Paper Cuts

Otto Bauer's shoes clicked against the police station's linoleum floor—metronomes of disappointment. The desk sergeant recognized him immediately, the way nurses recognize chronic patients.

"Dr. Bauer," Sergeant Müller nodded, reaching for the release forms with the practiced efficiency of a surgical nurse. "Third incision into the same patient this month."

"Let's excise the commentary, Müller," Otto sighed, removing his calfskin gloves one finger at a time, as methodical as preparing for theater. "Just produce my son."

"The Bauer boy's becoming quite the revolutionary. Good thing his father has connections in the right organs of the body politic." Müller's pen scratched across paper, the sound of sutures closing a wound.

Otto signed with surgeon's precision—the same hand that had separated conjoined twins last week. "Friedrich has always had an... inflammatory temperament. His mother's bloodline, I'm afraid."

"Speaking of Frau Bauer, how is Elise? Still making those almond cakes that could rehabilitate even my mother-in-law's disposition?"

"One in my briefcase for you," Otto nodded, producing a small tin wrapped in wax paper that released the faintest whiff of marzipan and vanilla when opened. "She remembers your intervention during that regrettable fever in '32."

The holding cell door opened with the sound of arthritic joints. Friedrich appeared, medical textbooks clutched alongside a battered poetry journal, the contrast as stark as healthy tissue against necrosis. Three years of prestigious education visible in his diagnostic gaze, completely absent in his rumpled clothes.

"Mausebär," Otto said, wielding the childhood nickname like a bone saw—effective but brutal. "Let's go. Your mother's been in acute distress all night."

"Don't use that term here," Friedrich muttered, color rising beneath his skin like a histamine reaction.

They exited into Berlin's crisp morning, the yeasty exhalations of bakeries mingling with the petrol-tinged breath of automobiles. The city was awakening—a patient stirring from anesthesia.

The Bauer home stood dignified on Charlottenstrasse, three stories of old-world elegance. Elise waited in the doorway, silver hair swept into a perfect coil, her silk dress the shade of arterial walls.

"Mein kleiner Unruhestifter," she said, pulling Friedrich into a lavender-scented embrace that transported him to childhood fevers. "Still trying to resuscitate society before breakfast?"

"The patient's condition is critical," he mumbled into her shoulder.

She held him at arm's length, palpating him with her gaze. "You're malnourished. Are you consuming adequate nutrition between these social inflammations?"

"Elsa ensures proper caloric intake," he assured her.

Something flickered across Elise's face at the name—subtle as a facial tic. "How... thoughtful of her." She smoothed her apron. "I've prepared your childhood prescription. Apricot pancakes with clotted cream."

The Bauer household enveloped him—beeswax polish with undertones of leather-bound journals, the faint chemical notes of his mother's perfume. The hallway displayed the Bauer medical dynasty—four generations of physicians with identical blue eyes. Friedrich's empty frame hung at the end, patient and expectant.

"Professor Brunner will examine your progress this evening," Otto announced, hanging his coat with surgical precision. "He's expressed interest in your research techniques."

Elise's posture improved by precisely two vertebrae. "Splendid! I shall prepare the veal escalopes—his digestive system responds favorably."

"The man cultivates professional relationships like bacteria cultures," Friedrich said. "And I'd like to include Elsa in our experiment this evening."

The kitchen atmosphere crystallized into perfect stillness. Otto and Elise exchanged the telepathic glance of surgical partners who've worked together for decades.

"Naturlich," Elise said finally, each syllable carefully arranged. "Any... acquaintance of yours will be accommodated."

Friedrich's muscles released their defensive contraction. "Danke, Mother."

"Perhaps suggest appropriate laboratory attire," she added, adjusting a picture frame already perfectly aligned. "Nothing elaborate. Just... within acceptable parameters."

"Mother—"

"And that politics stay outside," Otto interjected. "I won't have another scene like Easter."

Friedrich's jaw tightened. "When Elsa suggested patient selection criteria should be transparent?"

"When your girlfriend accused the head of neurology of practicing eugenics at our dinner table," Otto corrected, voice sharp as his scalpels.

"Otto," Elise warned, one hand on her husband's arm. "Friedrich, sit. Eat. You look exhausted."

