Translated by Anthony Stanis New York 2013 (718)2759286

TADEUSZ DOLEGA MOSTOWICZ

PROFESSOR WOLF

Translated by Anthony Stanis New York 2013 (718)2759286

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CHAPTER I

Professor Jerry Dobraniecki slowly put away the telephone receptacle and addressed his wife in an artificially dispassionate voice:

“The contingency meeting of the Doctors Association will take place this Saturday.”

Mrs. Nina fixed her anxious eyes on him and blurted out sharply:

“It was Biernacki, wasn’t it? What else did he want?”

“He suggesteda few negligible organizational reshuffling.” Professor Dobraniecki impassively waved his hand.

She could read her husband’s face too well, as not to note his apprehension under the mask of indifference. She witnessedhow he again had sustained a heavy blow, a severe setback, or had been beset by still another misfortune, which in vain, he had attempted to hide from her.

What a weakling of a man, the man who won’t put up a fight, who relinquishes one position after the other, and submissively lets himself be relegated from the limelight into the shadow of obscurity of a second rate physician. At that very moment she nearly hated him for that.

“What in effect has Biernacki requested?” she demanded impetuously.

He got up. Pacing about the room he vocalized in the tone of lenient persuasion.

“Undoubtedly... well... they are all right…the post must beturned over to Wolf... and for me time off. Vacation! I’ve been the President of the Association for too long. In all fairness we shouldn’t forget that Professor Wolf duly deserves to be remunerated for his ordeal and suffering. The indemnity…”

Mrs. Nina burst into an ironic, strident titter. Her huge feline green eyes glowered with an arrant contempt. Her beautiful mouth with lush ruby lips, a vision of which he couldn’t blank out even at surgeries, was twisted awry in utter revulsion.

“Indemnity, are you blind? He has already profited from it a hundredfold and more. He has stolen your rank and authority, your students, your patients, your earnings. Remunerated! Hah!”

Dobraniecki creased his forehead and stated in the manner leaving no room for doubts or challenge:

“Yes, he has been rightfully entitled to all of it. Wolf is one of the greatest scientists of our era and a genius among surgeons.”

“Well, what about you? Six years ago when I married you, I staunchly believed you were one of the foremost surgeons and scientists.”

Dobraniecki leaned on the edge of the desk, bent toward his wife and said in a faltering voice:

“Dear Nina, you do comprehend the hierarchy of positions and authorities in accordance to one’s aptitudes and capabilities. How can you reproach me for an honest self-criticism, by admitting squarely that I’m inferior in many respects to Rafael Wolf? Besides...”

“Besides,” she interrupted him angrily, “it’s pointless to continue. You know well my position in that matter. If you lack ambition and tenacity in the upward drive, I assure you, I possess enough of it for both of us. I will never resign myself to the role of a wife of an insignificant non-entity. Beware! If in the end you’ll be forced to take a practice in some god-forsaken Pikutkowo, I won’t be coming with you.”

“Nina, don’t exaggerate.”

“Don’t you see that there’s no end to it? I know what’s going on. Already Wolf is favoring Biernacki. They’ll push you down all the way to the bottom, whereas I can’t pay off my furrier! Of course you care little about it, but I won’t standit. I’m not accustomed to privation. I’m giving you a fair warning!”

The tone of her voice unmistakably denoted threat and animosity.

Professor Dobraniecki reproached her:

“You don’t love me Nina. You have never loved me.”

“You are mistaken. But I can only love a real man... a fighter and a winner, one who’s dedicated to sacrifice everything for his woman.”

“Nina,” he spoke up solicitously. “I’m doing all that I can.”

“No, no, you are not! We are slipping into poverty. We have been shunned socially, slippinginto obscurity, and I don’t fancy living in obscurity. Remember that I’ve apprised you about it.”

She rose and directed herself toward the door. And as her hand pressed on the doorknob, he called out: “Nina!”

She wheeled around. He distinguished in her eyes, which minutes ago had been flushed with indignation, cold disdain.

“Yes. Do you wish to add something?” she appended.

“What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?”

“What?” She took three steps forth and spelled it out forcibly:

“Oust him! Vanquish him! Be ruthless and inexorable then you’ll keep your positions and authority.”

She paused fora second and added:

“And me, if you care about me.”

When she had reached the door, he collapsed into an armchair, pondering heavily. Nina had never thrown empty words into the wind. He recognized also how strongly he was attached to her and that life without her equaled to a dreary and pointless existence. When six years ago he had vied for her hand in marriage he had not been on the receiving end of her contempt. Granted he was older than Nina. Notwithstanding he was at the height of his career, achievements and glory, and in perfect health.

The past three years had taken a heavy toll on both of the above accounts. The professional and monetary setbacks had wrecked his nervous system. He for some time had concealedfrom Nina the frequently manifesting itself acute liver attacks, although he couldn’t hide its aftereffects. He began to put on weight, slept fitfully, his face swelled and ugly dark spots appeared under his eyes.

