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with a hammer.
    Because it involves so much blood, Josef has no idea why the mother wants him to become a doctor, and when children fall they scream, are bloody and covered with dirt, someone saying, “You got what you deserved, you rascals!” But the father says he doesn’t care what Josef will become, only that he make a decent and honorable living, while Aunt Betti says, “One has no idea what children will be when they grow up.” But Aunt Gusti says, “Nothing can be made of lazy and unremarkable children. So who says that Josef has to study. Working with your hands has its rewards.” Then the mother is unhappy when everyone says such things, and she says, “He should study no matter what. I’m hoping that he’ll be a doctor. It’s the best profession, because you help others.” But Josef doesn’t know how you help others if you cause them pain, and wherever there is blood there is no help involved, only a lot of pain. Only cough medicine is okay, it tastes good and is so gooey when you take a big spoonful, as Josef holds it for a long while in his mouth and swishes it around, the way he does when he brushes his teeth, normally the mother wanting him to spit it out, though not so with the cough medicine, which he needs to just swallow.
    Josef likes to be sick, but not too sick, though being a little sick is pleasant, because then the mother sits with him and doesn’t punish him but tells wonderful stories and puts a cold compress on his throat. She takes a wet hand towel and a dry hand towel, securing the outer wrapping with a safety pin. Then a thermometer is placed under Josef’s arm, which he likes to press, and slowly a silver thread begins to climb up it, ten minutes havingpassed before the mother takes the thermometer and looks and says, “Your temperature is still up. You have to stay in bed.” The mother is almost a doctor, which saddens her, for she was not allowed to study medicine, though she knows a lot about it and has a thick book that she also shows to Josef, there being many pictures in it that he likes to look at, the book titled
The Housewife as Doctor
. Josef then asks why you call a doctor when you’re sick, since everything is in the book, and the mother explains, “A proper doctor has more experience. He sees many patients every day.”
    For coughs and sniffles and sore throats the mother doesn’t call the doctor, since she already knows what to do, but when it’s something else the doctor comes, his lovely voice dark and deep, with his marvelous beard, as he comes to the bed and says, “Now, what have we gotten mixed up in this time? We’ll soon find out.” Then the shirt must come off, the doctor examining him and telling him to “breathe deep” and “hold your breath,” demonstrating just how to do it, then he places his big warm ear against Josef’s back while tapping with his fingers here and there, after which he looks into the child’s throat as he says “Ah,” always “Ah,” the doctor also saying “Ah” along with him. It’s just like in school when they sing “ah” or “la,” though Fräulein Reimann had also taught them beautiful and strange words that they sang up and sang down,
doremifasolatido
and
dotilasofamiredo
, because she said that was the way to do it. The doctor never does that, he only has Josef say “Ah” as he presses on his tongue with a wooden stick or the handle of a spoon, which is unpleasant, the doctor feeling around the throat, as well, to see if the glands are swollen, and then he scribbles something on a notepad, which says what has to be picked up at the pharmacy, telling the mother what she should do, and whether he will come again tomorrow or later. Now and then the mother takes Josef to the doctor, who has a waiting room with several chairs and two tables, on which there are magazines with pictures, though the mother doesn’t look at them or allow Josef to, because she believes they are filthy, most people not being