Man Into Woman - Chapter 13 by Lili Elbe Lyrics
Lili tried many times to experience again the first moments that she had spent in the "Women's Clinic," and every time she felt again the boundless silence that had fallen over her disturbed soul. A gleaming hope that would lift her up to an invisible vault as if carried by holy angelic voices as in a hymn by Bach.
All fear and disquiet had fallen from her. Her own life appeared so incidental, so worthless. But an obscurе feeling filled her with devotion, a feeling of bеing a confidant in something big, something more meaningful, mightier, more grandiose than anything human destinies commonly experience. She felt like a chosen one in joy and in pain.
A white hospital room, overcast by the green reflection of the garden. On a white table sheer, mysterious instruments and scissors under a glass cover. A smell of ether and formalin everywhere. The visits from the Matron, that powerful, fresh and motherly woman in a white nurse's outfit with the stiff, white cap on her silver-grey hair. Now and then a muffled noise entering through the double door, gradually dying down– ambulances, rolling by. And in the white room Grete. Every now and then subdued voices and footsteps. The door is opened, a slim figure in a white coat enters, remains standing there in the room.
Of this first visit of the Professor Lili retained only one, almost musical memory. A mood. A vision. What he spoke to her, she no longer knows. But since the moment he stood before her, in the white hospital room, all burdens had been taken from her. And everything inside her was safety and joyous hope.
- - -
Lili walked under the birch trees in the big garden and waited. One of the next days everything would be ready for the procedure the Professor had said.
The white trees shone silvery on the sheer, green lawn. Their branches stood against the grey, flickering air as if bathed in a reddish glow. Hedges and bushes here and there with still bare branches. Silken catkins on a few willows, buds, brown and reddish ones, and here and there yellow flower buds. And on the pathways many benches. Nurses clad in white took their lunch breaks there, greeting Lili and Grete. And in the midst of the big garden a group of young, pregnant women. They smile gaily and happy and look like big, freshly blossomed crocuses in their blue hospital gowns.
"Lili" Grete says, "Now I understand the beautiful German word "Vorfrühling." Everything is so full of expectations here."
Suddenly a tall, slender man in a white coat walks through the park, hurries to the fever ward. An assistant doctor follows him and a whisper rushes from mouth to mouth: "The Professor." All eyes look after him, everything seems to stop for a moment.
- - - -
And then the tower clock struck. Six o'clock. It is time to go back to the room. The park is dark already, and arm in arm Lili and Grete slowly walk into the big building. In the wide, white corridors lamps have been lit. Young nurses in white uniforms with white, tight-fitting caps, bring dinner to the patients. Downstairs in front of the Professor's room stood the Matron. Suddenly his voice sounds through the open door. Lili starts. She pulls Grete with her, startled, around the corner, into the intersecting corridor, where her room is.
"What is with you?" asks Grete.
"Hurry," Lili whispers breathlessly and slips into her room. An inexplicable terror grasps her hearing the sound of the Professor's voice. She feels like a schoolgirl.
The next evening, when Lili is put to bed, she is subjected to all the ceremonies that precede an operation. And Grete sits next to her, smiling and with encouraging words. The Professor had announced in the morning that, if a young woman about to receive an operation the next morning, had suitable ovaries, the transplantation should take place. Moved and happy she bade farewell to Grete that night. She then lay awake for hours, staring into the white room, in which the night light shown dimly. Nurse Hanna, young and beautiful, sat with her, conversed with her, put a sleeping aid on the nightstand for her and then disappeared quietly.
But Lili did not take the sleeping aid. She was afraid to sleep for too long. She wanted to be awake, fully awake the next morning, for her big morning.
Not a sound came in from the corridors. Everything drowned in the quiet of the night. Lili's thoughts were a smile. She felt as if she had no more responsibility over herself, over her fate. Because Werner Kreutz had taken that all from her. She no longer had a will of her own. That was now with the Professor.
And suddenly she thought of the past ... of Paris. But the next moment she fled from that memory. There was no past for her. Everything from back then belonged to one who had disappeared, a dead one. Andreas Sparre, how completely different from her he had been. There was only a submissive woman left now, who was ready to obey, who was happy to submit herself to someone else's will.
Again the striking of the tower clock sounded. She had heard it many times during that night.
And when the first morning light dawned through the curtains, Lili lay in bed already wide awake. It was just six o'clock, but at seven o'clock nurse Hanna entered and prepared her for the operation. And then came the long, long wait. She barely dared to move. She listened to every step in the corridor, every voice that came in through there, every noise ... But nobody stopped in front of her door. Had they forgotten her?
Finally someone came. It was the Matron. She sat down next to her, took her hand in a motherly way and brought her the sad news that unfortunately they had to keep waiting a few more days, since the lady in question who had been operated on had yielded no "suitable material" for Lili.
Disappointment and tension had almost dissolved in tears, had the Matron not made another, happy announcement namely that she was about to receive a new room, which had a big window overlooking the garden and all the morning sun. And when Grete joined a few minutes later, the move to the new room was initiated immediately.
- - -
And the two walked again through the park of the "Women's Clinic." Everything here had quickly become familiar to them. The white-clad nurses too. And gratefully they replied to their morning greetings. And Lili smiled happily to the young, pregnant women in the crocus-blue dresses. And now and then young doctors passed by, and they too wished "Good morning, madam."
Lili was happy. Here she went as a young woman among other young women, completely naturally. She was a being without any past. Had she ever looked differently from how she looked now? And she had to smile. Because suddenly she saw Andreas before her, how he delightedly watched elegantly dressed women in Paris, and had almost envied them their elegance. How drab and awkward was men's clothing. And now all of that was gone, - eradicated. As if with a hand gesture of her master, her maker, her Professor. There was no more Andreas , he could never again return. Now Werner Kreutz stood between him and her. And she felt safe and secure.
