of the pad. He touched Mircea’s face gently. “Sleep,” he instructed, getting up from the chair and leaving the room.
Michael had left the lamp on the bedside table on; although Mircea did actually feel tired, he reached for the pad and pencil. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he began to write.
Dear Milla, today the dentist who has wired both of our jaws shut called me a psychopath. He didn’t know he was talking about me, but he’s right. I am a psychopath. Anyone who could do what I did to a human being is a beast, a twisted animal. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I deserve this pain. I deserve your pain
The night nurse retrieved the pad and pencil from where Mircea had dropped them to the floor. She glanced over the page, wishing she could read Russian. She put them on the table and switched off the light.
When Mircea awoke the next day, Michael was by his bedside. Mircea’s mouth hurt, and he moaned softly. “I’ll get the nurse,” Michael promised, and left the room. Mircea looked for the pad and pencil, and saw them on the bedside table. He didn’t remember putting them there.
Michael reappeared with the nurse, who had a milkshake and a shot for Mircea. She held up them up, obviously wanting to know which Mircea wanted first. He pressed a hand to his aching jaw and pointed to the shot. She put the milkshake down and swabbed Mircea’s arm, giving him a stern look when he winced at the injection. She exchanged a look with Michael, pressing cotton to Mircea’s arm. She left the room without a word.
Michael sighed, sitting in the chair and handing Mircea the milkshake. “The night nurse found your pad. She and Frau Heigl there wanted to know what you were writing.” Mircea looked at Michael in alarm, and he shook his head. “I did not tell them what you actually wrote. I just told them that you were apologising to the girl you hurt.” Mircea choked on the milkshake, and Michael was there to wipe his mouth. “I didn’t tell them any details. Mircea, if you’re going to own up to what you did, you have to expect a negative reaction from some people. I think the nurses are impressed that you want to apologise, so don’t worry about them spitting into your puree. But Professor Steinholz refuses to deal with you anymore.”
Again, Mircea choked on the milkshake. He touched Michael’s hand as he wiped his mouth. But what about my treatment? He can’t just leave me with a wired-up jaw!
Michael smiled, guessing what was upsetting Mircea. “Don’t worry – he’s left you in the capable hands of his assistant, Dr Freytag. I was there this morning with Milla. She’s getting the wires off this week. After Professor Steinholz was done checking her progress, he told me that he’s never had to wire two jaws in such quick succession, so I had to tell him that your cases are not unrelated.” Michael left the napkin with Mircea, and sat back down in the bedside chair. “He called you a whole bunch of names, monster and criminal being the kindest ones of the list. If he were a judge, you’d be in a dungeon, but he’s an orthodontist, which I reminded him of when he said he never wanted to see you again. He’ll want to fumigate the examination room after every time you’re there, but he agreed that your treatment would have to be completed, even though he wants to weld your mouth shut for what you did to Milla.”
It was Mircea’s turn to sigh. Thinking it over, he had to see that Michael was right – he would have to expect that sort of reaction when people found out what he’d done. He slurped his milkshake, the coldness of it making his teeth ache. Putting the milkshake down, Mircea turned the page on the pad and wrote Michael a question.
Michael read what Mircea wrote, and shook his head. “No, I won’t help you write an apology to Milla,” he told Mircea firmly. “The apology has to come from you. I will deliver the note, and I will read what you write, but you will have to work for this, Mircea.” He handed the pad back with a small smile. “God forgives you, but I highly doubt Milla will.”
It hurt a bit, but Mircea smiled. For the first time in his life, Mircea was willing to work for something.