Friedrich allowed himself to be guided to the table where his mother's apricot pancakes steamed on blue china – his childhood favorite that had followed every fever, every triumph, every heartbreak.

"I saw Anna Fischer yesterday," Elise mentioned, pouring coffee into delicate cups. "Her father says she's considering pediatric medicine."

"How nice for Anna," Friedrich replied, neutral as sterile gauze.

"Such a lovely girl. And from such a distinguished family. Four generations of surgeons, just like us."

"Mother," Friedrich's voice held warning.

"I'm simply making conversation," Elise protested, eyes betraying her. "You know I only want what's best."

"With someone appropriate," Friedrich added.

"With someone who understands this life," she corrected gently. "Medicine isn't just a profession, Friedrich. It's a calling. A responsibility."

"Elsa understands more than you think," Friedrich said quietly. "Her paintings of asylum patients have been recognized by the Psychiatric Institute. Her work humanizes the people everyone else wants to forget."

Elise exchanged another look with Otto. "Yes, well. Art has its place. Though these days, one must be careful about which... subjects one chooses to elevate."

Otto checked his watch. "I should go. The faculty meeting."

"About the dismissals?" Friedrich asked, unable to help himself.

Otto's expression hardened. "About necessary departmental adjustments to align with new national healthcare priorities." He straightened his tie – precise, practiced. "We'll discuss this later. I expect you at dinner tonight. Seven sharp. Dressed appropriately."

"Like a proper Bauer," Friedrich said, the words heavy with history.

"Exactly," Otto replied, missing or ignoring the irony. He kissed Elise's cheek and departed with measured steps.

As the front door closed, Elise sank into the chair opposite her son, momentary exhaustion breaking through her perfect façade.

"You're going to lose your place if you continue these protests," she said quietly. "And then what becomes of all these years of work? Of the legacy your father has built for you?"

"Some legacies aren't worth inheriting, Mother."

"Friedrich, please. Your father believes in what he's doing. He believes he's helping build a stronger, healthier Germany."

"By deciding who deserves treatment and who doesn't?"

"By preventing disease before it spreads," she corrected, each word precise as her embroidery. "By identifying risks early. It's what medicine has always done."

"No, it's not," Friedrich insisted. "Medicine has always been about healing the sick – not deciding who deserves to be well based on their bloodlines."

"These are complex matters of public health policy," Elise sighed. "Do you truly believe your father would participate in something harmful?"

"I think good people can convince themselves of terrible things when those things are wrapped in familiar language," Friedrich said carefully. "When they're presented as logical extensions of principles they already believe."

"You're speaking in riddles again," Elise sighed. "Like those poems you and Elsa are always reciting."

"Heine," Friedrich said. "Heinrich Heine."

"This is medicine we're discussing, not literature."

The faculty meeting had run late, but Otto's internal clock indicated he still had twenty-seven minutes before dinner. Sufficient time to excise the latest threat to Friedrich's academic standing. The Bauer name remained a powerful antibiotic in German medicine.

The administration building gleamed with fresh paint, alabaster replacing institutional green. The university crest had been gilded, the eagle's wings extended in prosperity. The secretary ushered him into the Dean's antechamber with the deference reserved for government ministers.

The inner door opened with perfect timing. Two men emerged: the Dean—a thin, perpetually nervous man—and a younger visitor whose immaculate tailoring and distinctive limp Otto recognized from newspaper photographs.

"Ah, Bauer!" the Dean exclaimed with false heartiness. "Fortuitous timing. May I present Herr Doktor Joseph—"

"Dr. Bauer and I share mutual colleagues," the visitor interrupted, extending a hand with imperial certainty. His eyes performed a swift clinical assessment of Otto's worth. "His research proposal on neurological indicators of hereditary deficiency contains breakthrough diagnostic protocols."

Otto accepted the handshake, noting the dry palm, the precisely calibrated pressure. "You honor our modest contribution, Herr Doktor. The ministry's patronage provides essential nutrients for our research."

"Germany must establish dominance in medical science," the visitor replied, each word measured like a pharmaceutical dose. "Particularly in identifying degenerative elements before they contaminate the broader population."

The Dean hovered nervously. "Dr. Bauer's son shows exceptional potential in neurological diagnostics. When properly channeled."