Here in this small state within a state men reigned without restriction, with the Professor on top. The Matron was the only exception, since she had some if not a lot of authority. In spite of her good-willed motherliness she was a very stern woman, whose energetic profile under her silver-grey hair was reminiscent of the Bourbons during their heyday. She compelled an incredible respect, since she was the only being in the "Women's Clinic" who shared, to a certain degree, the confidence of Werner Kreutz.
One morning she hooked Lili and told her it would certainly not take much longer. The operation would possibly take place tomorrow even, maybe the day after tomorrow.
"Tell me, Matron," Lili asked suddenly, "why are a woman's healthy ovaries removed?"
"But Miss Lili," the Matron answered, "it would take much too long to explain that to you, especially since you don't have the necessary anatomical knowledge to understand. But just stay calm, the Professor knows what he is doing. Just let him do his thing. Besides, you don't have to be afraid, this is just a very small procedure in your case."
Lili smiled.
"I am not afraid, Matron. In Berlin, too, they told me it would be just a very small procedure that they wanted to do. And afterwards I found out that I had been laying on the operating table for almost an hour and a half. I don't think about whether or not this operation is dangerous or not dangerous. I did not come here to die. Of that I feel sure. That I could have done without the Professor's aid."
Then the Matron pulled Lili very close to her. "By the way, be happy, Miss Lili, because the new ovaries the Professor wants to transplant in you, will give you new vitality and renewed youth. Because the young woman is barely 27 years old."
Lili's voice trembled from excitement. "Is it really true, Matron, that through this ... through the ovaries ... a woman's age is determined? Is that really the crucial thing for a woman? Is that true?"
The Matron smiled and caressed Lili. "How curious you are. But if you don't want to believe me, then just ask our professor."
"Yes, of course, why haven't I done that already. I will ask him tonight."
- - -
And when the Matron asked the next morning if the Professor had sated her curiosity, Lili felt very ashamed. "No," she said, "I forgot all about it."
The Matron raised her index finger threateningly. "Why don't say honestly that you did not dare to!"
"No, I did indeed not dare to," Lili confessed.
And the Matron smiled. "No need to blush over that, dear Miss Lili. Why should you be different than the other women here in the home. None of us dares to ask the Professor for anything. When he comes it is always as if God himself came, and none of us has anything else to say but: yes, Professor. No, Professor."
- - -
Two days later Grete filled many pages of her diary. On that day the big, fateful operation had been conducted on Lili. And it was already deep, quiet night when Grete wrote:
"At 9 o'clock this morning I came to the clinic. The Professor had told me last night that the wonderful operation should take place today. Carefully I peeked my head in Lili's door. Lili lay on her white bed wearing her white nightgown. She was sleeping quietly. They had given her a syringe of morphine. Carefully I went back to the long corridor, where nurses were waiting for the Professor. Nurse Margaret came out of the director's office and pulled a rolling table ahead of her, with ether bottles, cotton and operating instruments under glasses. The Matron showed herself and cast an inquisitive glance over everything. The head doctor came out of the operating theater with a few assistant doctors. Everyone was talking quietly. A strange silence lay over the wide, white corridor and a greenish light quivered through the tall windows, through which one could see the still bare trees of the park. And, lit by the morning sun, the wing in which lay the apartment of the Professor. A covered walkway leads over from the first floor to the main department of the clinic. Everyone's eyes were on that now.
"Now we just have to wait for the Professor," a little nurse told me, whispering. I could barely control my excitement and stared continuously out of the window towards the apartment of the Professor.
Suddenly there is a commotion among the nurses. Instinctively I grab the hand of the little nurse. Everything within me is quaking. I see the Professor come into the clinic at a fast pace, and the next moment I heard him wishing us "good morning" calmly and politely. Very ceremonious and unapproachable. Even towards me, although we usually talk to one another quite amicably.
I don't dare to talk to him, or even follow him, when he, together with the head doctor and the Matron disappear into Lili's room. He seemed like a general before the decisive battle. I stood in the open door facing the garden. The morning sun streamed in. Apparently I was very pale. The air was spring warm. A few birds sang in the birches. A reddish shimmer lay over them, and the wind blew very slowly, smelling of grass and soil, and mixed with this strange, all-encompassing hospital smell. Then the door of Lili's room is opened, just a little, a hand appears. Nurse Frieda, who stood in front of the door, hastily took a bottle of ether from the rolling table, passed it inside and the door closed again without a sound. A sweetish smell, of ether, slid from the room, expelled every other smell. I had the impression that I was about to faint. But I pulled myself together. Unending time passed. Then the door opened again. The Professor and the Matron step outside. The Professor takes my hand and looks into my eyes. "Do not be afraid," he says quietly and disappears into the wide corridor. Another few minutes. The rolling bed is pushed out the door. Two nurses walk behind it. There under a white blanket lies Lili. I can't see anything of her face. It lies under an ether mask. And already the white train has disappeared into the long, white corridor. Into the operating theater. How long will it take? I said again and again not to think, do not think. What are they doing now with this poor person? How will Lili be returned to me? To me, to her, to life? She was looking forward to this moment as to a feast. A miracle should be worked on her. Would it succeed ... Restless I wandered out to the garden. Walked all the pathways of the big park. Found no peace. Walked back up to Lili's room. All of the windows were open. All of spring was in the room. I could not stay there either. Finally I sat down in an armchair in the corridor and waited. Here I had everything in view that was going on. Here it was so quiet. Lili was lying under her master's knife now. No, I was not afraid. I believed in him, the way Lili blindly believed in him, as if in a higher power. And I intentionally concentrated my thoughts on this man, whom I had tired to paint in the past few days. And now I knew how it was all a competition within me to capture this manly head in a portrait. What power exuded from this strange person? Here in this Women's Clinic was a god who everyone feared, who everyone worshipped. What was his power? And I imagined his face. Was it actually beautiful? No, odd. None of the features of his face were actually beautiful. Everything, even his eyes, were uneven. And yet there was a strong harmony lying over this face. A power, an emanation of power. For days I had tried to grasp this face, held it down in many hasty sketches. I knew each of all his attitudes, all his movements. This armchair had been my daily observation post. Across from his office. I knew the hours exactly, when he came and when he went. His visiting hours, his walks through the operating theaters.