Nina had not even a clue how hard he had taken the latest reverses of fortune. She had accused him of lack of ambition - him, who through his whole life had been driven by that very sentiment, which in the long runhad elevated him above others!

His misfortune had started on that fatal day when it had been established, or more properly, when he, all by himself, had unraveled the mystery of evanescing of Professor Wolf. He recalled with a telling effect that very memorable day! The event that eventoday struck despondent cords in his heart. There in a dim courtroom on the defendant bench sat a bearded peasant in a tattered garment. The witchdoctor in an outback country, having been accused of illegal medical practice and performing surgeries with primitive household tools, the surgeries which had saved lives of countless souls in some god-forsaken hole in the east.

A witchdoctor...

Professor Jerry Dobraniecki was the first and the only one who had identified in the witchdoctor his late mentor and chief, and friend - Professor Rafael Wolf, whose positions, acclaim and popularity during his absence, slowly but craftily he had appropriated himself.

What if he had kept the discovery all to himself? Would it have been ethical for him to condemn Wolf to interminable vegetation in squalor and obscurity, into a permanent oblivion of his name, fame, personality, titles and above all his roots? Today these introspections didn’t appeal to him to museupon them at great length. He had cursed that very memorable day three years ago, and he’ll curse it to the end of his life.

Rafael Wolf quite easily had overcome the impediments of a dozen or so years of total amnesia. He had recovered his memory as swiftly as once he had lost it, and subsequently had resumed lecturing at the university, thus relegating Dobraniecki to other less prominent posts, taken up the management of his clinic and the University Clinic, whereas the furor of his sudden reappearance furthered his fame and notoriety, and with it monetary gains and the status of a celebrity.

Well, even today they anticipated from him, from Professor Dobraniecki, to willingly resign the Presidency of the Doctors Association, and himself to propose as a candidate Professor Wolf, the act which in itself they judged as a chivalrous one, commonly expected and valid in accordance to the prevailing consensus of all concerned, that meant his colleagues, students, patients and the faculty. Their collective vox populi expressed one logical well-grounded contention: the primacy irrevocably belonged to Wolf. Hadn’t he, Jerry Dobraniecki, told his wife just minutes ago that he himself had advanced the above opinions?

Yet it was a lie.

He had rebelled against the reality, against the actuality of constant forfeiting of his gains and positions. As the burden of ill success and misfortunes mounted, inside of him grew indignation of enormous proportion, resentment, despair and plain repugnance. That’s why he was apprehensive to discuss the above subject with Nina for fear of betraying his latent, guarded feelings. He was afraid that her passionate, untrammeled nature might spark a mutiny of his pent-up anger and frustration.

And the pressure was steadily rising. Today for the first time Nina hadmercilessly underscored the lack of funds to redeem her fur coat. In verity she possessed an array of fur coats and could splendidly manage without another, nonetheless he had taken her words like a slap in the face. He had always been proud of himself being able to shower her with expensive gifts, to buy for her a fashionable villa, to keep a large domestic staff, a string of luxury automobiles and give quite frequently exquisite parties. Perhaps not only for her sake, perhaps partly for his own ego, for the pleasure and satisfaction as her eyes displayed that well familiar to him glitter of gratification, of power, of her elevated place in society obtained and secured by her husband’s position and acclaim.

Nina - to lose her - to Dobraniecki it was utterly out of the question, though he was sensible enough to perceive with startle that only a miracle might forestall an imminent catastrophe. For the three consecutive years his income had gradually dwindled off, alas he couldn’t force himself to modify their style of living. As want of moneyhad propelled them to economize, he himselfhad drastically curtailedhis own expenditures, to hide the humiliating fact from Nina. He worked longer hours and harder,performed minor operations accepting menial remunerations which often were paid to him in installments by not so affluent patients. Yet the debt had escalated. He had been forced to take a loan to purchase a villa, whereas there were no funds to pay the interest on it.

“Never mind that,” he thought, sulking. “I’m ready, earnestly,to reconcile myself to the current situation. I would consider moving into a modest dwelling if Nina didn’t take it so dramatically.”

Dobraniecki endured even more due to the loss of the prestige and the degree of authority he had possessed prior to Professor Wolf’s return.

Not as long as yesterday he had to brook the ultimate humiliation. Not one student had showed up at his lecture. He had fled the auditorium, ashamed, as if he had been chased by a chorus of sneering derisions of its empty walls. He had been close to contemplating a suicide. It had ended with a painful liver attack aggravated by hours of ear ringing, the aftereffect of overdose of belladonna. Fortuitouslyhe had been assigned four or five simple operations not requiring the usual consummate skills and utmost concentration.

“Ruin him.”

