Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [126]
Sousa turned on Knechtmann. "Some little son of a gun like you, Netman, you want a boy, bing! You got one. Want a football team, bing, bing, bing, eleven, you got it." He stomped out of the room.
The man he left behind, all alone now, was Heinz Knechtmann, a presser in a dry-cleaning plant, a small man with thin wrists and a bad spine that kept him slightly hunched, as though forever weary. His face was long and big-nosed and thin-lipped, but was so overcast with good-humored humility as to be beautiful. His eyes were large and brown, and deep-set and long-lashed. He was only twenty-two, but seemed and felt much older. He had died a little as each member of his family had been led away and killed by the Nazis, until only in him, at the age of ten, had life and the name of Knechtmann shared a soul. He and his wife, Avchen, had grown up behind barbed wire.
He had been staring at the walls of the waiting room for twelve hours now, since noon, when his wife’s labor pains had become regular, the surges of slow rollers coming in from the sea a mile apart, from far, far away. This would be his second child. The last time he had waited, he had waited on a straw tick in a displaced-persons camp in Germany. The child, Karl Knechtmann, named after Heinz’s father, had died, and with it, once more, had died the name of one of the finest cellists ever to have lived.
When the numbness of weary wishing lifted momentarily during this second vigil, Heinz’s mind was a medley of proud family names, gone, all gone, that could be brought to life again in this new being—if it lived. Peter Knechtmann, the surgeon; Kroll Knechtmann, the botanist; Friederich Knechtmann, the playwright. Dimly recalled uncles. Or if it was a girl, and if it lived, it would be Helga Knechtmann, Heinz’s mother, and she would learn to play the harp as Heinz’s mother had, and for all Heinz’s ugliness, she would be beautiful. The Knechtmann men were all ugly, the Knechtmann women were all lovely as angels, though not all angels. It had always been so—for hundreds and hundreds of years.
"Mr. Netman," said the nurse, "it’s a boy, and your wife is fine. She’s resting now. You can see her in the morning. You can see the baby in twenty minutes."
Heinz looked up dumbly.
"It weighs five pounds nine ounces." She was gone again, with the same prim smile and officious, squeaking footsteps.
"Knechtmann," murmured Heinz, standing and bowing slightly to the wall. "The name is Knechtmann." He bowed again and gave a smile that was courtly and triumphant. He spoke the name with an exaggerated Old World pronunciation, like a foppish footman announcing the arrival of nobility, a guttural drum roll, unsoftened for American ears. "KhhhhhhhhhhhhhhNECHT! mannnnnnnnnnnn."
"Mr. Netman?" A very young doctor with a pink face and close-cropped red hair stood in the waiting-room door. There were circles under his eyes, and he spoke through a yawn.
"Dr. Powers!" cried Heinz, clasping the man’s right hand between both of his. "Thank God, thank God, thank God, and thank you."
"Um," said Dr. Powers, and he managed to smile wanly.
"There isn’t anything wrong, is there?"
"Wrong?" said Powers. "No, no. Everything’s fine. If I look down in the mouth, it’s because I’ve been up for thirty-six hours straight." He closed his eyes, and leaned against the door-frame. "No, no trouble with your wife," he said in a faraway voice. "She’s made for having babies. Regular pop-up toaster. Like rolling off a log. Schnip-schnap."
"She is?" said Heinz incredulously.
Dr. Powers shook his head, bringing himself back to consciousness. "My mind—conked out completely. Sousa—I got your wife confused with Mrs. Sousa. They finished in a dead heat. Netman, you’re Netman. Sorry. Your wife’s the one with pelvis trouble."
"Malnutrition as a child," said Heinz.
"Yeah. Well, the baby came normally, but, if you’re going to have