I had to close my eyes to gather my thoughts. I clearly saw the slim back of the Professor in the elegant, white coat. I saw him in front of me, as he threw his head back with a hard jolt. I saw him before me how he sometimes approached me, reaching his hands towards me, and the face has a stern smile. And each time when I saw this smile before me, it was as if I had to cry. I have seen so many men smile. Handsome men, significant men and others. And this crying, this fear, all this feeling has nothing to do with my heart. I know that. Because I was never, not even for a moment, in love with this man. And yet, how often did I fall asleep with tears, did I think of this man. Yesterday in the middle of the city amongst strange people I saw this smile before me. And it struck me like lightning: I would gladly give my life for this man. But why, where did this feeling come from? And then I told myself, that I am just one among many who out of the power of belief, belief in this man, the belief in a helper, believe in the helper within him. And now as I am sitting in the armchair in the white corridor, there I learned that my feeling for this man was nothing else, but the feeling that Lili carried for him within the deepest fiber of her heart. It was still asleep within her. Because she is still a person in fog. Early spring. Suddenly this word sounded like music within me. Will Lili really experience it? I was sitting there like that when suddenly the door to the operating theater bursts open, and Werner Kreutz stands before me. He is still wearing the big rubber apron. He comes towards me. His step is somewhat tired. He gives me both his hands, and has a broad benevolent smile. And then I only hear his words. "It all went well," I enfolded both his hands. And I could only stammer a few words. "I thank you." And only many hours later did I learn what had happened in there. To put it all together in words now is unspeakably hard and confusing. A whole human life that I shared with another flashes up in those words. A person, born as a boy, who had been my husband, my friend, my companion, has become a woman, a complete woman now. And this human child never was anything but a woman. Like a sacrificial animal this human being has dragged himself alongside me, until this doctor here in Germany promised him help in Paris. And today this human being lay bleeding under the knife of his helper. His body was opened and they found everything that the wildest imagination would not have deemed possible. Stunted and withered this human child carried in his body ovaries - that had not been capable of developing, because a mysterious accident had also given him other, male gonads as well.
This secret, a double being, like no doctor knew before, has been exposed only today, after Werner Kreutz had already guessed it in Paris, had deciphered it like a seer. I do not know other words. And now they have taken all that stood in the way as a hindrance to this poor being, so burdened by fate, that it could develop into what had been in his blood for years, namely as a woman, out of the body and gave him the gift from another, strange, very young woman, unspent female gonads. And then they patched this tortured body back up, with threads and clamps and now nothing, not even the last thing, is left of my fated companion and fellow traveler, of my Andreas. He is the dead brother to Lili who is now alive. The woman who shared blood and body with him for an entire human life. And like a haunting it stands before me: no matter how erased Andreas is now, and how risen from all the pain and anguish Lili now may be, out there in the world Andreas still lives before the law, and I am Andreas' wife. Who is capable of grasping the horror and the wonder, of this unique thing? The one who is concerned by this through blood and pain, Lili, who is haunted and tested by a thousand pains, she is lulled in the mist of merciful morphine. What will life give to her now? Will the miracle of the doctor, the miracle of his art be big and strong enough to be carried into the life, into Lili's life?
All of us, me too, are tools in this fate. I not least. For it was I who teased Lili out of Andreas many years ago, as if in a game and in overconfidence? And had it not been me who played this game again and again with Andreas until the game become serious ... I cannot think about this now. Only of one, of him, who never quite believed in Andreas, who always just believed in Lili, Lili's closest friend, Claude Lejeune. Will he find her again?"
- - - -
There is not much that Lili can remember about this day, which from then on she called the day of her actual birth. When she opened her eyes for the first time she saw a few rays of sunlight that had snuck in through a slit in the lowered blinds. Then her eyes fell shut again, and she slept long and heavily. And when she woke up again she was as if she had dreamed. Here, to the left of her bed in front of the window, she had seen he silhouette of the Professor and next to him the head doctor. And the Professor had asked her something. Right. "you don't have dentures?" And she had meekly replied, "No, Professor." Only suppressing a smile with effort. And then the Professor had ordered: "Count. Either in Danish or French, however you like." And she had counted in German. "Eins, zwei, drei - - - ," then an ether mask had been laid over her face. Breathing became hard for her. And she kept counting: "vier, fünf, sechs, sieben - - - -." And it got harder, slower and slower. And she got to eighteen. And then it was as if she were suffocating. And she heard the voice of the Professor now. "Zwanzig, einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig." His voice sounded like the striking of a bell. Stronger and stronger until everything became one single ringing and her consciousness faded. Was it a dream? Or had she been sedated? But why did they leave her lying here without performing the operation? Until she woke by herself now with this disgusting taste of ether in her mouth? "You don't have dentures?" She hears the question again.
And now she has to laugh. But the laughter turned into a terrible pain. With a scream she opened her eyes. The Matron stood next to her, smiled at her and whispered: "All is nicely done. Went very well. It is all good now." And already she had closed the eyes again. And she slept on.
And when she woke up again from pain that grew crueler and crueler, Grete stood next to her with a bouquet of light pink tulips. A nurse came in, gave her an injection, and Lili dozed off again. And when she woke again, the Professor stood next to her, held her hand, said something to her, which she did not understand. But she saw his eyes. And as in a haze she fell asleep again.