That’s what she had meant. He erupted briefly into a melancholy chuckle. How can he ruin Wolf? Ought he to chase the students in the corridor and force them to attend his lectures, or ought he to wreak vengeance on young doctors who preferred to assist in surgeries performed by Wolf, or steal away Wolf’s affluent patients, for competition here was not efficient, and everyone was well aware that he, Dobraniecki, charged much less for his operations and shamelessly stooped to underbid below the standard rates.

He glanced at his watch. It was nearing five. Today Nina was giving a party. Shortly the invited guests will be arriving, though not all of them will put up their appearances. Recently theirsoirees had become less attractive to their friends and acquaintances. The gathering would be large only ifthe invited had known beforehand that Professor Wolf would attend it.

“Destroy him!” Nina had insisted.

To destroy Wolf purported to undo his fame, to convince his patients of a fallacy of their beliefs of his infallibility in medical diagnosis and his unerring surgical hands.

He rose to his feet and started to pace about the room. There were still other means at hand: An ant-like, or rather a mole-like modus operandi, laboriously digging and boring into these beliefs, availing oneself of foibles and weaknesses of Wolf’s mind engendered by his lengthy amnesia. Alas, that kind of chicanery didn’t appeal to Dobraniecki. He knew that Wolf retained from his witchdoctor’s practice a habit of prescribing various herbs and ointments. Dobraniecki deemed them ineffective, but also innocuous to patients. He didn’t approve Nina’s dishonorable conduct; she at every opportunity availed herself ridiculing the primitive if not superstitious ways of Wolf’s healing, amply relying on her charm and beauty to impart her sardonic witticism upon a bevy of young doctors whom she entertained.

Thus employed crude agitation against Wolf usually misfired;her interlocutors disseminated the applicable or immaterial spate of silly anecdotes which were circulated in hospitals and clinics, in which Dobraniecki easily discerned his wife’s malicious humor. Only the youngest of the doctors’ cadre lent their ears and readily enjoyed its ironic connotations, themselves being averse to anything which was not modern, and, by belittling the prestige of their renowned master thus to elevate their own. Sometimes they attempted to dissuade patients from seeking Wolf’s advice, though they seldom succeeded.

The other week capitalizing on the above rumors Warsaw dailies had printed lengthy columns and articles of wild conjectures and speculations.

It was true that they had never quotedWolf’s name in it, nevertheless everyone had correctly deduced whom it was all about. Dobraniecki, not without justice, had imputed the authorships of these articles to his wife. Lately at Nina’s soirees he had encountered a coterie of editors who had never been invited before. The sudden interest Nina had taken in the members of the press did not escape Dobraniecki’s attention.

Nina’s despicable intrigues were repugnant and distasteful to him, evoking in him amind-boggling realization how mercilessly unforgiving these half-measures, ostensibly innocuous, were in undermining the authority and character of those untouchable paragons of humanity.

“Vanquish him!” she had demanded, “if you care about me...”

Dobraniecki bit his lips and stopped by the window. Through the bare branches of autumn trees he admired the glimmeringgalaxy of white and yellow city lights; whereas the far-off din of metropolis murmuredmonotonously. Outside on the wet asphalt screeched pneumatic tires. In front of his villa, a large limousine slowly came to a stop.

The first guests were ushered in. It was necessary for him to dress up.

CHAPTER II

Professor Wolf paused for a spell. His eyes slowly surveyed the overcrowded lecture hall in which reigned complete silence. He sensed that each and every word he verbalized reached each and every heart of his students, the hearts which reverberated with affectionate responses.

“Because the doctor’s vocation,” his voice resonated again, “is founded on one of the most noble and generous precepts, love thy neighbor, the way God dispensed it in our hearts. The doctor’s vocation is based on trust and faith in brotherhood of men, the most honorable and estimable features of human nature. So when you go into the world to fulfill your mission remember most of all: love thy neighbor!”

He stood there still and quiet, nodding his head. Thereupon he marched out of the hall, with heavy bouncing steps.

Hundreds of times he had crossed that wide corridor, accompanied by waves of applause, which had invariably erupted at the conclusion of his address. Though today, he had strayed somewhat from the proper theme; today he had been in a different frame of mind.

In the past few weeks he had been assailed by a slew of incomprehensible and seemingly innocuous yet injurious to him gossips and innuendos. At times he was shocked to such a degree that he had been incapable to figure out what it was all about. They all presented to be of incidental nature, devoid of logic if not entirely absurd. Not only given that they were aimed at him - if Professor Dobraniecki or doctors: Biernacki, Rancewicz or young Kolski had been besmirched in a similar way, Professor Wolf would have been resentful likewise.

To this very day he had refused tobring himself to believe that the entire campaign to defame his character hadbeen originated and promulgated from one source. He wasn’t ready to accept such a highly improbable notion, since he had no enemies to speak about. He had crossed no one, period, caused no one any harm and through his entire life had adhered to the very precepts with which he had terminated the today’s lecture.