Sunrise

SUNRISE

Adriano Dechicha

This is the story of myself being an early bird on New Year’s Day. It was January 1st, 1888. Those who were there may defend it is not my precise picture. Quite true, but my figure was there, floating among the colors of Strasbourg housing. And a faint yellow, as mild as the rising sun, was the postcard of the hospital building.

I crossed the gate,  hearing the crowded sounds of patients. One voice stood out:

‘“Doctors are not here. We called them like sirens do.”

And I readily supposed it was a great line to start my last day before going back to Paris. I was returning to real France. Alsacia was then a branch of Germany. The waiting room in the hospital was mixed with both languages.

As the sun shone on the building, I could see both countries on it - remains of warfare. The hospital facade was crowded with eagle-shaped figures. And the gate had those famous lines: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity… or Death. The last word was hidden from History, and the dead came along with the Revolution. Then silence was filled with the vague appeal of catchphrases.

People indoors seemed breathless figures searching for peace. Wartime air was in their breath. The past was blurry in fear, and the future was fearful in a blur.

When I heard newborns cry, I chewed an unlit cigar, celebrating the mystery of the new generation. Smoking makes people take me as a young Englishman. It might be my tidy hair and neat clothes, both well-adjusted for any occasion. Or it might be my inquiry eyes. I wonder if they think I am a kind of rational romantic from Scotland Yard.

The French clerk called me, “You must be Hans Thomas Weitner. Pencil seller.”

In the waiting room, a ten-year-old boy couldn’t help staring at my pencils. I carried them in a half-opened leather bag, showing a sketch from the night before. I wouldn’t call it a portrait, because nobody can ever fully finish the picture of anyone. The first sketch always comes to last.

The boy started a conversation:

“We don’t speak the same language. You’re German,” he stated in a Swiss accent.

“I’m from Scotland Yard.”

“You solve mysteries,” said the child.

“I help people do it,” I explained.

“Like Doctor Watson with Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh, I see you read the book, my little friend.”

“Someday I will meet him in London,” he confessed.

“I am sure he won’t leave the books,” I challenged.

“He will for me, Sir. And for all fans.” 

“Clever. You may ride the underground and meet me in  Scotland Yard’s office.”

“I’ll send you a letter, Sir. We might meet again.” 

As the little boy fantasized along with me, I sat and took a paper out of my leather bag. Then I grabbed a pencil from my collection. I started to fill the sketched face that kept me awake the night before, on New Year’s Eve.

The little boy, while ignoring my drawing process, had his eyes steadily fixated on my cigar. It was unlit, as I usually did to make safer scribbles, since my childhood. My hands moved as the cigar smoke was absent.

I showed him the picture.

“Sherlock has no cigar, sir. He’s only seen with a pipe”

“Clever”, I agreed, “but I make no mirrors.”

Then a husky voice interrupted my insight. She spoke the same Swiss German. Her tone stood firmly delicate as her fuzzy strands were tied like a halo. My job as a soul inspector could not reach the mystery of those eyes of Sphynx. She was the boy’s older sister, holding a chain on which I spotted a small crucifix, hanging smoothly by her wrist.

“Don’t speak to him, Carl,” she warned, “Avoid German people.”

I had no choice but to say farewell to the boy, and could not help doing so while staring at his sister’s eyes of thrill.

“Happy New Year, Carl. Rise and shine,” I said and left the family to ask the clerk if I could see the hospital director. He agreed.

Winter sunshine was framed by the office window. The director’s table had a German eagle by the books. His eyes exhaled warfare. He was a doctor as well, but unlike me, he was a man of orders, a grudging creature hiding warfare.

“I am Thomas Weitner, the architect hired by French authorities. I was given instructions to redesign the hospital facade. German eagles must go.”

“What a character,”, he replied, “You’re such a dreamer.”

“I’m wide awake, actually,”  I said, “And characters make history.”

“Where is this accent from? You’re not French, nor German.”

“I’m always finding out,” I stated.

“According to the files, you’re nothing but a pencil seller. I’d rather say you´re a pencil breaker who sells fake promises.”

“Not as fake as those blind eagles. That’s why I am here. No more coat of arms with Roman cravings.”

.“You are not German. I can see it,”  whispered the man.

“Eagles cannot see as they think,” I replied.

“Impressive. Like an excerpt from Nietzsche,” he remarked.

An idle silence seemed to rest in the room for a few seconds.

“Are you sealing your lips after such a digression?”  he asked.

“I have the right to be silent,” I told him.

“Your silence is a gift from God.”

“God is dead. And I’m leaving his place.”

“God has all written for you,” he said.

“I fill his blank spaces with symbols”, I said, “With a little help from my pencils.”

And I left the office.

As soon as I was back in the waiting area, the young lady raised her eyes. She whispered something to her little brother. And then she came to me.

“Excuse me, Gentleman,” she said,  “Are you German?”

“Austrian,” I revealed.

“That’s why your pencils break so easily. You’ve dropped some of them. A while ago,” she said.

Then I couldn’t stop the urge to hold her wrist. With my other hand, I gently opened her palm with a magic trick that made her crucifix drop.

“I am a doctor. You hold the cure for your soul,” I said.

She touched the cigar I had just gifted in her safe hands.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Just a cigar. Most of the time.”

She seemed to have woken up with the sound of her name.

“Eliza Jung!” cried the hospital clerk, “The nurse is waiting for you.”

Meanwhile, her little brother stood still. He seemed not to have abandoned the mystery of his thoughts on my portrait of Sherlock Holmes.

I gave him a pencil with a smile.

“Hey, Carl. You can write to me, as long as your dreams never end. Just don’t bother me too much. Agreed, gentleman?”

*****

[Based on the real characters that created modern psychology. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. I dedicate this narrative to my therapist’s grandmother. In her lifetime she used to say that we only ask a question when we have the answer. And that’s the purpose of psychotherapy. Someone is meant to hear our questions.