That day and also the night passed in a fog of morphine. And when she woke up, the pain was there, and when the pain was there, the nurse was there with her with a morphine injection. They put a wet piece of cotton onto her dry mouth. Thirst was calling. But the morphine injections let her forget the thirst.
And so morning came. Everything had gone really well. Lili was almost free of fever. And quiet, natural sleep enveloped her soon. And the following days passed quiet and foggy. When pain came, they took it away with numbing substances. And when she opened her eyes, she could stare ahead long and calmly, as if puzzled by everything that had happened to her. She slowly got used to the pain as well. And she told herself that the pain was the price for what they had given her here: life, her life, her woman's life. And everything was so beautiful and full of hope and good. And her white room in the "Women's Clinic" appeared to her like an earthly paradise. And the Professor was the guardian of her paradise. In the mornings and evenings the Professor came to her for short moments. Between those visits everything within her was expectation.
Grete was close to her during all of these days. Outside the door to the garden she painted the white birch trees and garden paths. And if she saw the Professor coming, she rushed to Lili.
- - -
Lili was only afraid of the nights. Then Grete too was distant. And all the flowers they had brought her were taken away, flowers had also arrived from Paris. From Elena and Claude. Also a few letters. And those letters were the only companions of her long, long nights. As was the tower clock with its hourly strikes. And the pain. At night they came almost regularly. Her bed turned into a glowing oven then. She lay there often, soaked in sweat. She should be sleeping, the Professor had ordered. But she should not get any more morphine. They gave her other sleeping aids. But those were only effective for a few hours. And then she lay awake for many hours, and listened to the day beginning.
One night she had a terrible dream. She walked among the white birch trees in the garden. Everything was young and spring like. Then she suddenly saw a shape, that slowly lifted itself over the garden wall. A terrible creature, half bear half human. With crazy eyes he stares at her, rutting and bestial. She flees in terror. And suddenly it is night and she is woken by a creaking of the door. First the uncanny head with the animal eyes appears. Then the bear like body of the monster from the garden wall. He wears a wide, light brown coat. And Lili sees that the coat pockets are full of surgical instruments. He closes in on her bed, and she senses his disgusting animal smell. She attempts to scream, but her voice breaks with shock. She wants to get up and flee, but she is not capable of moving even a single limb. The repulsive monster carries something wrapped in newspaper under his arm. He puts the uncanny package on the nightstand. Lili breaks out in a cold sweat, when she sees that the package contains a woman's head. The paper has opened, blood drips out of it slowly, every drop sounds hoarsely across the room. Then the monster sits down at her bedside. Lili secretly searches for the bell cord under the cover. Finally she finds it. She rings. The sound of the bell reverberates clanging through the nightly silence of the wide corridors. The monster stares stiffly at her and says: "Do not be afraid. I just want to carry out a tiny operation. My specialty is to give people new heads. Here I have a freshly cut pretty head. I want to put that on you instead of your own. Just be calm. You don't even need to be sedated. I cut very slowly." Then the door opens and a young nurse enters. She looks around aghast, sees the bloody head and falls to the ground unconscious. The monster turns around and sees the unconscious nurse lying next to the door. In the same moment, Lili sees a long, needle sharp instrument that sticks out of the coat pocket with the other instruments. She grabs it with a clasp, and pushes it into the monster's chest. For a second the monster stares at her with a disgusting look, like a rabid animal. Then it lunges at her, rips the covers from her body. His hands have found the scars, his sticky blood streams onto the bed. His heavy body falls onto her, and in the wild pain and panic Lili loses consciousness. When she finally comes to, the monster lays on top of her. The cut-off head in the newspapers grins away on the nightstand, and the unconscious nurse in her white garb still lies in the open door. And the corridor outside is quiet and black. The blood drips slowly with dull impact onto the floor. And Lili screams, screams and whines and whimpers and in the never-ending silence and loneliness of the night her scream reverberates like a multiplied echo.
And she wakes. The most terrible pain rages through her body. And she rings the bell like a madwoman. And a few nurses on night watch burst in. And it takes a long time before Lili is calmed down again.
- - -
Following this terrible night, morning came again. And the day again was beautiful, and again there was the blissful waiting. And she listened for every step. And she had long known the step of her helper from all other steps. But not always when she heard him did he stop by her. Other patients needed him. But she waited patiently, until it was her turn. Here in the "Women's Clinic" everyone waited for him, the Professor. They all had to share him and everyone received their share even if it was just a tiny bit. She as well. If he smiled, she forgot all about the pain. But sometimes he was very stern. And then she felt a mystical fear of him. And she understood that he behaved very differently towards her, than he had been towards Andreas. He never, not with a single word, hinted at her past. Was she really Lili for him? Had he forgotten about all the other things? Now and then she felt a desire to ask him about it. But she did not dare to.
And for hours she could lie there and think about that one recurring question. She felt that he had taken her will from her. She felt as if he knew how to lure out every female emotion within her through an alternating kindness and sternness. Was it not so that he had brought out the primal instincts of the woman within her? She felt the transformation in her every new day. It was a new life. It was a new youth. It was her youth, which was dawning to free herself. And she lay there, amazed and believing.
Once she remembered the strange dream that Andreas had dreamed on his journey from Paris to Berlin. The white shape, that stood between her and Death, in the white birch tree forest out in space. And the white shape grew larger and larger, grew into a mighty guardian spirit, whose big, mighty wings rushed, until that rushing of wings filled her entire world. Then Lili cried, long and quiet, the way only young women can cry.