"Ah yes, young Friedrich," the visitor's lips formed a smile his eyes rejected. "I understand he expresses... unconventional theories regarding patient selection."

Otto's viscera contracted involuntarily. "Youthful systems often produce excessive ideological antibodies. With proper guidance, his intellectual immune response will normalize."

"I have no doubt," the visitor agreed with the confidence of someone ordering an amputation. "With your oversight. Speaking of oversight, we should address that Goldsberg matter on Monday. The file you flagged in your departmental hygiene report."

"Of course," Otto nodded, maintaining his professional mask. "Though I believe the name is Goldstein. David Goldstein from infectious disease research."

"Goldstein, Goldsberg," the visitor waved dismissively. "These foreign names contaminate proper pronunciation. The critical issue is correcting these... staffing abnormalities." He examined his watch. "I must attend the Minister. Until Monday."

"Until Monday," Otto echoed, watching the limping figure depart with mechanically precise steps.

The Dean exhaled with the sudden relief of a punctured abscess once the ministry car had turned the corner. "Brilliant pathologist of the body politic. Terrifying, but brilliant. Now, regarding your son's academic prognosis..."

But Otto's auditory processing had malfunctioned, his brain suddenly, uncomfortably flooded with Friedrich's diagnostic observation from that morning. Medicine was about preserving life. All life. The moment a doctor decides whose life deserves saving is the moment he becomes something else entirely.

For the first time in years, Otto Bauer felt the cold touch of doubt spreading through his nervous system like the first tendrils of progressive paralysis.

Friedrich and Elsa moved through the twilight streets like antibodies in a compromised system—aligned but foreign to their environment. The setting sun painted Berlin's angular architecture in fever-bright gold that masked spreading shadows. Elsa wore her singular formal costume—a midnight blue dress with the modest neckline of convention but accessorized with bohemian elements that functioned as artistic plumage.

"My appearance will trigger their immune response regardless of sartorial compliance," she observed, adjusting a threadbare shawl that had been her mother's—a textile heirloom rich in memory but poor in material value. "The social organism always rejects foreign elements."

"They don't reject you as pathology," Friedrich countered, his exhale communicating complex resignation. "They merely lack the diagnostic vocabulary to classify you."

"They have no interest in expanding their taxonomic systems beyond their medical dynasty," Elsa replied, words manifesting with the precision and sharpness of her charcoal sketches. "Their classification system excludes alternative perspectives by design."

"Just... maintain homeostasis for one evening. Professor Brunner represents a potential treatment pathway for our situation."

"Our prognosis doesn't depend on your father's professional network," Elsa halted their forward progress, her dark eyes suddenly intense with cellular determination. "Alternative treatment facilities exist. Even in foreign systems."

"Foreign systems?" Friedrich echoed, the concept flooding his autonomic nervous system with contradictory impulses—terror and liberation simultaneously activated.

"Zürich. Vienna. London. Medical communities where healing still takes precedence over genetic cataloging."

Friedrich's eyes performed an involuntary surveillance scan. "I can effect more significant organizational change as an internal agent. Once I obtain proper credentials—"

"Will your revolutionary ideals survive the compromises required to secure those credentials?" Elsa challenged, her question precise as a needle biopsy. "Or will your ethical structure eventually adapt to match the Bauer template—another physician managing population genetics for the greater biological collective?"

The question hung suspended between them as they reached the Bauer residence. Light radiated from leaded windows in a perfect spectroscopic pattern suggesting health and harmony.

Friedrich applied gentle pressure to Elsa's hand. "One social procedure. Then we'll evaluate alternative protocols."

The evening progressed with sterilized politeness until the final course—Elise's Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, each cherry suspended in chocolate like a perfect cell in a microscope slide.

"I understand you practice visual documentation, Fräulein Schmidt," Professor Brunner initiated, redirecting his attention toward Elsa. His voice carried practiced sympathy. "Otto mentions your studies of psychiatric anomalies."

"I restore their humanity," Elsa calibrated her correction gently. "Revealing the dignity systematically extracted by institutional processing."

"A philosophically intriguing interpretation," Brunner replied with careful neutrality. "Though evidence suggests proper management of psychiatric deviations benefits the societal organism, even when individual specimens experience discomfort."

"Management," Elsa repeated, the word carrying dangerous precision. "Such hygienic terminology for systematic dehumanization."