The Matron entered. She did not ask why Lili was crying. She took Lili's hands in her hands. And when Werner Kreutz later came to her, she saw in his eyes that he understood everything that was stirring within her. He read her like an open book. And she felt infinitely small and could only reply to everything he said with: "Yes, Professor, no, Professor."
All fear and disquiet had fallen from her. Her own life appeared so incidental, so worthless. But an obscurе feeling filled her with devotion, a feeling of bеing a confidant in something big, something more meaningful, mightier, more grandiose than anything human destinies commonly experience. She felt like a chosen one in joy and in pain.
A white hospital room, overcast by the green reflection of the garden. On a white table sheer, mysterious instruments and scissors under a glass cover. A smell of ether and formalin everywhere. The visits from the Matron, that powerful, fresh and motherly woman in a white nurse's outfit with the stiff, white cap on her silver-grey hair. Now and then a muffled noise entering through the double door, gradually dying down– ambulances, rolling by. And in the white room Grete. Every now and then subdued voices and footsteps. The door is opened, a slim figure in a white coat enters, remains standing there in the room.
Of this first visit of the Professor Lili retained only one, almost musical memory. A mood. A vision. What he spoke to her, she no longer knows. But since the moment he stood before her, in the white hospital room, all burdens had been taken from her. And everything inside her was safety and joyous hope.
- - -
Lili walked under the birch trees in the big garden and waited. One of the next days everything would be ready for the procedure the Professor had said.
The white trees shone silvery on the sheer, green lawn. Their branches stood against the grey, flickering air as if bathed in a reddish glow. Hedges and bushes here and there with still bare branches. Silken catkins on a few willows, buds, brown and reddish ones, and here and there yellow flower buds. And on the pathways many benches. Nurses clad in white took their lunch breaks there, greeting Lili and Grete. And in the midst of the big garden a group of young, pregnant women. They smile gaily and happy and look like big, freshly blossomed crocuses in their blue hospital gowns.
"Lili" Grete says, "Now I understand the beautiful German word "Vorfrühling." Everything is so full of expectations here."
Suddenly a tall, slender man in a white coat walks through the park, hurries to the fever ward. An assistant doctor follows him and a whisper rushes from mouth to mouth: "The Professor." All eyes look after him, everything seems to stop for a moment.
- - - -
And then the tower clock struck. Six o'clock. It is time to go back to the room. The park is dark already, and arm in arm Lili and Grete slowly walk into the big building. In the wide, white corridors lamps have been lit. Young nurses in white uniforms with white, tight-fitting caps, bring dinner to the patients. Downstairs in front of the Professor's room stood the Matron. Suddenly his voice sounds through the open door. Lili starts. She pulls Grete with her, startled, around the corner, into the intersecting corridor, where her room is.
"What is with you?" asks Grete.
"Hurry," Lili whispers breathlessly and slips into her room. An inexplicable terror grasps her hearing the sound of the Professor's voice. She feels like a schoolgirl.
The next evening, when Lili is put to bed, she is subjected to all the ceremonies that precede an operation. And Grete sits next to her, smiling and with encouraging words. The Professor had announced in the morning that, if a young woman about to receive an operation the next morning, had suitable ovaries, the transplantation should take place. Moved and happy she bade farewell to Grete that night. She then lay awake for hours, staring into the white room, in which the night light shown dimly. Nurse Hanna, young and beautiful, sat with her, conversed with her, put a sleeping aid on the nightstand for her and then disappeared quietly.
But Lili did not take the sleeping aid. She was afraid to sleep for too long. She wanted to be awake, fully awake the next morning, for her big morning.
Not a sound came in from the corridors. Everything drowned in the quiet of the night. Lili's thoughts were a smile. She felt as if she had no more responsibility over herself, over her fate. Because Werner Kreutz had taken that all from her. She no longer had a will of her own. That was now with the Professor.
And suddenly she thought of the past ... of Paris. But the next moment she fled from that memory. There was no past for her. Everything from back then belonged to one who had disappeared, a dead one. Andreas Sparre, how completely different from her he had been. There was only a submissive woman left now, who was ready to obey, who was happy to submit herself to someone else's will.
Again the striking of the tower clock sounded. She had heard it many times during that night.
And when the first morning light dawned through the curtains, Lili lay in bed already wide awake. It was just six o'clock, but at seven o'clock nurse Hanna entered and prepared her for the operation. And then came the long, long wait. She barely dared to move. She listened to every step in the corridor, every voice that came in through there, every noise ... But nobody stopped in front of her door. Had they forgotten her?
Finally someone came. It was the Matron. She sat down next to her, took her hand in a motherly way and brought her the sad news that unfortunately they had to keep waiting a few more days, since the lady in question who had been operated on had yielded no "suitable material" for Lili.
Disappointment and tension had almost dissolved in tears, had the Matron not made another, happy announcement namely that she was about to receive a new room, which had a big window overlooking the garden and all the morning sun. And when Grete joined a few minutes later, the move to the new room was initiated immediately.
- - -
And the two walked again through the park of the "Women's Clinic." Everything here had quickly become familiar to them. The white-clad nurses too. And gratefully they replied to their morning greetings. And Lili smiled happily to the young, pregnant women in the crocus-blue dresses. And now and then young doctors passed by, and they too wished "Good morning, madam."
Lili was happy. Here she went as a young woman among other young women, completely naturally. She was a being without any past. Had she ever looked differently from how she looked now? And she had to smile. Because suddenly she saw Andreas before her, how he delightedly watched elegantly dressed women in Paris, and had almost envied them their elegance. How drab and awkward was men's clothing. And now all of that was gone, - eradicated. As if with a hand gesture of her master, her maker, her Professor. There was no more Andreas , he could never again return. Now Werner Kreutz stood between him and her. And she felt safe and secure.
Here in this small state within a state men reigned without restriction, with the Professor on top. The Matron was the only exception, since she had some if not a lot of authority. In spite of her good-willed motherliness she was a very stern woman, whose energetic profile under her silver-grey hair was reminiscent of the Bourbons during their heyday. She compelled an incredible respect, since she was the only being in the "Women's Clinic" who shared, to a certain degree, the confidence of Werner Kreutz.
One morning she hooked Lili and told her it would certainly not take much longer. The operation would possibly take place tomorrow even, maybe the day after tomorrow.
"Tell me, Matron," Lili asked suddenly, "why are a woman's healthy ovaries removed?"
"But Miss Lili," the Matron answered, "it would take much too long to explain that to you, especially since you don't have the necessary anatomical knowledge to understand. But just stay calm, the Professor knows what he is doing. Just let him do his thing. Besides, you don't have to be afraid, this is just a very small procedure in your case."
Lili smiled.
"I am not afraid, Matron. In Berlin, too, they told me it would be just a very small procedure that they wanted to do. And afterwards I found out that I had been laying on the operating table for almost an hour and a half. I don't think about whether or not this operation is dangerous or not dangerous. I did not come here to die. Of that I feel sure. That I could have done without the Professor's aid."
Then the Matron pulled Lili very close to her. "By the way, be happy, Miss Lili, because the new ovaries the Professor wants to transplant in you, will give you new vitality and renewed youth. Because the young woman is barely 27 years old."
Lili's voice trembled from excitement. "Is it really true, Matron, that through this ... through the ovaries ... a woman's age is determined? Is that really the crucial thing for a woman? Is that true?"
The Matron smiled and caressed Lili. "How curious you are. But if you don't want to believe me, then just ask our professor."
"Yes, of course, why haven't I done that already. I will ask him tonight."
- - -
And when the Matron asked the next morning if the Professor had sated her curiosity, Lili felt very ashamed. "No," she said, "I forgot all about it."
The Matron raised her index finger threateningly. "Why don't say honestly that you did not dare to!"
"No, I did indeed not dare to," Lili confessed.
And the Matron smiled. "No need to blush over that, dear Miss Lili. Why should you be different than the other women here in the home. None of us dares to ask the Professor for anything. When he comes it is always as if God himself came, and none of us has anything else to say but: yes, Professor. No, Professor."
- - -
Two days later Grete filled many pages of her diary. On that day the big, fateful operation had been conducted on Lili. And it was already deep, quiet night when Grete wrote:
"At 9 o'clock this morning I came to the clinic. The Professor had told me last night that the wonderful operation should take place today. Carefully I peeked my head in Lili's door. Lili lay on her white bed wearing her white nightgown. She was sleeping quietly. They had given her a syringe of morphine. Carefully I went back to the long corridor, where nurses were waiting for the Professor. Nurse Margaret came out of the director's office and pulled a rolling table ahead of her, with ether bottles, cotton and operating instruments under glasses. The Matron showed herself and cast an inquisitive glance over everything. The head doctor came out of the operating theater with a few assistant doctors. Everyone was talking quietly. A strange silence lay over the wide, white corridor and a greenish light quivered through the tall windows, through which one could see the still bare trees of the park. And, lit by the morning sun, the wing in which lay the apartment of the Professor. A covered walkway leads over from the first floor to the main department of the clinic. Everyone's eyes were on that now.
"Now we just have to wait for the Professor," a little nurse told me, whispering. I could barely control my excitement and stared continuously out of the window towards the apartment of the Professor.
Suddenly there is a commotion among the nurses. Instinctively I grab the hand of the little nurse. Everything within me is quaking. I see the Professor come into the clinic at a fast pace, and the next moment I heard him wishing us "good morning" calmly and politely. Very ceremonious and unapproachable. Even towards me, although we usually talk to one another quite amicably.
I don't dare to talk to him, or even follow him, when he, together with the head doctor and the Matron disappear into Lili's room. He seemed like a general before the decisive battle. I stood in the open door facing the garden. The morning sun streamed in. Apparently I was very pale. The air was spring warm. A few birds sang in the birches. A reddish shimmer lay over them, and the wind blew very slowly, smelling of grass and soil, and mixed with this strange, all-encompassing hospital smell. Then the door of Lili's room is opened, just a little, a hand appears. Nurse Frieda, who stood in front of the door, hastily took a bottle of ether from the rolling table, passed it inside and the door closed again without a sound. A sweetish smell, of ether, slid from the room, expelled every other smell. I had the impression that I was about to faint. But I pulled myself together. Unending time passed. Then the door opened again. The Professor and the Matron step outside. The Professor takes my hand and looks into my eyes. "Do not be afraid," he says quietly and disappears into the wide corridor. Another few minutes. The rolling bed is pushed out the door. Two nurses walk behind it. There under a white blanket lies Lili. I can't see anything of her face. It lies under an ether mask. And already the white train has disappeared into the long, white corridor. Into the operating theater. How long will it take? I said again and again not to think, do not think. What are they doing now with this poor person? How will Lili be returned to me? To me, to her, to life? She was looking forward to this moment as to a feast. A miracle should be worked on her. Would it succeed ... Restless I wandered out to the garden. Walked all the pathways of the big park. Found no peace. Walked back up to Lili's room. All of the windows were open. All of spring was in the room. I could not stay there either. Finally I sat down in an armchair in the corridor and waited. Here I had everything in view that was going on. Here it was so quiet. Lili was lying under her master's knife now. No, I was not afraid. I believed in him, the way Lili blindly believed in him, as if in a higher power. And I intentionally concentrated my thoughts on this man, whom I had tired to paint in the past few days. And now I knew how it was all a competition within me to capture this manly head in a portrait. What power exuded from this strange person? Here in this Women's Clinic was a god who everyone feared, who everyone worshipped. What was his power? And I imagined his face. Was it actually beautiful? No, odd. None of the features of his face were actually beautiful. Everything, even his eyes, were uneven. And yet there was a strong harmony lying over this face. A power, an emanation of power. For days I had tried to grasp this face, held it down in many hasty sketches. I knew each of all his attitudes, all his movements. This armchair had been my daily observation post. Across from his office. I knew the hours exactly, when he came and when he went. His visiting hours, his walks through the operating theaters.