"I've observed your technical execution," Brunner continued, probing further. "Genuinely masterful. Yet I question your subject selection. Those portraits of Jewish psychiatric cases display a particularly... provocative violation of classification norms."

"My selection criteria exclude hereditary considerations," Elsa responded, her posture rigid. "I document human specimens exclusively."

"Naturally," Brunner nodded. "Though contemporary standards require careful evaluation of which abnormalities one presents publicly. Population health protocols apply across disciplines."

Friedrich's cutlery connected with porcelain in a percussive diagnostic sound. "Population health protocols for artistic expression? Has medical oversight metastasized beyond its boundaries?"

"Friedrich," Otto's voice transmitted a clear cautionary signal with the precision of a warning on a dangerous medication.

"Visual stimuli influence collective perception. Perception determines policy implementation. Policy controls resource allocation," Brunner explained with the condescending clarity used for noncompliant patients. "Basic systemic causality."

"So art should serve the state's medical agenda?" Friedrich pressed.

"Friedrich, please," Elise interjected. "This isn't the place—"

"Where is the place, Mother?" Friedrich's voice rose despite himself. "At university, where professors are disappearing overnight? In medical journals, where certain research is no longer permitted?"

"Young man," Brunner's voice hardened, "your father has vouched for you repeatedly despite your... provocative ideas. There are limits to what even the Bauer name can protect."

Elsa stood, gathering her shawl. "Thank you for your hospitality, Dr. and Frau Bauer. The meal was excellent." She turned to Brunner. "A pleasure to meet you, Professor. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the new patient selection protocol. I understand you've developed quite a systematic approach to determining which lives are worth treating."

"Elsa!" Friedrich stood as well, torn between mortification and pride.

Brunner's face flushed dark red. "Young woman, you clearly don't understand the complexities of modern medical resource allocation."

"Oh, I understand perfectly," Elsa replied, steady as her brushstrokes. "I just don't believe efficiency should trump humanity."

After she left, Friedrich looked between his father and the professor – pillars of German medicine, respected, revered, and increasingly complicit in something monstrous cloaked in clinical language.

"I should go," Friedrich said, folding his napkin with careful precision – a lifetime of Bauer table manners impossible to discard.

"Friedrich, please," his mother pleaded. "Don't throw away everything over a political disagreement."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Friedrich laughed, hollow and bitter.

Otto finally spoke, his voice uncharacteristically tentative. "Son, medicine is evolving. Sometimes evolution requires difficult choices for long-term benefit."

"And who decides which 'difficult choices' are necessary?" Friedrich demanded. "Who decides which lives matter less in your evolved medicine?"

"This kind of inflammatory rhetoric is precisely why—" Brunner began.

"Why what?" Friedrich interrupted. "Why the medical board is purging Jewish doctors? Why psychiatric patients are disappearing from hospitals? Why my professors are teaching us to diagnose 'racial suitability' alongside actual diseases?"

Friedrich looked at his father – the man he'd idolized, whose hands had healed thousands, whose moral compass had somehow failed so catastrophically.

"I'm sorry, Father," he said quietly. "But I can't become the kind of doctor you want me to be."

He walked to the door, then paused, turning back one last time. "Grandfather would be ashamed of what his hospital has become. Of what German medicine is becoming."

Then he was gone, the door closing quietly behind him.

Elsa waited on the street, her face calm in the lamplight. "Well, that went about as expected."

Friedrich took her hand, feeling strangely light despite everything. "I think I've just burned my last bridge."

"Or maybe," Elsa suggested, "you've finally stopped trying to cross a bridge that leads somewhere you don't want to go."

"You mentioned Switzerland," Friedrich said suddenly.

Elsa's smile was answer enough.

Otto watched from the window as his son walked away with the artist girl, taking with him generations of Bauer medical legacy. Something inside him recognized, despite his anger, that Friedrich had made the right diagnosis, even if Otto himself could not yet face the disease spreading through the profession he loved.

In the morning, there would be decisions to make. Papers to burn. Connections to sever.

But tonight, Friedrich walked away from everything he'd been raised to become, following the one person his family had warned him against, toward uncertainty and exile and, just possibly, toward becoming the kind of physician his grandfather had defined:

One who preserved life. All life.