I had to close my eyes to gather my thoughts. I clearly saw the slim back of the Professor in the elegant, white coat. I saw him in front of me, as he threw his head back with a hard jolt. I saw him before me how he sometimes approached me, reaching his hands towards me, and the face has a stern smile. And each time when I saw this smile before me, it was as if I had to cry. I have seen so many men smile. Handsome men, significant men and others. And this crying, this fear, all this feeling has nothing to do with my heart. I know that. Because I was never, not even for a moment, in love with this man. And yet, how often did I fall asleep with tears, did I think of this man. Yesterday in the middle of the city amongst strange people I saw this smile before me. And it struck me like lightning: I would gladly give my life for this man. But why, where did this feeling come from? And then I told myself, that I am just one among many who out of the power of belief, belief in this man, the belief in a helper, believe in the helper within him. And now as I am sitting in the armchair in the white corridor, there I learned that my feeling for this man was nothing else, but the feeling that Lili carried for him within the deepest fiber of her heart. It was still asleep within her. Because she is still a person in fog. Early spring. Suddenly this word sounded like music within me. Will Lili really experience it? I was sitting there like that when suddenly the door to the operating theater bursts open, and Werner Kreutz stands before me. He is still wearing the big rubber apron. He comes towards me. His step is somewhat tired. He gives me both his hands, and has a broad benevolent smile. And then I only hear his words. "It all went well," I enfolded both his hands. And I could only stammer a few words. "I thank you." And only many hours later did I learn what had happened in there. To put it all together in words now is unspeakably hard and confusing. A whole human life that I shared with another flashes up in those words. A person, born as a boy, who had been my husband, my friend, my companion, has become a woman, a complete woman now. And this human child never was anything but a woman. Like a sacrificial animal this human being has dragged himself alongside me, until this doctor here in Germany promised him help in Paris. And today this human being lay bleeding under the knife of his helper. His body was opened and they found everything that the wildest imagination would not have deemed possible. Stunted and withered this human child carried in his body ovaries - that had not been capable of developing, because a mysterious accident had also given him other, male gonads as well.
This secret, a double being, like no doctor knew before, has been exposed only today, after Werner Kreutz had already guessed it in Paris, had deciphered it like a seer. I do not know other words. And now they have taken all that stood in the way as a hindrance to this poor being, so burdened by fate, that it could develop into what had been in his blood for years, namely as a woman, out of the body and gave him the gift from another, strange, very young woman, unspent female gonads. And then they patched this tortured body back up, with threads and clamps and now nothing, not even the last thing, is left of my fated companion and fellow traveler, of my Andreas. He is the dead brother to Lili who is now alive. The woman who shared blood and body with him for an entire human life. And like a haunting it stands before me: no matter how erased Andreas is now, and how risen from all the pain and anguish Lili now may be, out there in the world Andreas still lives before the law, and I am Andreas' wife. Who is capable of grasping the horror and the wonder, of this unique thing? The one who is concerned by this through blood and pain, Lili, who is haunted and tested by a thousand pains, she is lulled in the mist of merciful morphine. What will life give to her now? Will the miracle of the doctor, the miracle of his art be big and strong enough to be carried into the life, into Lili's life?
All of us, me too, are tools in this fate. I not least. For it was I who teased Lili out of Andreas many years ago, as if in a game and in overconfidence? And had it not been me who played this game again and again with Andreas until the game become serious ... I cannot think about this now. Only of one, of him, who never quite believed in Andreas, who always just believed in Lili, Lili's closest friend, Claude Lejeune. Will he find her again?"
- - - -
There is not much that Lili can remember about this day, which from then on she called the day of her actual birth. When she opened her eyes for the first time she saw a few rays of sunlight that had snuck in through a slit in the lowered blinds. Then her eyes fell shut again, and she slept long and heavily. And when she woke up again she was as if she had dreamed. Here, to the left of her bed in front of the window, she had seen he silhouette of the Professor and next to him the head doctor. And the Professor had asked her something. Right. "you don't have dentures?" And she had meekly replied, "No, Professor." Only suppressing a smile with effort. And then the Professor had ordered: "Count. Either in Danish or French, however you like." And she had counted in German. "Eins, zwei, drei - - - ," then an ether mask had been laid over her face. Breathing became hard for her. And she kept counting: "vier, fünf, sechs, sieben - - - -." And it got harder, slower and slower. And she got to eighteen. And then it was as if she were suffocating. And she heard the voice of the Professor now. "Zwanzig, einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig." His voice sounded like the striking of a bell. Stronger and stronger until everything became one single ringing and her consciousness faded. Was it a dream? Or had she been sedated? But why did they leave her lying here without performing the operation? Until she woke by herself now with this disgusting taste of ether in her mouth? "You don't have dentures?" She hears the question again.
And now she has to laugh. But the laughter turned into a terrible pain. With a scream she opened her eyes. The Matron stood next to her, smiled at her and whispered: "All is nicely done. Went very well. It is all good now." And already she had closed the eyes again. And she slept on.
And when she woke up again from pain that grew crueler and crueler, Grete stood next to her with a bouquet of light pink tulips. A nurse came in, gave her an injection, and Lili dozed off again. And when she woke again, the Professor stood next to her, held her hand, said something to her, which she did not understand. But she saw his eyes. And as in a haze she fell asleep again.
That day and also the night passed in a fog of morphine. And when she woke up, the pain was there, and when the pain was there, the nurse was there with her with a morphine injection. They put a wet piece of cotton onto her dry mouth. Thirst was calling. But the morphine injections let her forget the thirst.
And so morning came. Everything had gone really well. Lili was almost free of fever. And quiet, natural sleep enveloped her soon. And the following days passed quiet and foggy. When pain came, they took it away with numbing substances. And when she opened her eyes, she could stare ahead long and calmly, as if puzzled by everything that had happened to her. She slowly got used to the pain as well. And she told herself that the pain was the price for what they had given her here: life, her life, her woman's life. And everything was so beautiful and full of hope and good. And her white room in the "Women's Clinic" appeared to her like an earthly paradise. And the Professor was the guardian of her paradise. In the mornings and evenings the Professor came to her for short moments. Between those visits everything within her was expectation.
Grete was close to her during all of these days. Outside the door to the garden she painted the white birch trees and garden paths. And if she saw the Professor coming, she rushed to Lili.
- - -
Lili was only afraid of the nights. Then Grete too was distant. And all the flowers they had brought her were taken away, flowers had also arrived from Paris. From Elena and Claude. Also a few letters. And those letters were the only companions of her long, long nights. As was the tower clock with its hourly strikes. And the pain. At night they came almost regularly. Her bed turned into a glowing oven then. She lay there often, soaked in sweat. She should be sleeping, the Professor had ordered. But she should not get any more morphine. They gave her other sleeping aids. But those were only effective for a few hours. And then she lay awake for many hours, and listened to the day beginning.
One night she had a terrible dream. She walked among the white birch trees in the garden. Everything was young and spring like. Then she suddenly saw a shape, that slowly lifted itself over the garden wall. A terrible creature, half bear half human. With crazy eyes he stares at her, rutting and bestial. She flees in terror. And suddenly it is night and she is woken by a creaking of the door. First the uncanny head with the animal eyes appears. Then the bear like body of the monster from the garden wall. He wears a wide, light brown coat. And Lili sees that the coat pockets are full of surgical instruments. He closes in on her bed, and she senses his disgusting animal smell. She attempts to scream, but her voice breaks with shock. She wants to get up and flee, but she is not capable of moving even a single limb. The repulsive monster carries something wrapped in newspaper under his arm. He puts the uncanny package on the nightstand. Lili breaks out in a cold sweat, when she sees that the package contains a woman's head. The paper has opened, blood drips out of it slowly, every drop sounds hoarsely across the room. Then the monster sits down at her bedside. Lili secretly searches for the bell cord under the cover. Finally she finds it. She rings. The sound of the bell reverberates clanging through the nightly silence of the wide corridors. The monster stares stiffly at her and says: "Do not be afraid. I just want to carry out a tiny operation. My specialty is to give people new heads. Here I have a freshly cut pretty head. I want to put that on you instead of your own. Just be calm. You don't even need to be sedated. I cut very slowly." Then the door opens and a young nurse enters. She looks around aghast, sees the bloody head and falls to the ground unconscious. The monster turns around and sees the unconscious nurse lying next to the door. In the same moment, Lili sees a long, needle sharp instrument that sticks out of the coat pocket with the other instruments. She grabs it with a clasp, and pushes it into the monster's chest. For a second the monster stares at her with a disgusting look, like a rabid animal. Then it lunges at her, rips the covers from her body. His hands have found the scars, his sticky blood streams onto the bed. His heavy body falls onto her, and in the wild pain and panic Lili loses consciousness. When she finally comes to, the monster lays on top of her. The cut-off head in the newspapers grins away on the nightstand, and the unconscious nurse in her white garb still lies in the open door. And the corridor outside is quiet and black. The blood drips slowly with dull impact onto the floor. And Lili screams, screams and whines and whimpers and in the never-ending silence and loneliness of the night her scream reverberates like a multiplied echo.
And she wakes. The most terrible pain rages through her body. And she rings the bell like a madwoman. And a few nurses on night watch burst in. And it takes a long time before Lili is calmed down again.
- - -
Following this terrible night, morning came again. And the day again was beautiful, and again there was the blissful waiting. And she listened for every step. And she had long known the step of her helper from all other steps. But not always when she heard him did he stop by her. Other patients needed him. But she waited patiently, until it was her turn. Here in the "Women's Clinic" everyone waited for him, the Professor. They all had to share him and everyone received their share even if it was just a tiny bit. She as well. If he smiled, she forgot all about the pain. But sometimes he was very stern. And then she felt a mystical fear of him. And she understood that he behaved very differently towards her, than he had been towards Andreas. He never, not with a single word, hinted at her past. Was she really Lili for him? Had he forgotten about all the other things? Now and then she felt a desire to ask him about it. But she did not dare to.
And for hours she could lie there and think about that one recurring question. She felt that he had taken her will from her. She felt as if he knew how to lure out every female emotion within her through an alternating kindness and sternness. Was it not so that he had brought out the primal instincts of the woman within her? She felt the transformation in her every new day. It was a new life. It was a new youth. It was her youth, which was dawning to free herself. And she lay there, amazed and believing.
Once she remembered the strange dream that Andreas had dreamed on his journey from Paris to Berlin. The white shape, that stood between her and Death, in the white birch tree forest out in space. And the white shape grew larger and larger, grew into a mighty guardian spirit, whose big, mighty wings rushed, until that rushing of wings filled her entire world. Then Lili cried, long and quiet, the way only young women can cry.
The Matron entered. She did not ask why Lili was crying. She took Lili's hands in her hands. And when Werner Kreutz later came to her, she saw in his eyes that he understood everything that was stirring within her. He read her like an open book. And she felt infinitely small and could only reply to everything he said with: "Yes, Professor, no, Professor."